Velvet Collar

[culverwood]

Forget normal, which implies the absence of style. Think outside the box. For example, style guides for the unadventuresome will invariably tell you to complement a navy blue worsted suit with plain navy hosiery and black calf cap-toe lace-ups. How pedestrian! It's more creative to accessorize your inky blue suit with, say, a beautiful non-directional patterned silk tie in shades of lavender, purple and white complemented with a similar, not matching, silk or linen pocket square with a different scale to its pattern. Add lavender hosiery with yet another pattern, and tuck your toes into suede lace-ups. Whether the color is navy or black, it's up to you. If lavender accessories aren't to your taste, consider other unexpected colors. That's style, which surprises and garners compliments, and it trumps normal every time.
When you're dressed and ready to leave the house, put on your navy blue Chesterfield and a navy blue beaver felt fedora tilted just so. The hat should complement the coat, not your shoes, and the texture and lustre of beaver felt surpasses smooth felt. For a bit of color add a contrasting neat-patterned or textured silk muffler. The outer wrapper and lid are primarily intended to keep you warm and dry, while the inner ensemble is secondarily something of a surprise. Think of it as a one-two punch. The compliments start coming when you take off your hat and coat.
JMB

This is borderline serious/satire, like one of those how to articles where you are not sure if the writer is kidding you or not.

[storeynicholas]

Blue suede shoes and lavender socks (presumably with clocks?) would certainly get Jeeves's nerves twitching.
NJS

[Jordan Marc]

Culverwood:

What I'm advocating is to be more adventuresome with the use of color, pattern-on-pattern and textures when accessorizing a sombre suit and a serious overcoat. Nothing satiric about my rant. For far too long men in the workplace have adopted the IBM edict of a plain navy blue suit, white shirt, next-to-nothing patterned tie, and black calf cap-toes. Boardroom boredom! Color is life; the absence of it is death. Mixing the scale of patterns and getting them to comingle with one another can be learned in an hour; less, actually, if you have a background in art and graphic design. Similarly, if you head for the country at the height of each season you will get an eyeful of wonderful ideas for your wardrobe. Nature makes lots of mistakes with color and pattern and texture, but what glorious mistakes those combinations are! The Impressionists understood that beauty in countless pictures and so can you. Take some chances with your clothing and show some originality; it's key to truly understanding genuine style.

JMB

[radicaldog]

Jordan Marc,

I see where you're coming from. Yet when people compliment me on my clothes I hardly ever take it as a good sign: I usually think I overdid something.

[manton]

I had occasion to ask both Luigi Solito and John Hitchcock yesterday what they thought. Solito leaned in favor of the velvet collar, Hitchcock said he thought it would make for a much better coat. FWIW.

[Greger]

I see where you're coming from. Yet when people compliment me on my clothes I hardly ever take it as a good sign: I usually think I overdid something.

We do have different personalities. We don't really choose our personalities. Many are like you and many are not. It is neither right nor wrong. But, how to do them best, now that matters. To me if you go custom it shouldn't look like store bought or m2m, even if done the fit should be better. I have seen some press jobs that is impossible to fit into a crowd and the press job is a work of fine art. It seems kind of odd to ask a great painter to paint less than his best. It seems to me to ask a tailor to make something that looks factory made, as most other people wear, so to fit in, is doing just that.

Some people like perfection, while others don't fit into perfection. Again, neither is right or wrong. Another is what is blaw and boring and what is wild and zany? Two people can have the exact opposite idea. And, a third person can add in a whole new dimenion. I guess it is best to categorize and do the best in each category. Personalities are interesting. We all have extrovert and introvert characteristics. Some exhibit their extrovertness in being the life of the party, or playing an instrument, or how they wear cloths, or some other method. That which stands out is extrovertness and that which hides in the crowd is introvertness. Everybody had both and exhibit both.

[Costi]

Greger, I appreciate your ecumenic vocation, but a debate on taste is more about opinion than relativism
Of course you don't ask a great painter to do a mediocre job. Instead, you just go the painter you appreciate - which may not be one whose works hurt the eye with originality. Subtlety and discretion should not be mistaken for lack of wit and imagination.
(Unless you feared for your life) would you not hang La Gioconda in your bedroom, like Napoleon, if you had the original, just because the World is full of bad copies and prints?

[Greger]

Subtlety and discretion means, from different angles, to fit in. Fit into what? The crowd? Most people wear rtw or m2m. Do you want to reduce tailoring to that? Sure, the fit is better and the construction is better and you get to choose details that only come by fads the other way. Back in the sixties there were still lots of tailors and two sets of customers. Those like you and those who want something new and different. The new and different were in competion with each other. New and different does not have to hurt the eyes or be tastless. As far back as time goes you have these two groups. You can't say the one group (anything but subtle or discretion) is tastless, because you are wearing it, or you would be wearing clothes like Adam and, well, not Eve, because you are guy. The crease down the pant leg was at one time something the subtle and discretouse wouldn't be caught dead in- tastless and hurt the eyes and certainly fashion forward. Before that the lounge coat was purely recreatation, not business. History shows that the subtle or discretion people didn't add to history at all. I am not agaist either side. But I do think you should thank the otherside for what they have givien you. Everything you wear is from the otherside. All of it. If you like the 30s look are you really being subtle or discretouse? In someways yes and someways no. Depends on who is looking and what details they are looking at and what country you or them come from. I guess you are right about so much of it being opinions.

There is a painting I would like to have. It is an english painting of a fox hunt. You see the hounds with the horses and riders following. The last horse, of course, the fox is riding. A print will do.

[Costi]

Subtlety and discretion means, from different angles, to fit in.

I wonder what angle that might be, it appears like the view from a gallery seat where only part of the stage is visible. Since when is "the crowd" subtle and discreet, such that dressing by these virtues will make you blend in seamlessly with the surroundings? Having a sense of style is not about sticking out in a crowd like a sore thumb - it is more about appearing to do what everyone else is doing and looking completely different at it, because you understand what you are doing. I am all for smartness and individuality, but not for originality for its own sake and at any cost.
Most RTW clothing is poorly styled (and, most often, poorly worn, too), so it certainly cannot constitute an ideal. I believe in simplicity, subtle detailing and balance. The result needn't be bland at all.

Back in the sixties there were still lots of tailors and two sets of customers. Those like you and those who want something new and different.

Those like me? It sounds like you've known me for a lifetime
Yes, there are two groups of people: those who divide people into two groups and those who don't. I belong to the latter. I am all for diversity, it would be terribly boring if everyone dressed the same way and a nightmare if everyone dressed like me! However, I don't like all that I see around me and, of all that I like, there is even less that I would want to see on myself.

New and different does not have to hurt the eyes or be tastless.

I would say this is the key to our debate and where we agree most. I am not a nostalgic and not one who denies evolution. There are many old fashions and modes that hurt the eye and are tasteless – seen with the eyes of today, but also in their own time. Elegance transcends time and fashion. And elegance is based on refinement (which means essentializing), but it can also work with poisons in infinitesimal doses and still not throw the patient into a seizure. Such elegant men always existed, for longer than the groups of "radicals" and "nostalgics" that you write about, and they did add a lot to history.
You are absolutely right, getting one’s inspiration from the thirties does not help one fit into the crowd of 2009, but one CAN be subtle and discrete in one’s choices, which accounts for the difference between costume and stylish dress.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Why not post one of what you consider a desirable or ideal or well-inspired modern example? Maybe we are talking about the same thing and only using different words to describe it.

[Greger]

I think we are talking about two different things. I think your talking about the width of the lapel and things like that, and I'm thinking more of outstanding craftsmanship. I have seen skill levels so high that the garment is not subtle in appearance, but stands out in a crowd, and leaves people in awe.

Something about the past. Tailors used to be at the forefront of change. Nearly every decade there is something different. Not much, but something that seperates it from the other decades. When people went to tailors this was important to push the customers into the "times". Some tailored clothes can last a long time, and tailors need to eat. By showing people that they were out of style kept the income coming. Nowadays, rtw does this. Some of what rtw does is really flashy. Some of the SR houses had shops other places for those who like flashy clothes. Generally tailors have better taste with flashy. Some tailors don't like any of it. Sometimes, in general wear, tailors had to make stuff they thought was terrible and they could hardly wait for it to go out of style. People of the past were kind of lucky. They would go see a tailor, and between them they would design the garment that would fit and the design fit the person much better than rtw where some "designer" creates some garment that the customer is suppose to somehow "fit" into. I think custom furniture makers and tailors and custom shoe makers have a lot in common.

[culverwood]

I think we are talking about two different things. I think your talking about the width of the lapel and things like that, and I'm thinking more of outstanding craftsmanship. I have seen skill levels so high that the garment is not subtle in appearance, but stands out in a crowd, and leaves people in awe.

I may have misunderstood you but are you saying that garments with very high skill levels stand out? If so I would have to disagree with you, a conventional suit made by the finest craftsman will not necessarily stand out in a crowd.

Your second paragraph is more difficult to understand but if you are saying that tailors persuade their clients to adopt a current fashion this is not my experience. Fashion seems to be the preserve of the RTW market or a few highly publicised "tailors" who cater for the type of customer (possibly show-biz) who is looking to draw attention to himself.

[Greger]

I may have misunderstood you but are you saying that garments with very high skill levels stand out? If so I would have to disagree with you, a conventional suit made by the finest craftsman will not necessarily stand out in a crowd.

That can be.

Your second paragraph is more difficult to understand but if you are saying that tailors persuade their clients to adopt a current fashion this is not my experience. Fashion seems to be the preserve of the RTW market or a few highly publicised "tailors" who cater for the type of customer (possibly show-biz) who is looking to draw attention to himself.

Tailors today live in a different world than of the past. 99% of the tailors are gone. In the past tailors contributed a huge amount to what people wore. There was no rtw or m2m for hundreds of years, maybe I should say thousands of years (there must have been some, but limited). For a while in the land of the Welsh there were so many tailors that some of them moved from house to house making all the clothes for the family, and pay was board and room. It is hard to image a world without clothing stores, isn't it? Even children discused the details they wanted in their clothes. Few children today ever get a tailored garment. With rtw there is no discussion of the details one wants in the clothes. Designers live in some distance city and they will never listen to you or the million others that buy their clothes. Seattle had over 40 tailor supply houses and three cloth merchants in the 1940s. Today, the closest there is of that is 900 miles away in CA. The world of tailoring is just about nothing, nowadays. So the tailors of today contribute almost nothing to the clothing world. Rtw does just about all of it. The history of clothing shows change change change, which tailors used to be at the forefront.

[Jordan Marc]

Greger:

To paraphrase Sam Clemens, the news of the death of talented tailors has been greatly exagerated. While their numbers may have diminished in this city or that, there are a good number of them scattered round the world. Time was if you walked into the workroom of a bespoke tailor, you could trace the pattern of immigration to Europe or America by listening to the accents of the workers sitting cross-legged at their tables and stitching stitching stitching. You might hear different accents at the pressing stations. In no particular order, the voices might be Russian or Eastern European or German or Italian. As time passed the accents changed to Spanish or Mexican or Cuban. With the passage of more time the accents changed to Indian and Asian. What has not changed one iota over the intervening years is the artistry and tenacity of these people to become masters of their craft and support their families. Look back at your own family tree and chances are you will find a tailor or dressmaker on a limb or two. As long as there is cloth and talent, there will be tailors; and as long as there are customers unwilling to settle for overpriced off-the-rack drek, there will be a demand for bespoke tailoring and dressmaking.

JMB

[storeynicholas]

Jordan Marc,

I see where you're coming from. Yet when people compliment me on my clothes I hardly ever take it as a good sign: I usually think I overdid something.

Although women might first look into our eyes and then at our hands and then at our shoes, they seldom, early on, offer a compliment deeper than "nice suit!" I even had once, stroking my cuff: "My grandfather has suits like that!" - Nothing happened - but then her grandfather was eighty three. So, when building a suit, always remember that - all cats are grey in the dark. I have to say that I strongly believe that clothes that are well-made, out of the best materials, even if they are subdued, and, in general conception, unremarkable can rock their socks more than attention to colour co-ordination and striving to look different. Would you prefer a handmade plain black, woven tie in spider silk (Ahem!) to a run-of-the-mill designer-printed foulard in green and gold? Try to make your clothes look plain. They are just a backdrop for you. Well-cut and perfectly fitted, yes: zany - no. The light must shine from within you and not from outside you upon your clothes. And that's just off the starting block.
NJS

[Greger]

"If people compliment me on my clothes I hardly ever take it as a good sign: I usually think I overdid something."

This kind of statement has been around for a long time. When did it start? 1800? 1700? Sooner? When did Mens Warehouse start? Or, Walmarts top of the line suits? Today many men buy from Mens Warehouse. If you buy higher up the food chain it is noticable, the cloth is better and probably the fit is better and the construction is better, these show. Seattle at one time (maybe still in the 1960s) had over 40 tailors supply houses and 3 cloth merchants. Today the closes tailor supply house is 900 miles away. And even futher away a so so cloth merchant. Another old tailor, much younger than the one I mentioned before, says there are no working tailors in Seattle anymore. This old tailors father owned a tailor house in Montana. In that town there were 12-16 tailor houses, some a one man band and others employeed up to about 16 tailors. In Washington State there were lots of tailors. Are there any working tailors now? Henery Poole had at one time over 500 tailors and a number of cutters, today it is a drop in the bucket of its former self. In 1910 what percentage of men wore tailored suits? 1960, what percentage of men wore tailored suits? 2000, what percentage of men wore tailored suits? 2000 is probably a drop in the bucket for men wearing tailored suits compare 2000. In the old days you could disappear into a crowd of men wearing tailored garments, so never stand out. But what tailor wants to make Mens Wearhouse quaility so you can be incognito? Everything about tailored is better quaility, or real quaility. Real quaility stands out. Construction is different, the fit is better, the porportions of the garment to the body is better. The whole ensemble is better. People would have to notice, thought they don't know why sometimes and many won't compliment you anyway. Only the blind wouldn't notice. In my opinion the skills of the top tailors is so high that it stands out more than pink lapels with purple stripes and green star or blinking neon lights, else his work would be run of the mill, like Mens Wearhouse. You really can't hide quality. If you have a different opinion, then we will have to agreeably disagree. Anyway, that's the way I see it.