Liam, I think your modifiers are dangling.
Do you find it hard not to think of removable collars ? Or is it hard not to think about the detachable collars that you find ?
I shall find no rest until you clarify this.
I guess we will now be treated to a discourse on the most iGent collar studs.
Pity I don’t still have my old RAF shirts with detachable collars from the late 60’s they might be worth a bit with the right promotion.
The Freudian implications of the detachable collar are clear - one removes the limp or turgid fold of cloth that visually supports the head and conceals the smooth pinkness of the neck. Can we imagine a more obvious symbol of castration? Or perhaps one might take an historical reading, in which the collar becomes a metaphorical foreskin and its detachability indicates that its wearer, regardless of his actual religion, has put on an ersatz Jewish anti-semitism, a chameleonic self loathing for the maintenance of which he must employ a whole staff of specialized artisans. As these artisans polish, clean, block, iron, torment and tease this wandering phantom foreskin the wearer experiences a pallid gasp of sexual jouissance. I mean, I could be wrong about this though.
Last edited by Gilgamesh2003 (2011-08-15 13:19:01)
^
I thought Lacan was dead...!
If I weren't typing this from my phone in an airport I could supply you with a diagram of the object cathexis of the collar as it relates to Antigone in the tomb, the mirror stage and objet petit a, though it's much as you would imagine it.
I would argue that the removable collar is an example of the increasing commodification of costume practiced by the petite bourgeoisie (i.e., the proto- iGentry) during the transition to late capitalism. The petit bourgeois becomes increasingly alienated as he is caught between the pressure applied from above by the haute-bourgeoisie and the restless rage of the proletariat seething beneath him. Balanced on the horns of this dilemma - a Scylla and Charybdis, as it were - the anxious petit bourgeois affects a wholly false insouciance by making disposable as much of his costume as possible, hence more expensive. This feigned indifference to price is characteristic of a class whose material foundation is being slowly ground away by the insatiable demands of capital to seek higher profits in places where they are not; thus, rather than rebel against his inevitable immiseration and loss of status, the petit bourgeois's alienated rage is turned inward, upon himself, and he rents his raiment in a stylized fashion by discarding the symbolic covering of his throat. There, before a mirror in his bedchamber, he can brazenly expose his throat to his own, solitary gaze; the throat that both of his antagonists would gladly tear open to wash their hands in his surging blood.
Last edited by Maximilien de Robespierre (2011-08-15 18:03:37)
^
I thought Karl Marx was dead...!!
...I'm waiting for someone to link all this up to the square root of -1
We have only interpreted the detachable collar, in various ways; the point is to change it.
What of the detachable cuff? For such a thing there once was. Wodehouse writes of them being worn by clerks to protect their shirts from ink and they were made from celluloid...
All i-Gents are Pooter to me.
Pip Pip.
Last edited by fxh (2011-08-16 00:03:56)
Sometimes I wonder if there is a hell, then every time I'm reminded of AAAC, I realise we are in fact living in it.
Speaking of which:
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?113145-quot-Only-Brown-quot-Belt-Review
Andy shills for a Singaporean retailer of Scottish belts (belts, not pelts, so do not expect a macabre pale pink and red throw rug, as I did).
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?113286-How-does-one-tell-if-a-button-hole-is-hand-sewn
Tocqueville wonders how you can tell that a buttonhole is hand-sewn, then casually mentions that a hand-sewn buttonhole implies an "at least half-canvassed" jacket. This is like claiming that a car with a hand-felled radio antenna probably has a leather interior.
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?113285-Jovan-s-issues-with-rise
"Jovan's issue with rise." In this thread the Great Twizz demonstrates that he has no issues with rise by getting a boner when a friend's grandmother tells him that he looks nice.
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?113264-My-wedding-tuxedo-please-critique
The Andyland Black Tie Brigade goes on red alert when a groom from Missouri posts a sub-par evening wear plan.
Last edited by Maximilien de Robespierre (2011-08-16 13:17:54)
Max is, as usual, right, and I think he chose the right words when he said the ultimate iCapon fantasy is to "watch" two women going at it. iGents, when faced with difficult questions like which watch band or shade of shoe polish they should buy, tend to vacillate, and to ask their internet buddies for advice, and to consult with their youth pastors, and so on. In a menage a trois I doubt that the iGent could decide the precise nature of his participation before the women had finished, showered, re-applied their makeup and gone back to whatever Groupon discounted call-girl agency the iGent had summoned them from.
Last edited by Big Tony (2011-08-16 16:24:46)
I get the same way in pubs... When I see all those people having a drink I think "I could do that!" and off I trot to the bar.