They are not, search all you want if you like.  i dont know if i should take you remark as complimant or condemnation - how do you intend it?  it was my attempt this past weekend to find out if these stories i had been given were true or not.  ive seen the photos and they are true.  it is probably all very sillly to most people but it is my family history so i take it sort of personal - i hope you understand

He's the sweetest cat I think because he doesn't want a name on the MBs. He knows that the MBs are nothing.

He posts sometimes & PMs, but as for empire building he's way beyond it.

I'll check my archive of his works & bring you more.

I'm glad you dig him.

I'm a hellova fan too.

Jim

http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80116

Good stuff by Duke and Pollock on this thread.

Class Climbers, Clothes and How to Pull It All Off

Mike, our original poster, asked me to share some remembrances about clothing and family history.  He was rather keen via PM, so I responded and, at his urging, I'm sticking it here.  It's long and perhaps misses the mark at times, but here it is.

Mike, I think, asked me to do this based on a list of seven tradly commandments I've posted elsewhere.  He thought it might be the result of a tradly upbringing.  The truth is somewhat different.

The list was created with a somewhat jocular intent, but I think its a pretty good summary of the Trad mindset and dress style.  You really only have to observe the Ask Andy trad forum for about one day, or read the Official Preppy Handbook to ferret it out.  It's really amusing that some of them find it all so mysterious when there's really nothing to it.  The list is not the result of some sort of tradly inheritance from my dad.

I did, however, inherit a lot from Dad where clothes are concerned.  He always seemed well and appropriately dressed for any occasion.  He likes clothes but is not fussy about them (though I am) and doesn't spend what I spend on them.  If he knew what I lay out for shoes or a suit (and I'm not spending at the top end like some of the guys here), he'd give me a dark scowl.  He just sort of wears what was always right. 

That, I suppose, brings in the family background part.  We're not the scions of some family of East Coast Establishment types.  We're from a small town in Pennsylvania.  My great grandfather somehow escaped working in the coal mines and started a number of business ventures, legal and otherwise.  He was a bit of a dandy and a womanizer.  When I was in kindergarten, he was still alive and dating my teacher's mother!  The old boy probably started the family dressing well, though. 

His son, my grandfather, built the business enough to be considered successful and have some amenities like a shore house.  He was a war generation guy and dressed pretty much like the war generation did.  Some working class influence crept in even when he was suited, like short sleeve dress shirts.  There was little pretence about him, unlike some of the Trads.  I remember him doing work around the shore house in a pair of deck sneakers, cutoff jeans shorts and a Snavely Whiplash t-shirt.

The shore house probably exerted a lot of influence on our dress as a family.  Casually, we generally wore khakis (short or long, pleated or plain as fashion or preference dictated), boat shoes and polos or button-downs. T-shirts and jeans crept in here and there. For any social occasion that required more, the uniform was blue blazer, chinos, loafers and ties.  This was pretty normal at the shore, but more unusual at home.  By the 80s, this unofficial uniform and a little bit of money marked us out as some sort of preppies despite the fact that none of us had ever set foot in a prep school.

I've skipped over my Dad.  I've seen pictures of him in college in the late 60s with some of his friends.  College for him was a school in the southwest, so nothing grand, old or tradly.   The group  in the photo were clean-cut American kids of the day.  They wore button-down shirts, tan or grey flat-fronted pants and solid sweaters.  They had a basically scrubbed appearance that the Trads would appreciate.  They weren't this way as a result of any particular birthright.  It's just what you wore if you weren't a hippy or a roper.

Growing up, I watched Dad go to the office.  His motto, because of the business he's in, was always "look competent, not opulent."  And so he always did.  I doubt he wore sack suits as we were then at least four hours away from Brooks Brothers or JPress and Dad probably wouldn't to this day know how one is different than any other suit.  He always looked good in suits or odd jackets and had style without being overdone.  He really didn't need anything fancy as he's tall and thin (Traits I didn't inherit.  I'm shorter and while not fat, not thin either.) and clothes just hang well on him naturally.  He always seemed to have a predilection for loafers over lace-ups.  Shirt collars might be any given style on any given day.  He like his shoes to have a good polish.

Casually, Dad dressed in the look I've mentioned above.  There was really none of the wild Trad red pants, embroidered stuff, seersucker or madras during my time.  He did sport plenty of madras in the 60s, though.

So, that's the family look, to the extent there was or is one.  I'm more dandified than my dad and happily go about in lobster shorts and go-to-Hell stuff like that.  My suits, shirts and ties are a bit flashier, think City of London look.  But then, I'm a lawyer and why not?  It's all really just variations on the theme.  Well, my ties actually might be more subdued than Dads'.  He never wore bows.  I actually taught him how to tie one.  Nice to repay the favors he's done me.

Probably more information than you needed.  We're nobody grand by heritage, but we've probably done a good bit of class-climbing over time and the apparel has come along with it to some extent, but it's been very natural.

I should mention my Mom's family a bit.  She grew up in the same ward of the small town as my Dad, but two streets back, which made a difference in how people might view the family's position in local society.  They were (and largely still are) good, working class folks.  Many are farmers.  My Dad always referred to Mom's one uncle as The Missing Link.  this august personage had a casual uniform, too.  He invariably appeared at family functions clad in work boots, blue or grey Dickie's trousers, and a wife-beater.

So there it is.  The story of an unTrad who wears all of their stuff and lots of other stuff besides.

Last edited by AQG (2008-04-23 11:12:14)

Lots of different groups did their part in the making of the Ivy League look... surely there's room for Princeton dandies?

Last edited by katon (2008-04-23 12:37:13)

^ This is the wit which lower-middle-class 'aspirational' AAAT has no access to.

Great post.

Poor "Trad". Why didn't the "Trads" ever think that this day was going to come?

There are people you know more than you think you do "Harris". What base vanity made you think otherwise?

Tally Ho!

Jim.