I'd welcome laying off British sub-cultures.  I'm sick to death of them.  Alex and I have conferred on this subject a little and feel it's time to turn our heads in the direction of Miss Liberty...

Last edited by Alex Roest (2009-06-04 05:02:12)

The second time he mentions "J. Press" I think he means J. Crew.

Funny how he seems the most sceptical about Uniqlo and yet it's the only one where he says "bought a few things".

I feel more than slightly self-conscious wearing these clothes as a European while in the US, something a poster above also touches on.

The eternal conundrum and paradox of the style I suppose, and difficult to fully express in words alone.

Another major part of that paradox is that in the so-called Boom Years the look was sported by a lot of people, whether they were particularly interested in clothes or not. Every college town had a haberdasher where without much forethought a man could get fully togged-out in a couple of visits.

In order to dress the way, for example Tom does today, it would seem that one would have to be very interested in clothes indeed. It takes effort. Even TR's patented understated elegance betrays a lot of that 'forethought' to use a not particularly useful word. That's not a criticism, far from it, but clearly a lot of thought, effort and endeavour has gone into acquiring the clothing, living with it and making decisions about what will work and what will not.

I haven't been to NYC since the Trad thing blew-up but would be interested to know whether that look is even remotely widespread amongst people under 50 years of age. Do Ivy-ists spot each other in the street and pretend not to notice or is it a case of the fleeting stand-off best encapsulated in the translated Gaelic maxim:

"One beetle recognises another."

Or is it still a case of there being an undercurrent of unmistakeable references to traditional American clothing, something one would notice in previous decades: the odd cordovan shoe, the updated American suit, the OCBD worn with that suit etc?

I think part of it too is how I grew up. I come from a very Italian family, who went the Sicily to Brooklyn to Queens route through the generations. My dad is just about the most stylish guy on the planet, but in that luxe, everything is earth toned, look how the design in the socks is picked up by the color in the tie kind of way. I used to have to borrow his clothes as a teenager if we had a formal thing to go to. Never felt right in those clothes. Whereas he had to really think about what tie to wear with what suit because of the complexity of his clothes, the simplicity of having everything match a knit tie or a repp stripe appealed to me. And thus set me off on the journey for simplicity. Throw in my collegiate years in a college that was fed by the top prep schools on the east coast and that exposure accelerated everything.

Yea thats fair. Whats the alternative though? Incontinence pants track suits? zubaz pants?

The thing is I am very methodical with everything in my life. I like things just so. Whether its clothes, or furniture, or cars, or my work. Must be the OCD.

Last edited by Tom Rath (2009-06-04 06:59:23)

Interesting and thought-provoking responses.

To add to my earlier thoughts about dressing this way as a European while visiting the US I can cast my mind back to specific incidents where a tendency to fetishize aspects of Amerciana can be problematic: from being refused entrance to an upscale eatery in Chicago while wearing a carhartt work-coat to being told by friends in San Francisco that wearing a US Army field jacket would really inflame the transient veteran population of the city.

For a visiting brit walking round Manhattan in seersucker feels as gauche as Joe Buck arriving there dressed in full Western rig in Midnight Cowboy now I come to think of it. Much easier in London, Rome, Paris or Berlin.