Tang - Rules for Modern Life

Sir David Tang

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RULES FOR MODERN LIFE

Incisive, outrageous and preposterously entertaining. Reading these essays in style, manners, gossip, grace and good sense is like sharing a private railway carriage with a mad but marvellous maharajah. I never wanted the journey to end Stephen Fry

Funny, clever and disgraceful. In terms of a useful guide to modern living, it knocks the New Testament into a cocked hat Richard Curtis

David Tang is the second funniest David in the world David Walliams

Excellent advice that we didnt know we needed Sir Michael Caine

I absolutely love Rules for Modern Life! Davids amazing sense of humour and wit keep one glued to this pop culture bible that everyone MUST read. It is not only educational but enlightening as well. Bravo David! Tommy Hilfiger

David Tang always brings something extra to life, which is what we all want Sir Mick Jagger

Uncompromising and full of style. You will laugh out loud Tracey Emin

David Tang is effortless in his sense of style and being. And thats how it should be Naomi Campbell

I feel a curious joy of life when I am around David Tang. He knows best Eva Herzigova

Sharply funny and surprisingly informative. I would rather read style notes from the pen of Tang than any other source on the planet Joanna Lumley

A marvellous compendium of good manners and good sense in society, reinforced with insight and sly humour Wilbur Smith

Filled with valuable advice. Amusingly written and a real pleasure to read Sir Terence Conran

I have long admired Davids irrepressible humour, quick wit and keen eye for style. This anthology is a collection of indispensable wisdom Lord Foster

Eloquent and humorous Eric Schmidt

A degree course in 21st-century decorum. It will make an aristocrat out of an arriviste Duke of Marlborough

David is a life-changer Mario Testino

Hilarious and edifying. Absolutely essential reading about the nuances as well as the complexities of life today Dame Julia Peyton-Jones

David Tang is the thinking womans Fu Manchu. If you are allergic to the combination of wit, brains and mischief you wont enjoy this book Barry Humphries

David Tang is an astute observer of the social scene with a wicked sense of humour. A most welcome read in these dark times Adrian Zecha

Anyone who wants to move up the social ladder, or avoid sliding down, must read Rules for Modern Life. It is the essential primer for 21st-century social success Geordie Greig

A perfect compendium of distinguished, humorous and polished advice for a gentlemanly way of living Leonardo Ferragamo

Wise, witty and wicked, with useful advice for living Anouska Hempel

David Tang is the most provocative, amusing, sophisticated, counter-intuitive and energetic man I know, and these qualities are present on every single page of this remarkable anthology Nicholas Coleridge

Genuinely hilarious Robin Birley

David Tang is a living treasure and a unique polymath Nicolas Berggruen

David Tang is my UNCLE DAVE:

Unique

Notorious

Charismatic

Lovable

Eccentric

Daring

Anal

Vivacious

Enigmatic

Kate Moss

For the precious sextet in my life:

Mother, Lucy, Victoria, Edward, Minnie and Naughtins

DAVID TANGS little section used to be interesting, but it has deteriorated into a selection of self-serving questions aimed to elevate his social standing and reputation. It has become a bore regardless of how hard he tries to convince readers otherwise. He should be replaced by someone more genuine and interesting. This suggestion should be taken constructively by him, and is not meant as an insult. One who cannot take honest criticism should spend more time with sycophants.

If you think that I am doing this column in order to enhance my social standing and reputation, and that I would become more famous and a better networker, would climb up the social ladder and command greater celebrity status; and that by being a regular contributor to the FT, the most prestigious international paper in the world, I would become the envy of other writers, established or aspiring then you would be absolutely correct.

Why would any real man wish to wear a butterfly round his collar?

I enjoy dispensing sartorial advice because I have always been interested in the gradual shifts and changes in society in which fashion figures centrally. Besides, I was heavily involved in a retail business that thrives on fashion. So I have always made a conscious effort to educate myself in its history and evolution, not only in the mainstream West, but also in the peripheral East. Western fashion moves very quickly, in fact by the season, and so it is important to be consciously contemporary in order to be authoritative. This constantly changing landscape means there is always a plethora of opinions to consider, but essentially my advice would be to opt for the sensibilities of US Vogue under the laser sensor of Anna Wintour. Her thermometer is mercury sharp, and others disagree with her at their peril.

Fashion in the East moves much more slowly. For example, the djellaba and the burka have not changed at all as the years have gone by, and the Arab wardrobe today might well be identical to that of the time of Lawrence of Arabia. Indeed, the biggest changes of fashion in the past 50 years in the East from the Middle East and across Central Asia to East Asia and even Japan have come from the West. This infiltration is manifested through two items: gym shoes or trainers; and jeans. Trainers are now the universal footwear, whether in the city, town, desert, mountains or forest. They are worn alike by steady urban dwellers and precarious refugees running away from conflicts. Jeans have also become one of the most worn items in the world. The only question for the cognoscenti is whether the ripped versions invented in the West will now spread to the East, where people expect their clothes to last, and not deliberately have them torn across the knees and the lower cheeks of the posterior.

Sartorial advice is led by icons, too. Coco Chanel banged on about simplicity as beauty and was renowned for her unfussy colours, cuts and patterns. She also put women in mens clothes, creating the androgynous look. In turn, Yves Saint Laurent was credited with putting women in trousers although Chairman Mao did that before him in China, but possibly with a lesser sense of fashion, and certainly of the crease. Now, todays far-reaching social media helps fashion voyeurs to see what their contemporary style icons are wearing, from the Beckhams to Kate Moss, or from Kanye West to, at the other end of the spectrum, the Duke of Edinburgh. The reason why they lead is because of their sense of confidence: the confidence of mix and match, the confidence of believing that what they wear looks best on them, and the confidence of not really caring what other people think.

Mind you, some people end up with too much confidence. I am thinking of Liberace and Karl Lagerfeld and Kim Jong-un and Fidel Castro, for example, and their signature attires. The dress sense of these extraordinary people is immediately recognizable. I only wish someone had had the guts to tell them that what they were wearing was a bit over the top. I once had lunch in a tent in the Sahara with Colonel Gaddafi. He was in full uniform, with enough medals to decorate the Spartans at Thermopylae. The tassels from his epaulettes would not have looked out of place on Barbara Cartlands drawing-room curtains, and I certainly didnt dare ask who his barber was, as his hair dangled down like a tangle of seaweed, still less his facial beautician, as his cheeks looked like the surface of the moon. Another dictator, Robert Mugabe, once came to my house for lunch in the height of summer in Hong Kong. It was 33 degrees C with 98 per cent humidity. He arrived in a tie and a three-piece suit. I implored him to disrobe, perhaps not so much because we were going to be eating in the garden, which was very hot and humid, but because his tailor must have been blind, and I didnt want the president lunching as a scarecrow.