Last edited by David (2007-12-12 05:27:55)
D ol B,
Cheers for much to ruminate. Definately buy the middle class trying to look upper. Also the relaxing of formality.
My difficulty is in the assertion that the uppers had previously always worn English togs. Perchance very true. I reckon that Brooks and the RTW industry always sold sack suits tho. So the "elites" adopted RTW? Interesting.
Cheers,
Trip
I guess it could be said with reliance, that the middle class always misses the joke.
A thought:
It was all middle-class stuff anyway?
But when the uppers took it up it really took off?
It then kinda fed itself. 'Clothes of the elite' - & look the elite are now wearing them to prove it!
????
^ Maybe in history, only the elites (and today, celebrities) have the power to confer acceptability on something? Maybe something floats around, being used and worn, but only when someone prominent grabs hold of it does it become imbued with aspirational totemic power?
Last edited by David (2007-12-12 08:59:01)
^ Like a giant, living Merchant Ivory film...
LOL!
Trad - The Movie!
Who could write about this? Auchincloss could view it from above. Roth? Updike? Maybe not Irving.
We need Cheever back!
A small, sad, short story entitled "The Wrong Shirt" detailing one man's make or break, life changing encounter which all hinged on whether he wore an old Sero or a new Mercer...
Last edited by David (2007-12-12 09:30:06)
Probably the association came down to one poor Jewish kid, saying to himself: "I want to believe"...
All I can say is that I love how messy the story is - The sure sign that we are nearer the truth here than all those simplistic pat explanations we see elsewhere.
... I still cherish Manton saying that his family dressed in "Trad" and that it was nonsense to say that it was all made up. Oh how much he knows about clothes!
All of this is why the Trad stuff are my play clothes. Business requires grown-up, Anglo-leaning stuff. I'm not a Cabot or a Lodge, but even a rube from The Sticks can figure that out.