Appreciation for a
particular genus of men’s tailoring can become a magnificent obsession. Such is the case with Jack Carlson, whose anthology Rowing Blazers was published by Vendome Press this year to coincide with
the 175th anniversary of the Henley Royal Regatta. Alumni of the international
rowing clubs photographed for the book attended the launch party at both London
and New York Ralph Lauren flagship stores.
The rowing blazer began to
assume the reputation as plumage for varsity peacocks in the twilight of the
Victorian era. Carlson quotes Grant Allen’s 1895 novel The Scallywag, pondering the theory that “a manly man seldom looks
manlier than in boating costume.” He evokes the Edwardian glamour of the
university rowing fraternity parodied by Max Beerbohm in his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson, in which the eponymous
heroine so bewitches the fictitious Duke of Dorset that he attempts to drown
himself in the River Isis, leaping from a punt, resplendent in rowing mufti.
Carlson is an affable,
elegant guide to the traditions and eccentricities of the rowing fraternity and
must have earned copious air miles meeting today’s champions on location at
international boathouses, campuses and team rooms. We meet the formidable
Academic Rowing Fraternity of Westfalen – founded in 1891 and supported by
Kaiser Wilhelm II, who declared, “The more Germans go out upon the waters,
whether it be in races or regattas, or in the service of the flag, so much the
better it will be for us”; juxtaposing a preppy portrait of two handsome chaps
wearing the distinctive dark-blue-one-button blazer with turquoise and white
trim, and madly Ruritanian frogged ceremonial uniform worn with breeches and
black jackboots.
In the book, Oxford and
Cambridge rowing clubs dominate, though he navigates us towards sublime
slipstreams such as the Inverness Rowing Club green, red and white striped
blazers worn by Al Sinclair with clan tartan kilt, and the Henley’s Hampton
School Boat Club “curtain blazers,” of which only 10 were cut from drapes
emblazoned with the school’s coat of arms. Personal favorites include the
yellow-and-midnight-blue wasp-striped blazer sported by the Royal Hong Kong
Yacht Club and the two tone desert camouflage blazer designed for the British
Army Rowing Club.
There is, of course,
something arcadian and nostalgic about the portraits taken predominantly by
principal photographer FE Castleberry, though the posing is complemented by
action shots of historic races such as Oxford versus Cambridge, the Royal
Canadian Henley Regatta and Boston’s Head of the Charles Regatta. One can
always trust Eton College, whose ‘Eton Boating Song’ – first performed in 1863
– praises the “old light blue” rowing blazers still worn today, to oblige with
the most eccentric sartorial tradition connected to the noble sport.
Eton’s Procession of Boats,
first performed to celebrate King George III’s birthday in 1793, is celebrated
annually with 10 crews dressed in 19th century naval ratings’
uniforms, their straw boaters decorated with elaborate floral bouquets – the
result of stiff competition between house dames. Perhaps the most startling
portrait is of A. S. R. Club Nereus President Philip van de Linde wearing one
of the aforementioned Netherland antique blazers, deconstructed as ‘90s Maison
Martin Margiela, with the initials of each wearer crudely embroidered beneath
the jacket’s lapel.
The ladies and gentlemen
photographed for Rowing Blazers all conform to a Ralph Lauren-esque idyll of
preppy, athletic beauty, which shows off the sometimes gaudy, always glorious
club blazers neatly. Like club ties, boating club colors can only be worn with
integrity by competitors and champions. Carlson’s amusing book will
doubtless inspire many oarsmen and oarswomen to appropriate bolder colors and
trim when he or she next orders a bespoke summer blazer from his or her tailor.
