Good Natured Advice Thread (improving a business wardrobe)

[Isolation]

I tried a cream/ecru shirt in the recent past, and I couldn't do much of anything with it. Granted my wardrobe is rather limited, and one must take into account the particular shade of off-white, but I have just found light blues and clean white to be so much more versatile and pleasing, that it hardly seems worth the effort.

Could it just be a skin color thing? I mean I'm pretty pale for an Asian guy but I feel like light blue often contrasts too much in warmth from my skin and stands out as even more stark than white.

I lot of the argument for blue shirt over white is that it's "warmer" and less stark, but I've found the reverse to be the case for me. It always feels like it stands out. That said it MIGHT be because I just don't wear them enough? I don't know. And yeah, cream/off-white do look a bit more like lived-in white shirts, I would've thought that's the point to a degree, to give it a more casual air to pair with tweedy casual stuff.

 

[Spandexter]

Off white shirts just look like dirty white shirts to me. YMMV.

 

[heldentenor]

Clags and all: are Thai shot silk ties primarily/exclusively a spring/summer thing? That plum example you posted intrigues me.

 

[EliodA]



Off white shirts just look like dirty white shirts to me. YMMV.

My thoughts exactly. In addition to that, I don't think they work well with any complexion. White shirt is always the better choice.

 

[Claghorn]



Clags and all: are Thai shot silk ties primarily/exclusively a spring/summer thing?  That plum example you posted intrigues me. 

Leans S/S, but I think the right color trumps that. I have no qualms wearing the plum in F/W

 

[Patrick R]

Iso, I really enjoyed reading that post.

 

[ridethecliche]

The most shocking thing to me about the entirety of @Isolation 's post is that ze's a professional poker player...

On a totally unrelated note, have you ever looked at anything by Rick Owens or Yohji on the streetwear side of things. I think you'll get a kick out of some of those silhouettes since they essentially shroud the wearer in a seemingly postmodern ambiguity at times. Might be fun to play around with.

 

[Academic2]

One might, in principle, entirely share Iso’s penchant for maximum waist suppression and still be less than impressed by the fit of his DB jacket. That is, you might believe that waist suppression is properly achieved through the cut of the jacket, not by pulling at the buttoning point.

Cheers,

Ac

 

[Isolation]

The most shocking thing to me about the entirety of @Isolation 's post is that ze's a professional poker player...

On a totally unrelated note, have you ever looked at anything by Rick Owens or Yohji on the streetwear side of things. I think you'll get a kick out of some of those silhouettes since they essentially shroud the wearer in a seemingly postmodern ambiguity at times. Might be fun to play around with.

I have! actually, and it did appeal to me, although, and I suspect this to be normal for fashion stuff, a greater majority of the stuff on some of the runway was yes than no for me, but streetwear especially asian street fashion does interest me. That said it's something that I think have less concrete grounding and is harder to understand so I'm taking my term in getting into that kind of stuff.

Quote:
Definitely. The tailor I am using is obviously not entirely top notch (though I insist that I'm quite happy with them for the price). I'm still semi wardrobe building, and I'm still slowly figuring out what I want. One day I hope to be able to use a higher tier tailor, maybe steed/huntsman, or someone who does cuts like that and who I feel like would be able to explain what I want to. I'm happy with how far I've come so far. Like I said, still young, plenty of time.

Quote:
That's my thought, it'd be to pair with some linen/tweedy country stuff which will be brown or have lements of brown in them, and also olive? I think olive doesn't pair well with blue, they are a bit too striking together despite both being similarish in terms of boldness/neutralness (I'm not good with the words when it comes to visual arts/colors).

That said I haven't really found a cream I'm super happy with yet. There's a nice off-white, but I want some very subtle cream that isn't so... yellow. Eh.

 

[archibaldleach]

@Isolation, interesting that you mention Steed here (I believe you have before) as a potential future option, as I was thinking about how a drape cut might allow you to achieve a lot of your aesthetic goals in a more SF-approved way. I think that the degree of waist suppression is a bit of an issue for you, but some of your jackets also seem a bit tight in the waist. Maybe they're not, but any aesthetic goals aside, I can't imagine that being comfortable if it is in fact the case. A drape cut will provide excess cloth in the chest area and may provide a bit of shoulder extension in some cases. I'd think this would allow you to still appear to have a lot of waist suppression while perhaps having the jacket fit just a bit looser in the waist and then flare out less at the hips. Obviously the look would not be the exact same as what you are wearing now (a drape cut suit is going to be a bit more relaxed looking for one thing), but it would incorporate some of the principles in a different way. Could be interesting to experiment with. Getting one odd jacket from Steed MTM may not be the worst idea in the world. At the very least, meet with them and see if they have thoughts on how to accommodate some of your stylistic preferences within the context of their house style. Huntsman tends to do a more structured jacket that can have a bit more dramatic presentation with waist suppression, but I think they would probably give you something a bit less dramatic.

I don't think whether something looks effeminate is particularly relevant for this conversation and clearly you don't mind venturing into something that could give others that impression. I suspect the issue may be your tailor, who is trying to create a certain silhouette for you but without the expertise / quality / care you might find with a better tailor. Too much waist suppression could also mess up the skirt and balance of your jacket.

 

[YRR92]

@Isolation
A really green-y olive can look good with dark blue, and I think blue oxfords look good with many shades of olive, but cream would be a good choice for olive. Needs a little flair, I think -- high-banded spread collar is on my list.

I think, Iso, that if you swing back through the history of classic menswear, you'll get more perspective on silhouette and how proportions play together (you can also learn this from runway/fashun stuff, and from streetwear), which I think will probably help a lot.

If clothes are like playing music, then without an understanding of how cloth drapes and how proportions work, it's like you're just learning to pick out rock songs or string chords together -- and some people can get great results from that. But if you develop an eye for proportions and for the characteristics of material*, it's like learning music theory, which gives you the power to understand why things work on a deeper level.

But that's also the experiential side of things -- much harder to learn about from robopose still pictures on the internet.

*And that's SW&D's most valid criticism of the CM side of this forum -- SWD posters in general have more of an eye for that kind of thing than our lot does.

 

[ridethecliche]

I'd love to see iso in a slouchy yohji suit. I think it's so counter to everything we're talking about right now but i really want to see how it would play out.

 

[Newcomer]

Hey Iso, thank you very much for that reply--very interesting, and I think that this board would be very helpful in helping you define your style!

I will respond in more detail tomorrow.

Cheers!

 

[Coxsackie]

I actually think that if I eventually figure out what I want to wear, I'll end up looking less SF-approved than even now. If it goes well it'll be a LabelKing-esque dandy, if it goes poorly, I'll just be another fashion victim. Ah, the excitement of uncertainty!

Aspiring to LabelKing's sense of style is great. But go and have another look at his fits. They are (mostly) not tight or heavily waist-suppressed. The visual impact comes from his virtuoso combinations (and clashes) of cut, colour, fabric and style.

I tried to divorce my previous comments from any reference to sexuality. Rather, it's about good taste vs. narcissism; creating a coherent picture rather than drawing attention to one aspect.

The rest of your defence is pretty much unassailable, and I wish you the very best in your journey towards sartorial nirvana.

 

[YRR92]

Aspiring to LabelKing's sense of style is great. But go and have another look at his fits. They are (mostly) not tight or heavily waist-suppressed. The visual impact comes from his virtuoso combinations (and clashes) of cut, colour, fabric and style.

Well, not necessarily tight, but certainly it's all about as nipped at the waist as clean fit allows.

But there was never an ironic twist with LK, which is something I aspire to. It may not have been pure '70s jet-set, but it was certainly a very sincerely meant version of it, which came from a place of great knowledge of the style. Barima did this very well, too.

I think the cues of the post-"Peacock Revolution" era (Call it '66 to '77 or so) are especially well-suited for that kind of thing -- the boldest stuff in tailoring was still done within the framework of "classic tailoring," while in the '80s you started seeing stuff that messed with the fundamentals (Armani et al.), while the sensibility of earlier decades doesn't lend itself as easily to camp.