unpolished, broken down weejuns for the weekends
all pant must have cuffs (except for my tuxedo)
but thats just me
Despite saying "Cuffs a must!" on the cover, the OPH does say that the weight of material should dictate to cuff or not to cuff.
A nuance lost by some...
Bulk is the issue here - Especially if one ventures into Harris' 2" cuffs as being 'correct'.
Personally, I cuff far more often than I don't. But I'm not so much of a fool as to make up a law about it..
Last edited by Russell_Street (2009-12-29 06:21:45)
1. Natural yes.........shabby NO.
2. No facial hair.
3. Create a framework to work within.
4. Play with the look, but stay within your framework.
5. Wear some colour sometimes.
6. No pleats.
7. Never rule out a darted jacket (eg:- some fine european natural shoulder jkts have darts).
8. My rules, so I can break em anytime I want, and justify it.
9. I can add and subtract rules anytime I want.
My rules:
1) Don't fuck with the look! You can wear something for fun, but you don't wanna look funny. There's no way you can wear something in an ironic way. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers were funny... 1990s easy listening hipstershit fashions were.. supposed to be funny...
2) Whatever looks good with someone else...
Make sure it looks good with you, too! One sober look in the mirror before leaving the flat, and another one, maybe after pissing... when washing your hands... (there's wash your hands and comb your hair guys, you know?)
I miss him, too.
The Macchiato Man rules on the JS page belong here...
They're completely individual, yet MM acknowledged the influence that older guys had on his sense of style...
He talks about the rules that "filtered down" to him, if I remember... It's about learning the suss, in a way, it's about understanding something you already knew within, if that doesn't sound too much like crude Eastern philosophy or hippie bullshit;)...
It's style as a process and it's deeply modernist, just like Bauhaus rules or the MJQ grooving on Ellington, Bach and Django...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAtRCJIqnk
15, hmmm, 10...
Pink if on drugs!
Macchiato Man rules!
define "natural shoulder" for the uninitiated. slight padding, like in a brooks suit, allowed? a tiny bit around the armhole? how about harris tweed coats that are stiff in the shoulder but have no padding?
My experience to date is that they fall, broadly, into three categories (quick and dirty explanation with no specialist knowledge...):
- the 'Brooks'-style shoulder you mention, clearly padded but in its better incarnations a soft and a natural line. Watch out for versions that are too square though (the 'worst' culprits I own are from J. Press).
- the stiffer more angular shoulder on some tweeds, feels unpadded, often on simpler garments (often seen on 1970s, 1980s sacks). Sometimes good, sometimes less so.
- the king of natural shoulders, unpadded and very soft, you should be able to fold the jacket and pinch both shoulders between the fingers and thumb of one hand, they should compress to the material alone. These are generally higher-roll mid-60s jackets and have more detailing (hook vent, raised seams).
Some more unconnected ramblings on sack jackets:
The type of shoulder seems to have been dependent on the material and formality.
A summer-weight worsted would need a little more construction than a heavier tweed or nubby hopsack to look good. A casual madras could get away with less padding.
There is construction in all of these shoulders, ideally it cannot be felt as they are very soft. And it is softness you have to look for in the very best of these jackets.
I washed a bleeding madras sack jacket a while back, could have sworn was there was absolutely zero shaping or construction in the shoulders - but there was, it hardened after drying (happily, it softened back with wear).
Again, just observations and thoughts from wearing these things regularly. Others will be able to make more qualified statements and explain more lucidly.
^Not a bad attempt at all, though
I used to love it when J. Simons had Slack jackets folded in the window like you would fold a sweater.
Maybe that could be a test?
Fold your jacket like a sweater & see how it looks.