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Navy Hopsack Suit?

George

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Originally Posted by voxsartoria
smile.gif


I have been getting PMs asking me why I am bothering with this. I'm not sure that I have a good answer, but I will tilt at the windmill one last time.

You are probably right in one sense...you would have to go back two generations in my family (and approximately in American culture...might be different in your neck of the woods) to get to men who were unselfconsciously classists, racists, and misogynists. I am hopeful that by the time things have rolled around to me, at least some of that is untrue.

But, there is really no reason to be so generalized. We are talking about something very specific here: hopsack fabric. If you have your cup of morning coffee or tea, and ask yourself, "Would an American public schoolteacher who wore a solid, dark navy bespoke suit telegraph that he is a 'sanitation worker wearing his Sunday best' to his colleagues, wards, and family from the simple fact that it is hopsack?" What would your answer be? The suit is navy. The pattern is solid. It is bespoke. Navy hopsack jackets are widely accepted. And this is America, where the suit is dying a lingering death...I am sure that it is pretty much dead in a New York public school. NYR is not wearing this suit, I imagine, into a blue chip board meeting or cocktails at the Links.

And so, we are left with the dire issue of the trousers being hopsack.

Would you not admit here the possibility that FNB's "class" claim is daft? And that the manner in which the claim was expressed, with its reference to dressing like a sanitation worker, trite yet a bit ugly? I can't really call it biting because it is just so weak and lacking in content. He's simply tarting up a personal bias about a type of cloth as some sort of social commentary, and setting up any disagreement with him on the qualities of the cloth as class blindness. It's unimpressive. It obscures potentially interesting information about merits and problems inherent to different types of suitings.

I'll be direct: I'm upper class, and neither I nor my friends with the same background would view a guy in a dark blue bespoke suit caustically as a sanitation worker unless he introduced himself as one. And if a man did so introduce himself, he would probably be the hit of the party.

What makes the whole thing more funny to me is that I would guess that NYR is relatively comfortable with who he is and what he does...I am not sure that his objective is to convince people via sartorial camoflage that he has Mayflower ancestors, lockjaw accent, and was expelled from Brown with no ill effect.

I will let you in on a dirty little American secret: you could wear the best that Corvato makes, but if you don't have a lineage just so, didn't go to particular schools, don't belong to particular clubs, do not associate with and marry particular people, don't have a particular amount of money, possessed in a particular way, do not give a particular amount of money away, the fabric of your suit does not in any way add or subtract your chances of being accepted as upper class.

Is not the same true where you are?

So, why should anyone worry about it and select fabric from within the range of classic suitings for anything other than what one likes or dislikes?


- B


It was my intention to not be specific.

With FNB there is always a grain of truth in what he says don't you think, even though on occasion he does use a poor example, as may be the case here. He also has an unfortunate tendency to glibness and doesn't fully develop his point, which can lead to histrionics from the literalists and the socially anxious who see class connotations in every remark.

I'm more than aware of 'America's dirty little secret' which was the point of my post.

Anyway, thanks for your considered response..

....Now back to NYR and his Hopsack suit...
 

voxsartoria

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Originally Posted by academe
This is a bit of random aside, but I just finished reading Richard Anderson's biography and was reminded that I believe he quite frequently wore or does wear a blue hopsack suit commuting into London to SR...So I suppose you'd been in good company.
smile.gif


Drinks at the Sanitation Club?


- B
 

dopey

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Originally Posted by voxsartoria
smile.gif


I have been getting PMs asking me why I am bothering with this. I'm not sure that I have a good answer. . .


- B


I think it is because you can take the canibal out of the missionary, but you cannot take the missionary out of the cannibal.
 

voxsartoria

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Originally Posted by George
....Now back to NYR and his Hopsack suit...

What do you like in terms of something durable for NYR in the, oh, 12oz or so weight?


- B
 

voxsartoria

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Originally Posted by dopey
I think it is because you can take the canibal out of the missionary, but you cannot take the missionary out of the cannibal.

It was a moment of weakness, I admit.


- B
 

NewYorkIslander

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Speaking of durability, if I were to order the grey herringbone pants AS WELL as the hopsack matching ones, how would the fabric wear? Ie...would the fabric of the jacket wear, fade, change to make the navy pants look like odd trousers? I know, after a while this would be the case with any fabric, and number of cleanings would also play a role, but in general, how does the color of hopsack react to wear?
 

George

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Originally Posted by voxsartoria
What do you like in terms of something durable for NYR in the, oh, 12oz or so weight?


- B


Let me think about it.
 

DandySF

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If the jacket and pants are worn separately, it's best to have them both cleaned at the same time. This will ensure that any color change due to cleaning is consistent for both pieces.
 

Film Noir Buff

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Originally Posted by George
I sense a little class anxiety in you also Vox! You don't have to spend your life apologising for the Ivy league education and the chances that that education has afforded you. Why do Americans spend so much time denying that class exists within their culture. There are people on here who hit the roof when certain items of thier dress are criticised on class 'grounds' whilst at the same time they themselves are looking down or trying to distance themselves from the sneekers and sweatsuit wearing folks, it's ******* laughable. The level of lack of self-awareness, class anxiety and hypocrisy on these clothing forums is of Swiftian levels..
Poor Vox. Nastier, freakier posters have tried and failed. Probably because all the blows end up hitting themselves in the face. George, you've hit on your own answer. Like the Jerry Springer show where the audience gets to play holier than thou for a moment and condemn the guests, every now and then a poster here gets to play forum champion against the snob. I suppose it's an unclean hands doctrine at work. It's alright to be a snob yourself but no one else can be one. How else would you rationalize someone showing an endless parade of expensive clothes they bought or meals they ordered suddenly getting excited about the topic of class? We all know all Americans live in exactly the same way thus it could hardly be considered "rubbing their noses in it". Anyway, not to focus on Vox because he is simply acting in a Pavlovian manner but Americans do respond badly to the subject of class; you'll find the less they feel they have or the more trouble they want to make for the speaker, the more "outraged" they become. I just happen not to care. Confusion over what is meant by class is another matter. It seems the "class" of money is a double edged sword here. On the one hand it's wonderfully equal because if you have it, well really anyone else can too if they just work hard enough. Thus, you can show your 10 suits being made or your 20 pair of shoes being made because it's just the great American game of consumption. However, if class is about manners, ethics, appreciation of enlightened things, all of a sudden it becomes a locus for fear and revolution. How could any man feel superior to another on anything besides money? Behaviors you would think everyone would root for here. But wait, that would mean you might have to examine your behavior or life rather than throw money at everyone and anything. That would mean you couldnt change your circumstances in a lifetime and it would belie some of the social opium we imbibe as a nation. We all know the only thing separating us is money. And, further this is the way every American besides FNB lives their lives. No one else here associates with people with shared values. Probably sanitation worker wasn't a good example. A hopsack suit would just make the wearer look like they didnt know any better. Sort of like when people discover a cloth here and think they invented it and thus have to get suits made out of it as well as ties and scarves. Discuss things clinically. Otherwise you're just wasting time. In any case, I didnt invent class and staging a mini bastille day every time it gets brought up may intimidate most speakers but it wont with me. The idea that clothes or the desire to wear them isnt a function of class values is a fascinating separation of subject and object. Perhaps on par with a bomb forum that gets righteously indignant anytime someone mentions the amount of people a given device can kill at one time.
 

George

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Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger
I like it as its a bit less formal than your standard wool...and in my profession formality is not a necessity (although I try and bring a certain level of it to my classroom). I'm fairly new at getting clothing tailor made for me, and at men's clothing in general, and was wondering what the consensus was for a full suit made out of hopsack. I don't mind being a bit different, but if there's something more than the general aesthetic thats wrong with a hopsack suit (pants pulling easily, etc...) I'd rather not make the mistake of finding out after I drop a ton of money on it...I save up money from working after school and summers and once a year go to my tailor with some things I want...and with a second kid now (suprise!) I'll find myself going to him with less this February.

Have you considered one of those faux tweeds in the Harrison's Glorious Twelfth bunch? Those cloths give the impression of texture without the roughness inherent in a real tweed, they also have a greater variety of colour than your standard suitings allowing you more opportunity to experiment with different looks, it's also a lot lighter than real tweed. I think Voxsartoria has a SBPL from one of the cloths in this range.

I'll think about some others and get back as my time is at premium today.
 

voxsartoria

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Originally Posted by Film Noir Buff
The idea that clothes or the desire to wear them isnt a function of class values is a fascinating separation of subject and object.

It is a function of many things, including that.

Your assertion, nevertheless, that an American man in the year 2009 wearing a dark blue, bespoke suit "signals" that he is a "sanitation worker" merely because it is in a hopsack rather than another worsted wool is absurd.

You are projecting a simple personal bias and opinion about fabrics (which might or might not be educated...in this case, I do not agree with you on the technical merits of hopsack) onto a larger culture and a class within it that does not have your compulsive fascination with the minutiae of differences among classic suiting fabrics. They really do not care about one solid dark blue worsted wool English fabric versus another. The low, the middle, or the high: none care at such diminutive levels of distinction. Really.

Why indignify yourself by embellishing a simple topic...fabrics...with ineffective attempts to aggrandize your opinion as some sort of keen social observation? If only they were keen in reality, maybe it would be tolerable, but your statements on clothes and culture come off with little intellectual content...and often, like in this thread, none.

I apologize for being a bit harsh. But there you have it.

I guess I am quixotically maintaining the hope that we could hear your thoughts on clothes without freshman year sociology and the thinly veiled Manton snipes. I suppose you would want to lose both, which I rather doubt to my disappointment.


- B
 

voxsartoria

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Originally Posted by George
Have you considered one of those faux tweeds in the Harrison's Glorious Twelfth bunch? Those cloths give the impression of texture without the roughness inherent in a real tweed, they also have a greater variety of colour than your standard suitings allowing you more opportunity to experiment with different looks, it's also a lot lighter than real tweed.

If I remember correctly, that book has some patterns without checks. AndrewRogers has photographs of that book up...examples include:

faux Donegal

Herringbone

I think it is a great three season fabric and good suggestion. You might face an upcharge with it with Ercole, though.


- B
 

Xiaogou

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Originally Posted by Will
I have a charcoal hopsack in the works for days when I put out the trash.

You take out your own trash?
lol8[1].gif
 

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