We4r makes illustrated lookbooks: each look is put together piece by piece, then drawn.
From Night at the Opera · look 1 of 7
Black Tie, Untied
Julien is drawn wearing these pieces — an illustration, styled as the items shown, not a photograph of them.
Model: Julien — runs a small contemporary-art gallery, Paris
Why it works
The palette is the strict one of black tie: black wool above and below, a white shirt at the center, and one cream note in the scarf, which is softer and warmer than the shirt so the two whites never read as a match. Matte wool against crisp poplin against a brushed wool scarf gives the near-monochrome real texture under theater light.
The proportion comes from the scarf. Worn long and unknotted, it falls in two lines down the open front of the blazer and draws a vertical through the whole figure, the way a lapel stripe would on a tuxedo trouser. The open collar and the unbuttoned jacket keep the formality without the ceremony, which is the point at an opera where half the room is in evening dress and the other half came straight from work.
For Julien, the scarf is the structural element he believes in, carrying the line of the look rather than decorating it, and the tailoring is worn the way he prefers, open and easy rather than buttoned and pressed. After twenty years beside white walls, he gets drama here from cut and gesture rather than from color, which suits an evening when the stage provides the color.
The pieces
- tailored dress shirtwhite
- tailored wool blazerblack
- tailored wool trousersblack
- leather oxford dress shoesblack
Worn with
- scarfcream
How it goes together
A tuxedo taken apart for a night at the opera: black tailoring worn loose, the collar left open, and a long cream scarf hanging where the bow tie should be.