brescd01
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2004
- Messages
- 543
- Reaction score
- 7
Steve, this is NOT personal for me. I am merely expressing my opinion. And my opinion is CERTAINLY NOT holy writ, and I apologize if I represented it as such.
One clarification: perhaps your love of shoes, Jcusey, clouded your carefully reading my posts, but RTW shoes and bespoke are two different animals, and I did not mean to suggest that RTW "fair price" should be compared to bespoke "fair price." Furthermore, so long as gentlemen of refined taste anty up their pennies to acquire these fine crafts, good shoemaking will be promoted. But I argue (apparently badly) that when these items become objects of desire for people who no longer appreciate their worth, their quality may decline.
I tried to make an analogy with music but cause and effect are hard to tease out and one can find fuel for both fires in such matters as bel canto. However, opera singing was well-served by its popularization and it matured as an art when it was no longer exclusive to the nobility (early nineteenth century). But since World War 2, it has gradually become a sign of education and prestige and somewhat more exclusive again, and it has declined miserably. It is not exclusive to the wealthy however, but a pseudo-educated middle class. So the analogy partly fits, but not entirely.
In the end, I think price is part of the quality of a garment, and should be appraised just as we would appreciate the elegance of  a last or quality of the sewing. And though I am not sure there is a Platonic ideal, I think that one can have some general ideas about fair value. Though the majority of the world might scoff at the modest price of my Alfred Sargents, the majority of the world has REALLY ugly shoes. And I do not think that they are confused. Were they to put their shoes against ours, they would approve of ours, not scoff.
If by saying that 10,000 dollars was an outrageous price for Lattanzies, you inferred that I do not value your interest in fine shoes, you are wrong. I think the shoes appreciated on this forum and Ask Andy are beautiful and I wish more people wore such nice shoes. Life would be a lot prettier. And you are wrong Jcusey about your distinction of "value judgment," and "aesthetic judgment." My appraisal of price was not a value judgment (I am not so shallow). It is an aesthetic judgment. I leave value judgments to more important issues.
One clarification: perhaps your love of shoes, Jcusey, clouded your carefully reading my posts, but RTW shoes and bespoke are two different animals, and I did not mean to suggest that RTW "fair price" should be compared to bespoke "fair price." Furthermore, so long as gentlemen of refined taste anty up their pennies to acquire these fine crafts, good shoemaking will be promoted. But I argue (apparently badly) that when these items become objects of desire for people who no longer appreciate their worth, their quality may decline.
I tried to make an analogy with music but cause and effect are hard to tease out and one can find fuel for both fires in such matters as bel canto. However, opera singing was well-served by its popularization and it matured as an art when it was no longer exclusive to the nobility (early nineteenth century). But since World War 2, it has gradually become a sign of education and prestige and somewhat more exclusive again, and it has declined miserably. It is not exclusive to the wealthy however, but a pseudo-educated middle class. So the analogy partly fits, but not entirely.
In the end, I think price is part of the quality of a garment, and should be appraised just as we would appreciate the elegance of  a last or quality of the sewing. And though I am not sure there is a Platonic ideal, I think that one can have some general ideas about fair value. Though the majority of the world might scoff at the modest price of my Alfred Sargents, the majority of the world has REALLY ugly shoes. And I do not think that they are confused. Were they to put their shoes against ours, they would approve of ours, not scoff.
If by saying that 10,000 dollars was an outrageous price for Lattanzies, you inferred that I do not value your interest in fine shoes, you are wrong. I think the shoes appreciated on this forum and Ask Andy are beautiful and I wish more people wore such nice shoes. Life would be a lot prettier. And you are wrong Jcusey about your distinction of "value judgment," and "aesthetic judgment." My appraisal of price was not a value judgment (I am not so shallow). It is an aesthetic judgment. I leave value judgments to more important issues.
