What Has Been the Worst Era for Men's Suits?

But here is the question: What were conservative businessmen wearing in the 70s? My take is that in the early/ mid 90s even well-bred upper-class men (see Niles and Frasier) were wearing those awful double-breasted numbers.

MrDaniels said:

Looking at the post-WW2 years, what has been the worst era for men's business dress?


I am going to say the early-to-mid 90s. All those damn 6x2 double-breasted suits with the super-wide lapels and ventless jackets.


Looks like the costume person for Wolf of Wall Street nailed the look perfectly:

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Suit styles have been cycling through the same basic ideas since around the 1910's. It's interesting to note that the low button stance "hero" shouldered double breasted power suit of the 80's and 90's was almost identical to the mid 30's and mid 50's era suits of the same general style. Bellow is an example of a 1935 6x2 low button stance, wide low lapel with big exaggerated shoulders (take away the waistcoat, and even the tie exposure would be almost the same).



Yes, the 90's took some of these themes to new extremes, but the suit Leonardo is wearing wasn't, for the time, all that awful (I can remember far, far worse examples flowing out of Men's Wearhouse). Also, I don't think the suit above is anywhere near as awful as the vacuum sealed, micro lapel, hip high jacket, sock showing, shiny suit TAT rubbish that is popular in some circles today.

Of course, even the worst of today, the 00's, 90's and the 80's pales in comparison to the drug induced decade-long horror show of the 1970's:

I do think it very important to distinguish between conservative business dress and general fashion. I think the conservative business dress comparison is more relevant.



aravenel said:

I do think it very important to distinguish between conservative business dress and general fashion. I think the conservative business dress comparison is more relevant.

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Yes, or this could be an example of Eisenhower-era dress:




And look at the presidential portrait of Gerald Ford. SOME guys were rocking some conservative business dress in the Disco Era!



MrDaniels said:

But here is the question: What were conservative businessmen wearing in the 70s? My take is that in the early/ mid 90s even well-bred upper-class men (see Niles and Frasier) were wearing those awful double-breasted numbers.

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Baggy saggy shiney 2 button suits with wide lapels. Think Richard Nixon.

Marks and Spencer has a halfway decent reputation these days for low cost OK quality OTR stuff. In the 1970s they were selling navy blazers made of Terylene by ICI, and crimplene trousers that would catch fire from static if your chubby thighs rubbed together. Polyester and bri-nylon non iron shirts that will be pulled out of a landfill centuries from now with zero biodegrade.

Mid 2000's-2010's shrunken suits are terrible

Sadly, today I heard a girl rave about Thom Browne suits.

I almost threw an "Ermengildo Zegna, *****!" in her face, but refrained. Not a battle worth fighting.



Ianiceman said:

Baggy saggy shiney 2 button suits with wide lapels. Think Richard Nixon.

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While Nixon had his fashion failure moments (as do most public figures), overall he was a tolerably well dressed President. He preferred Hickey Freeman suits, as did his former boss, Dwight Eisenhower.

Here's a picture of Nixon, from July 1972. It's used for the cover of Conrad Black's biography, _The Invincible Quest: the Life of Richard Milhous Nixon_:



Here he is from the 1974 State of the Union Address:



And one with Anwar Sadat, also from 1974:



Nothing particularly objectionable in terms of his attire. It was mostly in his younger days, and when dressed casually, that he sometimes seemed poorly dressed.



archibaldleach said:

I'm tempted to say the 1970s, but I'm going to go with the 1990s. More for the business casual trend which resulted in far too many people wearing a suit without a tie. Pinstripe suits, white shirt with top button undone and no tie. Ugh. At least people seemed to have kept their ties on more in the past.

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I don't think the suit without the tie was prevalent in the 90s.
The 90s were the start of "Business Casual". The dressy business suit
without a tie is just the latest iteration of this trend and began in the mid 2000s.
Now even Obama and other national leaders seem to show up in this get-up at International
conferences

http://rockycoastnews.blogspot.com/2013/06/white-house-schedule-june-19-2013.html

I was always interested in fashion since my teenage years. I served in the US military in the 70's, and was stationed in Korea for a year. That was the first time I saw shops (in the towns off base) that would make suits custom made to order.

The shops would have fabric samples in the window and various suit designs of the times displayed. The prices were pretty inexpensive so I thought it would be fun to have a custom made suit.

Having a limited knowledge of fashion, and no sense of style, I commissioned a 3 piece, single breasted, powder blue, crush velvet suit, with a 34 inch waist and 36 inch bell bottoms. The fabric was not great, but the craftsmanship seemed pretty good from what I knew.

I wore the suit (with an open collar royal blue silk shirt) to a couple of dance parties where I got a lot of strange looks. I put the suit away and forgot about it. At some point, when a 34 inch waist became a fond memory, I'm sure I discarded the suit.

So... I would have to say the 70's was the worst era for suits, but maybe that's just me.



Ianiceman said:

Baggy saggy shiney 2 button suits with wide lapels. Think Richard Nixon.

Marks and Spencer has a halfway decent reputation these days for low cost OK quality OTR stuff. In the 1970s they were selling navy blazers made of Terylene by ICI, and crimplene trousers that would catch fire from static if your chubby thighs rubbed together. Polyester and bri-nylon non iron shirts that will be pulled out of a landfill centuries from now with zero biodegrade.

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Polyester and wool blends were by no means relegated to the mass market. Dormeuil and Scabal were doing polyester blends starting in the '60s. It was considered a very advanced and expensive fabric.

The polyester era is probably the absolute worst but every one has its abominations. Right now it is skinny suits and short jackets - hideous. It will be always the same, what we regard as 'normal' has evolved and will continue to do so.

It's taken this long for someone to post THIS?






Once Disco Fever cooled down, the early 80s had some really nice three-piece suits. I would say from 78-83 about 30% of the suits worn at an average business meeting and about 50% at an event would be three-piece.

The 70's, though gaudy and garish at worst, still carried some of the previous decade's elegance. Not everyone was making the most extreme styles.




But in the 90's, there was nothing but loose, monstrously wide suits with low buttoning points. And the shirts! The shirts!





The late 1940's was pretty much the same - wide and baggy, but at least people's tailors made most of them fit well. As seen in Hitchcock's Rope, 1948:

While still not quite right, I actually prefer the 90's to the current skin-tight, narrow lapels, low-rise sausage trousers, high buttoning point monstrosities. I think the worst era for men's suits is probably today

One should also note that the 1970s silhouettes actually harkened back to the '20s. There was something of an Art Deco resurgence in the '70s.

This very well could also be a well-tailored '70s silhouetted suit.