Word: boyer
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...that most of the clothes men wear around the Western regions of the planet are derived from sport or warfare. If that is so--and G. Bruce Boyer, a "private and corporate image consultant," believes it is--then there are rules to be obeyed. Mainstream men's fashion is the business of defining those rules, marketing them and playing subtle little games with them. In the boardroom or the law office, such rules are not flouted, never mind broken. They are nudged gently. The fold of a handkerchief in the breast pocket of a suit jacket, the width...
Well, to be honest, there are a few, and some of them have been busy writing books on the subject of male plumage. Boyer has the best one, called, simply, Elegance (Norton; 279 pages; $18.95). But there are also Alan Flusser's Clothes and the Man (Villard Books; 210 pages; $29.95), a volume so smoothly designed it should come with its own hanger; Personal Style by James Wagenvoord (Holt, Rinehart & Winston; 222 pages; $16.95), which means to clue in all interested fellas not only about fashion but about many allied matters, from polishing glasses for a formal meal to packing...
...Inasmuch as clothing is still the most obvious sign of one's identity," writes Boyer, "a man should dress in accordance with his profession and standing in the community." Translation: don't fool around, and dress for what is expected of you. This combination of business strategy and social stratification has been the guiding principle of men's fashion throughout this century and has resulted in the sort of conformist panache that is essentially militarist. Women wear clothes, but men have uniforms. Suits for business, tuxes for dress, sport coats and English hunting jackets for weekends...
...fiddling with the form is greeted with skepticism. Boyer speaks of "the sartorially regrettable 1960s," and Flusser's prose, wobbly at best ("unlike in England, where striped suits are commonplace ..."), goes into nervous collapse at the very mention of the decade. Flusser wants men to stick to a half-century-old notion of tailored splendor, personified by the likes of Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and the Duke of Windsor--all pictured in Clothes and the Man--and exemplified by a range of softly draped clothing, much of it designed by Flusser and also pictured here, frequently...
...their dogs. "At 30 m.p.h., a 35-lb. dog is over 1,100 lbs. of force," she says. Her cause has managed to change things behind the scenes of the pet- adoption cable-TV show Who Gets the Dog. While watching one episode, Harley, 4, the daughter of Randa Boyer, one of Petlane's star pet advisers, saw a family drive away with its new pooch and yelled, "That dog has no seat belt!" Boyer contacted the show's vet, Dean Graulich, who now offers pet seat belts at his hospital in Malibu, Calif. Nemeth's response...