Velvet Collar

[Cufflink79]

So, anyone for velvet turnback cuffs?

Only if your name is Huggy Bear and you've got a tricked out Cadillac.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[shredder]

Ah, so that's why my wife sometimes calls me Baerchen, amongst other things, is it?!

[Costi]

Greger,

Back to pictures (I still hope you will find a way to illustrate your thesis with a picture or two).
We can't see the forest because of the trees. You keep writing about clothes and I keep writing about dress. It's not about comparing Mrs. Parker's long collar with Mrs. Bruni's round collar, it is about their choices: one is dressed in brown (to meet a president!), with coordinated cuffs - purse - hat in leopard skin, with feathers: when you look at her, you don't even notice the person, you are mesmerized by the striking accessories (even more striking given the occasion). The other one appropriately wears a sober grey that puts HER into evidence, with a small cap and heelless escarpins (because she knows she is tall enough), a geometrical black purse - and her collar just adds some interest to the coat without distracting from the perception of the WHOLE (and is in fact just a ripple of the cloth - so, again, a subtle effect with minimum means). If you just look at the two, you don't even need an in-depth analysis, you can tell at first glance that one is naturally elegant and the other one is striving and not succeeding.
As for the racer, first off it looks like his tailor mixed up his orders and cut his racing suit from a length of town suiting. The cut of the coat is original merely for originality's sake: it is in fact a 3 button coat with the lowermost button missing, closing very high, with overly narrow and short lapels. It looks out of balance and the proportions are off. Add to this the ticket pocket (all right, I'll concede to it for racing...) and the sleeve cuffs, which make the ensemble look deliberately recherchee.
The extra flair of dressing for the races can very well be expressed like this:

or even like this:

My tweed jacket has roped shoulders because, when it was made, I let the tailor do most of the styling... But I assure you that I learned my lesson since then. In all other respects the coat is very nicely cut, matched and sewn so I wear it with pleasure (although I am not sure I can still wear a pullover under it). On the other hand, the plaid is loud enough that few people will ever notice the shoulder.
I have no problem with anyone being noticed - it is a matter of WHAT FOR you are noticed. Mona Lisa is a simple portrait, it makes an impression without seeking attention.

Originality lies in the profound understanding of how a thing works and finding new forms of expression for its essence, not in making supperficial additions for the sake of making it different, unusual or get noticed. And true originality does not pass unnoticed - it is admired and appreciated. But it has nothing to do with AFFECTATION.

[Greger]

The philosophy that you are subscribing to has some cherry picking within it, and departure from the rest. One, you are using Fashion plates from the 30s. Brown is a fashion color to be avoided, if you are going to be subtle, not stand out. So is purple weather bright or dual of any hue or name. Orange, too. Even in the thirties brown was to be avoided at all cost by the subtle minded. Fashion plates then like now, so many are outlandish, or poor taste. Back in past of the 60s only a few people wore average width lapels, so they stood out being non-subtle. So, to a certain amount you have to move with the fashions of the decade you are living in, or you are tastless. Nothing wrong with being retro, or bringing about some of the past. Subtle would be dead middle of the fashion period you're in. Nor can you pick a decade in the past and say, "This is all in all." You can be a false prophet, so to say, trying to con people into believing you. But you have to live in todays world no matter where it takes you and Be subtle in it. If now is what floats your boat it has nothing to do with some of the past, nor that which will come in the future. The reason why you are cherry picking is becasue you do not want to follow the rules to a T, or you are being misguided. These rules have nothing to do with the tailors skills, and high skills will stand out just like the best skiiers will stand out even on the beginners slope. Nor should you avoid a tailors skills because some customers don't like it. Afteral, we should want all the tailors skills to be a live and used, so there is no lose to the grand trade. Some of these skills took hundreds of years to develop and it is a tradgy when they are lost to the grave. If you want to learn about tailoring go to the tailors and not there customers. The best tailors may not do some methods, in fact most of them, but they will point out subpeb tailors that do with respect and sometime awe, if they know of anybody who does that method well. It is one thing to compare the best of rtw, which is m2m, because it is factory, with bespoke tailoring, but never the other way around. Bespoke tailoring is in its own world. As far as how to dress with it, that is your choice. I never came to this site for the philosophy of dress, but for the art of the tailors. As far as dress goes, there can be good taste in the "wild", as there can be poor taste, so to with subtle.

[Costi]

Dear Greger,

I confess I find your lines of thinking rather difficult to follow, but I'll humbly do my best to respond to your points as I understand them:

One, you are using Fashion plates from the 30s.

Yes, fashion plates, no doubt about it. But I am not pointing to the outer layers in those plates - what I admire in them is the sense for elegance, for balance, for proportion, for colour and pattern mixing. This is the essence of dress and it can be found (or missed) in any type of fashion - 17th century, 1930's or 2009. Fashion is façon, the WAY of doing something. Doing what? DRESSING.

As far as how to dress with it, that is your choice. I never came to this site for the philosophy of dress, but for the art of the tailors.

Then you are not in the right place. The London Lounge is (or is meant to be) about how to dress elegantly, using bespoke as means. We don't put the carriage before the horses, even if we sometimes talk more about the means than about the end - but it is always there, implied.

Brown is a fashion color to be avoided, if you are going to be subtle, not stand out. So is purple weather bright or dual of any hue or name. Orange, too. Even in the thirties brown was to be avoided at all cost by the subtle minded.

That is a revolutionary statement! What do we wear in the country - gray and blue?!

Back in past of the 60s only a few people wore average width lapels, so they stood out being non-subtle.

They DID stand out, but not for being non-subtle; they stood out for remaining elegant and tasteful through the age of a fashion that was less so. Average width lapels survived and are still stylish today – the wide lapel fashion thankfully died out. Some fashions of the thirties died out, too, because they were unsustainable inventions (the mess jacket for civilians, for instance). I am not idealizing a past era, I am looking for the essence that transcended it and survived in today’s canons of “classic” male dress.

So, to a certain amount you have to move with the fashions of the decade you are living in, or you are tastless.

No, you should understand the general principles of elegant dress and take from the fashion of the day those forms of manifestation of these principles that fit you.

Nothing wrong with being retro, or bringing about some of the past. Subtle would be dead middle of the fashion period you're in. Nor can you pick a decade in the past and say, "This is all in all." You can be a false prophet, so to say, trying to con people into believing you. But you have to live in todays world no matter where it takes you and Be subtle in it. If now is what floats your boat it has nothing to do with some of the past, nor that which will come in the future. The reason why you are cherry picking is becasue you do not want to follow the rules to a T, or you are being misguided.

Why do I have to live in today’s world no matter where it takes me? What am I, a leaf in the wind? Am I uncapable of critical judgment? Do I have to follow the fashions others invent (for a living!) without trying to understand who I am and what I want? Why give myself tied and blindfolded to a fashion designer, rather than understand dress and make a choice? I will live in today’s world alright, but I won’t take for granted everything it throws at me. If I find something good (and forgotten) in the past, I’ll cherish it.
Bespoke itself is a thing of the past, by today’s standards – how many young men know what it is, let alone use it? So, by your standards, we should go RTW because that’s what’s modern and fashionable; and forget about these relics from the past when people went to tailors to get dressed. In today’s world we have the fashion houses and their designers to tell us what to wear.
Granted, many men and women of the past who only wore bespoke clothes (because nothing else was available) were awfully dressed. So the tailors’ skills alone are not enough. At least one of the two (tailor and customer) needs to have some taste – ideally both! That’s also the explanation for your assertion that

Fashion plates then like now, so many are outlandish, or poor taste.

These rules have nothing to do with the tailors skills, and high skills will stand out just like the best skiiers will stand out even on the beginners slope. Nor should you avoid a tailors skills because some customers don't like it. Afteral, we should want all the tailors skills to be a live and used, so there is no lose to the grand trade. Some of these skills took hundreds of years to develop and it is a tradgy when they are lost to the grave. If you want to learn about tailoring go to the tailors and not there customers. The best tailors may not do some methods, in fact most of them, but they will point out subpeb tailors that do with respect and sometime awe, if they know of anybody who does that method well.

I am all for the preservation and perpetuation of all tailoring techniques, methods and skills. Let them all flourish and thrive. However, the same skills and methods may be applied wisely and with taste to produce outstanding results, or wasted on garments that are aesthetically unwearable – and THAT is a big shame. Sometimes it’s the tailor’s fault, sometimes it is the customer’s, sometimes both have a contribution to a failure. Good methods do not guarantee good results.

It is one thing to compare the best of rtw, which is m2m, because it is factory, with bespoke tailoring, but never the other way around. Bespoke tailoring is in its own world.

Here we agree. Bespoke tailoring is something completely different from RTW and MTM, that’s exactly what I wrote before you tried to convince me (in another thread) that bespoke had a lot in common with MTM (both using block patterns, but working with them differently). We have come full circle.
Do we give it another spin?

[Greger]

That is a very good write up. Not quite the rules of art, but not to far off. You can go to school and take several classes to learn them (painting, articheture, sculpture, etc., or start asking tailors about the art of tailoring, they should all say the same).

Without the "cart" you would probably be wearing different clothes, rtw. Therefore, the art of dressing and the art tailoring go together if done right. This is something I think could be improved in the forums. Take for example that if you only earned enough to buy from JCPenneys? You could still apply your rules quite fine sometimes. But you are only dealing with JCPenneys quality. Now if you go to tailors, who are supposed to be so much better, your going to look better. In the old days tailors usually knew by far more about the philospohies of dress than the customers because he has to make it. Whatever philospohy the client likes the tailor has to do it tastefully. So there is the fitting of the aesthetic, proportions of this part of the garment with the other parts and with the other garments being worn and with the persons proportions and character and even the colors involved and more. They all matter along with the dress philosophy. Some of the old tailors were trained in all of this and it is quite sophisticated. It is very easy to blotch and look like rtw, when that happens the philosophy of dress the customer is going by is marred. Your philosophy of dress can be improved by learning from the tailors what they do and how they do it and why, and how others do it. Afteral, you want to benefit from as much as you can. It is like going to an art history class where you are shown wonderful art and horrid garbage. Some of the horrid garbage you find have increditble stories and others have details that you didn't see and you leave wantiung these famous painting hanging upon the walls of your house, for they are no longer horrid garbage, but fine art. Should never be guided by your peers alone, for some have never tasted, so what do they know?

As you can see I really push tailoring. This one old tailor told me about some of the tailors he hired from across Europe. Some he was in awe of, they were so good. It is such a shame so much of the awe is in the grave. Not much is left. But I do think the tide is turning. To many younger people are seeing throught the mass marketing.

[Costi]

I think I am beginning to see a point of convergence for our opinions at the horizon. With the exception of the first paragraph (thank you very much, I learn every day), I agree with almost everything that you wrote. The heritage of the tailoring and apparrel arts (I don't mean the magazine) is valuable and worth preserving and perpetuating. I learned a lot from tailors and I admire and respect them (and I keep learning). Many of them (if not most) know a lot about dressing, as you write. Most clothes styled in a manner I would not wear represent the customers' desires, rather than the tailors' taste. Because anything is possible in bespoke tailoring, there is a great temptation (on the side of the customer) to overdo things. It's like seeing the window of a good icecream shop and, overwhelmed by the possibilities, buying a bowl with 5 different flavours. Each of the icecreams may be excellent, made with great skill and talent, but when you mix them all together...

What do you think of this bespoke evening ensemble, obviously made with great tailoring skill?

[Des Esseintes]

Gentlemen,

reading the entertaining musing of Costi and Greger, I cannot but believe that there is a sensible middle ground between the belief that fashion equals style and the other extreme of an eternal codex of stylistic rights and wrongs.

I am pretty sure a Costi-equivalent in 1709 would have had a somewhat different view on what should be considered tasteful dress, even had he been able to know what would come in 1850, 1950, or even 2050. His views would have inevitably been influenced mostly by his surroundings and the more recent history of dress evolution in his time, just as much as ours is influenced primarily by what was considered good taste between 1900 and today.

I imagine the evolution of taste to resemble a Bell’s curve moving slowly along the time axis: What the majority of folk considered de rigeur yesterday would be at the conservative end of the curve tomorrow, and, at some point in time, become lost completely. I do not see good taste constantly improve over time until it reaches an insurmountable climax (probably in the late 1920s to 1940s, according to many of us). It is just our perspective, shaped by upbringing, general aesthetic views, current environment and a series of other factors, that established that period as a stylistic ideal in the mind of some, just as the 1970s flared looks might bet he pinnacle of „cool“ for others.

Hence, „good taste“ must remain a convention, not more, not less. The boundaries of that convention are defined by one’s given or assumed peer group more than by anything else.

Is the manufacturing quality of a tailor’s work hence a better parameter to judge a garment by than its style? I think, neither better nor worse, as that assessment inevitably depends on your references, too: Hand-stitched lapels better than fused? Surely, for those who value hand-made highly. Not so much, for those who believe in a streamlined manufacturing process above all else.

Maybe I misinterpreted the excahnge of arguments, but from what I understand, this would be my conclusions.

In the end, it is all relative, indeed. Make your choices.

dE

[Greger]

I think I am beginning to see a point of convergence for our opinions at the horizon. With the exception of the first paragraph (thank you very much, I learn every day), I agree with almost everything that you wrote. The heritage of the tailoring and apparrel arts (I don't mean the magazine) is valuable and worth preserving and perpetuating. I learned a lot from tailors and I admire and respect them (and I keep learning). Many of them (if not most) know a lot about dressing, as you write. Most clothes styled in a manner I would not wear represent the customers' desires, rather than the tailors' taste. Because anything is possible in bespoke tailoring, there is a great temptation (on the side of the customer) to overdo things. It's like seeing the window of a good icecream shop and, overwhelmed by the possibilities, buying a bowl with 5 different flavours. Each of the icecreams may be excellent, made with great skill and talent, but when you mix them all together...

What do you think of this bespoke evening ensemble, obviously made with great tailoring skill?

That picture is funny. I don't know of any tailor that has ever been advised to make what is in that picture, except the black one for entertainment. The other one would be for a movie or tv show, or maybe some back alley "tailor". One time in a little logging town this biker group of about 70 bikes went through, the movies never did it this good for wild and crazy. It is hard to actually believe people actually live that way.

You like being understated. I think that can be over done and missunderstood. The mona lisa is not so understated that it looks like somebody without great talent did it. The brush strokes, composition, lighting, the handleing of the colors, etc, are all done by an expert, and he is really not hiding it. If you ask a beginner to paint the Mona Lisa, would you want his painting? Believe me, the lack of skill will not be desirable and it will probably be even more understated because so much is missing. This is what I have been trying to explain for tailoring skills. When you look thought the paintings at a college I see the quality differences between the student who has been painting and learning since early childhood and the student that is just beginning. The breath and deepth and skills have acummulated over the years and it really shows compared the newbie. I don't know why you think only of eye jarring things when I speak. One of my uncles in the early 60s went to a lot of tailors and he was never satisfied. He would look at my granddads suits and be in awe. One of the reasons why the Mona Lisa is so good is because it is almost errorless. The skill level is the same through out and it is top notch for that kind of painting. Like painters there are many skill leves among tailors, Those who lack skills are not understated. They are lacking, so are like rtw. The masters stand out because they put so much more in and the level of quality is higher and the same throughout. The picture you posted is not awsome. The Mona Lisa is awsome.

[Costi]

Yes, Des Esseintes, as you write - make your choices; with taste!
I like your gaussian metaphor and I think it applies very well to modes, understood as the generally accepted expression of dress in an age and place. Corsets and crinolines were modes, like the suit of today (and yesterday). Wide lapels were a fashion.
My 1709 alter ego would most certainly have had a different view on elegant dress, according to the modes (not fashions) in force. Had he lived a century before that, he would probably have laughed at Malvolio's yellow stockings and cross garters.

Fashion (not mode) is rarely tasteful, because it is born out of boredom. Like Oscar Wilde said, fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months. Harmony and proportion, though beautiful, are boring to some.
Fashion is a social function, the expression of a desire for distinction. It has little to do with aesthetics.
Taste is transcendent with respect to modes, it is a quality, not a quantity that can be expressed as a 2-D graph. That is why it is difficult to explain what it is, measure it, define it as a physical force. However, it is easy to recognize when you see it. In this respect I understand taste as a Kantian universal aesthetical value, not as a relative experience. It's not about what the majority likes, or what a minority prefers. It is neither democratic nor an elitist notion. Men and women of any birth may possess it or not, without regard to education or social rank.
Of course one can prove that the Hunchback of Notre Dame is beautiful - because, after all, beauty is relative and all in the eye of the beholder. It may even be argued it is not politically correct to discard him aesthetically - there is an entire theory about the value of ugliness. Umberto Eco has an excellent book on the history of ugliness. All right, the Hunchback may even be beautiful to some, or at least we may not say he is NOT beautiful - but who wants to live with him?

[Costi]

That picture is funny. I don't know of any tailor that has ever been advised to make what is in that picture, except the black one for entertainment. The other one would be for a movie or tv show, or maybe some back alley "tailor".

Here is your answer! Creative and unusual, wouldn't you say? And certainly not lacking in display of skill...

You like being understated. I think that can be over done and missunderstood.

I didn't say understated, I said subtle and discreet. Is my plaid tweed coat understated? Not quite. But it is tamed by the neutral colours of the cords and sweater, so the ensemble is balanced (I hope).

The mona lisa is not so understated that it looks like somebody without great talent did it. The brush strokes, composition, lighting, the handleing of the colors, etc, are all done by an expert, and he is really not hiding it.

Understatement does not equal lack of skills, in which case it would not be an UNDERstatement (which implies there is more to state, but a choice was made not to), but a mere STATEMENT of one's lack of skills. To be able of UNDERstatement requires in fact, as you write, the skills of a master.
Mona Lisa is a portrait of a young lady made around a very simple scheme quite common in the era. She is not wearing sumptuos clothes, nor is she placed in a richly decorated scenery that would have been difficult to paint. It is not a virtuoso demonstration. There are far more eye-catching paintings in existance. If it were not as famous as it is, you can be sure that most people would not stop a second in front of it in a gallery of 100 portraits. Its qualities are subtle and discreet. We have been looking at it for 500 years and still wondering WHAT it is that makes it so special, in spite of its apparent simplicity.

I don't know why you think only of eye jarring things when I speak.

I don’t know - show me a picture.

One of the reasons why the Mona Lisa is so good is because it is almost errorless. The skill level is the same through out and it is top notch for that kind of painting.

The fact that the landscape behind her is inconsistently higher on one side than on the other is notorious. Yet in spite of such imperfection La Gioconda remains a masterpiece, because there is more to it than good painting skills.