Rules vs. Style

"Get to know the best that there is and was; in every period there have been progressive innovations that represent a better way to live. Get the feeling of different materials, colors, and lighting, of the flow of line in  a piece of furniture, of different spatial proportions. Don't limit yourself to looking at lamps and chairs and your neighbors' houses. Look at paintings and sculpture and chateaux. Even if what you see is far beyond what you ever thought of or could afford for yourself, your experience can be reflected in your home. Even non-visual arts can contribute by affecting the kind of person you are and the emotions you project into the space around you."

-from "Lifespace: a New Approach to Home Design" by Spiros Zakas, 1977

I've mentioned before my affinity for seventies design books, and "Lifespace" by Spiros Zakas, a new acquisition, is a good one. In the quote above, replace the word "furniture" with "clothing" and "home" with "wardrobe" and you have a pretty good quip about why developing a great sense of style has little to do with following trends and rigid sets of rules.

A kilim rug with a glas and chrome coffee table and a collection of African art? Not unlike wearing a button down oxford and repp tie with pleated trousers and suede shoes if you ask me.

Business Casual

The other day, I read a post  on Put This On about dressing down a suit, and I thought I might offer my own two cents on the subject. As someone who only ever wears a suit by choice, it's something I think about now and then. I personally tend to prefer a sports jacket and trousers most of the time. It's a look that is inherently less dressy than a suit, and allows for more room to play. Jackets can range in color and texture from the staid formality of a classic and well cut navy blazer to tweeds and linens in all manner of bright color and pattern. Still, I do like to wear a suit sometimes. The tough thing is that many suits, particularly navy and grey, are difficult to wear without looking like you're dressed for a business setting, which I never am, so it helps to find ways to soften the edges. 

I'm not a fan of the look of a suit with no tie, something that's become increasingly popular in the past few years. To me, it always looks like you just left the office and are out grabbing a beer before heading home, in other words, like an incomplete outfit. Rather, I like to use accessories and minor details less aligned with business situation to do the trick. Pictured above is a worsted grey pinstripe suit, ($12.98 in a thrift shop), softened with a glen check tie in an earth tone, a pattern and color hinting more at country clothing ($1.99),and a densely printed paisley square rather than white ($2.99, found in the ladies scarves in a thrift store). A white shirt with a suit like this may be as proper as can be with a suit like this, but I opted for a softer one with a button down collar by Brooks Brothers ($5.49). 

Instead of black, all my leather accessories are brown. Added to that, the shoes are heavy longwing brogues, another style derivative of country clothing. The skull and bones socks are perhaps totally silly, but again, a good degree less formal than plain black or grey. (side note: don't wear argyle socks with a suit, ever. I hate that.)

With a little whiff of imagination, you can wear your business clothes in a more casual way.

p.s. In writing this post and searching back through my own blog for links, I realize that I have written much the same thing on this same topic about this same suit before, right about this time of year when I first pull this suit out of storage (see here). I suppose that means that a grey pin stripe suit really is the most challenging thing to wear outside of its proper context of business, or that immutable things like classic menswear are hard to blog about for over five years without at least a little repetition. Oops.

Calm

I know my last post, the one in which I openly admitted to liking a pair of sandals, was shocking and scandalous. But keep calm. This blog is still written by the man pictured above.

Brooks Brothers vintage 1980s university striped shirt, $14.99; J. Press club tie, $3.99; favorite Southwick blazer; below, Brooks Brothers khakis, navy surcingle belt, penny loafers and yellow socks (full coverage of the feet).

H-E-double hockey sticks

The man from Brooks Brothers: Vintage 1980s Brooks Brothers "346" kelly green hopsack blazer,acquired through trade; Brooks Brothers pinpoint oxford shirt, made in USA, thrift store; Brooks Brothers navy chinos with embroidered kelly green whales, thrift store; J. Press ribbon belt: gingham square, cut from an old shirt.

It is my great honor to declare "Go To Hell" season officially open. Gentlemen, do your worst!

In The Mix (a minor rant)

Its been said so many times that the earmarks of a well dressed man are all in the details, and its true. With what may seem a fairly limited arsenal of items to choose from (jacket, trousers, shirt, tie, shoes) all the punctuating differences are in the details. Pleats or no pleats, collar style, cut of jacket, shape of the shoulder and so on are just some of the bits that differentiate one style form another. Its worth knowing these things, but it can lead to fetishism and the rise of a clothing police force.

I think of this frequently when  I look around the internet at the men's clothing scene, particularly among devotees of the traditional American look. So many of them adhere so strictly to a set of rules as thought they were carved in stone and handed down from on high. No where is this truer than with the so called "Ivy" or "Trad" crowd. These are the guys who take style to be an exact replication of what an archetypal college man might have worn in 1962-67. Coats are three button and un-darted, with two button cuffs, trousers have flat fronts, and shirts have button down collars. All details must be in place at all times, and no one detail may be combined with details form any other school of style. While I do in fact enjoy that style myself and draw from its influence frequently, I find it highly limiting and anything but stylish to dismiss all else out of hand. I used to encounter this same strictness among the Rockabilly scene in the old days, guys who would measure the roll of your jeans cuff and chemically test the make up of your pomade for correctness. It's the difference between wearing cool old stuff and dressing in what amounts to a Halloween costume.

In the photo above, I've combined a continental style blazer with roped shoulders, darts, side vents and a ticket pocket with forward pleated side tab trousers and a button shirt and rep tie, both from Brooks Brothers. The coat, though made in New York, is European in style. The trousers, from the Andover Shop, are replete with British details, and the shirt and tie are as American as it gets. And yet I see no reason why these things can't all work together, In fact, by mixing them, the severity of any of them is diminished and a more interesting whole is created.

One of the hallmarks o what we call American style always was the combination of sporting and formal elements in this way. As I recall, it's actually as traditional to do this, if not more so, than to adhere strictly to a self imposed set of Ivy League standards. Charlie Davidson has been dressing this way for half his long life. My old boss Harold Simon was notorious for wearing 6x2 double breasted suits with forward pleats  with a button down collar, repp tie  and tassel loafers. The High Holy Fred was doing it in the 1930s, and he's one of the big shots.

It looks good. It looks more like you know about good clothing than simply that you've been reading the blogs the last couple of years. It looks more like you enjoy dressing and less like you enjoy being a crotchety old man obsessed with "the good old days". And anyway, those good old days weren't necessarily so good anyway. Just ask any woman or minority if they wish things were more like 1962.

This isn't to say that this is the only way either. My point is there is no "only way" and that "correctness" will only take you so far. Finding personal style lies in learning all this and then making bits and pieces of all of it your own. Putting it all together is where we find individuality while basically wearing the same thing. Use your freedom of choice.

For the strict types out there, Devo said it best:

Freedom of choice

is what you got 

Freedom from choice 

is what you want

Addendum: I wrote this in the morning using a photo from a week before. The very same day this was written, I wore this:

Kelly green 3/2 sack blazer by Brooks Brothers, with military khakis, ribbon belt and striped button down, both Brooks Brothers, and a plain navy tie, Andover Shop. I dig this too, I just see no reason to be one dimensional. Right?

The Man From Brooks Brothers

Brooks Brothers isn't what it used to be. There was a time when you could tell a guy was wearing Brooks Brothers from half a block down the street. A certain combination of subtle but distinct details in cut, styling and fit was a clear signal. These days, its hard to know what that means, or meant, especially for younger guys who never saw it first hand. But when you see it all together, it still makes sense.

The high buttoning 3/2 roll...the undarted front...the natural barely padded shoulders. Combined with flat front, slightly high waisted pants with a conservative cut through the legs and cuffed hems. Behold the now iconic #1 sack suit. Acquired in trade some months ago from Newton Street Vintage, I've been waiting for a nice chilly day to wear it. On the feet, double soled shell cordovan longwings by Allen Edmonds. What else?

Given this suits late 1950s/early 1960s provenance, a narrow repp striped bow tie of similar vintage seemed the perfect choice. A soft rolling unlined button collar was also a given. Now usually I'm not one to go full blast vintage, preferring instead to mix older pieces with well made modern things, but in this case the combination picked itself.

All of it vintage,all of it made in USA, all of it Brooks Brothers. It's hard to argue with that.

p.s. there are some photos of what to expect from Eddigan's, a furniture consignment shop and Top Shelf rookie, over at the TSFM blog. Check it out.

Breaking the Law

I know its wrong. I should know better. But we all slip sometimes.

I wore a double breasted blazer with a button down collar. Worst of all, I liked it, and I'll probably do it again. Yet another affront to the tender sensibilities of the sartorial nit pickers. Or is it?

Don't worry. I'm not going to use the fact that Fred Astaire was known for this in a misguided and arrogant effort to compare myself to such a sartorial giant. But when I think about it, I remember Harold Simon doing this all the time, as did a number of other men of traditional style who possessed a bit of flair back when I worked at a men's shop in high school. My point is, this wasn't so uncommon as we'd like to think. It may be against the rules, but it can add a nice quirk to an otherwise conservative outfit. In the eyes of any clothes nerd nit pickers you might run into. Truth is, 99% of people you meet won't care, or even know the difference anyway. (the jacket is double breasted with a center vent too, will the sacrilege never end?)

p.s. the Shop is stocked with new items. As for other things I should know better about, I've put up some serious heavyweight vintage Winter camping gear I just found, when any sensible store would be stocking Spring/Summer. Like they say, though, the time to buy an antique is when you find it. Lot's of seasonal stuff there too. Check it out.

Keep It Simple (Rainy Day Edition)

Despite my love for (and arguable overuse) of the slightly more outrageous trappings at the outer bounds of what may be considered classic menswear, I do in fact find solace in the clean look of simple classics at times.  Opposites, by there very existence, make each other better. What's Summer without Winter? And what good are things like Kelly green cords if you don't tone it down sometimes? Besides, matching four patterns and trying to wield bright hues with apparent aplomb gets to be an exhausting gig. It's nice sometimes to reach for the tried and true:

And what could be more tried and true than a Brooks Brothers Golden Fleece navy blazer ( $6.99), vintage 1980s Brooks Brothers white oxford with the oh-so-coveted unlined collar ($5.49) and burgundy repp stripe tie by Bert Pulitzer for Lord & Taylor ($1.99), finished cleanly with a white cotton square?

Below, charcoal worsted trousers, vintage 1960s, with Allen Edmonds "Mac Neil" brogues in shell cordovan. I know, they could use a bit of a buff, but it had been drizzling all day and they were a bit dirty. As much as my dandy tendencies were leaning toward yellow socks, I managed to suppress them (for once) and opt for simple navy with white dots.

All of it topped off with a mid-calf length tan trench coat, complete with button-in wool lining and leather fittings ($14.99), a Donegal tweed cap ($1.99) and a black umbrella with a wooden shaft (left behind at a shop I worked in years ago). Nothing like a healthy dose of the classics to ground you now and then.

A Matter of Convenience

I'm an old fashioned guy, and I like old fashioned things. I've even gone so far as to carve out a corner of the intenet to indulge my yammerings on the matter. But for all that, I do live in the world of today, and I'm not so much of a fuddy duddy to deny it completely. That's the irony, kind of like using a laptop to connect with other people who like to prattle on about old stuff...like proper cotton shirts versus the new fangled and now ubiquitous non-iron variety.

 

While I generally eschew the abominable non-iron shirt, I do have this one which I must admit has a way of making it into the regular rotation at least once a week. True, its made in Malaysia, and true, its treated with some kind of weird chemicals that pander to a fast paced sense of convenience above all else that permeates every crack and crevice of American society these days, but its a nice looking stripe and it only cost $5.49.  I could make the argument that the old term "original polo shirt" oughtn't be used given these modern extenuating circumstances, but I'm not so particularly hung up on minutia as some guys (see these comments, and these too. Sheesh! Do you guys enjoy clothes, or just needling others about them).

While I don't particularly care for the weird feeling finish of this shirt, I must admit that it fits very traditionally, with a perfectly rolled button down collar. After all, despite its modern cloth and overseas provenance, this is , after all, still a Brooks Brothers shirt. I reach for it when I'm in a hurry to change for work, when the kids have run me ragged and I just don't have ten minutes to iron. I gotta admit, having one of these things does come in handy for a dad with small kids sometimes.

I'll admit that I am enough of a fuddy duddy to starch and iron it anyway if I plan to wear it with a jacket and tie, but mostly I throw it under a Shetland crew neck sweater with a pair of khakis, cords, or flannels, when all I really need is a bit of collar sticking out to show the world I'm not a t-shirt kind of guy.

Bowing to convenience in an occasional pinch is fine. It is only when convenience becomes the sole factor in one's decisions that abject laziness begins to creep in.

Tread lightly in the non-iron world.