It's interesting - my parents are from Montreal. My dad, similar to Mr. Vacca, is a Mediterranean immigrant, and my mom is a French Canadian. Needless to say, they both had humble upbringings. At the time (the 50s and 60s), the Habs (Montreal Canadiens, for you non-hockey fans) were local heroes in a variety of ways.

First, as the article mentions, sports were in a transitional period during the 1950s and 1960s. As such, a lot of the players were still fairly working class guys - my dad, for example, used to live by one of the Canadiens players (I'll follow up on whom), and would occasionally wash his Cadillac for some allowance money. Putting this into perspective, my father grew up in an immigrant suburb in Montreal, my grandfather worked as a furrier in the garment district.

Second, figures like Maurice "The Rocket" Richard played out the political upheaval that was happening in Quebec at the time, between French and English Canadians, on the ice. For example, French style hockey emphasises skating and passing, and was considered 'effete'. Meanwhile, English style hockey (which is now obsolete in the analytics era), emphasised dumping the puck in the opponent's zone, and then using physicality and brute force to overcome the defense. And in Richard's case, his frequent struggles with the Anglo-controlled NHL commissioners actually led to outright rioting at one point - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Riot

So, with hockey players occupying such an iconic role in Montreal civic life, it kind of makes sense to me that the tailor defining the 'hockey look' would be based in Montreal. Interestingly, PK Subban, now of the Nashville Predators, played for the Habs for most of his career. He also, incidentally, is acknowledged as one of the more sartorially inclined hockey players. In fact, he collaborates with RW & Co, one of the franchises of the Montreal based Reitman family's clothing empire, on his own line of suits - much more affordable copies of his Giovanni looks. Now, I'm not particularly in to the Thom Browne look, but it's neat to see how Montreal continues to define the aesthetic of hockey, exclusively and popularly.

Last edited by mhalat (2019-06-20 19:01:51)

Well at least Don Cherry likes what he does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFPuMzza9hk

I mean, he is an entertainer.

He is in entertainment. It's curious the way some people approach men's clothing. With all the upheavals it has had recently, there are a lot of people who dont understand its mechanisms still inferring language that it doesn't have or doesn't have at all times. Part of it has to do with the idea among many men that clothing is more about politics and an expression about their own reliability and solidness than about the clothing itself.

Maniacally dandiacal!