Heh! Should be no shame, sir, in wearing what is at hand. I think that's part of where The Style came from, making do with what was available. Not going to great strides to invent and "bespoke" everything but taking the best of the good and sticking to timeless interpretation.

Sure, The Style came about when it was widely available (in the US) and now, it's not so much. But the core survives even if it drives me nuts trying to find exactly the right grossgrain watch strap when I'm picking up a replacement OCBD.

That's something else, too, about the "time capsule" part. Generally speaking when and Ivy man has got his wardrobe together he no longer needs to shop for the new but simply replaces what's worn out or damaged. Since the original goods tended to last a long time relative to trendy, disposable clothing, whole companies may have changed, their products changed and the world trended on before he notices it's finally time to get new Weejuns as the old pair, on its third resole, simply won't go on any longer. The shock of finding out that Bass not only abandoned Maine as a manufacturing base but also seems to get off on "shiny" surfaces even more than Homer Simpson is real. Yet we endure because even a shiny Weejun can be dealt with and is preferable to some gawd-awful, square-toed clomper.

So is it a time capsule? Sort of, but not one that is sealed up. It provides vintage examples of what to look for even when it's not easily available. Brooks may have removed most all-cotton OCBDs from their stores but they're still around and looking much like they did fifty years ago. One just has to know where to look.

The e.g. you use of Weejuns is very apt, as in all honesty the modern ones are not worth a light to the originals.  Fortunately other loafers are available today that just about compare favourably to those of the past - there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Hopefully.

Modern Weejuns are ok though, wear them with pride.

Last edited by Yuca (2011-06-24 03:21:04)

A lot of new is crap but that's really not just limited to Ivy or any other style...goes across the spectrum of consumer goods.  But some things are also made more efficiently or are usefully lighter (computers, and, depending on your taste, cars and tennis racquets).

At any rate, I wear the new weejuns as well. Never really went to the trouble of looking for Wiltons because I wear them so much (and so hard) that it would be pointless to find a nice vintage pair.  My current pair of newbies has lasted through 3 resoles however, so they seem to be holding up okay.  I have some vintage suits which I was lucky enough to inherit or find at a great Junior League shop before I moved, but mostly I work with what's available today. And since it's readily available in my part of the world, it doesn't seem like a time capsule.

Wood racquets man.  I don't know.  It's like cars before power steering I suppose.  You didn't know differently.  I need to take up the racquet again.  Good times.  Close as I've gotten is Zug's book on squash I read a few years ago. 

The old squash rackets though -- they required a different game, didn't they?   More finesse -- maybe not so much a power game.   Definitely a game of endurance though. 


That said, old Weejuns were just made better.  The leather was superior, as was the construction.  The newer things are an abomination.

Remember though, that there was a time when Maine & Massachusetts were making a lot of shoos.  I don't know the percentage, but I posted here a while back about a guy who worked at Dexter and then Johnston & Murphy.  Now it's what?  98% imported, or more?

The only thing that's bullshit is that Made in USA was always synonymous with quality.  That was or isn't true.  It only seems that way in retrospect.  We had a lot of stuff made in the USA (shoos, shirts, suits) that were middling or even lower-grade and we had (and still have) some higher quality stuff.  But Made in America wasn't this sort of tag that equaled quality the way people appear to think of it today.

Did you know that the Japanese got that reputation because of the "Made in Occupied Japan" stuff they were churning out? It wasn't what they wanted to make but rather what they were ordered to make by their conquerors. As soon as America withdrew they got back to making the sort of quality things they liked to make. For the most part.

The whole "Made in America" thing as far as cars go has been quite the marketing farce since at least the early 80's. Who was the largest importer of foreign cars in to the US then? GM. Who made more of their cars in the US than any other brand? Honda. The car I drive now was made in the US with, according to the government-mandated disclosure, 80% US-made parts. The car? A Toyota. And it's just as madly silly overseas as here. Open the hood of a late 80's Rolls Royce and you would likely be confronted with the word "Seiko" in chrome letters, which would be sitting just above the transmission housing, a Turbohydromatic from GM. The Mini is made by BMW, Jaguar is owned by the Indians and Volvo is Chinese. About the only truly Made in America car right now is Tesla. Gives a man a headache trying to sort it all out!

But I do agree, completely, one one thing I think several are speaking about, especially in terms of clothing: the global "race to the bottom" has certainly, overall, cheapened just about everything. However, now that we've hit bottom, perhaps we'll see a return to quality as a means of competing for customers. Can China "make a high end piece of clothing/machinery/sports equipment as well as the U.S., England, Austria, Japan"? I think we may be about to see.

Modern Weejuns continue to get the thumbs-down of course.  But they're inexpensive.

The Weejun summed up the state of Bass shoes in his blog years back, and TRS has echoed those sentiments.

IS did wear Sebago, and I gather he took enough to last him a lifetime when he retired to the Forest of Dean, but they too have gone downhill IMO as they have recently collaborated with Baracuta.

It's mostly nostalgia - for something that I never experienced: odd, isn't it? - that keeps me wearing the stuff: loafers or otherwise.  I've no interest in Vetra, Paraboot, chore jackets, pop star Fair Isle sweaters and a good many other things.  I certainly have no interest in Bass Weejuns or Clarks' desert boots.  I really, really like Astorflex, though: Italian and kind to my feet.  But my buying days are virtually over.  I aim to die before I'm seventy, being largely pissed off with so much, so the stuff I own will probably see me through.