The Kate McClymont Lecture For The Andrew Olle Media Lecture 2014 Is A Black Tie Event

The Andrew Olle Media Lecture is one of the most coveted events for journalists and media types each year. The staff at ABC 702 put on the event in honour of media broadcaster Andrew Olle who died of a brain tumour in 1995. Since it's inaugural function in 1996 there have been a steady list of great media personalities who have spoken which include legendary Australian playwright David Williamson, veteran journalist Jana Wendt, media baron Lachlan Murdoch, comedian Steven Vizard, wizard political correspondent Laurie Oakes, radio journalist Mark Colvin and most recently Lisa Wilkinson. This year another great journalist steps up, namely Kate McClymont. The event is hosted by ABC 702 Drive broadcaster Richard Glover.

For those of you who read this blog from overseas, Kate McClymont is the Australian journalist that broke one of the most riveting, enthralling and all consuming scandals that involved the corrupt politician Eddie Obeid and his web of interactions with corrupt businessmen and politicians. The scandal which has now just recently finished playing out at the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) will ultimately be played out in our criminal courts.

This blog wishes to remain apolitical but it is certainly very appreciative of great journalism and looks forward to reading the transcript of the lecture that McClymont gives. If you wish to buy tickets to the event you can do so here:

However, the reason I write this post is to offer the men of Sydney attending the event some tips on how to wear black tie.

Recently you may recall that we wrote an interview with Peter Marshall, expert on black tie and author of The Black Tie Guide. You can read that article here.

Now, I am not a snob when it comes to black tie but I wish to make some points to note and some recommendations on items to purchase.

Click to enlarge - this image is referenced from Suit Supply and is a very reasonably priced suit in my opinion. It features a super 110's Vitale Barberis Canonico wool.  For under $650.00 Australian I think this is good value.

Apart from my recommendations above I also recommend that men who are overweight wear either a cumerbund around their waist or a waistcoat and consider wearing braces. The benefit of braces is that it allows you to let the trousers hang and drape rather than to try and fasten them to the waist line. When there is too much pressure on the waist line the wearer tends to spill over. The other practical bit of advice is that when the dinner jacket is closed you should not be able to see the white dinner shirt poking through, this is why we suggest a waist covering. The waist being covered means that there is no break in the line of black between the exposed part of the shirt at the bottom of the gorge where it meets the button point and the beginning of the trouser line. Finally, consider a white cotton or silk pocket square or if you are adventurous, be like Dean Martin and plonk a red one in there.

Of course, we can help you out with bow ties and more, if you are attending the event we have published a discount code which is ANDREWOLLE all in upper case which gives a generous discount. This code should be used when checking out of www.lenoeudpapillon.com 's shopping cart.

And my recommend for a bow tie is our majestic black - which of course has always turned heads.