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All suits are the same - Page 3

post #31 of 127
8/30/11 at 10:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sator View Post


The title is deliberately provocative like a thread on a wine forum saying "all wines taste the same". However, the post itself is quite different.

What it draws attention to is the extreme conservatism enforced by forum groupthink. We moderns like to think that we enjoy a great deal of social freedom but when it comes to tailored clothing the Victorians were immeasurably more free in the liberties they took.

It seems that the OP is both entrapped in forum groupthink and at the same times craves to escape from it. He denies himself even the possibility of a double breasted coat or even a singled breasted coat with DB lapels. He has been successfully indoctrinated into thinking that a single breasted "lounge" coat has to always have single breasted lapels and be grey. Even a navy suit terrifies him as being too outré.

These days I think the regular fora are too hidebound in their tastes. Single breasted coats with double breasted lapels? Fine by me! Double breasted coats with single breasted lapels? OK my me too. Button-four SB lounge coats? Love them! Extra panelling on coats? Very cool! Strongly roped and Überhigh shoulders. Fantastic. Tommy Nutter styled flared trousers and wide lapels - hope they make a comeback soon. Wait - Tom Ford beat me to it on the last point.

Yes.

As a newby looking through WAYWN threads, its interesting how slavishly rules are pointed out and adhered to, yet simply ghastly glenplaids are accepted without question or comment. It seems to have got to such a point of sameness, that the only way to stand out just a bit is with a silk square or shoes beyond black. I would humbly suggest, that a few good suits can be dressed up by mixing them up a bit - but the ":rules" prevent this.

It is not that the suits are all the same, but that the wearers are. "Style" seems to be a euphemism for sameness - this is something the fairer sex have retreated from, where fashion is allowed, where individuality is celebrated, where mixing and matching is to show taste and judgement. I just wonder if the rules so slavishly obeyed simply stem from a lack of confidence in their own judgement - you know, put a tie of with a shirt and look in mirror, does it look good? Does it look better without the tie? etc etc.

A bit more trust towards aesthetics might be good.

(sorry I have no advice for the engineer/accounting types for whom rules rock their world)

biggrin.gif
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post #32 of 127
8/31/11 at 9:09am
Thread Starter 

This was an interesting response, and I was wondering why I didn't want to formulate it this way -- that the issue lies in suit wearers and not in suits. I think the answer is this: other suit wearers set up the context in which we understand suits. There is no rebelling against norms without someone to set up the norms. There is no sense of violating rules without a a sense of "understated" elegance. It is convention -- groupthink as you put it in your formulation -- which affords us experimentation.

 

So my sense of what is appropriate, what is flamboyant, what is boring and what is interesting is informed by the group. And it is with this sense that I feel the lack of variance. To put it anther way: I can afford a lime green, velvet, double breasted suit with a peak lapel. I could wear it out. Nothing physically compels me not to do so, but something within me. But I don't like it for reasons that members of this forum get intuitively.

 

Of course there are outfits that are interesting and that in a parrallel universe might have been called suits: blazers with slacks. But the word suit denotes a very particular kind of clothing, and its possibilities have been shrunk in a very personal kind of way.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sator View Post



The title is deliberately provocative like a thread on a wine forum saying "all wines taste the same". However, the post itself is quite different.

What it draws attention to is the extreme conservatism enforced by forum groupthink. We moderns like to think that we enjoy a great deal of social freedom but when it comes to tailored clothing the Victorians were immeasurably more free in the liberties they took.

It seems that the OP is both entrapped in forum groupthink and at the same times craves to escape from it. He denies himself even the possibility of a double breasted coat or even a singled breasted coat with DB lapels. He has been successfully indoctrinated into thinking that a single breasted "lounge" coat has to always have single breasted lapels and be grey. Even a navy suit terrifies him as being too outré.

These days I think the regular fora are too hidebound in their tastes. Single breasted coats with double breasted lapels? Fine by me! Double breasted coats with single breasted lapels? OK my me too. Button-four SB lounge coats? Love them! Extra panelling on coats? Very cool! Strongly roped and Überhigh shoulders. Fantastic. Tommy Nutter styled flared trousers and wide lapels - hope they make a comeback soon. Wait - Tom Ford beat me to it on the last point.
 


 

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post #33 of 127
8/31/11 at 9:30am
This forum, in its current state, needs less flamboyance, not more.

It's well and good to like "strongly roped and Überhigh shoulders" and "Tommy Nutter-styled flared trousers and wide lapels." But clothes must be worn in the real world, not just on the Internet. You can call it "groupthink" when I suggest that the typical guy is better off skipping the Nutter look at the office, but I'd call it common sense. Few of us are railing against wearing Tom Ford to a nightclub.

The bottom line is that most forum discussion is at a fairly basic level, and that requires an emphasis on conservative practicality. In most places where tailored clothing is expected today, the point is a certain sameness. Deviate from that if you dare, but don't assume everyone will respect your maverick ways and bellbottomed trou.
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post #34 of 127
8/31/11 at 11:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pharmaboy View Post

As a newby looking through WAYWN threads, its interesting how slavishly rules are pointed out and adhered to, yet simply ghastly glenplaids are accepted without question or comment.

What the hell's wrong with glen plaid?patch[1].gif
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post #35 of 127
8/31/11 at 1:10pm
I'm totally lost in this thread and have no idea what OP is talking about. wtf is this?
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post #36 of 127
8/31/11 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GBR View Post

What utter garbage.

Do you even own a suit?

Maybe don't feed the troll is the most apt comment.

+1

a quick look at the waywrn all starts thread shows a very wide range of many colors, textures, styles, and patterns that all look excellent by anyones estimation. the rest is just personal preferance as to what you actually put on your body
Quote:
Originally Posted by Master-Classter View Post

if you think they all look the same then you don't know much about them...

and I'm not just talking suits. It's the same for anything in life. To anyone who's uneducated about what they're looking at, everything looks the same, which also makes the value equation (price to 'quality') difficult to determine...

+1
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klobber View Post

All suits are the same, when observed at distances greater than a mile.

lol8[1].gif
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post #37 of 127
8/31/11 at 1:46pm
Thread Starter 


You may be lost, confused, and somewhat angry about being confused. But don't let that stop you from posting something that adds no value. It is good to be heard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by musicguy View Post

I'm totally lost in this thread and have no idea what OP is talking about. wtf is this?


 

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post #38 of 127
8/31/11 at 5:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocHolliday View Post

This forum, in its current state, needs less flamboyance, not more.

It's well and good to like "strongly roped and Überhigh shoulders" and "Tommy Nutter-styled flared trousers and wide lapels." But clothes must be worn in the real world, not just on the Internet. You can call it "groupthink" when I suggest that the typical guy is better off skipping the Nutter look at the office, but I'd call it common sense. Few of us are railing against wearing Tom Ford to a nightclub.

The bottom line is that most forum discussion is at a fairly basic level, and that requires an emphasis on conservative practicality. In most places where tailored clothing is expected today, the point is a certain sameness. Deviate from that if you dare, but don't assume everyone will respect your maverick ways and bellbottomed trou.

All good points.

However, the OP takes this conservatism to the point of being more conservative than the Victorians eg DB suits, navy suits and SB jackets with DB revers being too outré. However, more strongly styled cuts make suits wearable outside of the most conservative business circles. Even in conservative business circles, stylistic individuality was seen in the past, and there is even less reason why this should be discouraged today. Especially when you consider how far so-called business casual has penetrated into conservative offices, it is difficult to understand why elegant individuality would not be encouraged in the realm of business dress.

This makes the push for the same grey SB lounge suits even less comprehensible.

As for the so-called Permanent Rules of Eternal Style, I think it's pretty much total nonsense anyway:

http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2542
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post #39 of 127
8/31/11 at 5:40pm
Sator, you're fighting battles against people who no longer participate in this board, while the taste level displayed in the what-are-you-wearing thread is highly individualistic and really terrible.
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post #40 of 127
8/31/11 at 6:30pm
Pinstripes are perfectly acceptable. Haven't you ever heard of a power suit?
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post #41 of 127
8/31/11 at 6:52pm
My first official non-sales post on the forum:
 
So after knowing every type of girl in college and now grad school, it really seems as though there is only one type. The hair-on-the-head, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, double-breasted female. So there are some variations that, I don't think, count as real options today: single-breasted (accident, cancer), or extra padded (bras, jeans, etc). There are other variations that are real options but don't necessarily change the basic woman too much: female.
 
So what happens is that after a while, the women afficianado starts fetishizing the smallest details. The butt, or how high the butt is, or something else that makes only a marginal difference to the overall look. 
 
I think that a woman is a woman is a woman, and as long as what's between her legs was never at any point the inside of a gentleman's (censored), everything else makes only a tiny marginal difference to the over all look. But I still like women(s). I want to experience women that are different, but are still definitely not weird.
 
So I guess here are some open questions:
 
1. How many women have you have that are not blonde or brunette?
2. When do you (any verb you'd like) them?
3. What is your 3rd/4th woman?
4. What do you regret about that nth woman?
5. What do you like about it? 
 
STILL THINK ALL SUITS ARE THE SAME?
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post #42 of 127
8/31/11 at 7:07pm
^^^

Are you seriously comparing suits to human beings?
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post #43 of 127
8/31/11 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonGiovanni View Post

My first official non-sales post on the forum:
 
So after knowing every type of girl in college and now grad school, it really seems as though there is only one type. The hair-on-the-head, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, double-breasted female. So there are some variations that, I don't think, count as real options today: single-breasted (accident, cancer), or extra padded (bras, jeans, etc). There are other variations that are real options but don't necessarily change the basic woman too much: female.
 
So what happens is that after a while, the women afficianado starts fetishizing the smallest details. The butt, or how high the butt is, or something else that makes only a marginal difference to the overall look. 
 
I think that a woman is a woman is a woman, and as long as what's between her legs was never at any point the inside of a gentleman's (censored), everything else makes only a tiny marginal difference to the over all look. But I still like women(s). I want to experience women that are different, but are still definitely not weird.
 
So I guess here are some open questions:
 
1. How many women have you have that are not blonde or brunette?
2. When do you (any verb you'd like) them?
3. What is your 3rd/4th woman?
4. What do you regret about that nth woman?
5. What do you like about it? 
 
STILL THINK ALL SUITS ARE THE SAME?

First appropriate response.
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post #44 of 127
8/31/11 at 8:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ldegeneve View Post

^^^

Are you seriously comparing suits to human beings?
Good God, have you never heard of sarcasm?
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post #45 of 127
8/31/11 at 9:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocHolliday View Post

This forum, in its current state, needs less flamboyance, not more.

...

The bottom line is that most forum discussion is at a fairly basic level, and that requires an emphasis on conservative practicality.
I disagree that it has to be so. It's certainly useful to be aware of these conventions, but I think that the conventions are not as many nor as binding as some seem to think, as Sator has pointed out.
Quote:
In most places where tailored clothing is expected today, the point is a certain sameness.
At the same time, one of the most common complaints on the forum is that the average lawyer/banker/CEO wears atrocious clothing. Clearly, what is expected is really the bare minimum. If someone were to write the Styleforum wiki on suits (I'd like this, btw, in case anyone is volunteering), the "rules" as they are expected to be followed could all be summarized in one short paragraph.
Quote:
Deviate from that if you dare, but don't assume everyone will respect your maverick ways and bellbottomed trou.
Truth be told, a lot of what is espoused on the forum as being stylish, at one point or another - brown shoes over black except in the most formal circumstances, glenplaid anything, pocket squares (even folded Kennedy style), pattern matching (poll 100 people, and the majority of them will say that the acceptable number of patterns in a suit/shirt/tie combination is one,) would probably get as many disapproving looks as a Tom Ford suit.

Sorry Doc, I've gotta disagree with you here (if it's any consolation, Manton and I have disagreed for nearly 10 years now).
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