Smoking only, please
Michael Kallenbach went to Bayreuth and was horrified by the lack of sartorial elegance It might come as a surprise to the follow- ers of German fashion icons such as Jill Sander and Hugo Boss that the dress sense of the German public is not up to scratch. Ever since German fashion gurus opened their London branches and were able to put up their names in lights alongside other international houses, I have spent hours trawling through their racks admiring their latest creations. Perhaps it was for that rea- son that I was much looking forward to my recent visit to Germany, the first in four years.
By some great stroke of fortune, I was allocated two tickets for Wagner's Meis- tersinger during the annual Bayreuth festi- val. Other Wagnerians I have known have been on the waiting list for more than seven years, so when last January my enve- lope arrived with the good news, I was des- perately keen to take up the tickets.
The lack of air-conditioning in the opera house did not matter on this occasion because the German weather has been as bad as it has in Britain this summer. But what left me speechless was, unlike the models of Sander and Boss, there was no one who remotely looked like a fashion plate. I have been to Bayreuth several times before, but on this last visit it appeared that the German public is losing all sense of decorum.
Despite the general rule that patrons should wear black tie — as is stipulated at Glyndbourne and Garsington — barely half the men were suitably attired. The German male, for some ghastly reason, has a love affair with the most hideous of colours when it comes to sports jackets. These come in various shades of burnt orange, lime green or salmon pink. Mix this in with the American-styled checked jackets and you would think you were at a baseball match, rather than what is billed as a gala occasion on the German summer calendar. The unusual habit of men wearing white socks with dark suits often appears as though they might have forgotten to change from an afternoon of sport, but they are to be seen even at the opera. And then there is the Birkenstock brigade; they too often wear socks with sandals to the opera.
As for the few men who opted for Smok- ing, as the Germans refer to black tie, clearly they do not have a uniform idea of what this entails. A starched white shirt with a black tie are not on the fashion list; rather, there are ubiquitous waistcoat-type cutaway jackets, more like what old-fash- ioned waiters wear, in colours such as shiny grey or bright maroon, and frilly white shirts.
The German opera lovers who come to England for the opera season will probably agree with my assessment, as they have already taken to the way the British dress up for these occasions — they touch the right note without being too gaudy or noticeable.
After living for nearly five years in Berlin, I have come to love the Germans for many of their outstanding qualities, their motorways, the excellent range of sausages, their high standard of music appreciation, but, as for fashion, I think that should be left to others.
Michael Kallenbach is on the staff of the Daily Telegraph foreign desk `Throw down my hair? Can't we just talk?'
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