If you’re searching for a timeless ensemble that’s appropriate for any economic climate, look to Charles Finch and other jet-set heroes, advises FQR editorial director Nick Foulkes

Given that a good portion of the point of Finch’s Quarterly is that it functions as a monument to the vanity of its eponymous proprietor, it is only fitting that at some stage we cover “The Look”.

“The Look” – the capitals are important – was raised at one of the charades that pass for editorial conferences at Finch Towers. This particular disquisition started when my learned colleague, namesake of the famous 18th-century equestrian artist, and Finch’s Quarterly Review online editor Mr Stubbs announced that he had been wearing what I think he referred to as a Tom Ford “tux” at some fashion awards ceremony. He ventured that FQR might like to bring the coming season’s “runway” “designer” shows to the notice of our readers.

My view on men’s fashion is simple: I will always take style over fashion – and I made that clear at once. But what I like about Stubbs is his fearlessness and optimism. He wasn’t going to give up. There is something quite breathtaking about the blitheness with which he thought he could sneak a piece on male fashion past the reactionary, but essentially benevolent despot whom we know and love as Charles Finch.

Charles was just getting started on a peroration on the subject of gentlemen and I would imagine that he was about to let us know that gentlemen do not follow fashion, when quondam Euclidean Scholar, my old friend from our Brideshead days at Oggsford, Tristram Fetherstonhaugh, suggested that instead of a rant about the new black we might address the important topic of “The Look”. Not the “New Look”, nor the new season’s look, nor even what I believe is referred to – in fashion circles – as a “look book”… just “The Look”. It was as if a shaft of sunlight had at that moment pierced the gloom of Heddon Street and illuminated the features of our proprietor: a smile danced across his face, his eyes twinkled and all was right with the world.

You see, the thing is that Charles does The Look as well as anyone I know – and certainly better than I do. If you doubt this, simply examine the “Quarterly Report” page of the last issue of Finch’s Quarterly Review and look at the picture of “the gang in Russia”; both Charles and FQR contributor Nick Broomfield are wearing The Look.

The Look is that timeless combination of navy blazer, jeans (or dark trousers), white shirt (open-necked), steel bracelet watch and slip-on shoes that will take you through pretty much almost any social occasion you may care to mention and, what is more, is appropriate during any economic climate. The Look says “rich and relaxed”, while also managing to be understated and unostentatious.

I am getting pretty sick of hearing about how the world is coming to an end, and that our very way of life will finish with it. Nonsense. It is just that there is a generation of people who have grown up knowing nothing other than bountiful times of plenty; the times that gave us bling. Anyone over 40 who grew up in England in the 1970s and early 1980s knows that nobody ever had any money and in America times were so tough that they wrote songs about them. Before it was a hit for Simply Red, The Valentine Brothers recorded a song called Money’s Too Tight inveighing against Reaganomics.

Good times will return, I hope, but while we are waiting now might not be a good time to slip into the fur boots and sable-lined overcoat – unless, of course, you are going skiing with P Diddy. Instead, it is time to revisit The Look. The Look started in all the places that we at Finch’s Quarterly Review really, really love – Marbella, St Tropez, Porto Rotondo, The GreenGo in Gstaad and Tramp on Jermyn Street – back in the days when the group that would become known as the jet set turned their backs on the stuffier resorts such as Biarritz and Deauville (which we love too, of course) and decided to have fun.

Things were more relaxed in those days before every hotel had to be a spa resort, and before one felt the need to demonstrate one’s importance by renting a villa in the hills and surrounding oneself with security. Back then, a pair of jeans, a white shirt, a steel watch, a pair of (pre-Ford) Guccis and perhaps a fancy belt buckle were all that was required. Kings of The Look, or at least its spirit, are our jet-set heroes: Johnny Gold, Peter Sellers, Sir Dai Llewellyn, Philippe Junot, Heini Thyssen, Patrick Lichfield, Alfonso von Hohenlohe, Johannes von Thurn und Taxis, Tim Jefferies, Gunther Sachs and James Hunt.

Of course, it has to be the right shirt and blazer, but once you have mastered The Look, you will find how its universality and versatility has ensured its longevity and accounted for its resurgence. You can wear The Look while on the dancefloor of Les Caves du Roy or the Reading Room of The London Library, you can wear it on your Bombardier Global Express or, as I recently saw Charles Finch doing – but shh! don’t tell him I told you – waiting for his scheduled flight at Malaga Airport.

Hugh Grant; Philippe Junot, Princess Caroline of Monaco; Charles Finch and Nick Broomfield

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