It’s rare to find sportsmanship and intellect embodied in the same man these days. Just as you’re unlikely to catch Joe Cole poring over the latest philosophy tome while sipping cocktails at Sketch, it would be a rare thing to see a political strategist on the penalty spot during a crucial away fixture at Anfield. Intellectual prowess and athletic ability are usually mutually exclusive – but, by Jove, it wasn’t always this way...
For a generation of privileged young fellows growing up in the interwar years, the ideal of the Academic man meant far more than a mere bookworm declining German verbs by candlelight. Instead, it described an educational tradition that combined self-improvement through studies of the arts and sciences with a dedication to fitness, health and brave sporting endeavours.

In the common rooms of Eton, Harrow and Oxbridge, as much as on the playing fields of the American Ivy League, the true “academic” was neither a jock or a swot, but simultaneously a man of action and a man of letters. He emerged from his studies a well-rounded chap fond of mountains, poetry and kindness, of gentility, competition and contemplation, whose worldview was true to the Latin maxim anima sana in corpore sano - healthy mind in a healthy body.

Polo may today be the default outfit of bankers on a dress-down Friday, but the roots of the Academic look lie deep in the Anglo-American corridors of learning. Combining the colourfully casual elements of apparel from the right kind of sports – rugby, polo, cricket, tennis, rowing and yachting – with the formal slacks, blazers, and shirts required by public-school code, the academic look showed a fellow to be serious and brainy, but vivacious and life affirming at the same time.

Just as the Academic knew when to study hard, he knew when to put down the pen and have fun. He may have enjoyed contemplating Wordsworth atop a Lakeland fell, or burying himself in TE Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom after destroying the rugger 1st XV from The Other Place one chilly Saturday afternoon, but he was also in love with the gilded decadence and hedonism of the new Hollywood vogue canonised in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. A lifestyle of champagne, society balls, flappers and regatta parties was something any self-respecting fellow could only aspire to be part of. Thus, the Academic enjoyed socialising an Ascot, Lords, Wimbledon and Henley before making his way in the professional world and making a name for himself as an mountaineer, marathon runner, stockbroker, author, MP or Nobel winner.

Above all, the Academic proved that sporty chaps could also be clever, and that inside every donnish dude was a challenger ready to break the four-minute mile. If you decide to rock the Academic look this summer, make sure you tee your outfit off with some suitable reading matter: a slim volume of Betjeman, or if you’re visiting Boujis in a boater and a pair of slacks, perhaps Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. That should send all the right kind of signal.

Kevin Braddock.

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