We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.
STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.
Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.
Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!
Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.
My family certainly never lost this knowledge - they were too poor to buy suits.
Perhaps one of the reasons almost no one today has it is because, in fact, until very recently in our history it was only a very small minority that needed, wore or could even afford the kinds of clothes we are generally discussing here...
The good news that is the main take-away from the Mens Clothing forum is that the bottom lies ahead.
They had suits and good shoes, they just didn't have 10-15 suits or more than a couple pairs of dress shoes
Gatsby believed in the green shoe, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will spend faster, stretch our budgets farther... And then one fine morning —
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
When clothing, for the general public, made the transition from purely practical to fashion. Clothing became a manner of expressing yourself; breaking with the establishment. This was quickly remarketed by the industry as a sort of mass individualism. Now average Joe could permit himself to more and more clothing items, where this had formerly been the prerogative of just the upper-classes. Durability and repairability became unimportant. Also, new mass production techniques alongside the introduction of synthetics and glues drove the nails in the coffin of the traditional crafts even further.
edit: rewrote a few lines.
This mirrored the switch in culture from conformity to individuality. A brilliant program about the evolution of the male as portrayed in television from the 1950s through today highlights this. (Sorry cannot find a link.)
Gatsby believed in the green shoe, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will spend faster, stretch our budgets farther... And then one fine morning —
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
This mirrored the switch in culture from conformity to individuality.
Or, if I might ride your coat tails (itself an reference to the past!), it is rather like the switch from substantive to superficial posting on StyFo.Or rather the switch from substantive to superficial individuality.
Blame Brooks Brothers. They were one of the first to start OTR suiting and then when people started buying them other large clothing stores jumped on the ready to wear bandwagon, then all the little tailorshops closed down.