ERIK Satie, in the early 1890s, was a notorious though not a conspicuously successful figure. He had studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire from 1879 to 1886, doubtless compelled by his stepmother, a salon composer and piano teacher whom he disliked, but was described as ‘the laziest student at the Conservatoire’ by his teacher Emile Descombes and left the institution without a diploma. Further sporadic study of harmony and piano was no more successful, and in 1886 Satie preferred military service to further education. This dramatic change of focus turned out not to suit him at all: after less than a month with his regiment in Arras, northern France, he deliberately contracted bronchitis to escape the tedium of military life. By this stage he had already written some short piano pieces and songs, and while convalescing he discovered the music of Chabrier and the novels of Flaubert. In September 1887, he wrote his first characteristic set of three piano pieces – the Sarabandes – and on 14 November he was discharged from military service.

Satie moved out of his family's flat in the 9th arrondissement of Paris up the hill to Montmartre in 1887, thanks to a gift of 1600 francs from his father. But by 1890 he was obliged to move to a much smaller room to escape his creditors. In July 1896 he was forced into an even tinier room in the same house, which he called his ‘placard’ (cupboard). Even at this stage, Satie was recognised for his distinctive clothing; in the early 1890s he favoured bohemian garb of a frock coat, hat, long hair and messy beard. Roxanne Classen aptly describes Satie at this period as a ‘flaneur’ who ‘consciously manufactured a public identity through his appearance’. In June 1895 he suddenly changed his image when, having come into money again through a small legacy, he bought seven identical dun-coloured corduroy suits from the department store La Belle Jardiniere. His final sartorial shift was to a British-style three-piece business suit, complete with white shirt, tie, bowler hat and cane, which he wore every day from around 1905 when he enrolled at the Schola Cantorum. It is as if repetition and routine had meaning for him, even in his clothing, or perhaps he believed that repetition might instil meaning into his life.