This man is exquisitely dressed. I will doubtless be doing an essay touching on the African American contribution to our nation's sense of style. It is part of the reason America has its own unique and relaxed sense of being well dressed and a dandy.

The picture on the top shows him wearing a flap welt breast pocket (no button) which i think is very cool.

If you have more photos, keep 'em coming.

All three photos are of Ralph Ellison. An American author(Invisible Man). He was a dandy and a top customer of the Andover shop as well as being close friends with the owner. While he grew up in poverty, he loved clothes from an early age. Ellison said that as a child he observed that there were two kinds of people, those "who wore their everyday clothes on Sunday, and those who wore their Sunday clothes every day. I wanted to wear Sunday clothes every day."

I wonder if we should start a thread on writers and clothing.  Ellison's quotation, above, about Sunday clothes every day, reminds me that T.S. Eliot wanted to look good, even if he were a failure.  That is, at least he'd look good, if he never made something of himself.   I mashed up the quotation, I'm afraid, but it was of that sentiment.  If memory serves, Alan Tate and many other southern writers (where's AlanC!), thought that he wrote best when he came to his table in coat and tie.

Last edited by Afro Saxon (2006-05-26 17:19:42)

http://www.bookforum.com/Price.html

Ellison was a terrible snob and , from my view as a Black man, one of the worst type of Blacks. So that quote strikes me as very true.