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Voxsartoria's Weekly WAYWRN Subjective and Totally Unfair Digest

DocHolliday

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Originally Posted by Fuuma
To be honest it doesn't take anything away from what is interesting in those plates, just like modern day fashion shoots, hyper real fantasies are as good as anything in presenting a coherent universe. In fact you could say that AA was ahead of it's time as the photographers that replaced it didn't pay as much attention to the narrative elements and that level would only come back in the 60s and 70s.

This is a very good point.
 

Manton

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But those illustrations, if you read the captions, were not trying to depict the average lifestyle. They were overtly about the people at the top, and they served as markers for what the parameters of fashion were, as laid down by the people who set the fashions.
 

Fuuma

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Originally Posted by Manton
But those illustrations, if you read the captions, were not trying to depict the average lifestyle. They were overtly about the people at the top, and they served as markers for what the parameters of fashion were, as laid down by the people who set the fashions.
I really need to read your book (no sycophancy here), I assume that top down fashion is something you present as I sorta see that theme in your posts from time to time. It is still relevant in a sense as the big fabric shows have a huge impact on what will be designed. Cloth producers and their colour/mood surveys and the ensuing product they present are major players in today's world.
 

Manton

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Top down fashion was the rule then. It isn't any more.

All I am saying is, the editors of AA and Esquire claim that the illustrations were based on obseravation. I believe them. That's not to say that they always observed correctly, or that they didn't get it wrong sometimes, or introduce an element of idealization, or sometimes just make **** up. I believe they did.

But, by and large, I think they reported faithfully what they saw. Hence the illustrations are good examples of the elite styles of dress in New York, London, and fashionable resorts of that time.
 

HORNS

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200 years from now, what we are wearing today and what these plates depict will all be lumped together under one style - and the subtleties between now and 70 years ago will not be lost, but will probably be considered irrelevant.
 

TheFoo

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Originally Posted by Manton
Really? You think "People who like AA illustrations are just proles trying to live above their station" is a point worth discussing? And you can't see the insult in it?

If so, I revert to my earlier remark: dense.


A lot of people seem to think dressing as we do implies a desire to demonstrate social status or mimic the past (for example, Fuuma has claimed, time and time again, that we are simply having a sort of 'dialogue' with another time). I think it's important, if not at least interesting, to understand our motivations as members of a minority group.

Regardless of your hostilities with FNB, I don't appreciate being called 'dense', particularly after I've taken the time to respond to you in a respectful manner.
 

Fuuma

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Originally Posted by mafoofan
A lot of people seem to think dressing as we do implies a desire to demonstrate social status or mimic the past (for example, Fuuma has claimed, time and time again, that we are simply having a sort of 'dialogue' with another time). I think it's important, if not at least interesting, to understand our motivations as members of a minority group.

Regardless of your hostilities with FNB, I don't appreciate being called 'dense', particularly after I've taken the time to respond to you in a respectful manner.


I said that the idealization of the high society dress of a certain period is a huge influence on many members of this forum and often held as an unsurpassed golden standard by people who think there's an optimal way of dressing (hahahahaha!).
 

DocHolliday

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Originally Posted by mafoofan
A lot of people seem to think dressing as we do implies a desire to demonstrate social status or mimic the past (for example, Fuuma has claimed, time and time again, that we are simply having a sort of 'dialogue' with another time). I think it's important, if not at least interesting, to understand our motivations as members of a minority group.

You might say my dialogue is limited to Patrick Macnee's tailor circa 1965.
 

Manton

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Originally Posted by Fuuma
I said that the idealization of the high society dress of a certain period is a huge influence on many members of this forum and often held as an unsurpassed golden standard by people who think there's an optimal way of dressing (hahahahaha!).

I agree with that, and make no bones about the fact that when I dress I am trying to live up to a standard that transcends my time and place. But I do so because I think it looks good. My interest is purely aesthetic. That the clothes came from high society originally is interesting, but not so relevant. I will never be of that world, and am not pining for it, and any case it mostly doesn't exist any more. I just really like the clothes.

If this were such a bad thing, then we would have to say that acquiring any expensive taste, or any taste more expensive than what we grew up with, is a priori the mark of a poser. That's just another way of ossifying the cast system. The only people hell bent on wishing for that are people who feel their own place in the pecking order threatened.

And, yes, mafoo, for the record, I am talking about FNB.
 

TheFoo

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Originally Posted by Fuuma
I said that the idealization of the high society dress of a certain period is a huge influence on many members of this forum and often held as an unsurpassed golden standard by people who think there's an optimal way of dressing (hahahahaha!).

There's a difference between believing that objective improvement is possible and believing that you know, in all certainty, what is objectively better or worse. If you believe objective improvement is possible, you will demand rational explanations for change; if you don't think anything is 'better' or 'worse', except in completely subjective way, you won't require such justification.
 

Film Noir Buff

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Originally Posted by mafoofan
There is undoubtedly some truth to this, but I wouldn't immediately assume there aren't other good reasons for dressing like people did in another time. Maybe there is something objectively better about it.
Sure, there can be several reasons. A strong reason is the feeling that the present doesn't respect them for the qualities they possess and that there are no "gentlemen" or "ladies". It's a matter of degree and I suppose everyone has it to so extent, a nostalgia for the past. it's simply a matter of how far back, how authentic the reproduction of the outfits and for what purpose. I doubt if there was anything better about the clothes in the thirties in the absolute sense. Some of the styles have become classics and perhaps some of the color combinations are cultural now. I think the thirties are not in vogue now but rather more like the 1960s and 1970s. The thirties renaissance for men's clothing is fallow, at least for the moment.
Originally Posted by mafoofan
Otherwise, you could make similar assumptions about the motivations of people who dress to contemporary norms. At the end, you can tell very little about anything or anybody by merely identifying the standards they seem to follow.
No I don't think this is true. If I understand what you mean, people who buy clothes for contemporary status want to fit in while those who recreate the past think they have rediscovered a sort of secret exclusivity and want to stand apart. Thus, one does not have to have any imagination and can simply copy but because the source is not widely avaialble it is almost as if one "invented" it. I havn't got an issue with studying the AA and/or Esquire plates for historical research and trends in clothing; it is adoring the lifestyle of the time and wanting to become it that prompts a curious desire to copy exactly. More than buying "in" clothes, it is more like wearing Shaq's jersey to become Shaq. Although I do not think this is a perfect fit because, as mentioned above, because the person believes these plates to be like an exclusive source they would want to believe they are actually plus Shaq que Shaq. I know, perhaps it's more like wearing a reproduction jersey of a player from a long defunct team that no one knows about and taking immense satisfaction that only you know about the player's history.
 

RJman

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Originally Posted by DocHolliday
You might say my dialogue is limited to Patrick Macnee's tailor circa 1965.

Bailey & Weatherill?

That would have been in the B&W series. When they went color for the US market in '67 Macnee switched to having clothes designed for him by Pierre Cardin. Those were totally caricatured.

The shirts were T&A RTW, apparently.

In the New Avengers Macnee started out with suits tailored by Gieves.
 

Manton

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^^^ Foo, was all that clear enough?
 

TheFoo

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Originally Posted by Film Noir Buff
Sure, there can be several reasons. A strong reason is the feeling that the present doesn't respect them for the qualities they possess and that there are no "gentlemen" or "ladies". It's a matter of degree and I suppose everyone has it to so extent, a nostalgia for the past. it's simply a matter of how far back, how authentic the reproduction of the outfits and for what purpose.

But have you considered the possibility that some things from the past are just better than what is normal now? You hate heavy, traditional fabric, but it performs better in some ways. Someone who wears a heavy tweed jacket could be doing it out of nostalgia, sure. But maybe he just likes the way tweed wears.

Originally Posted by Film Noir Buff
No I don't think this is true. If I understand what you mean, people who buy clothes for contemporary status want to fit in while those who recreate the past think they have rediscovered a sort of secret exclusivity and want to stand apart. Thus, one does not have to have any imagination and can simply copy but because the source is not widely avaialble it is almost as if one "invented" it.

Everyone wants to simultaneously be unique and fit in. If people who wear avant garde fashion are trying to 'fit in', they are only trying to do so in a very small group.

Originally Posted by Film Noir Buff
I havn't got an issue with studying the AA and/or Esquire plates for historical research and trends in clothing; it is adoring the lifestyle of the time and wanting to become it that prompts a curious desire to copy exactly.

Again, you shouldn't assume people do as others did in the past merely because they wish to mimic the past itself.
 

TheFoo

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Originally Posted by Manton
^^^ Foo, was all that clear enough?

100%. And he didn't insult me.
 

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