I couldn’t be more pleased that someone is asking the question.  I couldn’t be more annoyed that the questioner implied the obviousness of a double-vented jacket and that MB never bothered to correct her.

A vented dinner jacket?  Vents are for comfort, not for bastardliness in a dinner jacket.   Dinner jackets should be ventless unless you go the rental or Mens Wearhouse route.  (Oh, buy vents if you must.   No one will criticize you or probably even notice, but we’re talking correctness here.)  Vents interrupt the silhouette of the jacket, and dinner jackets are for looking good.  They are a form over function device, some of the most bastardly of men’s clothing.

He DID get the part about the flat front trousers correct however, so I’ll give him good marks for that.

I probably shouldn’t be completely critical.  When I commissioned my last dinner suit I bought a double breasted jacket because I despise cummerbunds and I tend to get a bit too warm in a waistcoat.  But a DB isn’t incorrect… like vents. 

I’m baaaaaaaaaack.

That phrase is intended to be a leveler, to say that Freemasonry regards no man for his wealth or goods but for his internal qualities, his morality, his integrity, his dignity, his sense of justice; qualities that can exist in an unemployed day laborer and the highest paid CEO in equal measure.

Unfortunately, what it has become is an excuse.  Apologia for slovenliness borne of the cursed notion that jeans, t-shirts and sneakers are appropriate attire for attendance at a gentleman’s organization, the odd idea that no one, not even you, should care how you look.

Freemasonry is not intended to be a lowest common denominator group.  It is a society of gentlemen created for our mutual encouragement and uplift, to become better.  If you are of the opinion that the lodge should simply be happy you show up in whatever you happen to be wearing, this blog won’t be for you.  If, however, you want to raise your game, if you want to look and act the part of a Gentleman Mason, I invite your active participation.

The point of The Gentleman Mason is that to make good men better requires several skills that are not taught within the lodge proper.  Perhaps our founders simply assumed that gentlemen would come to us already equipped with this knowledge, and perhaps in previous eras this was the case.  However, in this coarse age we can not make that assumption.  The idea that this is proper and that is not may seem anachronistic in this “anything goes” culture, but our Society can restore those values. Perhaps not for the world at large, but in ourselves.  If we accomplish only that it is a victory.

The Gentleman Mason forum at The Masonic Society message board says that’s where we discuss style, manners, culture, and choosing the proper cigar and brandy.  I don’t claim to be expert in all those areas, certainly not in cigars or brandy, but I do have some knowledge in the sartorial arts, what is appropriate (and not) as well as the whens and whys.  Hopefully we’ll be able to attract some gentlemen who can better speak to the selection of fine cigars and adult beverages than I am able, and that we’ll be able to learn from one another in regard to the gentlemanly arts in which we are uniquely well grounded.

The Gentleman Mason isn’t just about wearing the right clothes, it’s about the right way for a gentleman to do, well, most anything.  Anyone can be average.  The Gentleman Mason will never settle for average.

It most assuredly is not as of yet, but it’ll get there.