FRIDAY CHALLENGE 08/09/13; The unusually colored shirt

[An Acute Style]

Thanks for the votes, gents.

 

[sugarbutch]



AAS the standout this week IMO. The shirt itself was considerably less garish than most but it actually made sense in the context of the fit.

Most of the other shirts seemed like afterthoughts.

Clapeyron was my runner-up more because everything fit really well.

But you don't like green shirts and half of them were green. Are you surprised that you didn't like most of them?

 

[Cantabrigian]

I do dislike almost all of the shirts in this thread but that wasn't my criticism.

Most of them bore no relation to the rest of the outfits. So nearly all of these fits look like what you'd expect when asking normally traditionally(ish) dressed guys to wear a fun shirt. You get pretty normal outfits + a... noticeable... shirt.

Where AAS succeeded (IMO) is that a cotton or linen blazer + khakis makes sense with a summery green shirt. A navy worsted wouldn't be nearly as harmonious.

And it helps that AAS, as I mentioned before, has a dope roll on that collar.

 

[RDiaz]

You're on to something there, Canta. Ed just gave me some advice in WAYWRN and I'm thinking my fit would have been 1000's of times better with a knit tie (or an invisible tie) and chinos. Same thing with most fits here, maybe they are lacking coherence.

 

[bourbonbasted]



Spoiler

I do dislike almost all of the shirts in this thread but that wasn't my criticism.

Most of them bore no relation to the rest of the outfits. So nearly all of these fits look like what you'd expect when asking normally traditionally(ish) dressed guys to wear a fun shirt. You get pretty normal outfits + a... noticeable... shirt.

Where AAS succeeded (IMO) is that a cotton or linen blazer + khakis makes sense with a summery green shirt. A navy worsted wouldn't be nearly as harmonious.

And it helps that AAS, as I mentioned before, has a dope roll on that collar.

I knew this was going to happen. As soon as people started posting about ties I sensed failure. While my example may not be the most tasteful or the best-executed, there was no way I was going to try to mix a "bold" shirt with a tie or any sort of traditional rig. Hence the slubby jacket and faded jeans.

All that said, I think a lot of "pulling off" bold items comes from the wearer's confidence. I get the feeling close to everyone who posted in here had some reservations about wearing what they wore and/or had to think about their execution a lot. That kind of over-thinking and premeditation shines through when you are wearing something bold. And so you can easily differentiate between someone nonchalantly saying FU vs. someone trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

 

[JPHardy]



I do dislike almost all of the shirts in this thread but that wasn't my criticism.

Most of them bore no relation to the rest of the outfits. So nearly all of these fits look like what you'd expect when asking normally traditionally(ish) dressed guys to wear a fun shirt. You get pretty normal outfits + a... noticeable... shirt.

Where AAS succeeded (IMO) is that a cotton or linen blazer + khakis makes sense with a summery green shirt. A navy worsted wouldn't be nearly as harmonious.

And it helps that AAS, as I mentioned before, has a dope roll on that collar.

C,

you didn't find my fit harmonious?


JP

 

[in stitches]



I'd swear I have seen polls open through Monday on some other challenges - isn't that the way it is?

i think its the best way.
--
Cantabrigian - what about my shirt seemed like an afterthought, and it what was was it not harmonious/coherent with teh rest of my fit. wait, dont answer that, i dont care because im not going to agree with whatever you say. : )
---

i have a strong feeling Ts sudden surge was due to clapeys x-posting a link to the voting in SWD. id bet on it.

 

[mrjester]

i have a strong feeling Ts sudden surge was due to clapeys x-posting a link to the voting in SWD. id bet on it.

 

[sugarbutch]

Spoiler

I do dislike almost all of the shirts in this thread but that wasn't my criticism.

Most of them bore no relation to the rest of the outfits. So nearly all of these fits look like what you'd expect when asking normally traditionally(ish) dressed guys to wear a fun shirt. You get pretty normal outfits + a... noticeable... shirt.

Where AAS succeeded (IMO) is that a cotton or linen blazer + khakis makes sense with a summery green shirt. A navy worsted wouldn't be nearly as harmonious.

And it helps that AAS, as I mentioned before, has a dope roll on that collar.

I knew this was going to happen. As soon as people started posting about ties I sensed failure. While my example may not be the most tasteful or the best-executed, there was no way I was going to try to mix a "bold" shirt with a tie or any sort of traditional rig. Hence the slubby jacket and faded jeans.

All that said, I think a lot of "pulling off" bold items comes from the wearer's confidence. I get the feeling close to everyone who posted in here had some reservations about wearing what they wore and/or had to think about their execution a lot. That kind of over-thinking and premeditation shines through when you are wearing something bold. And so you can easily differentiate between someone nonchalantly saying FU vs. someone trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

I can speak only for myself, but I didn't find my shirt to be that bold, especially in the context of an otherwise sober combination. Essentially, I replaced a solid, light-blue shirt with a solid, light-green shirt. Unconventional, maybe, but hardly bold.

 

[bourbonbasted]

Bold may perhaps be the wrong word. The majority of the shirts were not especially jarring. They were, however, (to my thinking) out of place. I think it has a lot to do with individual taste. A good bit of the looks just seemed somewhat forced. Really I shouldn't have even commented as I have no direct criticism or constructive input. However, it just seems that many submissions were one element shy of being quite nice, and that element was generally the shirt.

For the record I'm not sold that my submission was all that great. But I also don't think I tried to make the shirt something it wasn't which, however subtly, seemed to be the case with the majority of the submissions. A light blue shirt is far too versatile to be swapped with another color (no matter how sedate) and expect the same result. Just my $0.02.

 

[Cantabrigian]



I can speak only for myself, but I didn't find my shirt to be that bold, especially in the context of an otherwise sober combination. Essentially, I replaced a solid, light-blue shirt with a solid, light-green shirt. Unconventional, maybe, but hardly bold.

I agree with the first part of the first sentence but not the second part and I think that makes all the difference.

A pale green shirt doesn't inherently or in the abstract draw attention to itself. If Titsworth ever resurfaces I'm sure he could come up with a color vector which would show that an unsaturated green is well within the unremarkable zone.

But when you put it with a medium scale grey glen plaid + blue overcheck, it's becomes something between unexpected and jarring. You expect to see a suit like that with a blue shirt. The combo makes so much sense and is so common - to the extent you see glen plaid - that anything else (except maybe a white shirt) stands out.

Here's a couple quickly Googled examples of what I think of as the classic

vs

As Tira showed, you can do a green shirt w/ grey glen plaid (I don't love the combo but have to admit it works)

But he did a couple things differently - the glen plaid is smaller in scale and the suit overall looks lighter, crispier and more summery. The blue tie accentuates the fact that it's a spring / summer outfit.

Your suit seems more autumn-y due to the scale of the pattern, the slightly darker color and the fact that it's worn with a brown tie. Everything else is earth toned and lite green makes a lousy earthtone. Though it makes a good pastel.

If you want to shake it up, I think Guido pushed it about as far as you can go and incidentally he's wearing something very similar to what you did--

I think the striped shirt looks fine. (Don't love the square in that outfit but who cares?)

Clapey avoided the pastel - brown tie prob by going with a more tan / olivey sort of green to go with the tie and a more neutral blue jacket--

 

[Cantabrigian]

Since I'm not creative enough to wear an unusual color shirt, here are IMO a couple good examples--

When I first graduated college, I ordered some truly gawdawful shirts from CEGO. Think peach pinpoint, very bright raspberry striped, supersized pink and blue check. I had my eye on a medium blue - orange gingham but (happily) never got around to ordering it. Life got a lot better when I learned to stop worrying and love the blue, white and blue & white. I know that's not what this threak is about but can I get an amen?

 

[mrjester]

I don't get what's so unusual about a burgundy or red bengal stripe. I have one on the way, a remake, and I think it's a great shirt. Fabric below:





It seems like every other Friday, there's one piece of clothing that would qualify me for the challenge that is out getting tailored, made, or remade.

 

[JPHardy]

I specially like this one

Since I'm not creative enough to wear an unusual color shirt, here are IMO a couple good examples--

 

[sugarbutch]

Canta, I know you have only the pictures to go by, but I don't think there's a lot difference in the scale of my suit and Tira's. Also, my suit doesn't have a blue overcheck. When you get down to it, it seems you would just prefer a navy tie to a brown one, and that's fine.

Finally, I wasn't trying to assert that my combo was classic, merely that it was attractive.