HN006 SARTORIAL MOZART – NAPLES AND BEYOND

It is well known that Mozart took an interest in his appearance, his hair and his clothes. This started at an early age, encouraged by his father Leopold, who like his son, was aware that to make it ‘in the world’, one had to not just have the talent and product of that talent, but also look the part as well.

In 1770 when Amadeus and Leopold were touring Italy, (Amadeus being just a few months into his fifteenth year), Leopold wrote his wife on the 19th May, ‘We left our fine cloth suits in Rome and have had to wear our beautifully braided summer suits. Wolfg.’s is made of pink moiré, but the colour is so unusual that in Italy it’s called colore di fuoco, or flame-coloured: with silver lace and lined with a light sky-blue material. My suit is a kind of cinnamon colour, piquéd Florentine cloth, with silver lace and lined in apple green. Both suits are very beautiful, …’^[i]

In Italy, home of fashion, the sartorial purchases didn’t end at Naples that year. By the 22nd December Leopold wrote again, ‘Can you imagine Wolfg. in a scarlet suit with gold braid and sky-blue satin lining? The tailor is starting work on it today. He’ll be wearing this suit on the first 3 days, when he sits at the keyboard. The one that was made for him in Salzburg. is too short by a standing hand, and certainly too tight and small.’ Ask yourself; were the clothes from the following year already too small for Amadeus or was the delight of wearing a scarlet suit with gold braid too irresistible?^[ii]

This of course wasn’t the only occasion that a red suit caught the Maestro’s eye. Much later when no longer with his father who remained in Salzburg, Amadeus wrote, ‘As for the beautiful red coat that tickles my fancy so dreadfully, I’d be grateful if you could let me know where I can get it and how much it costs, as I’ve forgotten – I was so taken with its beauty that I didn’t notice the price. – I really have to have a coat like that, as it’s worth it just for the buttons that I’ve been hankering after for some time;..’^[iii] He went on in the same letter of 28 September 1782 (now 26 years of age) to complain, “I’d like to have everything that is good and beautiful! – But why is it that those who are not in a position to do so want to spend all their money on such things, whereas those who are in a position to do so do not do so?’ But before we judge him, or accuse him of envy, remember this was the era before the French Revolution. It was an age of enlightenment, fashion and wit. Clothes made the man.

And now to his hair! In September 1777 Amadeus was in Munich. Count Seeau was the Director of Opera at the Electoral Court. Mozart wrote his father, ‘We were already up again at 7 on the 25th, but my hair was in such a mess that it wasn’t until 1/2 past 10 that I arrived at Count Seeau’s…’^[iv] Three and half hours after starting his hair it was done! Talk about a bad-hair day.

Marriage and domesticity may have changed Mozart’s sartorial ambition, but ‘After the Honeymoon the Laundry’, and we find him writing his wife Constanze on the 8th October 1791, ’N.B.: You presumably sent the 2 pairs of yellow winter breeches that go with the boots to the laundry as Joseph and I have looked for them in vain.’^[v] This was just two months before his untimely death.