Steed: The Bowler, The Suit, The Style

[Borgus Weems]

I know that the bowler hatted British professional is a well known style. But I don't know how Steed's outfit was supposed to be recieved at the time.

Was the bowler hat and suit out of style when the series began? What about when it ended (the original run in 1969)?

Did Steed start out as a contemporary normally dressed fellow, but over time the bowler and the suit became more stylish until it's own unique representation of Steed's personal style that represented a British past?

In England, what did the bowler hat & suit represent: the government? Business? The Ewstablishment?

[Frankymole]

Bowler hats generally denoted senior bankers and City professionals (i.e. financiers), middle-to-senior civil servants, and other "establishment" types. Older MPs perhaps, or Queen's Counsel level lawyers (even perhaps off-duty judges). I think Patrick Allen's successful business leader in "Thriller" sports one in the 1970s.

I'm more interested in what the "derbies" represented when Laurel and Hardy popularised them in movie terms... I mean, Charlie Chaplin had one as "the tramp character"!

Steed's first few years in The Avengers saw him wearing a variety of hats and the whangee umbrella wasn't always present either. That became more established with the more stylised Emma years. In the videotaped era, Steed wore various hats (and sometimes none), often trilbies.

Steed wore Edwardian style suits with an elegant cut, suited to the sharp 1960s look of younger men's "mod" suits, perhaps a development of the 1960s "Teds" (Edwardians). This enabled him to carry off the bowler without looking like some old twit of a banker. The uniform of the "S.N.O.B." gang in "The Correct Way To Kill" lampoons this look and its "establishment" credentials.

Of course by The New Avengers, hat wearing is so uncommon (even James Bond ditched his by then) that Steed's look is pretty unique.

[darren]

I recall seeing a bowler hatted gentleman on the tube in the late 80's.

[mousemeat]

I recall seeing a bowler hatted gentleman on the tube in the late 80's.

some what rare..as hats fell outta favor-worldwide...

[Rodders]

remember that even baddies occasionally wear bowlers, the Classy Glass Company villains all wear WHITE bowlers.

[Frankymole]

They were great. Presumably made specially rather than covered in white paint Though I'm not sure about Steed's when it turns white after laser treatment in "From Venus With Love"... Emma did say it would catch on!

[mousemeat]

remember that even baddies occasionally wear bowlers, the Classy Glass Company villains all wear WHITE bowlers.

yes, and I thought how strange it looked....

[Borgus Weems]

So I guess that Steed's Avengers attire was based in the look of the New Edwardians, at least according to this article:
https://teds.llawern.com/1948-the-neo-edwardians/

It claims that the Steed look was based on the early 1950's era couture of Bunny Rogers

A nostalgically-fuelled fad in men’s fashions which surfaced after 1945 led to an Edwardian dandy style becoming fashionable. The style was known as Edwardian but we can call it the New- or Neo-Edwardian fad, if only to distinguish it from the original Edwardian style of around 1905. The style caught on in some of the richer bohemian circles in London and was associated with snobbish social attitudes reminiscent of the stark social divide that was unquestioned in Edwardian times, in those ‘happy’ days before Britain lost its world-leading position as an Empire. It also caught on in bohemian homosexual circles.

As early as 1950, Harper’s Bazaar proclaimed ‘The return of the beau’ as moneyed ex-guardsmen centred on the ‘row’ to order a style known as the New Edwardian, a name that, according to social anthropologist Ted Polhemus, ‘served to symbolize a time when the greatness of Britain was beyond dispute and to put a check on the increasing cultural hegemony of the United States.’ Led by the example of Cecil Beaton and designer Hardy Amies’ right hand man, Bunny Rogers, the New-Edwardian style was, as author and performer George Melly says in his pioneering tome Revolt into Style, ‘a fair symbol of class privilege.’ Indeed, many a toff ‘ex-guardsmen’ sauntered up to the Row and followed suit, ordering outfits that were the complete antithesis of the drab, post-war Demob issue, and ipso facto became the uniform of the post-war gay man. As Richard Walker says in The Savile Row Story, ‘The outfit featured slightly flared jacket, natural shoulders, slim waist, tight sleeves and narrow trousers; a curly brimmed bowler set atop a longer hairstyle and long, slim, single-breasted overcoat with velvet collar and cuffs completed the look.’

Here's what it says about Steed:

The Bunny Rogers New-Edwardian was portrayed almost exactly (more often than not a with velvet collar) in the person of John Steed (Patrick Macnee) from 1962 onwards in the 1960s television series ‘The Avengers’.

According to the book Reading between Designs by Piers D. Britton and Simon J. Barker, Macnee designed his own suits with the help of tailor Bailey and Weatherill of Regent Street. Steed’s signature style made its way in various forms throughout all the seasons of The Avengers and The New Avengers. He said: ‘I like the idea of velvet for the collars, it helps mould and complement the suits. There are no breast pockets and only one button to give the best moulding to the chest. Plus a deliberately low waist, to give the effect of simplicity, but with an individual style.’ < www.bondsuits.com/the-avengers-steeds-signature-suit/ >

[mousemeat]

Patrick, was always a bit of a clothes hound...dressing for success, indeed..