Will I ever buy clothing again?
I’m not what you’d call a fashionista. But I’ve always liked clothes, and I like to look nice.
Over the years, fashion has gotten less pretty and less formal. I used to have a raft of skirts and dresses, and many places to wear them. Years ago, even going to the theater – or flying on an airplane – was cause for dressup. No more.
Oh, some people always look great. But most people don’t. And COVID has reduced even that need and that opportunity.
After all, where is there to go? Most of my forays into the outside world are in my exercise clothes, to walk; in very casual clothes, to sit on a friend’s deck and talk; to the store; or to a medical appointment.
That’s it, folks. On a daily basis, there’s really little need to get out of my blogging clothes except to get into my exercise clothes, take a shower, and then back into the blogging clothes or what I’ll euphemistically call my sleepwear.
I long have said that as one gets older, it’s still important to try to dress a bit spiffily. Maybe especially as one gets older – unless:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress…
I’ve got a closet full of clothes, including a few fancy dresses. Will I ever wear them again? I hope so. It was only last year when I went to several events – a wedding, a large family reunion – and I hope to do so again. But right now it seems long in the past or far away in the future.
Maybe I should at least dress up for the Zoom meetings.
My natural attire is a tee shirt and shorts. I hope to make that permanent year round in about a year with a move to Florida. But, like Neo, I’m of a certain age. If going out, and it’s not formal, I’ll sub the tee for a nice golf shirt. The more formal, the more I’ll up the ante. Even flying, I don’t don’t do the suit and tie as in the 60s, but it’s definitely business casual at minimum.
As big a problem for me is I hate buying clothes (especially pants, shirts) online because my size seems to vary dramatically from brand to brand. Back in the very, very dark lockdown days I wanted a light pullover golf jacket but Target and Walmart weren’t going to cut it so I bought one online and it fit great but I also bought a shirt and it turned out too short even though it was the same size as others that fit.
So when we finish driving every retailer not named Walmart, Target and Costco out of business my clothes buying days may be over also.
My good friend who because of age and some respiratory issues in the last couple years has been inside except to shop during the senior hours, dresses for the cyber Mass each Sunday, complete with a hat and puts on full make-up since she doesn’t need to wear a mask. I dress for work far better (nice dresses and skirts, slacks in the winter, matching shoes & purse) than I need to as I work alone in a construction company. I like nice clothes too and frankly have way too much so my plan was to go through my closets this Lent and give away some very nice things but I was side-lined. I have attractive after-work or weekend dresses, skirts etc too. I’ll continue to wear them even once retired. When I was down with Covid I lived in 2 pair of sweat pants since I was washing every day. That’s an illness wardrobe for me.
I have nothing but knit “business casual” nice clothes because of my height. I’m just within the limit for having “tall” things from Lands End or JJill fit. My daughter who is 2″ taller can’t buy even there. We had an online supplier, a tall clothing place in the UK, which overextended and recently went out of business. My daughter’s comment was, “I’ll never buy clothes again.” Not just nice clothes, any clothes. So I’m several years ahead of most women in the “Where will I get clothes?” distress.
I live in a remote part of the country, and the winters are about six months long. On top of that, the pandemic has reinforced my natural solitariness. For news about the world, I’ve come to rely too much on the internet, and too little on human contact, so I could be wrong about this, but here’s my proposal …
Reliable sources claim that there’s been explosive growth in male-to-female transgender women. I’d bet they’d love to get some cheap used clothes from women who used to dress well, but now have no place to go. Why not start a new dot-com business with video modeling and virtual sales assistance — sort of a specialized ebay with more bells and whistles, and more stylish branding? Obviously, the demand is there. Be the supply, and make a killing.
You might ask, “why target transgender women, rather than cisgender women?” Well, as always, it’s a matter of privilege. The cisgender women have all the good clothes. A virtuous–and profitable–business would redistribute fashionable goods to those who need them, the oppressed transgender women.
The post-pandemic business niches are there for the taking, but you must act now.
Hang in there. Remember, the Roaring 20’s came after the Spanish Flu pandemic. I have a feeling when this is all over we’re going to have a rip-roaring time.
I was always mystified about how to dress until I discovered Pendleton in my fifties — with the simultaneous discovery that good clothes may be initially expensive but they wear like iron with moderate care. (Men’s clothes anyway.)
If you buy a good shirt every year or two pretty soon you have a nice selection in your closet.
Unfortunately with the non-formal trend I now feel a bit over-dressed most of the time.
I look at my wardrobe and see that for the most part, my future purchases will be socks, shoes, and underwear- mostly the latter. Over the decades, purchasing 2-3 shirts a year has given me 100 shirts. Some shirts are 40-50 years old. Don’t need to buy any more shirts.
I wear shorts 8 months out of the year, so don’t need to purchase many more pants.
I like Cornflour’s suggestion for niche marketing.
Like Griffin, I do not like purchasing clothing online.
But I wear my Pendletons anyway because I’m cheap and want to get my money’s worth!
I have always loathed getting dressed up. Even the thought of putting on a tie causes my blood pressure to soar. I own just one, and one jacket, and they only come out for funerals.
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
–Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”
_________________________________________________
Words to live by.
I love to see smartly dressed women, especially in dresses. If they smile at me, so much the better.
We were so poor growing up that instead of shoes my mom used to paint our feet: black in winter, white in summer. Those were some tough times. Seriously though, my mom would send us to the cobbler to repair our shoes while we waited. The cobbler in turn would gripe and moan that there wasn’t anything left to fix. I’m still alert to the cost of inexpensive shoes, and I casually do the math: three hours at minimum wage for a pair shoes! Such abundance.
I like having nice clothes. Nowadays I wear a uniform of sorts: khakis and long sleeve oxford shirts, and in the winter a nice wool sweater.
Haha. Sure you will. Covid will be over eventually. There will be more weddings, dates, and luncheons with your friends.
My personal opinion is that although a fit and good looking and sexy woman under thirty can get away with almost any type of clothing, after that, not so much; and subsequently, modesty, good taste, and continued weight control really improves things.
And given the tragically lard-assed look of so many nowadays, ill fitting, or crass clothing just emphasizes the defects, be they physical or of character. [Yeah yeah I know it’s nobody’s fault except for a very few. And that those multitudes of middle aged types – most astonishingly, women by and large (no pun) – lined up in their cars and into the streets trying to get to the burger joints’ ordering speakers, are just doing so because they don’t have enough money to buy rice and beans and kale. Not.]
Anyway, for my money any women who can still fit into their nice/dress casual clothes might as well wear them anyplace where it’s not clearly inappropriate. Not a cocktail dress to a supermarket, but certainly there is nothing wrong with a woman wearing a dress to a museum, to a park even, or to a minimally upscale chain restaurant. No guy I know complains of seeing a well dressed, self-confident woman.
Now to give back some of what I have taken …
I too, have too many shirts, being the kind who saves degraded office wear, especially shirts, intending to use the stuff for household chores or the like. But they don’t really wear out at the same rate they are downgraded by coffee spills, or snags, or ink, and so I have a spare closet with 50 or more, decade old Jos. Banks or Brooks Brother’s button downs with an ink spot on the breast pocket, or a slightly frayed cuff, and they are never going to wear out fast enough riding on a lawn tractor or cleaning the eaves-troughs or even painting door trim.
Huxley also has a point re quality clothing. And you can always wait for a sale. But you have to look out as buying shirts online can be a problem, depending on where they are made (primarily Asia): as an XXL/18-35 from Vietnam will fit differently than an XXL/18-35 from Hong Kong. The slender tube arms of some supposedly “Classic Fit” shirts will cling to your forearms like some damned shrink wrap, if you can even get them through. I don’t think you can get an average 15″ circumference. male forearm comfortably through some of them. In fact, I know you cannot. I have some English made – supposedly – with much the same problem. So, you do have to think it through. And you can pretty much forget B. Bros and Banks nowadays anyway.
But yeah Neo, wear it out … pun intended this time. Put on your shades and flats and take a swinging walk through the neighborhood in a summer dress. You will make the neighbor guys happy just seeing something so upbeat.
Ha ha! Hey Neo! See what I mean?
I can’t quite believe Brooks Brothers has filed for bankruptcy.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/business/brooks-brothers-bankruptcy/index.html
I wasn’t a regular customer, but when it came time to buy my first good suit, that’s where I was told to go, and I got a good suit.
A bit off topic, but related in a way – I inherited the parent’s good china, crystal and silver. I don’t think my nieces are interested in the items, so I am stashing the “everyday” stuff and putting the “good stuff” in the cabinets to be able to use them everyday. I may be dressed casually for meals, but I feel great using the good stuff.
This seems to be a first world problem. Just go to a store and try it on.
Liz, as nice and valuable of those pieces are, you might have a hard time finding anyone to be interested in them.
Back in the 60s my Lovely Wife built a China set by purchasing a single item each payday, building a set over the months and years.
In our experience, nobody is interested in taking those pieces that were once so precious to us–pieces that we so closely identified as markers of an accomplished adult life. Nowadays, young people just go to Costco.
A couple weeks into the covid lockdown, I had a burning sensation around my waist. I chalked it up to wearing nothing but elastic-waist pants. Turns out, it was the first signs of shingles.
(It was the mildest case of shingles known to man–literally 6 little bumps on my arm, and done.)
It’s obviously personal preference, and there is no right answer, but I almost always put a few minutes of extra effort into dressing whenever I leave the house. I can count on the fingers of one hand I have been under-dressed for anything, and I still remember those occasions vividly.
I wear sport coats whenever the weather isn’t too hot and humid and I even have a few linen, cuban style sport coats for when I go out on the town in summer. It’s so easy to take a sport coat off if it’s truly out of place, but it’s extraordinarily handy to have along if it is needed. I’ve done a lot of international business travel (and domestic) and it’s handy to have a stylish, surreptitious coat with hidden pockets for a passport and multiple currencies.
It’s fairly easy for men to throw on a pair of slacks and a shirt, coordinate with a belt and shoes. Or for a woman to throw on a dress, skirt/top or slacks/top. And people notice. There aren’t too many different body types and tailors and seamstresses over the years have developed simple garments that improve most all physiques.
I think “the clothes” do make the man or woman. When you wear an outfit that makes you look better you feel better and that extends out into your life.
It’s difficult for the young to look bad; they’re young and in their courting prime, after all, but some modern styles and fashions still somehow manage to make the female and male figure unattractive.
Estoy Listo:
Please see this.
And also “The Girls In Their Summer Dresses.”
Liz,
I don’t know if it will come back around, but from what I know of estate sales, and the like, there is little interest in old china and silver sets, except certain, very specific manufacturers and patterns.
So enjoy what you have while you have it! I think using it for yourself for everyday is a fun idea!
Estoy Listo,
If all women understood the power of their smile and what it does to a man… Age, appearance do not matter. A confident woman purposefully makes eye contact with a man and smiles at him and his demeanor instantly changes. He feels like he can kill a bear with his bare hands.
They were bought out, perhaps repeatedly, some time ago. I never bought suits or jackets there, and never even went into the stores. The store bought stuff I had was all bought for me as gifts by the women in my life.
But for pinpoint button downs/dress polos, which I ordered myself, it was really the only choice if you wanted the real thing. Which I did about half the time. None of the competitors could match the weave, nor the exact shade of the BB blue-grey button down polo. https://brooksbrothers.scene7.com/is/image/BrooksBrothers/001E_BLUE
The others looked ok you thought, until you compared them side by side; then, the other brands either looked sky blue or purplish or something.
Then there was the whole collar lining issue, the nature of which I was unaware of til recently, and didn’t really matter to me. Apparently, LOL, if you want exactly the right preppy early 60’S Bill Buckley bowing of the collar where it anchors to the button, you just have to have to have … well it’s too much. No wonder the guys here say they wear cargo shorts and tees, most of the time.
Anyway the last few bengal stripes I bought https://brooksbrothers.scene7.com/is/image/BrooksBrothers/ME02754_BLUE_2?$bbproductimages$ all unraveled at the cuff pleats. Enough of that crap.
Look at the customer comments. https://www.brooksbrothers.com/Original-Polo%C2%AE-Button-Down-Oxford-Traditional-Fit-Dress-Shirt%2C-Bengal-Stripe/ME02754,default,pd.html?dwvar_ME02754_Color=BLUE&contentpos=14&cgid=relaxed-fit-dress-shirts
Apparently management is convinced that their commitment to equality and listening will provide them with a customer base that does not mind thinner and inferior materials, stinting cuts, and unraveling stitching. Good luck with that sales strategy, boys.
https://www.brooksbrothers.com/BrooksBrothers/equality,default,pg.html
neo,
Your first link to Estoy Listo I enjoyed, along with the foray to the “Girl from Ipanema.” The second link was depressing! Yuk!
DNW,
It never fails when I find a manufacturer and style that fits well, in a year or two I notice the quality degrading.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Yes, a downer of a story, but a famous one in its day.
I read it when I was about 14. It was the title that was especially memorable, but the story made an impression on me, too.
Rufus T, Firefly: You are exactly right. A woman’s smile is a signal: She likes me!
I’ve had those Yeats lines on my mind a lot lately. Aside from the fact that I’m in fact fairly aged, it’s become associated in my mind with a sense of helplessness in the face of the determination of so many Americans to dismantle the republic.
I don’t have many clothes, very few compared to some of y’all. But there is one item I would like to have but don’t want to spend the money to get: a good tweed sport coat. I’ve had one or sometimes two for a large part of my life, going back to college. But the only one I still have is now a little too small and has been damaged by moths.
Mac,
I hope you obtain one soon! They are very practical and useful.
And also “The Girls In Their Summer Dresses.”
neo: At first I assumed your link was to:
___________________________________________
And the girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes
Pass me by
–Bruce Springsteen, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP56ENrukZw
___________________________________________
Which for my money is Springsteen’s last decent song.
Nice bit of autumn chill there, that age comes even for the Boss.
In these Covid times I am having tiny cocktail parties (2 or 3 guests) three or four times a week. There is distancing, and it is mask free this way. The attendees are asked to wear something “nice,” and they DO. They, both men and women, are not grumbling about this. They look wonderful, and I think it contributes greatly to a festive attitude.
One of our sons mentioned Brooks Brothers this week. He used to get all of his shirts from them because they fit just right, and were high quality.
Then the cut & styles changed, and the quality went down, and he never bought another.
His take: the new management wanted to be an Italian boutique instead of a stodgy business-apparel store, and didn’t care much about what their patrons wanted.
The customers for trendy Italian didn’t buy rom BB, because that wasn’t their reputation, and the old guard now wouldn’t buy anything at all.
I wear jeans and lace up boots , summer and winter, to work, to socialize, to church. What changes is the shirt , the hat ( cowboy work hat in the summer, toboggan in the winter ) ,the layers of coats, the neck warmer and whether or not I wear thermals under the jeans.
Re: Brooks Brothers…
Brooks Brothers had that feel of Tradition, as well as quality, like those worn stone steps leading to the upper floors of the Harvard Coop.
(I’ll bet more than a few people here get that reference.)
DNW/AesopFan: Thanks for filling in a few gaps for me. Sounds like it was more than Covid which brought down Brooks.
I’m generally bothered that almost everything I used to buy is now lower-quality. I’m sure China is a big part of that story.
A master cabinetmaker I know can go on about how the Chinese yardsticks at Home Depot were wrong.
Thanks, Rufus T!
Neo, thank you for raising this issue in these all-too-egalitarian times. The proletarianization of dress, culture and speech and other, often explicitly anti-bourgeois attacks on civility are ways that the 60’s continue to ruin our society, by design. The hegemony of the Left actively seeks proletarianization and the elimination of standards of all sorts: of dress, of speech and grammar and, of course, testing for basic competence.
I do understand that we’re all under COVID house arrest, so there is little external reason to dress with more formality than PJs or a trip to today’s holy of holies in our celebrity/glam culture: the gym. I still try to dress well, if only to respect myself, and even when I am by myself.
In any case, I am quite sad that we may never return to an age where people respected others by showing the care and attention that comes with a decent appearance and the cultural values that such an appearance convey (and I do not confuse being well-attired with dressing expensively.)
Most of you reading this will say: 1) you confuse mere outward appearance with true inner worth and/or 2) you sound like a loathsome reactionary. Regarding the latter point, I am a 19th century Classical Liberal, which, in today’s PC environment, of course, makes me a reactionary, indeed, as my nom de blog suggests, I am a counter-revolutionary (as well as a running-dog capitalist). So, gleefully, guilty as charged. Regarding the former point, a thoughtful presentation of self conveys certain values such as self-discipline, decorum, self-awareness and respect for others. Those “Victorian” virtues, of course, don’t outweigh inner values, but outer appearance and interior values can be self-reinforcing habits of mind.
I am afraid that the triumph of near-universal slobification is just one more lost battle on the Left’s full-scale war on civility, standards and the middle-class values. Values to be condemned because they have lifted so many out of poverty and created a remarkably high standard of living–things that make the middle class too complacent to be revolutionary. Which is why progressives loathe middle class values.
I’m NOT arguing that Brooks Brothers shirts created the modern world. (Though, on second thought, as I am an historian, it would be quite fun to make that argument.) But those button-down shirts, with their horribly elitist collars (shudder!) are certainly consistent with the values that did create our world. Unlike the ubiquitous t-shirt, it takes effort, after all, to actually button a shirt.
I’m in education in a non-administrative role. Most formal that was needed from me was business casual + blazer for parent-teacher conferences and open houses. I do have a couple of suits for for weddings and interviews though. Anything more than that is just me splurging to feed my own fashion appetite (bourbon colored Oxford dress shoes that may be used twice a year, max; ties that won’t get used more than twice, too) and to keep up with the times.
“Maybe I should at least dress up for the Zoom meetings.”
Make that: “Maybe I should at least top up for the Zoom meetings.”
for Vanderleun –
https://babylonbee.com/news/with-everyone-telecomuting-pants-sales-plummet
I dress very nicely for Zoom church services from the waist up, but admit to wearing casual pants and house slippers.
I am (was?) one of the last lawyers on the westside of L.A. to wear a suit and tie every day to work, and was proud of that. Now, when I go to the office, which I do a few times a week, or have a Zoom call, I wear a Hawaiian shirt and khakis. I wonder which is the real me. Or is it the me in shorts and (sometimes) a tee-shirt — I just got a wonderful 1984 tee with the Party’s slogan on the front and had “2 + 2 = 5” printed on the back — that I wear around the house?
Neo — when you linked to “the Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” I thought you were referring to this Harry Belafonte song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbHqJRjS50
So, I should buy stock in Singer?
(I already have my own sewing machine…)
Neo, I feel your pain . I enjoy good clothes, especially nice dresses. I don’t pay attention to fashion trends, but I know what works on me, and I like to wear things that elevate the day. (She says, working from home and still in pajamas at 9 a.m. . . . but they are cute pajamas!) I do most shopping online because I live far from any decent stores, but lately, like everybody else, have done no shopping at all. Besides working from home, I’m close to retirement, and I decided a while back not to buy anything except essentials until I can get my crowded closet cleared of the things I only wear for work, and see where things stand.
But for no particular reason, a couple of weeks ago, I tossed that decision to the winds and bought a couple of very pretty summery dresses that I don’t need (although, in my defense, it was an excellent online sale). They’re too pretty for my workplace, even if I do end up going back to the office before I retire. They’d work for a semi-informal wedding or a good restaurant or the right kind of city outing, but, of course, I have no plans for anything like that in the foreseeable future. So, they’re just hanging there in my closet, looking so pretty and taunting me.
Missy, I wish I lived near you!
Phil Turmel, I am sewing again, for my daughter. We have no other choices at the moment. Even if the stores open again, nothing sold there is going to fit either one of us. But it’s a pain. Every aspect of every pattern has to be adjusted before I can cut any fabric.
What I really need is a good tailor. I don’t think there are any of those any more.
And what I really, really need is to be able to go to a nice restaurant again, so I will have the incentive to do the sewing.
Sewing’s easy.
Learn to tailor.
Use discrimination in your textiles.
A retired trial lawyer, I still have too many of my daily uniforms of suits, ties and dress shirts. I have gotten rid of a number, but there are still too many taking up closet space that my wife covets. She is what is described as a fashionista and one of the few bright spots of the current predicament is that she is not buying anything other than workout gear.
you confuse mere outward appearance with true inner worth
I’ve never understood this argument. If clothes don’t matter, then why NOT wear whatever is making you argue that clothes don’t matter?
A sartorial Pascal’s Wager.
I too like to dress well for appropriate occasions. I wear a suit to church every Sunday. Many other men my age do also. It is one occasion where it is worth conveying respect for the proceedings.
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Brooks Brothers had that feel of Tradition, as well as quality, like those worn stone steps leading to the upper floors of the Harvard Coop.
For some of us, it was J. Press and the Yale Coop.
CaptDMO, I have to alter the patterns extensively and take care which ones I choose, because some will be much harder to alter than others. Also, finding textiles for apparel construction is not easy. The ubiquitous JoAnn Fabrics is for quilters these days. This means buying fabric online, which may or may not be successful. It’s hard to judge colors from online photos.
Kate:
I certainly don’t think sewing is easy. Sewing on a button is easy. Repairing a ripped seam is easy. But making clothing, especially when you have to alter patterns? HARD.
By the way, I grew up in an era and with a school system that actually taught us all how to sew. We each had to complete a project using what seemed to be miles of bias binding, sewn on by hand.
Yes, I grew up in the same era, Neo. In fact, my mother taught Home Ec, bias binding included. 🙂
When I was working in our local library, we were encouraged to make sure we were “approachable” and didn’t dress in “old lady librarian” style. In fact, we could wear jeans, tennis shoes, whatever. I did not like that; I didn’t enjoy wearing the same casual clothes that I wore when not at work.
However, my husband worked in a business that required suits, ties, etc., and we attended events together so I was able to wear more dressy attire. Now that he’s retired, only teaching part time at our local community college, the last thing he wants to wear is a suit. So we cleared out his closet of his 4-5 suits, keeping his newest one. The first opportunity for him to wear his suit was to his father’s funeral. We discovered that we had inadvertently thrown away the pants that matched his suit jacket and kept pants that did not match at all! He switched gears and wore slacks and a sports coat. That was 10 years ago and he still has no suit and probably never will.
Kate:
So, what’s this 1950s-1960s love affair with bias binding?
Neo:
It was a teaching tool, in the hope that students would begin making more than aprons and potholders.
Kate:
More things with bias binding??
By the way, our aprons had about 5 miles of bias binding. It was all around the entire apron, including the parts that went behind the neck.
As a hardcore nudist I probably find this more interesting/amusing than most. I’m also retired, so I no longer feel any need to try to impress anyone with my wardrobe. (In reality I don’t think I ever did.)
Why do we humans think that our garments make us look good? It seems pretty odd to cover something and claim to have improved its appearance. Maybe you shouldn’t go out in public. I know that most of us think there are fundamental flaws with our bodies, but it is not your clothes that make your butt look bigger than you like, and your clothes don’t really hide it either. Your body is what it is. Accept it, or work to change it. Don’t hide it, it’s beautiful.
Why do we find it necessary to cover our bodies with expensive fabric creations that require so much care? Imagine how much could be saved if we wore clothing only when required for warmth or protection. Think of the savings from reduced air conditioning. Think of how good it feels to remove even your most comfortable clothes.
Bill Bowser:
I assure you that my clothes make me look a lot better. A lot.
I also think they make most of the people whom I’ve seen naked look a lot better. Maybe not when we were all in our 20s and 30s and even 40s, but now.
Not only that, but clothes – or some form of adornment, even if it only be this or this – are a human near-universal. Ever wonder why? It’s not because of the clothing industry. And it’s not because of negative body image, either. It seems to be a near-universal human need.
If you and other nudists don’t share that feeling, that’s fine. I have nothing against nudist camps; I just don’t want to go to one. But nudity among consenting nudists is 100% okay with me.
It is also of interest that in the bible the story of Adam and Eve has them eating from the Tree and then feeling the need to cover their nakedness. I have long interpreted that story as being a parable describing the dawn of human consciousness, which includes self-consciousness and the distinguishing of humans from animals, who are always naked (unless humans dress them in funny little outfits). In Genesis:
“Don’t hide [your body], it’s beautiful.”
Don’t make me show you the evidence that you’re wrong. 🙂
Aside from utilitarian purposes, clothing is also a means of self-expression and creativity. Part of the glory of being human.
Though, like neo, I have nothing against nudists.
Mom didn’t go that far with binding. She tried to make kids feel successful with their projects, not overwhelmed.
I have no problem with people who choose to go to nudist camps. Enjoy. But from my perspective, the vast majority of people look better clothed in something designed to make them look better. The current craze for yoga pants on women whose fundaments would look much better in khakis or gracefully draped skirts is a case in point.
As are men in clothing designed to minimize the beer belly.
Geez. I had forgotten completely about “J Press”.
I think that they would themselves admit that they were not an exact or even near equivalent to Brooks Brothers, but more of a niche line. Yet they certainly do have an authentic preppy style that will appeal to many, many young and even not so young men. Looking at their site, I see that they claim to have been the originators of the natural shoulder jacket. And for that alone they have earned the thanks of many millions of men who might never have even heard of them. Then there is Madrass, seersucker, linen …
As Brooks Brothers spiraled downward, I went off in search of other makes and found the usual like Land’s End, as well as newer on-line brands set at roughly similar price points to Brooks such as Proper Cloth, and Paul Fredrick [I’m not in the market for 700 dollar shirts made in Switzerland] . The former seems to be seriously promoting informed buying; and they have an expanding selection from what I first took, a couple three years ago, to be strictly American product made to order. Now they are selling awning stripe Portuguese flannel and Irish and Italian linen shirts and all that other specialty stuff that will trick you out like Brian Wilson in 1965. The latter brand [P.F.], is cut roomier, for shrinkage they say, and that style and that cut suites me just fine personally.
I had forgotten too, about Gant, which was one I dredged up from the memory hole; as it was what we were wearing in Junior High School. I looked them up.
Apparently the Swedes now own the brand. And some of the stuff looks pretty good; online at least. Until that is you see it on the beardless, wan, pouting, androgynous, slouching semi-males they have modeling their shirts. Whereupon the brand conveys the same yuk factor which Benetton and Calvin Klein became famous for. You take one look at them and you want to shove the heroin syringe in their necks yourself.
I think I’ll buy a broad vertical stripe short sleeved shirt just for spite. Thanks for the incidental recommendation, Neo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boCJJQqVWkE
Some years ago my son borrowed my tuxedo, as he needed concert wear.
He has not yet returned it.
I have not yet replaced it.
Sigh.
Brooks Brothers had that feel of Tradition, as well as quality, like those worn stone steps leading to the upper floors of the Harvard Coop. –huxley
Does no one remember those worn steps?
They jumped out at me the first time I went to the Coop. Each step was worn down more than a quarter-inch in the center where generations of Cantabrigian shoes had trod.
I had never encountered that before in stairs. Still haven’t.
huxley:
I am familiar with the steps. They were practically scooped out.
And me being me, they used to make me think of this line from “Romeo and Juliet” in which Romeo speaks of Juliet: “Oh, so light a foot/Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.” The line always puzzled me because, if the flint is “everlasting,” then NO foot, even a heavy one, would wear it out.
neo: Nice! More literate than my “Huh” response.
huxley – the steps on the oldest buildings at Rice U in Houston are also concave in the middle.
Made them kind of treacherous in the rain (frequent) and snow (not so often, but it did happen once when I was there).
Age lends a certain stately beauty to some buildings.
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Age lends a certain stately beauty to some buildings.
AesopFan: Indeed.
I am sure those managing the Coop and Rice U are making a statement to allow those steps to wear so noticeably.
Even when I was in my twenties and preferred the world to be made as new as I was, I liked those steps.