- The Guardian, Monday October 29 2007
Richard Quest. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
What are you wearing today?
This is one of my 25 suits. My wardrobe is divided - with my dinner suit in the middle - into light suits on the left and darker ones on the right, which are more suitable for serious stories such as the Diana inquest I'm covering at the moment. I'd wear a suit like this if I wanted to make a statement, to say that I wasn't boring. I have three or four like this but the mainstays of my suit wardrobe are grey pinstriped, blue pinstriped and solid colours. They're all made in Hong Kong. The tailors come to London once a month, I choose fabrics and perhaps have my measurements checked, and then six weeks later the suit arrives in the post.
Is wearing a suit essential for your work?
If I'm anchoring, yes. If I'm doing an interview, the interviewee - whether it's a president, a CEO or a rock star - expects it. It's a sign of respect.
Don't you get bored with wearing suits?
I'm one of those people who feels comfortable in a suit. It's a barrier, a suit of armour. If I'm in any other clothes, particularly at work, I feel decidedly inferior. I just don't wear casual clothes as well as other people and I'm insecure about the way I look unless I'm wearing a suit. I wish I had a better body - when I lived in New York, I used to go to the gym every day at 6am, but not any more. I'm just too tired these days.
Would you ever wear a white suit?
Never. Martin Bell was one of my mentors at the BBC and has cornered the market in white suits.
Tell me about your tie.
This one was €4 in Rome. I will return from a trip to Italy with maybe 15 ties. I never spend a lot of money on ties. For some reason, cheap ties knot better and look better on television than expensive ones.
Are the braces an affectation?
I started as a financial journalist back in the 1980s and I think there might have been a touch of arrogance in the days of liar's poker and big, swinging dicks. Very quickly, I realised how fantastic braces were, giving you the support but with none of the restriction of wearing a belt. I almost never wear a belt with a suit and my braces are almost always button ones. Clip-on ones are a bit low-rent.
Your shirt seems very pristine.
I get my shirts made because I can get an extra quarter inch put on the cuff so it always shows on television. Same with the suits: I get a bit of extra cloth put in the top of the back so it doesn't ride up. And I always wear brass collar stays.
Do you have a lot of cuff links?
There are few ways for a man in a suit to brighten his look and cuff links are one of them. You could always tell Madeleine Albright's mood and the state of negotiations by the brooch she wore. By that token, if I'm doing an aviation story, I might wear the cuff links I got on the last flight of Concorde. If it's a nice jolly story, I might wear these big shiny ones I got in India. But the bog-standard ones I wear were a present and they're old typewriter keys - an R and a Q.
Your shoes are very shiny.
When I was on assignment with Prince Andrew in Kazakhstan, he looked down at my shoes with disdain; his were gleaming and mine were not. So I investigated the best way to get a shine, which is to get a little bit of polish and rub it in circles, add a bit of water and go round and round - eventually you can see your face in them. I do it last thing at night because it's therapeutic. Ten minutes of that and you've unwound for the day.
What do you think of the ageism and sexism in TV news?
Men have one distinct advantage in news: the older we get, the more gravitas we're assumed to have. I'm pleased to say that at CNN, it's all about "Can you do the job? Do you have authority?" We don't go in for this obscene pairing of an older male anchor and younger female one, with its awful overtones of daddy-daughter, mistress-businessman. It's horrible.
