Bedford Square, London. It is midday and the Bloomsbury Gardens are full with elegant gentlemen who have come to participate in the Sixth edition of the Chap Olympiad. A quirky event created by the founders of Chap Magazine and addressed to ‘'the perfectly dressed, under-achieving dandies with no interest in sport.” The magazine, founded in 1999, was first edited to try to fight against the growing use of sportswear and the bad manners among the English youth.
The queue to get in the Chap Olympiad looks like the entrance to one of the Gatsby’s parties: many of the women are dressed as Fitzgerald’s feminine characters in his novel, The Great Gatsby. The Jazz Age seems to have inspired many of the ladies when choosing their outfits. At some point the pitch became a dance floor to the rhythm of jazz music.
Chap Olympiad from So Many Roads on Vimeo.
The fact that the opening ceremony of the event is the lighting of the Olympic Pipe makes a clear statement: in this Olympiad, sports are pretty much not involved. The Martini Knockout Relay is the first game and it obviously does not involve any kind of major movement. The Cucumber Sandwich Discus, which might have slightly similarities to the javelin throw, is one of the most popular events. Participants have to hurl a cucumber sandwich on a china plate with points deducted for getting sand in the sandwich. Regardless of the risk involved, only one of the china plates was broken. In the Umbrella Jousting contestants fight for their honour on a bicycle and with an umbrella as their only weapon. The chaps on bicycles approach each other along a boundary and use their brollies to knock each other off, protected by Bowler hats and reinforced copies of the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. Many of the suit-men fell off their bicycles, but this game is also about how to stand up gracefully.
Louise Newton, in her successful attire is unquestionably one of the main characters of the day. This is the third time she has come to the Chap Olympiad. ”It was not difficult to decide the dress because I knew I wanted to be the villain of the day. That is why I thought I could represent Germany,” says Louise. The old times allure of the event has made an impression on everyone. Louise claims “there is lots of love in this park today, I like the fact that everyone is in good spirit and everybody has exceptional good manners and they have all made the effort with their clothes.”
Sitting next to me at the Tug of Hair event, where teams of ten tug at the tips of an enormous handlebar moustache, with the added handicap of slippery moustache wax, is Jan. He is wearing a two-piece tweed suit, a boater hat and he has his pipe in his mouth. He come for the first time to the Chap Olympics three years ago and this year “after two years without being able to come, I made sure that I could make it.” He loves the fact that “a lot of people are dressing up, making the effort. It is good that there are so many people here.” He thinks that the “stupidity of the event makes it even more interesting.”
Many of the attendants are having picnics in the Gardens. Most of them carry picnic baskets which match perfectly with their elegant outfits. Everything seems to have been especially calculated to make a perfect equation: the gentlemen pose like in Manet’s “Breakfast in the Open Air” painting, while women sit exquisitely.
Chap’s magazine editor, Gustav Temple, created the Chap movement in 1999. “It was a stand against the horrible culture at the time: lads' magazines, wearing too much sportswear, the Spice Girls,” he says, “they were out there: chaps wearing tweed, smoking pipes, lamenting England's lost charm. We gave them a voice.” Regardless of the patent irony of the supposed-to-be sport competitions, attendants take the dressing code very seriously. Rachael Barlow learnt about the event by following the Chap magazine. It is the second time she has come; she is wearing a pale green Fifties dress and her hairdo is purely Fifties as well. “Unfortunately Twenties means tiny sizes,” she says. When searching for a vintage dress for the event she went through the painful experience of seeing her size increasing at times, without even having put weight on. “I am normally a size 12 and the dress I am wearing today, originally from the Fifties, says size 18 on the tag.” Rachael complains about how tiny women had to be then to fit in those small dresses and points out “the good manners they had then.”
However, one of the closing competitions of the evening, “Bounders,” is precisely about men having bad-manners to women. The chap in question must say something so caddish to a lady that they receive a slap. The winner is the one who has the reddest face and the wryest smile. Many chaps ended up with their tweeds on the floor.
It is worth paying a visit to the Chap Olympiad, not only because the capacity of the participants to laugh at themselves is outstanding and the quaint clothes people wear are stunning, but also because this event is a great flashback to what many consider was the best of the English charms: impeccable manners.
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