by Heritage checks and brogues, sharp tailoring and expensive watches – shoppers are increasingly trying to emulate the classy old English style money depicted in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentlemen.
There has been a lot of discussion online about how the unusual outfits worn by the characters in the aristocracy-turned-real-life, from the red velvet suit worn by Susie Glass, who played Kaya Scodelario, to Theo James as Eddie Horniman in three . -piece of tweed and his brother Freddy, played by Daniel Ings, in a hand-feathered chicken outfit.
Pinterest reported an increase in search terms such as “Theo James aesthetic”, “flat cap”, “tweed jacket suit” and “vintage watches” in the week since the show was released. Asos has launched a guide on how to recreate the show’s style using its clothes, while Savile Row tailor Henry Poole & Co has partnered with Netflix on silk cuffs and scarves.
The brands featured in the series say they have seen significant increases in sales. Cordings of Piccadilly said it had a “very positive effect”, with Joely Richardson wearing a Wincanton trouser suit as Lady Sabrina, and Ings’ Freddy wearing a Follifoot coat, now on the waiting list. Clare Haggas, who supplied the printed scarves, “increased website visits and sales and new customers”.
The Gentlemen seek to identify the class characteristics sported by the types of people who inherit country mottos. Although it has amplified Ritchie’s signature style, foreign audiences are surprised to discover that the traditional but eccentric looks worn by the English gentlemen in The Gentlemen are not so far from reality – and far from quiet luxury.
Ings said: “The lovely man who is the real duke of the house, when we were shooting he would come down and look around and he was in the bright red cords and the checked shirt – I definitely don’t think so. nothing there, in terms of the Horniman family and that fashion, which is so incredible.”
Loulou Bontemps, costume designer for the show, said she was inspired by “walking around London or the countryside and people-watching”, adding that she chose “quintessentially British brands”.
“Anyone who lives in the country or knows someone who owns an estate or goes to one of their pubs has met someone like this, but Americans think it’s offensive. That’s something that Guy is very passionate about: every story, although elevated and stylized, must be believable. It was exciting for people to see a cool version of the premise of how people who live in that world dress,” she said.
Ings said his character’s posh eccentric style expressed his “ultimate privilege”. “We wanted to give the idea to a traditional gentleman who wore check shirts and woolen jumpers and colorful cords, but who would wear them wrong. So like a backwards flat cap, or walking around in jammies with a vest out. So there’s a sense of laissez-faire, ‘I know these are the rules but I don’t knock twice’.”
He also said he disagreed with Ritchie over the extent of his character’s flashiness – particularly the giant fur coat he wears to an underground boxing match in the first episode.
“It was my feeling [Freddy] he would dress for those occasions the way he thinks people should look and he’d get it wrong – the big sunglasses, the big fur coat, he’s like ‘I can come and hang with the hoi polloi’ and Guy felt that he was a little on the nose.
“Freddy would have seen Snatch and he would dress like Brick Top would dress in Snatch, and he was like ‘Brick Top wouldn’t dress like that’, and I was like ‘yeah, but Freddy doesn’t know that’ . So that led to us going and experimenting with a fur coat even more. I found my way in the end.”
Bontemps and Ings agreed that Ritchie as a director has an extraordinary interest in how his characters dress, and how colors, fabrics and style look on screen. “He cares a lot, and he knows a lot about it too, so when it comes to things like watches and sunglasses, you’re not going to be spoiled for anything,” said Ings.
Bontemps thought that part of the interest in the outfits, many of them vintage, reflected the growing desire for environmentally friendly, circular fashion. “I think you’ll see a lot of people wearing more clothes, making more of an effort, rather than just streetwear – I think the new movement is buying vintage and second-hand, finding things and adapting them.”
The Gentlemen echoes the rarefied world of wealth and ancestral status depicted in one of the most talked-about recent films about its sense of style – Saltburn, also set on a country estate.
Helen Warner, an associate professor at the University of East Anglia who researches fashion in film and television, thinks that the coded style in The Gentlemen tells the story of “the idiosyncrasies of the British class system” through its “anti-fashion” approach where she is characters choose timelessness rather than trends, reflecting the privilege of being able to wear old clothes without the risk of being cut off.
Paradoxically, she thinks the British aristocracy may be having a moment as a result of wider declining living standards. “I wonder if it could be a response to growing wealth inequalities in our society,” she said. “They’re interested in how people with power and money live their lives, because their material reality is so different from the rest of us.”
