Hugo Vickers

Suits You, Sir

Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II

By

Yale University Press 237pp £19.95 order from our bookshop

This is a book very much after my own heart. When I was ten, my parents took us to ski in St Moritz, and we stayed at the Kulm Hotel. I noticed that there was a hierarchy amongst the waiters. The Head Waiter wore white tie and evening tails at both lunch and dinner, and the most junior waiters always wore black bow ties and a short white jacket. Our waiter was in between. He wore white tie and white jacket at lunch, and black tie and evening tails at dinner.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us