I wasn’t sure I would recognise Paul Giles: I’d seen a couple of photos, but not enough to be confident of whom I was looking for. I needn’t have worried. He was unmistakeable.
Sitting outside in the dappled, autumn light of Stirling, Giles exuded relaxed elegance and quiet confidence: just the qualities he is trying to help other men find.
Giles, an ex-model, newspaper columnist and styling consultant, has written The Gentleman’s Guide to Cool, covering such topics as how to dress well, how to be well-mannered and how to behave on a first date.
“I just think that men lack a resource for this stuff and it’s an undervalued skill,” he says about his new book, launching this week.
“I think the Beckhams and the Brad Pitts and the George Clooneys have made it cool to be metrosexual. Opportunities open up and everything is just a little bit easier when you’re well-dressed and well-groomed: it might be waiting in line; it might be service; it might be a job interview. I think men are getting left behind. Men waste a lot of money because they don’t know how to dress; they don’t know what to buy.”
The secret, Giles says, is that you only need a wardrobe with twelve key pieces.
“If he has a wardrobe with those pieces I could dress a man for any single occasion,” Giles claims, “whether a wedding, a job interview, a weekend, a date or the football.”
So is the really well-made suit still at the spine of the well-dressed man’s wardrobe? According to Giles, it’s number one, but it should be blue, followed by a good pair of jeans, a pair of chinos, and so forth.
“If you’ve got the blue suit you can dress for a wedding, a funeral, a job interview. Break it up and you can put the jacket with the jeans or with the chinos, wear the pants without the jacket, and so forth. You can’t do as much with a black or grey suit. Get the blue suit first, and then the charcoal grey might be your second suit.”
The Gentleman’s Guide to Cool retails for $19.99 and is beautifully, but simply printed.
“I wanted to make the book not too expensive; not much more than a magazine. This book is not a money-making exercise for me,” he says. “I want to give men information about how to better themselves…that’s where I get the most satisfaction.”
And what of the title? The book has grown from Giles’s experience in running a styling business.
“There is one description a guy always likes, whether he is 15 or 70 and that’s cool. It’s one word a man likes to hear about himself. A guy doesn’t go to his dad for dressing advice coz it’s regarded as sissy, so his girlfriend dresses him , then he gets married and his wife dresses him, then he gets divorced and he gives me a call!”
Giles goes on to admit mothers call him for their 16 year old sons and 70 year olds ring him when they want to revamp their wardrobe, but he always aims to work with their budget.
“Some clients say ‘I want a change and I’ve got a budget of 250’, so we go to a second hand store and then to a tailor for adjustments. Not all my clients are well-off.”
The book also covers basic manners and etiquette. And this is something that Giles has been teaching in an Adelaide school.
“The principal of Blackfriars Priory School recently got me on board as artist-in-residence. They are running a “Boys to Gentlemen Initiative” so I am working with the year 10s who are doing work experience and the year 12s who have a dinner with St Dominic’s and so forth. The principal recognized that boys need to be taught life-skills, along with maths and geography.”
If any boy, or man, in your life, needs a brush up on his life skills or a tidy up of his image, then this is the book for him.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Cool launches this Thursday, 4 June 2015 at Sago, 268 Unley Road, Hyde Park.
Interviewed by Tracey Korsten
@TraceyKorsten
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