Last edited by edmorel (2007-04-07 09:02:38)

Generally speaking when a person gets dressed they need to have some sense of what they are choosing and for what purpose.

You can’t always dress for "elegance" nor can you always dress for the science of effect on your audience or to make you look more like the ideal man or body type of the moment. Speaking of ideal, I don't think there is an objectively ideal way to get dressed now that there are so many lifestyle and clothing choices.

Used to be that a man went to work in his suit, came home, went to the movies in the same suit, went roller skating or to the ball game all in the same suit. That was as much about discretionary income and rigid social controls as it was d rive to look elegant. Not that torturing oneself over it all will do much good. You're not going to get that genie back in the bottle with essays about lamenting the way things used to and still should be.

Beware clothing choices and style advice based mostly on nostalgia or a belief that the past was a better social model A lot of people who lived in the past would’ve told you they were miserable in clothes that were indeed designed to keep them in line. Today men want to look handsome, they want to look prosperous and powerful and they above all want to look like they have all their faculties and are in touch with the world around them, unless you deal in antiquities.

But if you went to a financial advisor and he was in a stroller, how would that strike you? If you were a woman (a normal one) and a man approached you in a hotel lounge in a stroller how would you react? How would you react if a woman wearing clothes from the 1940s with her hair done up that way approached you and you found out it wasn’t for a costume party?

The past is important but it should be blended with the present not mimicked. Wearing that boiled wool in 18 ounces isn’t for me and it isn’t for the great bulk of well adjusted men. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with reenactment, millions of Americans don the mantle of civil war soldiers and pay homage to an interesting time in our history, they gather at Gettysburg and other former battlefields and they have a terrific time but they still don’t wear it to work unless they’re in the business of making the uniforms.

I realize that I love old movies and I admit that I adopt certain things from them but in updated weights and fabric finishes. Textile weaving is almost all respects BETTER than in the past. Suit making is in many respects is also BETTER than in the past. There is no way I am wearing a 15 ounce flannel suit, there is no way I am going to suggest that someone who doesn’t have a vascular disorder to wear one either. There's no need to put yourself through the motions just because the ancients did it. I love pinning my collars but I am pinning modern cottons not vintage ones from the 1940s. I love Double breasted chalk stripes but they are in 9 oz super 120s.

On the subject of elegance. Be careful with this one. Being elegant is not a trump all. Elegance is not universal. If you haven’t got a knack for it and overdo it, I will think someone else dressed you. I have seen few other things worse than men I get the sense someone else dressed. They always look like lost children hoping for approval. Develop your own style. Otherwise you run the risk of doing it wrong and looking like a poseur.

I get the impression that some believe you can win the day by dressing elegantly by employing all the undeniably "elegant" principles at once in a dress by the numbers sort of way. And that raises the image of someone sashaying into a room sideways as if to promote their superiority by virtue of their stylishness or attention to over detail.  I haven’t seen that work outside of people in the fashion industry. Only in very rare situations if a man really knows his style and owns it, this can work.

But I think if you work with others, and outside of special circumstances, you should dress well but not dress "too" well. Do concentrate on fit and quality; don't load up on every single bell and whistle. Too many men wrongly believe they look like drones before they ever master fit, they then get as many different articles as they can and end up looking callow and artificial especially if they are still poorly fitted.

I think it bad for most men not in the style industry for another man to marvel at his style or clothes during the course of business for that one instant too long. At this point what you’re actually doing becomes less important than what you’re trying to accomplish. Presentation is important but so is respect.

It depends on who you are too. I am not necessarily talking about your height, weight, build, skin color etc... Though you can keep that in mind. I am talking about how you come across to others. If you are a grim, shark expressioned person then do you do yourself good by wearing a flourish of accessories? Won't all those festive decorations underscore what a sour puss you are?

It's somewhat of a sliding scale. Most men can wear and occasional light yellow this or pink that but if you’re effeminate and in a macho industry, do you want to wear dark suits with white shirts and dark ties, or do you want to wear light shoes and ties to underscore the feminine side? Likewise if you come across as threatening and you’re in sales, do you really want to wear a black solid suit? Maybe that was  bad choice for an illustration but anything that comes across as powerful or intimidating might be a bad choice in that situation.

There should be a balance between elegance and practical science and between past and present. There should also be a real hard look at who you are and what the clothes you wear are accomplishing the desired effect you want. I wear what I wear because it's me and it works for me in a positive fashion.

But I don't presume that everyone needs to wear what I wear to be well dressed or that there need be no further innovation on my part. Some of the same things that arouse admiration on me might arouse scorn on someone else and the reverse.

If I were selecting things for someone else to wear I would do my best to make sure it fit them both personality wise and physically; that it fit their lifestyle/location and intended purpose whether it was business or leisure.

It's amusing how many threads on the various forae ask "is this ok?", as if guys are afraid that someone across the country they've never met will somehow disapprove of their choices, not taking into account what *he* himself thinks of his own choices.