Last edited by dryplum (2013-12-26 04:51:51)

of course .. because society in Britain no longer believes drug taking is morally wrong in itself, when the middle classes take drugs they usually pay for it with their bloated professional and corporate salaries, whereas when the underclass indulge it is usually on the back of criminal enterprise or subsidised by benefits.

During surgical residency there were many intense nights bet patient's life and death, tiredness laced with many many cups of coffee, mad sex in hidden rooms with nurses, loud pointless arguments with superiors and underlings, etc. In this context I first tried cocaine- hated it, it was just like my life at the time and what the f**k did I want more of the same for?!
I think cocaine appeals to depressives or people who lack excitement in their lives. What would have done it for me or many other residents would have been a sedative to make me not give a f**k, like heroin. In fact many do, but what they use is Fentanyl, a synthetic analogue of morphine with a quick onset of action and short half life. The problem, and luckily for the rest of us because it's an ever present warning, is that Fentanyl users crash and burn quickly and get expelled from the training programs with sufficient frequency that you always know one of the casualties.

Well, lets be honest Harvie and Hudson sell a crock of shit .. shirts are cheap and nasty in every way possible ... RTW clothing they sell is even worse. Its a miracle this place is still going, which is why there are periodic rumours its finally blown up. But its cheap as you can find in the West End before going to mingle with the crowd in M&S.

T&A is grossly overpriced, sells a passable shirt though, with a lot of choice in terms of patterns & cuff choices etc.

You either get a lousy shirt for a song, or a decent shirt & a nosebleed at the till. Choice is yours.

plum

Last edited by dryplum (2013-12-28 10:48:09)

RTW Budd (although often limited choice) & sometimes RTW T&A (mainly for choice as they make things like candy stripes which Budd don't). Also, wear the thick blue Brooks Brothers oxford button down collar shirts around the house & on local errands.

Last edited by dryplum (2013-12-28 11:13:57)

The distinction is a false one, although appealing it may be to hold onto, as it gives one the feeling that there are clear levels of quality in an ordered world. In reality all of the Jermyn Street shirt makers are struggling in order to hold onto a business model which no longer works. All of the ones you named above have in desperation to survive moved to cheaper methods of production, to lower costs in order to increase sales. They have realised there isn't the customer base left out for all of them to make high quality 'English' style shirts at a premium price point. All have slid one after another into a spiral of cost cutting and discounting to try and make things work. H&K is the last one to have done this, H&H before them and the former names did it long ago and have now hit the point where they sell £20 shirts.

At the end of the day, most men these days only wear shirts under a cheap suit in some mundane office job, they don't care what they look like as long as it fits the remit of looking 'professional'. They spend their clothing budget on going out clothes which are invariably casual wear .. designer jeans, casual jackets e.g. leather jackets like the now popular belstaff one, the more affluent would blow cash on the kind of stuff you see sold on 'Mr Porter', you get the idea.

My personal opinion is that H&K actually sells a worse quality shirt than TM Lewin. Their shops on Jermyn street don't seem to do any trade during most of the year at a price point of £115 a shirt, then they have a bi annual sale where they 'reduce' their shirts to ~£65 or thereabouts depending on how many shirt you buy and they lure in customers with tales of quality and history like moths to the flame. Their shirts are paper thin, have loose threads galore, are poorly designed in terms of construction which is evident when ironing ones own shirts. TM Lewin shirts have better cloth, its thicker and more robust and doesn't have loose threads all over the shirt, although it is also poorly constructed but only £20 or so from one of their perpetual sale periods you cant complain too much.

Last edited by dryplum (2013-12-28 14:25:49)

Now we are getting somewhere .. beyond mere clothing & into the depths of understanding society itself. In the media business, smart casual wear in the mode popularised by ralph is the de facto uniform. In the markets, most also wear smart casual now, this includes fund managers all the way down to bottom feeding brokers. One day before a meeting with clients there may be an email telling you to wear a suit .. which raises the question do the clients also do this in which case everyone is playing dress up for the day.

Senior management everywhere seem to wear a suit as you say, guess they have to justify their spiralling wages somehow.

I don't understand why bespoke tailors, Jermyn street shirt makers, traditional shoe makers don't all move out of their exclusive Piccadilly / Mayfair addresses in London and move into the suburbs (or at least zone 2). They could probably cut their costs by a third just by doing this. How many customers are likely to be that put out by making an extra 20/30 minute journey? If they are the tailor could always visit them in their home or office as they do already for certain clients and perhaps charge them a premium for the visit.

Last edited by dryplum (2013-12-29 04:31:35)