How do you chaps approach a new season?
Do you for example put away all your spring / summer gear and step out resplendent in your new autumn wardrobe, never to look back?
Or do you have a kind of 'cross-over' wardrobe where you draw on items from different seasons, gradually moving towards a final break with spring / summer stuff a little later into the new season?
Perhaps you do what I recall Men in Vogue advocating a few years back namely: 'seasonless style for a temperate climate'. That was when we actually enjoyed in Britain a temperate climate.
I tend towards the middle way myself, but retaining just a few pieces as 'seasonless style', eg certain Polos. What do you do?
Wasn't it Chris H. who championed the wearing of madras half-sleeve shirts under a crew neck? I'll be going for that this autumn.
Otherwise, I jump at the chance to wear heavy footwear and tweed again.
It is only Winter stuff that really gets packed away. Woollens vacuum sealed away from moths. Coats and heavy jackets put in covers with moth balls.
The car and central heating means many do not have Winter clothes now. Even for outdoor stuff many are not wearing much.
Shorts for men in November/January still looks bizarre to me. I do not wear shorts in Summer unless I am at a beach.
I think there's a gap in the market for 'winter shorts': 9" leg in cavalry twill anyone?
I have a number of winter coats and heavier knitwear that never get worn, simply because it's never cold enough. When people say "It's freezing!" here in Britain, they just mean it's cold. It never gets really cold anymore. The kind of cold that is painful to be out in. Driving wind and snow that cuts through you that I remember as a kid. Is this Global Warming? Most of the time I don a big winter coat and I'm far too warm. It's a pity because I love my duffle coats!
I think climate change has had an effect. WE did have some proper cold weather early this year, of course, but it only lasted a few days....
You go to the City in winter and a number of younger guys can still be spotted in good coats.
I am in fact hopeful that the next generation will reject their fathers' fucking shorts and flip flops. The older man now seems to have fully embraced the look and that is a sure sign that things are set to change IMO. In fact younger teenagers around my way are wearing a lot more clothes and indeed darker colours than just two or three years ago. I am sure they won't be 'well dressed' in our parlance but maybe better dressed (or just dressed!)
Standing on the terraces at football the cold can come up through the concrete. Two pairs of socks job, thick rubber soles advised.
Seated at Craven Cottage the wind whips in off the Thames. And that is just places in London - not mentioning places like (C)Oldham.
If you go from indoors to indoors, by car, you may not be too affected by cold and rain.
I wear a mix of stuff all year, as the temp is so variable so much of the time.
My heavy coats do get used in winter here in NYC. As the late great Kirsty MacColl sang,
"They've got cars big as bars. They've got rivers of gold. But the wind goes right through you. It's no place for the old."
You pack of southern softies. Oop north at 10 below zero we contemplate a long sleeve shirt... 15 below, perhaps a jacket... 20 below, we consider putting the heating on...
Last edited by Beatnik (2009-09-04 09:11:29)
Yeah, poor KM. She was terrific.
On the subject of madras in fall, I wear my madras jackets (they're very muted, my preference) after Sep 1 when it's hot enough to require cotton. No one has been distressed by this yet, as far as I know.
I wore seersucker for the last time yesterday. I will continue to wear my poplin suits into early October, wheater permitting. Too early to break out real fall clothes in my neck of the woods.