The Erosion of Rules

[storeynicholas]

The two preceding posts contain much to think on. I believe that it is stretching it to take dress into the realm of art as such. There is little to suggest that Shakespeare, whatever unconventionality he perpetrated (and for whatever reason) in the drama, ever ventured beyond the normal conventions of his time in dress. Is this Shakespeare? It is often said to be:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... 29,r:0,s:0
and, more or less at random, this definitely is Whistler - definitely him and another hightly criticized artistic innovator; indeed ruined over the costs of his lawsuit against Ruskin for Ruskin's condemnation that Whistler was "flinging a paintpot in the public's face"
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... 29,r:6,s:0

he was about as plain and conventional in his dress as he could possibly be.

The Sitwells, maybe, all mad geniuses, ditto:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... 29,r:6,s:0

Stravinsky - remember the accounts of the uproar over the first performance of The Rite of Spring:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... 29,r:4,s:0

Even Oscar Wilde:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... x=49&ty=77

That is a few, through the ages, of people (including The Bard), who were considered innovators (even cranks) in their art.

But they were all, for their time and place and society, conventionally dressed. Now there are said to be no (or many fewer), conventions in dress but that does not, in itself, take mere dressing for life in society into the realm of art in its own right. Whether we are elegant or stylish in our mere dress, needs to be judged (if it need to be judged at all), according to the context in society and even if:

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air..."

if there is no one there to see and smell it, and accept its sweetness, it is, indeed, wasted. But if a desert flower should bloom to be seen, then it stands to be judged, according to its surroundings and the mutual effects that they bear, the one upon the other, and so too with a man dressed in society: he is either pleasing, meet and comely in the company that he finds himself in, or he is not. It does not matter much how he feels about the outfit infront of the looking glass before he steps out. In fact, it should not matter much how he feels about it at all, as long as he blends in when he arrives; because to stand out in the crowd, by an effort of will, is the negation of style and elegance.

The trouble is that, without rules and norms (or with them as mere suggestions) we are each left, more or less, floundering to discover what might be most in step with the society that we keep on any given occasion. I might, for example, wear full morning dress, including a splendid silk hat and galosh-topped shoes, to go and buy our early morning bread. I should be met with customary politeness, I am sure but, after I left the shop, in the Sleepy Hollow, I should, no doubt, a little way down the road, hear gales of uncontrollable mirth behind me, because I had been out of step and out of keeping with my community. Worse would befall me if I tried to enter the royal enclosure at Ascot in a pair of shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and Jesus sandals. Those are extreme examples but, without some measure of rules (of norms) in dress and compliance with them, we become impertinent,foolish and absurd. It is all very well to aver that rules and norms are, as Gruto says, mere suggestions but they are (as in my examples; extreme though they may be), still powerful impulses, impelled by strong societal incentives, to tow the line in the society in which we choose to live or to spend our time. The fact that my examples are extreme is beside the point. There might be much more room to manoeuvre now (for those few who are bothered to consider the matter at all closely), in terms of appropriate dress, but I cannot but stick to my guns behind the rampart that we were all much better off when clearer, stronger conventions more closely governed mere dress; which, after all, is simply the vehicle in which we go about executing the real purpose of living and enjoying the company of our fellows; albeit that our dress, if nicely put together and carried off, might excite interest or approbation. But such interest and approbation will derive only from an appreciation of our supreme appropriateness to: the time, place, occasion and company: primarily judged according to some kind of expectation, rule or norm. Even then, it is, at best just an indicator of the man within and may well be false.

Never judge books by their covers, and certainly not mine.

Brummell has been mentioned and I accept that he was the fulcrum of innovation in dress; but it was an innovation which flowed from a necessity to preserve what was left of the status quo in Britain in the wake of the American and French Revolutions: his ideas were taken up because it was obvious that a perpetuation of 18th century excess in outward show was a health hazard and so Prinny was easily persuaded to leave the flamboyant outfits with which he had been furnished by Louis Bazalgette and swiftly move off to tailor Jonathan Meyer and the others who were introducing the quiet look, championed by Brummell and his coterie. But that is a peculiar apparent example of an individual's profound influence in a sudden change of direction in dress but, even then, the influence was guided by principles and rules of, well, Michael, you put it very well, in another thread: the six Cs, for a modern age.
NJS

[Gruto]

It is all very well to aver that rules and norms are, as Gruto says, mere suggestions but they are (as in my examples; extreme though they may be), still powerful impulses, impelled by strong societal incentives, to tow the line in the society in which we choose to live or to spend our time.

Norms are not dead. However, they are less coercive today, more questionable. Power centers have been democratized. That also influences dressing and many other fields.

[storeynicholas]

Democracy is the most inflated, abused suggestion of our age. Originally, it referred to the right of free, adult male citizens of Greece to decide every important matter of government. Nowadays, it just denotes the right to "do as thou wilt and that shall be the whole of the law." I have said, I say still, and I shall continue to say, of the modern interpretation:

"Sod that! for a game of soldiers."

[Gruto]

Why try to tighten social norms? We should educate people to choose better by heart instead of being dumb norm followers.

[storeynicholas]

I am not sure that I have made myself very clear to you. Let me try this, by way of a summary of our different points of view: I regard dressing primarily as a facilitator of human social activity and intercourse and you see it as an important means of self-expression and assertion of personality. I do not see it as a means of self-expression as such but I think that we may read about each other from how we dress. How we: speak; write; eat; drink; smoke (if at all, of course); dance; laugh; shoot; fish; hunt; walk; appreciate; applaud; ignore; argue; love; hate; forgive; condemn; stand firm or concede; defend the right and weak and accept when we are wrong; give ourselves away or hold back; help out; behave in doorways and crowded places, and everything else we do (including the way that we wear our hat) tells the world how and what we really are and it puts the gilt on the gingerbread if, when we are engaged in all these activities, for the time and place and company, we are in clothes that are meet and right. It was far easier to achieve this when there were norms of dress for occasions and events because I do not think that as much (let alone more) time should be devoted to agonizing over what to wear as to the real acts of living, just because the fashionistas have suggested that we may dress as we please. Of course, there is an ulterior motive in treating norms of dress as "mere suggestions" because it broadens the fashionistas' market. That, so far as I am concerned, is an irrelevant consideration when I determine how I am to dress for, say, a 'black tie' invitation. My point of view has one incontestable merit: it makes life that little bit easier and I do not contribute to unworthy 'designers'' undeserved fortunes, earned by pulling the wool over the eyes of a growing economically 'empowered', but decreasingly educated, population.

[Costi]

Nicholas,

If dress is just "a facilitator of social activity" and the aim is to "blend in" and "not stand out", then in contemporary society this means blue jeans and T-shirt, perhaps a Polo shirt on special occasions. Why don't you dress like that?
Your tastes in dress definitely set you in a minority group, you are remote from the vast majority of "economically empowered and uneducated" masses. Your style of dress is a statement that opposes the prevailing Zeitgeist - that is, when you do dress, as you explained before about the Sleepy Hollow customs. Even choosing to live in Sleepy Hollow is an act of rejection - of course you don't feel like you are part of TODAY's society, but I guess that's exactly how the young man with a piercing in the nose and a spider tattooed across his face in the London subway feels, too - only he may have less freedom to make choices.
Even among the sartorially conscious, your beautiful blue suit with turnback sleeve cuffs would stand out - isn't that another, a further and deeper statement of segregation from the majority? Such details serve no other purpose than to call attention upon the fact that we are dealing with someone who feels distinct from the mass. And expresses it through dress.
But should we regard these as acts of opposition, as a form of revolt, or simply as an expression of who we feel we are and, instead of blending in like bricks in a wall, add our perspective to a diverse world, while at the same time welcoming that of others - not without judging, but without condemning? That is really how bonds form in society, we cannot all share the same values and ideals, we are all really tiny islands in an immense ocean, we shall never form a solid continent, but we CAN throw bridges and build roads among us. Tollerance is a nasty notion that masks indifference - true bonds are forged through deeper human contact, through our hearts, as Gruto says; it is THERE, at THAT level that we really share a lot with everyone else.

[storeynicholas]

I didn't say that the purpose of dress should be not to stand out; I said that "to stand out in the crowd by an effort of will is the negation of style and elegance" . If we adopt styles of dress, within the norms, that stand out through their quality and fit and maybe a small point of detail such as turn-back cuffs, we are exercising a fair degree of freedom but avoiding the agony of having to choose what to wear everytime that we go out because the norms have been eroded.

My style of dress has been the same since I was about eight years old and it serves me very well. I do not like the Zeitgeist but my dress was settled long before the society in which I was brought up started crumbling away and the maintenance of these standards has absolutely nothing to do with any expression of feeling about this age or its people.

We live in the Sleepy Hollow for very many different reasons: the weather; the natural beauty; the peace and quiet; the crash of the ocean and the clear skies at night, in which we can see the stars. We can all secure our own freedom if we are prepared to pay the price; even the yobbo with the spider tattoo and the ironmongery. I think that it was a poor day when such thoroughly subversive, solopsistic and anarchic goons were tolerated quite so much. Give 'em all a spell in national service; that'll sort 'em out! There is probably too much tolerance in society of those who would destroy it if they could and this has led to society's decline. Do as you like and let it all hang out just doesn't work.

My suit cuffs do not stand out like sore thumbs amongst dark-suited friends and I have no need to make a statement, in my dress,that I am not on the side of the ignorant, destructive, populist tendency, which the fashionistas exploit.

Talking about expressing our hearts in our dress is going way, way, way too far: we should just be mindful and considerate of the company that we keep when we dress to keep it. Norms help. The fact that the boundaries of the degrees of acceptability within the norms is getting broader is inevitable but the celebration of the the destruction of norms and reasonable standards of conformity in dress annoys me. If that makes me intolerant and nasty then that's just what I am.

[Costi]

I think that it was a poor day when such thoroughly subversive, solopsistic and anarchic goons were tolerated quite so much. Give 'em all a spell in national service; that'll sort 'em out! There is probably too much tolerance in society of those who would destroy it if they could and this has led to society's decline.

I see now how wrong I was believing tollerance masked indifference...
But don't you prefer to be able to SEE who REALLY travels next to you?
I, for one, don't purposely dress according to any social norms or in order to comply with them. If I did, as I wrote before, I would wear what everyone does today, regardless whether I liked it or not. I don't rely on dress for social acceptance, either. I have very good friends who dress so very differently from the way I do and neither of us see that as an obstacle, a barrier or a weakening of the ties among us. I also have acquaintances who apparently dress very similarly, but I wouldn't want to strengthen those social ties (if any) at all with them.
I prefer a society of free individuals that CHOOSE to share values, to the degree that they do, rather than enroll themselves in "society" as in an army, with strict rules and norms that are abusively enforced. I believe in persuasion, rather than in coercition. I am not very old, but I lived long enough to remember what life was like in a society where rules were everything and the individual nothing at all. Perhaps this first hand experience of life in a strongly regulated society makes me see things with different eyes today. I don't even want to think what THAT makes me...

[storeynicholas]

I think that it was a poor day when such thoroughly subversive, solopsistic and anarchic goons were tolerated quite so much. Give 'em all a spell in national service; that'll sort 'em out! There is probably too much tolerance in society of those who would destroy it if they could and this has led to society's decline.

I see now how wrong I was believing tollerance masked indifference...
But don't you prefer to be able to SEE who REALLY travels next to you?
I, for one, don't purposely dress according to any social norms or in order to comply with them. If I did, as I wrote before, I would wear what everyone does today, regardless whether I liked it or not. I don't rely on dress for social acceptance, either. I have very good friends who dress so very differently from the way I do and neither of us see that as an obstacle, a barrier or a weakening of the ties among us. I also have acquaintances who apparently dress very similarly, but I wouldn't want to strengthen those social ties (if any) at all with them.
I prefer a society of free individuals that CHOOSE to share values, to the degree that they do, rather than enroll themselves in "society" as in an army, with strict rules and norms that are abusively enforced. I believe in persuasion, rather than in coercition. I am not very old, but I lived longed enough to remember what life was like in a society where rules were everything and the individual nothing at all. Perhaps this first hand experience of life in a strongly regulated society makes me see things with different eyes today. I don't even want to think what THAT makes me...

The bit about national service was tongue in cheek. I think that it is obvious (although forgotten by me until just now) that, of course, our experiences of norms and rules, and enforcement of standards is quite different indeed and each of us is influenced by our respective, different experiences of our recently faded societies. Mine I mourn; your changes, you rightly celebrate and would not wish to return to the past (for very good reasons). Moreover, I have no practical experience of the enforcement of mindless rules and the imposition of sanctions for their breach or the negation of the rights of the individual as against the rights of the State. Mind you, if I had remained in the UK, and as things are going there, I might, ironically, have garnered such experience!

Now I am going to have a pipe of reasonable tobacco on the beach ______U--000oooOOO

[Gruto]

Norms help. The fact that the boundaries of the degrees of acceptability within the norms is getting broader is inevitable but the celebration of the the destruction of norms and reasonable standards of conformity in dress annoys me. If that makes me intolerant and nasty then that's just what I am.

There is no reason to celebrate the destruction of norms. However, culture is much better than norms. Ideally, people should be guided by inner Bildung. Norms are a poor substitute. They don't release the power of the individual but restrict it. Bildung lets man act for himself in a sensible way.

[storeynicholas]

Costi and Gruto - The further we get into this, the more I think that it is becoming a question of which 'side' can count the more angels on the head of a pin; especially, Costi, since I recall a post from you somewhere saying that a black tie gathering was a good (if rare) sight. Moreover, walking back along the road just now I saw a crippled man of about sixty. I'd guess that he had been crippled in his legs from birth but he had just enough movement in his feet so that, almost by an act of will, he could propel himself (with two crutches), three inches at a time, dragging one foot at a time, along the ground. I did fleetingly wonder if I should ask whether I could assist him but what could I do and often people in a similar state, who manage to move around, resent the patronizing intrusion of others. So I let the moment pass; although, the road being otherwise empty, I did turn to watch after him and his grimly triumphant progress and then decided that, for shame, I'd stop counting angels on the head of a pin for today.
NJS

[Costi]

Costi, since I recall a post from you somewhere saying that a black tie gathering was a good (if rare) sight.

It certainly is, since people do that today only because they WANT to, not because they have to or for fear they might be thrown out if they didn't. Voluntary subjection to rules is admirable, as it is the consequence of an intimate conviction. Formalism or conformism for the sake of unfelt social cohesion is null and void to me.
It is clear that you love freedom as much as I do and you sought it actively in your life. I am not sure the society you mourn granted any more individual freedom than the current one, but it certainly was more familiar to you. A friend recently wrote a book of poetry entitled "The cage without bars": for some, it is love; for others, it is their homeland; for others yet, it can be the past. We keep returning there - whether it is a place, a time, a feeling - like haunting specters. I wonder what mine is...

[storeynicholas]

Costi, since I recall a post from you somewhere saying that a black tie gathering was a good (if rare) sight.

It certainly is, since people do that today only because they WANT to, not because they have to or for fear they might be thrown out if they didn't. Voluntary subjection to rules is admirable, as it is the consequence of an intimate conviction. Formalism or conformism for the sake of unfelt social cohesion is null and void to me.
It is clear that you love freedom as much as I do and you sought it actively in your life. I am not sure the society you mourn granted any more individual freedom than the current one, but it certainly was more familiar to you. A friend recently wrote a book of poetry entitled "The cage without bars": for some, it is love; for others, it is their homeland; for others yet, it can be the past. We keep returning there - whether it is a place, a time, a feeling - like haunting specters. I wonder what mine is...

They used to want to wear black tie because they didn't have to think about it all too much. I am not sure that many functions, in the late twentieth century, ever excluded anyone for pitching up in the 'wrong' clothes - unless they were naked or dressed as Coco The Clown. I have never said that the subjection to rules should be anything other than voluntary; however, the failure of manners, in certain spheres (a minor example is in relation to dress codes, for certain occasions, which many people recognize still warrant them), has resulted in Draconian legislation (smoking again). 'Intimate conviction' is, surely, just another way of describing 'social cohesion'. If social cohesion is unfelt, then the society in which it occurs is doomed.

As for the rest, your homeland is your own again and it is not a cage at all; it is free to explore its past and to incorporate the best of the past with the best of the present and the future. You plainly know this.

The only substantive difference between us in this thread is the raising of my hackles at Gruto's appreciative citation of Armani's bare-faced-cheek insult to Savile Row and, by implication, all the artisans, across the world, who maintain the great artisanal traditions, in the face of his commercial assault; which is backed just by mumbo-jumbo and marketing hype, aimed at the ignorant; the naive, and the easily-led.

As between you and me, I cry 'PAX!'
best,
NJS

[Costi]

FIAT PAX!
And my sincere apologies if it ever didn't look like it.

They used to want to wear black tie because they didn't have to think about it all too much.

Absolutely. So nothing extraordinary there.

I have never said that the subjection to rules should be anything other than voluntary

You did not, but you don't complain that YOU cannot dress or live as you please, you regret the fact that OTHERS don't do the same. That is because you care about them and wish them well, of course

Agreed on smoking legislation needed because of the failure of manners. The liberty of others starts where mine begins and vice versa - now THAT is an intimate conviction Yet I know many well-mannered smokers, too, who actually rejoice at the smoking ban in restaurants. Of course, they also deplore the fact that a legal ban was actually necessary for that...

As for the rest, your homeland is your own again and it is not a cage at all; it is free to explore its past and to incorporate the best of the past with the best of the present and the future. You plainly know this.

I do have strong ties, but that is not my cage without bars. I am still wondering what it is. For some, it can be the past... And it's a longing that can't be satisfied every now and then, like the one for a place.

The only substantive difference between us in this thread is the raising of my hackles at Gruto's appreciative citation of Armani's bare-faced-cheek insult to Savile Row and, by implication, all the artisans, across the world, who maintain the great artisanal traditions, in the face of his commercial assault; which is backed just by mumbo-jumbo and marketing hype, aimed at the ignorant; the naive, and the easily-led.

You know I cannot disagree! However, I also admit there IS often a bit of comedy, of melodrama, of nostalgia, of what you want to call it about bespoke enthusiasts (myself included) - anyone who is not one and reads SOME of the threads on the fora will raise an eyebrow, scratch his head or burst into laughter. All the fretting and debate over rules, non-rules, customs, practices, conventions, details often nears ridicule. The search for Style, however, starts right where ridicule ends and the sublime begins, as they are always on the blade of a knife, and redeems it. That is absolutely NOT to say that Armani & Co. offer anything better than SR - far from it. And the ridicule is not with SR, of course, but with the attitude of some of its clients. Before defending ourselves and taking position in front of such scorning (as we should), I suppose we might pause for a second and think if there is any bit of truth in it: this may supply the best means for defense. I would reply that, while "ours" might sometimes be quality, intelligent, charming and self-aware melodrama, "theirs" is just involuntary bad comedy.

[storeynicholas]

No need to apologize. We've travelled down these roads before ___ooo000OOO. On cages: I think that we all essentially feel more or less caged and, generally, the younger we are, the more we are captives; we can be held captive by love (especially when it is not reciprocated); employment by another (if it is uncongenial, it can seem the same as enslavement but, often the worse it is, the higher it is paid, and the bars on that cage maybe the thickest bars of all). We are certainly held captive by: places; memories; the past; even the future (if we neglect the present for our dreams) and my life has been a struggle to break free of every fresh hell but, when you think that you have just about made it, you realize that, ultimately, you are held captive by the world itself and all on a very whimsical basis because the lease will be forfeited and it might happen at any moment or it might happen after a long, drawn-out illness and, short of suicide, there is nothing much that we can do about this and, even then, "What dreams might come"?