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#51 2009-04-17 09:08:03
- Brideshead
- Member
- Posts: 417
Re: Where to draw the line...
Last edited by Brideshead (2009-04-17 10:36:31)
#52 2009-04-17 09:18:26
- Brideshead
- Member
- Posts: 417
Re: Where to draw the line...
There is a guy who was a fellow suedehead back in the day and he opened his first mens shop in my home town in 1976 and was the first one in the area to offer Armani, Boss, Falke and so on. But he was very clear that he would only be able to sell the 'safer' pieces even just 30 miles from London. He had a brilliant sense of where to draw the line. He educated people to adopt a certain look and to pay for it. He now owns a row of shops all in the same street and has changed the nature of that street beyond recognition.
He understood that Armani in our area meant simple classic pieces not the more extreme catwalk offerings that may be available in W1.
Coming back to Ivy I think the message is the same - the look has to be right for the environment. Safe-ish but with room for careful experimentation.
#53 2009-04-17 09:20:23
- Get Smart
- Member
- Posts: 1106
Re: Where to draw the line...
having grown up in the US, madras and seersucker, at least to me, always have a bad connotation of caricature type characters on TV, Colonel Sanders etc and *my* line is drawn there where I'd never buy any of it. Tho I agree that a seersucker suit COULD be styled to be very cool without any southern Gentleman affectation
but living in LA where we have warmer summer days than most of you lot in the UK (hitting the 100s is regular during peak summer) I still never wear shorts, and pretty much wear staprest or jeans 365 days of the year with loafers/brogues. The only shorts I do wear, that my wife threatens to burn, are my cutoff camouflage shorts that harken back to days when I used to go to hardcore shows a lot, but even then I've retired the camos a couple years ago. And I have a lot of leg tattoos as well, so that makes wearing shorts take on a very different vibe
#55 2009-04-17 09:40:05
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Re: Where to draw the line...
Strange, I can wear relatively outlandish gear in this small town - Madras jacket, white bucks, say - and no one really seems to register anything. Growing up, I got used to being chased around thanks to the tribal instinct most teenagers seem to have. Even when I wore a US Marine 'high and tight' one summer no one murmured. Well, my wife and kids did, but no one else.
You've got to be hardcore Ivy to wear a seersucker suit in the UK, and I wonder just how many John Simons sells. I'd probably chance it if I had the cash. I guess the most un-English item I'm wearing out and about at the moment is a pair of houndstooth check woollen Brooks Brothers pants, held up with pillar box red J.Press suspenders. Solid button-down above, cordovan wingtips below. Should, theoretically, look conservative - and probably would in the States - but not here.
#56 2009-04-17 09:47:14
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Re: Where to draw the line...
I dare any one of you to venture out of doors in some of that interesting vintage Haggar.
#57 2009-04-17 09:50:15
- AQG
- Member
- From: The Sticks
- Posts: 1306
Re: Where to draw the line...
Last edited by AQG (2009-04-17 09:50:30)
#58 2009-04-19 07:40:31
- Just Jim
- Member
- Posts: 1159
Re: Where to draw the line...
Last edited by Just Jim (2009-04-19 07:40:42)
#59 2009-04-19 09:22:10
- Hard Bop Hank
- Ivy Soul Brother
- From: land of a 1000 dances
- Posts: 4923
Re: Where to draw the line...
I don't wear bow ties, but I think that some guys can pull it off quite cool... Just think of Patrick. He never looks affected...
Seersucker suits are cool, I think, but not for everybody. I agree, that it's really about the combination. You have to be careful, if you don't want it to look like some camp eccentric nostalgia thing...
Does anyone wear spectators?
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