Stroller suit-advice please!

[couch]

Dear hectorm,

On the whole I'm with you in appreciating the stimulating effects of constraint. My comment was meant to say that I can understand and empathize with the impulses of those (often younger) men who feel fewer constraints because time has attenuated some of them. And, like Agnelli or the infamous Windsor, I'd like to reserve the right to risk (as you say) stepping outside the constraints now and then.

[culverwood]

And old master from my art workshop always used to say that real creativity came alive when we had only 2 o 3 colors allowed in our palette and a few given symbols to combine in certain ways.
The fun with dressing and clothes enjoyed by freer people without much in the way of historical or class or political associations seems to originate in ignorance. I rather have fun my old fashion way.

But that does not mean that all art should be from 2 or 3 colours and a few given symbols.

If we dress only within our historic, political or class norms we are wearing a straight-jacket.

[uppercase]

I am off to buy a black cashmere turtleneck. Single ply.

I have meant to for some time now but the posts here have prompted me to get off my ass and finally do it before the cold weather sets in.

I was not aware of all of the connotations and signals this item carries but cest la vie.

As couch mentioned somewhere that a viewer may impute quite a lot of meaning to items of clothing or styles which a wearer had no intention nor thought of ever conveying. That is the tyranny of people harboring uneducated stereotypes. But stereotypes and caricatures are hard to overcome.

I am reminded of a frenemy who I cannot generally avoid for one reason or another and who makes the occasional sarcastic remark about a tweed coat I might be wearing or my old man style.

He is a schlepper. A slob. And takes pride in dressing like the proletariat he wants to be. I don't mind.

But he imputes being a little bit dressed up to being an elitist or a preppy or a Republican. One's dress is indicative of a whole world order in his subconscious apparently. He is older and should know better than this but he simply cannot put aside his deep seated stereotypes no matter how well he knows me, the individual. It is as if the image of a person, the superficiality of his clothes and manner, etc., trumps reality. And so, reality is twisted through misperception. And easily so.

Hence, the power of clothing to both alter and create reality given an audience.

[couch]

You're right uppercase, and thus the courage required to follow Michael's advice to experiment, learn what works for you, and stick to it. It can have real-world consequences. So we each decide where we are willing to defy and accept others' distortions of reality and take the lumps and/or kudos.

The flip side of this is tribalism and the demand to conform to in-group norms and uniforms. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel (now in some disrepute for his Gawker vendetta, etc.), in his 2014 book Zero to One (which has many excellent insights and a few less excellent), claims that in a startup, everyone should be different—in the same way. People who share a culture and enjoy working together, he posits, create more value. The T-shirt and hoodie with the startup's logo is the outward sign of this. This belief leads to a statement like the following, describing his VC fund's response to people pitching "cleantech" companies a few years back:

At Founder's Fund, we saw this coming. The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings.

The assumptions embedded in this are astonishing: that everybody buys in to that particular semiotic schema about dress, and that it's accurate even for those who do (remember "real men don't eat quiche"?). But the implications of the Fund's sartorial screening could run into millions of dollars—billions, even, for a potentially game-changing venture. That's a reality. So if you're going to play that game, it's best to be aware of the prejudices behind the rules.

I can't speak for Michael, but it seems to me that behind his recent guidance is an encouragement to so arrange one's life that you are as little dependent on such categorical schemas controlled by others as possible. A suggestion that in the long run, developing an individual style and charisma will serve you well, even if it costs something in the short run. As Spinoza put it, "all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare." I think that's good advice in many areas of life, and try to follow it.

[hectorm]

But that does not mean that all art should be from 2 or 3 colours and a few given symbols. If we dress only within our historic, political or class norms we are wearing a straight-jacket.

You are right, Culverwood,
My point was aimed at the fact that freedom in dressing based on ignorance (of historic, political or class associations) could be enjoyable but a bit hollow. Much better grounded to be fully aware of those norms and, if it´s the case, consciously disregard them (or ironically play with them). The risk you run with (dress) rules is that they can be scary to beginners and that can stifle the development of their own style. I would say to them: learn the different rules developed in the last hundred years but instead of following some style guru, experiment with them in pursue of your own set of norms and style.

[YoungLawyer]

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