A man posted on one of the internet forums recently that he buys an inexpensive suit and wears it just three or four times, six or seven tops, before giving it away and buying a new one. He asks whether keeping a suit for years doesn't run counter to the notion of style, to which I say that he's got his sexual roles reversed.
That's because fashion is for women and style is for men. The fashionable woman buys clothes frequently and wears them just a few times so she can dress in the mode of the day. The role of the male of the species, on the other hand, has been for the last three hundred years to provide a good looking backdrop to that extravagance. A man ideally wears well cut clothing that remains perfectly appropriate for decades.
Men's clothing is not about replacing peak lapels with notch because notch appeared on a runway this season. Indeed, the best dressed men have wardrobes that encompass most of the mainstream style options, and wear them on appropriate occasions. Peak lapels are more formal than notch, and more suitable for an opening, for example, just as patch pockets are less formal than besom and better for walking the dog than sitting at the head table of a banquet.
Better clothing worn longer also has a favorable cost per wear. At the extreme end of the equation, a bespoke suit cut from good cloth will easily last a hundred wearings and defeat its glued $300 stepchild that's disposable after half a dozen.
Leave fashion to the ladies and stick with style.
4 comments:
"For style has nothing or little in common with fashion, and only the un-stylish but fashion-conscious profess otherwise."
-Manton
Will, I wonder if you could share with us your personal impressions / memories of that style- and fashion-challenged era known as the 1970s.
Were you a men's clothing consultant back then? What was your take on the wide lapels and ties, the horrid patterns and even more troubling "leisure suit"? I was just a boy at the time, but as I look at photos from that era, I'm incredulous to see how many people were beholden to the fashions of that era - even the highest level of executives.
As an example, look at how much the width of ties changed from JFK to Gerald Ford. One would expect that politicians - some of the most public suit wearers - could be expected to hold the standard. Then again, if they're chasing public opinion in the polls, they're also following popular fashion whims of the day too...
In short: I think of the 1970s as an era that's best erased from clothing history; I'd love to know what your thoughts are.
“A man posted on one of the internet forums recently,” etc.
It pleases me that I still wear shoes older than many of them.
I have ended up with a similar strategy for very different reasons. I live in London and commute each day on the tube. In summer the heat and humidity seem to spontaneously produce a highly effective adhesive which attaches airborne grime to one's clothes. Until the day comes when I can escape this journey, I buy cheap(ish) summer suits, wear them for one/two seasons, and discard them.
Even with a reasonable-sized wardrobe of such suits, by the time they go to the charity shop, they have had to be cleaned several times and they look tired. But I am spared the pain of having to discard a much loved garment. Of course, I feel less well dressed in summer: being able to follow the vagaries of fashion is scant consolation...
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