'Plain' is the word TRS chooses, in another thread. Patrick Nahman, quite likely in an e-mail to me many years ago, said something along the lines of an Ivy suit going out of its way not to draw attention to itself. This would appear to rule out, for example, seersucker; which seems a pity. Still, I understood, I think, what Mr. Nahman was getting at.
My own experience of suits in recent years has been largely confined to Brooks Brothers (their shirts and ties, too) but I realise the scope is much wider than that.
Two-piece? Three-piece?
If you trawl through the 'Talk Ivy' archives you'll find a poster dismissing - if memory serves me well - a three-piece suit (specifically in tweed, I seem to recall) as not Ivy League. TRS politely but firmly told him he was wrong. Speaking for myself, I loved the three-piece tweed Brooks Brothers suit I briefly wore and thought it Old School Ivy with knobs on. I felt like a Republican politician during the Eisenhower years or a staid adviser to young Senator Kennedy. I suspect a regimental-style tie accompanied it in those days (2009); certainly cordovan wingtips.
I don't nowadays. Do you? Who does?
I observed the nasty, shiny suits worn with clown shoes at my daughter's wedding last August. I'd been told it wasn't formal (and it wasn't) so attended in a crisp Mercer shirt (courtesy of farrago all those years ago), an Alan Paine slipover, navy cords and Florsheim Imperial PTBs. At her first wedding, in 2011, I'd attended in a navy Brooks two-piece and my father in a (borrowed, from me) Brooks two-piece 'democratic': tan wash n'wear style (is that correct? The suit is long gone).
I did a couple year stint as a furniture salesman. The job involved a fair amount of lifting, carrying and scrambling around in warehouses - plus it actually worked better to look like a slightly struggling salesman than a well off one. It was a uniform for work and I didn't feel the need to spend a lot or go mod/Ivy or whatever I was into at the time. So Next more than sufficed.
Apart from that, in my whole adult life I think I've had occassion to wear a suit maybe a dozen times. Weddings/funerals, Nobody's looking at me, and often I'm one of only a few that have even bothered, so no need for anything other than a quick trip to M&S. Always grey. Yes I could go for a classic tailored number and have it altered as the years go by, but at the rate I'd wear it, it wouldn't be any kind of investment.
I like the idea of a decent three piece herringbone tweed for winter and an olive poplin wash and wear for summer. But there they'd hang.
It's an item of clothing that has fallen away as a wardrobe staple. I wonder what posters like Uncle Ian and KingstonIan think of that.
Not that long ago, doing a bit of research on English menswear retailers in the high street, I chanced upon the claim that the average English male once bought a new suit about every two years. This I find difficult to believe.
My first adult suit came from Harry Fenton in 1977. An older friend, a former Mod, assured me that the wearing of a suit was a guaranteed passport to sexual nirvana. I'm sure he didn't mean to take the piss but I may as well have taken the £70 it cost and handed it out on street corners. The wearing of that suit did not make me look like Cary Grant or Sean Connery.
That does seem a pretty wild claim. Certainly those high street formal wear shops are dropping like flies. Moss Bros etc. Before they closed doors, the mens suiting areas of Debenhams were particularly unloved corners of the store.
Going back to the independant store thread the other day, you have to walk in and try a suit on don't you? I can't stand the idea that someone might sit at home and order one over the internet?
I think a suit still says something about you. Somehow, you do feel a bit taller and straighter. But for me it's a bit outside of practical to wear even a sports coat or blazer in everyday life. A suit would be going far too far. They never made me look like Grant or Connery either. But then wearing a harrington and khakis never got me mistaken for Steve McQueen.
I bought at least five suits on Ebay, only two of which turned out to be truly satisfactory. Not something I'd recommend or would do myself again but, in those days, Ebay Com. was relatively easy to deal with. Then American sellers must have decided they'd all like second homes in Malibu and began charging absurd rates for shipping. It's the same on ABE with books. Now, since leaving the EU, some of our continental friends are also trying it on a touch.
AFS - 'Plain' is the word TRS chooses, in another thread. Patrick Nahman, quite likely in an e-mail to me many years ago, said something along the lines of an Ivy suit going out of its way not to draw attention to itself. This would appear to rule out, for example, seersucker; which seems a pity.
- Ivy from a British viewpoint with the according emphasis on self proclaimed rules thrown in, of course seersucker suits would certainly come within the American idea of the look, even if they don't quite sit right over here. Having said that, if I was only allowed one suit it would definitely be my plain grey Brooks two piece, the perfect blank canvas for shirt and tie combo artistry.
The tailored wool suit is needed for formal occasions; hatchings, matchings and dispatchings, other than that where does the average guy wear one unless he works in a role where that type of dress is expected? The days of men putting on a suit and tie to take their wife to the pub on a Saturday night are ancient history.
But I don't think it's all over for the suit. Companies like Drakes and John Simons are producing laid back unstructured suits from fabrics like corduroy, cotton, linen, lightweight Tweed and seersucker. Even Vetra workwear type suits. These have to be the way forward for the dedicated sartorialist who wants to be hip. They have to be'casualed up' with patterned shirts, knitted ties, loafers and even sneakers. With the current suspicion and fright of formal dress you have to let everyone know that you are cool and smart, but you're not up yourself, or trying to make out that you are something that you are not, in fact you're a really chilled out person and to demonstrate that you are wearing desert boots with your carelessly thrown on slack jacket suit. Who cares if Ian Strachan didn't wear these sort of suits. Make like Mick Jagger used to, Ivy moves on.
What did Mick Jagger do?
I find the idea of wearing a suit with sneakers pretty odd, although I did wear a navy Brooks two-piece with loafers.
Google 'Mick Jagger suit and trainers' there's plenty there.
'What are those lines around your mouth, Mick?'
'They're laughter lines'.
'Nothing's that funny'.
It was too late in the evening to Google pictures of Sir Mick in his suit and trainers. Now it's too early in the morning. In fact, the entire ghastly business is best left to the imagination, don't you agree?
Now, where are those wonderful images of the Ivy Shop, Richmond, Ian Strachan, Sir John Lally and TRS?
The dustbin of history perhaps?
I always wore suits from Sunday Best(with short trousers) to work. I could buy off the peg with a reasonable fit.
I felt comfortable in a suit, though the Sunday Best was only worn for a few hours and then changed out of.
I never understood the people who resented having to dress for work. I thought they were lucky not getting their hands dirty.
English tailoring in a suit looks better provided you are in reasonable shape. Natural shoulders is oversold and nipped in at the waist just looks so much better.
I do have Ivy jackets - but no Ivy suit. I still wear a suit if I go up town - but not locally. I am not sure I am in any hurry to buy a new suit either.
At the Oval yesterday I wore a blazer - an English one with metal buttons - not the Hardy and Johnson one with plain buttons. Polo shirt and navy merino v neck. Khakis and astorflex desert boots. Most were wearing sports apparel though there was an occasional Panama hat that looked pretty good. This was in the case in the stands and also the members area where I met up with pals. You can spot the cricket types when you get off at Vauxhall station. The same with beer festivals though the cricketers are usually in better shape and there are fewer t shirts
‘Juventus head coach Massimiliano Allegri praised Carlo Ancelotti for guiding Real Madrid to the final of the Champions League by describing him as a 'classic' blue or grey suit that never goes out of fashion.’
Hopefully the Italian is proved right.
I enjoyed wearing my Ralph suits to work. they were an Anglo-American hybrid.
Natural shoulders but darted. Their tailors would then create additional waist suppression for that classic v look.
At the time the suits were made by Cornealani in Italy but the fabrics were very American in flavour.
I favoured a 3/2 soft roll on the coat, ideally with a ticket pocket, with flat front trousers, side adjustors and taper to 15" bottoms.
I hated wearing formal shoes and preferred loafers with my suits, especially tassels. I felt that was more American.
Out walking, I remembered I'd read somewhere about Sir Prick wearing his suit/sneakers combo to a wedding. Hopefully they ejected him.
Woody Allen can be seen wearing sneakers with a tuxedo. Possibly - as with the OAP Strolling Bone - his tootsies were hurting.
But, as Al once said, toot-toot-tootsie goodbye...
The late Charlie Watts, by far the coolest of that appalling mob, wore nice suits, didn't he? Hadn't some of them belonged to the Duke Of Windsor? I bet Charlie wore proper shoes or bench-made boots.
Charlie had a temperature controlled area roughly the same size as most of our houses for his hand made shoes.
Fair play to him too. I love the photos of him on exotic beaches. Shirt and tie. Trouser legs rolled up a couple of times. Probably rolling his eyes while Keef dicked about in coconut trees.
Never been a fan of their music though.
Off-topic but I paid around £5.50 to Harvey Goldsmith in the blazing summer of 1976 to sit in a field with a lot of stinking hippies for the dubious pleasure of being kept waiting hour upon hour by Jagger and his cronies. They were sipping champagne backstage with Jack, Anjelica and various other fuckwits. Now, if they gave a free concert in the meadow outside my house I'd draw the blinds, reach for my ear-plugs and wait for it all to fade and pass. Rock music is the biggest lot of fucking cack ever foisted upon a gullible public. Full marks to Woody Allen for stating publicly how much he hated it all and for digging cool cats like Alphonse Picou.
I donated or sold most of my suits before COVID. Just not that many opportunities to wear one anymore, and I'm not happy about it.
Plus at some point in the not-too-distant future I will have to downsize and I want to be ready to go.
SO now I am down to the bare minimum: one navy, one medium grey POW plaid, one charcoal, one tan poplin, plus a seersucker and a shawl collar tux, which I have never worn in public.
As one suit would be the "bare minimum" for 99.9% of the male population, you now know how I think and why it is so hard to get rid of anything.
Mmm - well obviously a formal wool suit would look odd with sneakers. As I thought I had made clear, I was referring to unstructured suits made from cotton, corduroy, linen etc which are already on the on the casual end of the spectrum to begin with. I cited Mick Jagger as someone who had done this style to good effect, naturally not in an Ivy way and of course not in a way that any of the venerable Richmond Hill or Talk Ivy demigods would approve of either. But it is a cool look when done well and probably the future of suits for now.
In fact I only mentioned Mick Jagger in the context of wearing suits in a relaxed manner, not putting him up as someone who will be seen in future millennia as an artiste who made an indelible.mark on the history of music, to be be mentioned in the same breath as Beethoven or Mozart, no not at all. Some of the Stones early hits, songs we all probably grew up with, stick in my mind. But having looked through their discography, the last song they recorded that that I can remember is Start Me Up from 1981. Since then anything new I've heard from them always seems to sound more or less the same. A winning formula, are far as their fans are concerned anyway, churned out for forty years, who can blame them? I'm afraid if I was given tickets for one of their stadium concerts I would look for someone to give them away to.
Best of luck with that one, Woof. It wouldn't be me. Harvey Goldsmith had my five quid (plus booking fee).