While many people in the country are putting in a lot of effort for this European Championship, taking great care of our guests, supplying fans on the streets with beer from their balconies, getting stadium visitors safely to their destination despite the broken rail network, or saying goodbye to teams eliminated from the tournament with brass music, there is one group that is obviously not doing its job adequately: What do the stylists of the ZDF sports studio guests and the presenter actually do all day?
A look at the legs and shoes of former international players Per Mertesacker and Christoph Kramer, as well as the presenter Jochen Breyer, who analyse the games in the studio, often makes you shudder. This is particularly clear during the broadcast of the preliminary round match between Italy and Croatia: the colours of the trousers, two dark blue and one grey, are solid, but the problems start with the cut. Mertesacker is wearing dark blue chinos that are a bit loose around the waist and bunch up uncomfortably in the lumbar region when sitting, but tight around the calves and end well before the ankle. Underneath he is wearing white, very clean Stan Smith trainers. His sofa partners are also sitting there in tight trousers, and with the exception of Kramer, all of them show a good bit of bare leg. And they always combine them with these snow-white trainers, which, due to their light colour, naturally look clunkier than blue or black.
Especially for Mertesacker, shoe size 46, the tight trousers in combination with the shoes look completely disproportionate. This is made even more pronounced by the fact that they are forced to lounge on the sofa instead of standing or sitting upright on chairs. The next day, when France plays against Poland, Mertesacker’s slightly lighter trousers again leave a lot of lower legs exposed, and you can even see socks on the edge of the white sneakers.
Nice fabric trousers are something completely different; they fall over the legs like a curtain. They shouldn’t sit on half of the lower leg like a sausage skin. That’s not attractive pressing, dear experts!
And elegant shoes should be narrow and not make the feet appear wider than they are. Jochen Breyer’s ankle-high sneakers look like they came from the orthopedic department.
If you want to get upset now, the author of these lines can only reply: Of course everyone has the right to wear bad trousers and bad shoes. But the assumption that there are no rules for good clothing is sheer nonsense. The way we dress today is based on traditions and group identities: Originally, the style-defining English men’s wardrobe included outfits for the gentleman in the city (for example, depending on the occasion, suit, blazer, tuxedo, tailcoat) and in the country (for example, hunting clothes, waxed and quilted jackets, tweed and corduroy suits, rubber boots, flat caps, etc.). These ideals in the western world of how an elegant man should look were further developed in the 20th century through traditional work clothes such as jeans, overalls and cowboy boots or casual clothing such as sneakers and partly loosened up to an idea of sporty elegance – but this by no means means that everything is allowed. There are rules for men’s wardrobes, for example a widespread consensus about harmonious color combinations, about tailoring, about the question of what constitutes a good fabric and when fabrics and clothing flatter a body and when they do not – even when it comes to functional clothing.
While many people in the country are putting in a lot of effort for this European Championship, taking great care of our guests, supplying fans on the streets with beer from their balconies, getting stadium visitors safely to their destination despite the broken rail network, or saying goodbye to teams eliminated from the tournament with brass music, there is one group that is obviously not doing its job adequately: What do the stylists of the ZDF sports studio guests and the presenter actually do all day?
A look at the legs and shoes of former international players Per Mertesacker and Christoph Kramer, as well as the presenter Jochen Breyer, who analyse the games in the studio, often makes you shudder. This is particularly clear during the broadcast of the preliminary round match between Italy and Croatia: the colours of the trousers, two dark blue and one grey, are solid, but the problems start with the cut. Mertesacker is wearing dark blue chinos that are a bit loose around the waist and bunch up uncomfortably in the lumbar region when sitting, but tight around the calves and end well before the ankle. Underneath he is wearing white, very clean Stan Smith trainers. His sofa partners are also sitting there in tight trousers, and with the exception of Kramer, all of them show a good bit of bare leg. And they always combine them with these snow-white trainers, which, due to their light colour, naturally look clunkier than blue or black.
