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#1 2008-05-24 19:08:38

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

No brown in town?


Back with a vengeance.

 

#2 2008-05-24 19:25:57

Cruz Diez
Member
Posts: 1950

Re: No brown in town?

Awesome.

 

#3 2008-05-24 20:04:46

The_Shooman
A pretty face
From: AUSTRALIA
Posts: 13179

Re: No brown in town?

Awesome. Been waiting for someone to start about this.


Anyone abide by all the old rules? Anyone avoid wearing brown/shades of brown clothing in town, or anyone who won't wear brown shoes after dark? Anyone who won't wear brown shoes at all?

Last edited by The_Shooman (2008-05-24 20:08:50)

 

#4 2008-05-24 21:16:30

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

Re: No brown in town?


Back with a vengeance.

 

#5 2008-05-24 21:20:57

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

Re: No brown in town?


Back with a vengeance.

 

#6 2008-05-24 21:30:31

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

Re: No brown in town?


Back with a vengeance.

 

#7 2008-05-24 21:35:52

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

Re: No brown in town?


Back with a vengeance.

 

#8 2008-05-25 01:51:22

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

Welcome to London!

There is a class element here too (of course). 'The rules' are middle class wannabe indicators. They always were over here.

There's an old expression that it's always Sunday afternoon on the Brompton Road (or something like that) meaning that the dreary middle class you see around Brompton Road are always in their boring 'Sunday best' whilst in Belgravia yer real Gents are rocking their wardrobes any way they choose. And why shouldn't they? They don't have to worry about losing their job at the bank...

Equally the working class just like the upper class had more freedom too.

It's a nice point which the writers of encyclopedias of how to dress often miss out: To dress according to 'the rules' is to dress like a drone, a dullard, a pretentious pleb. Which is how the rest of the world will see you even if you don't see it yourself.

J.

 

#9 2008-05-25 05:41:54

Kingstonian
Member
From: sea to shining sea
Posts: 3205

Re: No brown in town?

In all these old photos I notice there is no break in the trousers, though they are never too short either.

Requires effort to get it just so, but a great look.

 

#10 2008-05-25 14:40:09

Incroyable
Member
Posts: 2310

Re: No brown in town?


Jukebox Babe

 

#11 2008-05-25 23:14:38

Horace
Member
Posts: 6432

Re: No brown in town?


""This is probably the last Deb season...because of the stock market, the economy, Everything..." - W. Stillman.

 

#12 2008-05-26 05:22:46

Sator
Member
Posts: 283

Re: No brown in town?

Last edited by Sator (2008-05-26 20:31:01)


http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum

 

#13 2008-05-26 05:49:00

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

Hmmmmm - Lots of problems here...

The Houses of Parliament aren't really representative of anything. Politicians are just people doing a job in England. They have no exalted class or status over here. If anything they are viewed as a bunch of misfits. Who would do such a crappy job for such low pay? They wear cautious clothes as they don't want look like anybody the masses wouldn't vote for.

The House of Lords is unrepresentative of anything as well. It's a place of work. Increasingly the Lords there aren't real Lords at all. In the past they just dressed up in regalia to do their stuff. Photos of them off duty would be more revealing.

Yeah, there was a time when everybody wore suits with a whole inbuilt class stystem of cut, cloth & colour. The most colourful stuff was worn by the Aristos, the Middle class were cautious as ever & the Working class enjoyed a little more freedom. Brown in Town is far more Aristo than Working Class, and Middle class types like our politicians wouldn't touch it.

More bland facts I'm afraid.

 

#14 2008-05-26 06:28:34

Nemesis
Member
Posts: 439

Re: No brown in town?

Sator, your points are well taken, but my proposition here is that brown was not alien in town, and these brown "town suits" were sufficiently commonplace that their color was not remarked upon.  There is a clear inference that in the post-war era brown suits were acceptable in town.  I speculate that they were less acceptible in "the city", and in parliament, court rooms and so on.  Clearly, however, brown suits were acceptable wear not only in the country.


Back with a vengeance.

 

#15 2008-05-26 06:45:42

Sator
Member
Posts: 283

Re: No brown in town?


http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum

 

#16 2008-05-26 07:33:10

Tony Ventresca
Member
Posts: 5132

Re: No brown in town?

Brown in town? But the rules, the rules...

Nemesis, when you are done mining your source for those photos please pass it on to the rest of us.

 

#17 2008-05-26 07:39:45

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

 

#18 2008-05-26 07:54:12

Tony Ventresca
Member
Posts: 5132

Re: No brown in town?

 

#19 2008-05-26 07:55:55

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

 

#20 2008-05-26 08:07:52

Sator
Member
Posts: 283

Re: No brown in town?


http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum

 

#21 2008-05-26 08:20:45

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

I absolutely agree that Albert was the great English turning point from 18th century ideas of Aristocratic dress to what were to become 19th Century norms.

... And I also (oddly) agree with you about the DOW - He dressed down by early 20th century standards, yet he was at the same time evoking an 18th century Aristocrats pose of forever being at play. A really double-edged ploy - He looked democratic in his dress, but he was in fact evoking an earlier world of endless Aristocratic leisure.

Albert would have hated him!

 

#22 2008-05-26 08:29:05

Sator
Member
Posts: 283

Re: No brown in town?

I must confess that my admiration is all for Albert. It is his legacy of serious minded (Germanic actually) hard work for his adopted country that the modern day British family have adopted - and from this stems their disdain for the DOW and his foppish frivolity.


http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum

 

#23 2008-05-26 08:37:24

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

 

#24 2008-05-26 09:21:37

Taylor McIntyre
Son of Ivy...
Posts: 342

Re: No brown in town?

Fun to think about is the time when Albert was the 'New Guard' and how he must have looked to the colourful 18th Centrury style Old Guard of his day. Or even how Albert must have looked to the Brummell inspired Dandies who also preceeded him. Because their sober palette was very different in intent to his.

Post-Albert we all think that rigid sartorial rules are "Traditional", but there is a sense in which he was just a rather sober blip in the history of menswear when you look at what came before him & what came after.

Gentlemen, I give you Two Men In Black: Beau Brummell & Prince Albert. Very different coves.

Who do you vote for?

J.


(Or instead of voting you could get the thread back on track?)

 

#25 2008-05-26 09:53:35

Admiral Cod
Member
Posts: 412

Re: No brown in town?

A former resident of Albertropolis, I vote for the Prince. wink


"You will find that men of style and their adherents are considered either political enemies of the people or reckless, gluttoness consumers while most live in squalor" - FNB

 

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