That reminds me, I need to buy a tuxedo for the formal choral group I just joined.
==Tom
==Tom
Dressing the Man
- Thread starter Dennis
- Start date
In general I agree with most of what he's saying, especially the part about if more people dressed up we would have a better society. I also liked how he pointed out many low cost options. That was very good. But I'll never give up my argyle socks! 
That's interesting!!
To me, when I wear a suit, the jacket is usually on for the full event. To me (and obviously, YMMV) what you wear to hold up your slacks is kinda like your choice of underwear, or going Commando, nobody knows but you.
I amazed when I look at old pictures. People wore suits to baseball games. 
I amazed when I look at old pictures. People wore suits to baseball games.
Heck, look at old photos of steerage passengers disembarking at Ellis Island. Many of them are dressed better than most folks today! And that's steerage, not first- or second-class.
I can do beach/gym, and I can do wedding/funeral.
I have tremendous trouble with anything in between.
I have tremendous trouble with anything in between.
kudos
im dont buy into the stuff...he didnt include a kilt, egads you have to wear something to a formal...
In general I agree with most of what he's saying, especially the part about if more people dressed up we would have a better society. I also liked how he pointed out many low cost options. That was very good. But I'll never give up my argyle socks!
I bought an argyle sweater in Austria while studying abroad and I loved it. Needless to say, when I returned home, all the ladies that I was hoping to impress with my new-found european style just told me that I looked like their grandpa with tight pants!
I bought an argyle sweater in Austria while studying abroad and I loved it. Needless to say, when I returned home, all the ladies that I was hoping to impress with my new-found european style just told me that I looked like their grandpa with tight pants!
I've found that when it comes to impressing the fairer sex with your appearance, the more impressive I think I look, the less they agree. Maybe I'm just extremely lucky to know a lot of old fashioned girls, but I'm more likely to get a complement if I walk in with my hair messy, some oil stains on my shirt, and sweat on my brow, than dressing up a bit with my hair put together, nice pants and a dress shirt. Or I just don't know how to dress which is entirely possible.
Tim & Cory, I'm with you with respect to argyle socks and sweaters: the last time I was In England I picked up a dozen pair of wool argyle socks and two Pringle argyle sweaters. I've worn argyle since I was a wee lad and will never stop wearing it. Interestingly, SWMBO likes my argyle socks and sweaters, but then she's a Pom so she knows someting about country style.
Yeah, I maintain that the sweater was awesome. The pants on the other hand...these things were some kind of weird lycra/spandex/polyester/denim hybrid. They were poop brown jeans that stretched like a pair of Fruit of the Looms. Did I also mention that they left nothing to the imagination?
OK that's interesting.
Dennis02 isn't teasing us on Elegance. Many books are not enough (by far) to teach elegance, which is an asyntote. Giovanni Agnelli said many years ago that 'cos you cannot have ties made by <famous New York brand> with Italian silks from Como, perfection isn't an option.
Dennis02 tries instead to give a lot of useful tips for people who knows nothing of dressing. On many subjects he's spot on, sometimes he's wrong (what about English or French or Italian tailoring schools and styles?), sometimes really wrong (hmmm socks MUST be of the same exact colour of your TIE and believe me that's basic , and still difficult for most men). When British Spiders became fashionable in the fifties and the sixties, many elegant men travelled to Milan only to find the biggest choices of socks, the athletic movement to enter and exit such streamlined cars exposed the socks dramatically. But basically, his intentions are good, and useful too. Believe me or not, for all the (male) tourists in shorts I met in Venice that look ready for a beach, the best dressed man I ever met was an American on a boat in the Grand Canal in Venice. He was absolutely the image of unattainable perfection and after some 15 years he's still present in my mind. Such is the impact a perfect suit (and tie and fine shirt and gloves and shoes and coat... the coat alone could have probably bought my car) can have on we mortals.
Dennis02 isn't teasing us on Elegance. Many books are not enough (by far) to teach elegance, which is an asyntote. Giovanni Agnelli said many years ago that 'cos you cannot have ties made by <famous New York brand> with Italian silks from Como, perfection isn't an option.
Dennis02 tries instead to give a lot of useful tips for people who knows nothing of dressing. On many subjects he's spot on, sometimes he's wrong (what about English or French or Italian tailoring schools and styles?), sometimes really wrong (hmmm socks MUST be of the same exact colour of your TIE and believe me that's basic , and still difficult for most men). When British Spiders became fashionable in the fifties and the sixties, many elegant men travelled to Milan only to find the biggest choices of socks, the athletic movement to enter and exit such streamlined cars exposed the socks dramatically. But basically, his intentions are good, and useful too. Believe me or not, for all the (male) tourists in shorts I met in Venice that look ready for a beach, the best dressed man I ever met was an American on a boat in the Grand Canal in Venice. He was absolutely the image of unattainable perfection and after some 15 years he's still present in my mind. Such is the impact a perfect suit (and tie and fine shirt and gloves and shoes and coat... the coat alone could have probably bought my car) can have on we mortals.
M
modern man
I can do beach/gym, and I can do wedding/funeral.
I have tremendous trouble with anything in between.
No you dont.
Your married.
It is not your fault you dress like Bert and/or Ernie.
Esquire Magazine recently listed Agnelli as one of the best-dressed men ever (they also said the jury was still out on whether his grandson, Elkann, looked stylish or silly), and that he perfected sprezzatura, described as the art of appearing not to care about one's appearance, with his off-center tie knot, etc.
Me, I always wanted to be Marcello Mastroianni.
Exactly right! I love arygyle. The pants, though...you should all consider yourselves lucky that I don't have a picture to post.
- Thread starter
- #38
I post and then go out of town. I thought the article was interesting and I get the point he is making but may not agree with his choices. I am more in the dilemna of being an aging guy who hasn't been in college in too many years but still owns alot of those clothes. What interested me was this line: "A sports coat and trousers are the official uniform of a man who is just going about the business of life." IS that true today?
I work in a job where I could wear jeans and a polo shirt or button down shirt to work everyday. I am not a laborer but at a university in a job where my clothes may get stained if I am not careful. Trying to find advice on clothing when you are a guy is really damn hard. Any show that you see on television that gives this kind of advice is for women. Forums like AskAndyAboutClothes or StyleForum seem mostly about high-high ($$$) end clothes and makers and these guys are in executive positions where you need to wear a suit everyday. What about the guy who needs to wear a suit maybe twice a year?
Dennis
I work in a job where I could wear jeans and a polo shirt or button down shirt to work everyday. I am not a laborer but at a university in a job where my clothes may get stained if I am not careful. Trying to find advice on clothing when you are a guy is really damn hard. Any show that you see on television that gives this kind of advice is for women. Forums like AskAndyAboutClothes or StyleForum seem mostly about high-high ($$$) end clothes and makers and these guys are in executive positions where you need to wear a suit everyday. What about the guy who needs to wear a suit maybe twice a year?
Dennis
I didn't get through the whole article yet, but I will say this. I work in a casual-dress office. I've worked in formal-dress offices too. To compare them, I would say that the environment of the "formal" office was more professional than in the casual-dress offices. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I think people feel better about themselves when they're dressed nicely, I know I do. I once asked my boss if he thought there was a difference between casual and formal dress offices, he said he didn't notice. But I think I do. I *like* wearing a tie to work. Sometimes I still do, but to be honest, to be the only guy except for the "top brass" wearing a tie, makes me look like I'm out to impress everyone, when really I'm doing it for myself. I'm not sure what to think, I'm not going to base a job choice on the dress code of the office, but I do prefer the atmosphere of the formal dress environment. Maybe it's silly, but it really does give a slight boost to my self-esteem to come to work in a tie and nicely pressed pants/shirt and jacket.
Any opinions on this? I think casual should be saved for Fridays.
-Mason
shaving cream's a racket, clothes is a racket, ... I wonder what his take on tennis is??
Oh man, that's priceless.
Glad to see you got some flair goin' on TimmyB!In general I agree with most of what he's saying, especially the part about if more people dressed up we would have a better society. I also liked how he pointed out many low cost options. That was very good. But I'll never give up my argyle socks!
That would be a custom-title-alteringly bad idea!!
The general idea that we should dress better, yeah, I'm down with that. I found his article to be basiaclly an 'idiot's guide' to stocking a closet with a few simple items that will get you by, generally speaking, with out fear of mix & match problems. Something for the guy who doesn't really like thinking about clothes, and wants a simple thought-free solution. (I think of the sci-fi movies from a few decades back, where everyone wore the same basic jumpsuit, and there was a colour stripe or badge or something if you were "special". If everyone took his advice, we'd look kind of like that ... )
Once you actually understand clothes and style, you can get past this minimalism, and buy some argyle socks, a covert coat, a spiffy sweater ...
... and hopefuly not "those pants"
