http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Trad
Wiki is going to give the page the boot - They say the subject just doesn't exist outside a bunch of stupid online twats.
...Well... Words to that effect.
Ahhhhhhh - The Internet!
Best -
- Much talk BTS about this one - And it all happened behind my back to be honest - The first I knew was an email this AM.
What do you think?
Is the silly game really over?
And if not, then how can it still go on and make any sense?
... Oh Andy & AK - See what happens when you back the wrong horse?
You always lose.
Giddy-Up!
I think of every invented term surrounding the TNSIL style as somewhat uncouth to be honest. Even Ivy-ist or Ivy Stylist is a term I may use with some seriousness behind it BTS, but in public I think it doesn't sound right at all and why anyone would like to think of themselves in such terms is more or less beyond me.
People in search of an identity?
Fair enough at 13, but beyond 30... *ahem*
maybe.
I think the semantics get tiresome. Trad was useful as a term, but only insofar as to use the term one had to be speaking with someone who was already familiar with it. Can you imagine having a conversation with someone and saying "I'm really into Trad at the moment." Imagine approaching an old man wearing a tweed sack and asking him "where did you find those lovely Trad clothes?"
Ivy as a term isn't much better. In a contemporary context, the word means almost nothing. "Hello, I was wondering if you could help me locate some Ivy League Clothing?" Useless unless you're looking for a crimson hoodie with a big white H on it.
I think, judging by what I have seen in old magazines and on The Look's great blog, as well as some of AldenPyle's posts, that Ivy was an advertising buzzword that was used to sell what was, in effect, the first real youth clothing mass market. If you look at Alden's great post about the evolution of chinos, "Ivy" is used to differentiate a new, trim, tapered chino from the older army surplus variety. But isn't the army surplus chino the core of the look itself? The garment that started it all? You see my point.
... Khakis actually came late as a part of 'The Look' - 'Ivy' as a marketing term pre-exists them.
Alden's Chinos were Khakis being assimilated into the cannon of a style which was already there.
- And round & round we go!
Which was why trying to give a new name & new rules to all this was always doomed.
Trad was only a useful term online amongst those who had already bought into its existence. The Ivy League style is the commonest name in the old books & ads for this look, why make up a new name & give it new rules?
Agreed though that the semantics are tiresome - But that was the game that Trad started.
Wikipedia's full of preposterous crap. Why make a fuss about this?
Should we cue "Trouble In Paradise" by the Crests?
Trad - should only be used, in its origin intention to do with a certain kind of jazz revived by Lu Watter's Yerba Buena Jazz Band in San Franisco in the 1940's.
All the rest is BS, and we all know it.
Signed: A. Moldy Old Fig.
How is this noteworthy? A bunch of people who couldn't give a shit about something are not giving a shit about it. Hardly worth it, I'd say.
Conor
Exactly, its only the internet, its not for real, its cyper-space, a load of old tommy rot, scouring the net for the ultimate free porn, firing off drunken tirades on forums, Chinny-Chenners thinking its viable career move.
Its noteworthy, as a refreshing reminder to us all.
To really wring this dry one could say that Wiki is indeed crap... but Trad isn't good enough for even them.
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99826
tra la la
Semantics and petty jealousies seem to be at the heart of this particular debate.
No doubt that a caricature distillation of the style has sprung up directly from the message boards themselves.
The andyland thread is interesting because it illustrates perfectly that there are voices for whom all this had little or no role in their lives Before Harris. Are they to be envied or pitied?
I can see how the 'Ivy' moniker isn't inclusive enough for some and in fact for a whole swathe of American society the term itself can have somewhat negative connotations.
The modern way of disseminating information seems to want to boil down often complex situations or states into easily digestible pieces. That's OK for the majority today, it would seem. The wikipedia generation deserves Trad for this reason. Most are keen to glean rather than learn: an important distinction.
For those who are happy with only a part of the story it's all fine. Similarly a more comprehensive and more detailed story is out there for those who wish to soak it all up.
They're only clothes. But what clothes.
Last edited by Alex Roest (2009-11-19 06:56:58)