Ah Miles, so it ends not with a bang but merely a whimper....

The Trad, was something originally ours, interpreted through a foreign language, and then given back to us?
Stripped of its complexity and hardened into a creed.    Perhaps the greatest Troll ever, then.  A sub-forum, millions of devout.  I doff me cap (A Lock from Brooks natch...) to it all.....The Second Greatest Story Ever Told....

Still, I don't know if it were before or after the genesis that Ken Pollock posted on TNSIL (his coinage I believe and still a good one)....

I'm keen to move on now -

One last point is, and this is a hypothetical,  what do you do if you run an internet message board which contains a forum which is based on a troll?

I'm not sure that this situation has ever come up before.

We live in interesting times, my friends.

Wish FNB was as cutting edge as all these other 'experimental' forums... All there is around here is sound sartorial knowledge... It's OK if you just like clothes, but where is the 'Alice in Wonderland' aspect that other forums have? We must seem a little dull compared to the others...


My name is Miles Away.

I'm finding that the overseas versions of trad are much more interesting to me. Less business and more fun. They're just clothes after all, might as well have fun with them. (Even if I still toe the hard line in other 'trad' worlds)

So trad in the US is fake but TNSIL is real? Ok, you can argue definitions all you want. I think there are three real groups though.
1. The guys who really were raised on this stuff and wouldn't discuss it on a message board if you paid them too.
2. Those that aspire to be in the first group and somehow think the clothes will get them there. If it looks like a duck and talks like a duck.....but do the real ducks think it's a duck? These guys get far too serious about the social implications of thier clothes on message boards. They need to smoke something to relax. A pipe perhaps?
3. Those that like the clothes just because they like the clothes. These guys will clash with group two if they meet on a message board. Clothes are fun, if it wasn't TNSIL then in would be something else but it would still be fun.

The corruption of the Japaneese term is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it's easier to understand than TNSIL?
The re-branding on the other hand make perfect sense. It's needed for group #2 to exist. If they didn't find it snobby and socially climbing then what would be the use in copying it? These people didn't become snobs because of the clothes. The were class climbing snobs before the clothes, they just use the clothes as a tool. No different than a BMW is used in the US now. Maybe a bit more subtle than a BMW, but the same idea. Once you've got your giant house and your expensive car how do you tell the people around you that you're better than them? Or even worse, what if these people don't know anything about your house and car? How are they to know? Trad will do the trick, or so it seems in this online world.

Serious question Miles, would it bother you as much if the social roles were reversed? If the common man re-adopted TNSIL thus driving social climbers from the style in search of another style to differentiate themselves?

I'm an easy-going Joe.
No axe to grind.
Happy-go-lucky sums me up well... But...

Bring me the 'Godfather of Trad' to defend his trolling.

Or bring me any other Plastic-Brahmin to fight their corner.

The old 'Silent Treatment' that allowed the Godfather to get away with murder doesn't wash with me - If I say something and I'm not contradicted then what I say stands.

Welcome to London.

And a brand new 'Trad'.

M.

Last edited by Miles Away (2006-10-09 14:21:16)

I wish we had Tom22 and Intrepid around.

I distinctly remember Intrepid and the Godfather setting up a meeting at some restuarant/club/place in Princeton, where he claimed to play squash.  If they actually met, it would be interesting to see what Intrepid took from the situation.

Tom22 also mentioned a "guy" who "kept showing up" when he was in Stonington.

You (H and M) seem to believe the Godfather was a kid.

From Tom and Intrepid I got the impression of an actual adult, legit or not.

I have no bone to pick with that particular individual and if he was lying the whole time, which now seems more and more likely the longer he remains silent, I thought many of the threads he started were interesting, and we had many of the same tastes, even if he made his up.

But if Tom or Intrepid actually met him, I think it would have been nice to hear their impressions of this person.


Anyway, on the whole Miles, I really do agree with you about the terminology.

You call it "Ivy," I have usually known it as "preppy" or "Ivy League".

Same kettle of fish.

I'd like to clarify something else...on other occasions I have labeled certain things as "not trad".  What I mean when I see those is not that I see myself in some lofty position acting as a social arbiter, saying they are some class thing.  More I have meant that either a)the thing is not part of the traditional Ivy League look (at least as far as I know, I welcome being called on it when I make an error though!), even though it may be a traditionally offered item by many clothiers  or b) that wearing the thing obviously puts the wearer in a position of being a person who is wearing it trying to buy into the RL image that "trad" is some socially exclusive style or c) the thing is so obviously garish that nobody with Ivy League clothing tastes, whether they be Brahmins or schoolteachers, would consider wearing it

You don't have to be what the RL catalog characterizes as "somebody" to love or dress Ivy League
I DO think that if you want to dress on the preppy side, however, you should probably learn appropriate and inappropriate fora to wear GTH clothing.  This should be instinctive not by birth or breeding but by commons sense the fact that it's obvious those things should be worn in the summer, near, one would think, water, and not, say, in October to a Federal Income Tax class (as one of my classmates chose earlier this afternoon), or say, to a professional office...it doesn't make you look rich, it makes you look like a moron.

I don't know what else to say, but I'll be happy to get back into calling what I call Ivy League everywhere but this board "Ivy League" again

Last edited by Coolidge (2006-10-09 18:28:53)

Intrepid, Tom, miss seeing those guys around.  I also miss JMorgan32 as well...I know he got into it on more than one occassion with the GFofTrad.

Good to read all of this.
Coolidge wrote a bit above about declaring things trad or non trad. I do this elsewhere as well and I do it for what I think is good reason. I may not have grown up with the style but I think I've come to an understanding of what it is and what it's general elements are (and I fully expect Coolidge to call my out if I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it) What I see elsewhere is people posting very nice clothing and hoping that everyone will call it trad simply because it's nice clothing. Some of it is way way out there with pleats and darts and big poofy bright pocket squares and other garish things. These things aren't bad, but they're not in the ivy tradition. I wonder if they're in any tradition to tell you the truth. The point is that for some reason people desperately want their favorite clothes to be held under the umbrella of trad as they see it. They seem to have some need to be included in the club and make sure that what they wear is always in the club so that the cool kids won't kick them out of the club. There seems to be a real fear on the MB's of openly saying that something isn't in the ivy tradition. I don't know if it's because it's poorly understood or if everyone is so afraid of being told they're not trad that they say that everyone is trad and get a good circle pat on the back going so they all feel good and nobody gets their feelings hurt. Somebody needs to stand up now and again and throw down and say no. Not enough of that going around lately as some good members have left.
Dammit, I'm rambling and likely fairly incoherent. It's late and I have to finish sewing two more horns on a corduoroy stegasaurus before I go to bed. Goodnight all.