What are the greatest menswear brands of all time? - Page 15

Originally Posted by hendrix 

[*] Not everyone wants to have their bodies flattered in the Darwinian sense - i.e. we don't necessarily care to have a nipped waist and strong shoulder or elongated legs etc etc. This is because humans are intelligent and see past things like a lion's mane and a puffed up puffer fish, but also because some of us like to intellectually flatter ourselves - interestingly sculpted lines and patterns for the point of visual interest can be more attractive than just making yourself look strong.
[/LIST]

Originally Posted by rach2jlc 

I spent $9000 on these shoes because they were sewn by a single old man using a platinum needle and molding the last by pressing it under his armpit for eleven weeks, after which he buried the leather in the ground for twenty years to get the antique color, etc etc

Originally Posted by LA Guy 

I thought that Citizen Kane was sorta boring, and I laughed at Ernest goes to camp for about 5 minutes before I had to turn it off, but that's neither here nor there.
I think that it is very interesting to discuss the creative aspect of clothing. That's essentially what we did here re. Ferre, for example.
I think that the issue here is that you are conflating "creative aspect" with "why we like what we like." Why we like what we like is, to the first order, a combination of our shared cultural history, our relationship to society and different societal values. For example, in the developing world, where labor is cheap and mechanization is expensive, manufactured goods are highly prized. As a modern society develops, labor becomes expensive, and mechanization relatively economical, and handmade goods become more desirable. This is pretty well documented.
I think that in order to discuss the creative aspect of clothing, we have to get people out of the prescriptive mindset, e.g. a suit has to have a skirt that covers your bottom, or else you look like a lady, lol. X,Y,Z factors flatter a man's physique., etc... And I think that that's easier said than done. But we can try.

Originally Posted by dieworkwear 

Anyone remember this?
Hilarious.

Originally Posted by rach2jlc 

This. While I think I get "the thin man's" overall point (critical thinking about subjective taste), ultimately I think it's impossible and will break down into exactly that kind of prescriptive mindset. In addition to what you write above, another reason is that it isn't possible to articulate WHY we like what we like, exactly, because we have neither complete information about it and also because we're influenced by so many factors automatically, over which we have no control. Thin man's argument seems dependent upon a kind of rationality and reflection about our own tastes that, ultimately, isn't possible, given various unconscious influences like priming, framing, bias, etc. (all those things that the behavioral economists have helped to show cloud all those perfectly rational agents!)
So, in the end, the discussion will largely devolve away from actual clothing and down to the social norms of the prescriptive type you outline above. If it is done "right," it will basically devolve down to "I like it because I like it and alternatives from that are ridiculous because they're stupid," or a rationally untenable argument.
People won't/can't think critically about their subjective tastes, because they aren't really in control of them. While on the one hand a man can say he likes RL because he likes "classic tailored menswear that is well manufactured," in truth (and given various behavioral experiments or brain scans) we might actually be able to make a more convincing case that latent sexual attraction to a coworker who happened to wear RL on Tuesdays caused the attraction to the brand. Likewise, it might be because his neighbor had a polo pony when he grew up. In short, the line between some sort of "aesthetic judgment" and a purely affective one is quite thin, and both can work together, "I like well tailored menswear because RL uses a polo pony that my neighbor had when i was young."

Originally Posted by dieworkwear 

Regardless, I think what TTM was suggesting was that we (or someone) take an analytical approach to the aesthetics of classic brands. My only comment is that the website Jesse and I are writing for are allocating us something like 100 words per brand, and I assume the use of just one photo. This is actually supposed to be a fun, slightly arbitrary, light read. I've probably taken much more seriously than necessary, if only because I'm genuinely interested in the subject. But I don't know if we have the space to do a critical review of some brand's aesthetics.

Originally Posted by alexSF 

He did this also in the beach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9DmGYuGX7s

Originally Posted by rach2jlc 

Good points. I guess my thinking was that while we all (assuming we are of a certain age) have a few ELO songs hidden somewhere on an Ipod or CD, very few of us own a Gaultier skirt. In this way, the social nature of one over the other thus changes the entire set of categories by which we automatically think of it. As mentioned two or three posts ago, it is this "automaticity" that interests me with fashion, how a certain designer changed what we otherwise would never have considered upon opening our closet.
Obviously, many musicians have done this as well (read what people thought at the premier of Stravinsky's Firebird or Tchaikovsky's violin concerto), but it is a very big difference given the inherently social nature of clothes.

Originally Posted by LA Guy 

Completely tangential, but I have ELO, Gazebo, Tears for Fears, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Muse, 2 Chainz, classic (pre-humous) Tupac, Chopin, and Meursault all on the same playlist (just looking at what is coming up next). I'm assuming that there are minds being blown right now.

Originally Posted by unbelragazzo 

^I'll go back to my original statement of taking preferences as primitive (in the sense of being the basic assumption). The way to figure out if something looks good is not to go investigating what physical traits were advantageous on the plains of Africa, and then investigate if these traits are accentuated in said garment. The way to figure out if something looks good is to look at it. Hardy Amies quote I'm too lazy to type out again:
http://ivorytowerstyle.tumblr.com/post/31099567302/to-this-as-to-anything-else-that-is-designed-and

Originally Posted by rach2jlc 

Interesting! Quick point (as I"ve got to get to work!), but one of the interesting thing about non-western designers, especially Yohji, has been the extent to which they've pushed the bounds on what is "flattering" and questioned that Darwinian mindset, showing that it's more social darwinism than biological.

I seem to recall reading an interview about how he developed his style, after seeing a lot of the history of traditional menswear and finding that it was basically just a codeword for a quite narrow, western, historical trend... nothing in the "darwinian" sense. Anyway, he basically said, "imagine me wearing an A&S suit... I'd look completely ridiculous and it would hardly be flattering."

He developed his own style as a response to this, and though he's not an intellectual, I often find his garments to be an interesting commentary on what "flatters" the human body and its shapes. We aren't all the same shape, and won't all look good in the same things, though a certain set of (western, white) men seem to think so.