Hacking and ticket pockets on classic suiting

[voxsartoria]

Originally Posted by RJman

Not even in The New Avengers (from which that is a picture) would Steed have worn seersucker, hacking pockets or not.

That would depend on how much you paid him to do it.

For example, with Connery:

- B

 

[dopey]

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

That would depend on how much you paid him to do it.

For example, with Connery:

- B

This picture is the answer to many questions.

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by dopey

This picture is the answer to many questions.
And this one answers the rest.

He's still better dressed than Daniel Craig in the above.

 

[lasbar]

Dopey ,please show us some of Dege&Skinner because they're not very well representated on Style forum compared to the soft tailoring masters...

 

[dopey]

Originally Posted by lasbar

Dopey ,please show us some of Dege&Skinner because they're not very well representated on Style forum compared to the soft tailoring masters...

I don't really take pictures of myself, though I have posted several pictures of Dege & Skinner items on the London Lounge. I probably saved them on imageshack, so I can find them and repost.

 

[lasbar]

We do need a great example of hacking/slanted pockets done tastefully to have a proper debate...
I have seen a few great hacking pockets but the angle used was minimal...
I have seen a few examples of hacking + ticket pocket on worsted suit but they didn't look natural,kind of forced..

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by RJman

Not even in The New Avengers (from which that is a picture) would Steed have worn seersucker, hacking pockets or not.

Considering it was the '70s, Steed escaped relatively unscathed. Though his stuff naturally pales when compared with the best of his '60s wardrobe.

But yeah, no seersucker.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

That would depend on how much you paid him to do it.

For example, with Connery:

- B

Pat may never have won an Oscar, but he never wore a red bikini, either.

He did, however, enjoy his time as a nudist, according to his writings.

No need to dig up a picture of that.

 

[MBreinin]

OMG, is that real??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/

 

[jamesbond]

Originally Posted by lasbar

We do need a great example of hacking/slanted pockets done tastefully to have a proper debate...I have seen a few great hacking pockets but the angle used was minimal...
I have seen a few examples of hacking + ticket pocket on worsted suit but they didn't look natural,kind of forced..

So Vox's suit picture isn't done tastefully? I think his hacking pockets are pretty minimally angled, no? Probably one of the better ones you'll see out there. I have a few sportcoats which are much more severe and i actually prefer the minamal ones on Vox's myself.

 

[saint]

Originally Posted by pejsek

What puts you on the wrong side of affectation? Lots of very proper SR tailors have been doing modest hacking pockets--let's all get out our protractors--on city suits for decades. They are fully within the canon. The impulse to eliminate all excess and decoration is largely the product of the internet age. A small cabal of sartorial Cromwells.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

Exactly.

- B

Let's skip past the general incoherence of Pejsek's post and get to the point. SR is there to serve the customer, as such they will make you a conservative suit or a pimp suit, if you are willing to pay; they are arbiters of taste only to those who have no idea what they want. There is no sartorial canon, there are icons of style and there are traditional elements of dress, but they do not constitute a canon. The impulse to eliminate excess and decoration has been around forever, the internet has nothing to do with it. I have no wish to eliminate either excess or decoration in men's clothing, I just think that hacking pockets on a city/business suit look silly; just as I think that suits with two buttonholes on the left lapel look silly (although the number of buttonholes is certainly excessive). The last sentence is a fragment, a small cabal of sartorial Cromwells (I do like that phrase though, its very colorful) did what?

 

[Film Noir Buff]

I would be careful in the USA with hacking pockets, Their setting might bother people along the "Not quite right" route.

This isn't about whether something is empirically right or wrong, or looks nice or doesn't it's about how people are going to react. I could imagine someone getting a glimpse of hacking pockets on a work suit and wondering if the wearer wasn't quite trustworthy.

Actually a ticket pocket is more acceptable in some ways because they're in RL ads all the time and even though they are hideous, people are accustomed to them. The moral is that Americans do not like surprises and they will resent it if youre wearing something they dont understand.

There's no need to pursue some of these stylistic choices, they were more important when everyone was wearing suits and people used a variety of suit details to differentiate themselves.

In some ways, men have fewer choices today in terms of fabric types and colors but in some ways they have more variety within the fewer basic categories left. This developed for a reason and it is good to realize this before geting a suit made that observers might think bizarre only because one can point to a book or an old photo and assert "But they used to wear these".

 

[Luddite]

You talk weirder **** than the iGents you harass, FNB.

 

[pejsek]

Originally Posted by saint

Let's skip past the general incoherence of Pejsek's post and get to the point. SR is there to serve the customer, as such they will make you a conservative suit or a pimp suit, if you are willing to pay; they are arbiters of taste only to those who have no idea what they want. There is no sartorial canon, there are icons of style and there are traditional elements of dress, but they do not constitute a canon. The impulse to eliminate excess and decoration has been around forever, the internet has nothing to do with it. I have no wish to eliminate either excess or decoration in men's clothing, I just think that hacking pockets on a city/business suit look silly; just as I think that suits with two buttonholes on the left lapel look silly (although the number of buttonholes is certainly excessive). The last sentence is a fragment, a small cabal of sartorial Cromwells (I do like that phrase though, its very colorful) did what?

Sometimes incoherence is just another way of saying something important.

The question of what SR tailors will and will not make up is a thorny one. You are correct, I think, to point out that the judgments and choices a tailor makes for a customer without strong or well-defined preferences will likely be a reflection of what is safe and proper. The SR tailor, however, is unlikely to just indulge every whim and make up whatever the customer asks for. It's his name on the label (and the silhouette too) and if he strays too far he risks losing the confidence of all those who would come to him looking only for propriety--the bread and butter of the trade. So, yes, there is something like a SR canon and it is somewhat more restrictive and well-defined than simple "traditional elements of dress."

Anyway, I'm not here to hand down rules or engage in any other sort of fatwa. If you don't like hacking pockets on city suits that's great. I'm all for diversity--it really makes the sartorial world go around. I do believe that for some reason many participants on these discussion boards are strangely drawn to paring down and simplifying. I don't know how many more times I can bear to read another post pining for the sleekest possible shoe. Some of the eliminationists are truly committed to the pursuit of simplicity, but many others, I'm afraid, do it out of fear.

FNB makes a good point. On a very basic level hacking pockets on a suit may rub a lot of people the wrong way. From a practical point-of-view, then, if you are looking to convey power and authority in a fairly straightforward way you should avoid them.

It's kind of funny that rules for city suits seem to be becoming more and more restrictive, even though fewer and fewer people work in the city and the city itself is not what it once was. What is the proper standard for a suburban office park?

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by pejsek

Sometimes incoherence is just another way of saying something important.

The question of what SR tailors will and will not make up is a thorny one. You are correct, I think, to point out that the judgments and choices a tailor makes for a customer without strong or well-defined preferences will likely be a reflection of what is safe and proper. The SR tailor, however, is unlikely to just indulge every whim and make up whatever the customer asks for. It's his name on the label (and the silhouette too) and if he strays too far he risks losing the confidence of all those who would come to him looking only for propriety--the bread and butter of the trade. So, yes, there is something like a SR canon and it is somewhat more restrictive and well-defined than simple "traditional elements of dress."

Anyway, I'm not here to hand down rules or engage in any other sort of fatwa. If you don't like hacking pockets on city suits that's great. I'm all for diversity--it really makes the sartorial world go around. I do believe that for some reason many participants on these discussion boards are strangely drawn to paring down and simplifying. I don't know how many more times I can bear to read another post pining for the sleekest possible shoe. Some of the eliminationists are truly committed to the pursuit of simplicity, but many others, I'm afraid, do it out of fear.

FNB makes a good point. On a very basic level hacking pockets on a suit may rub a lot of people the wrong way. From a practical point-of-view, then, if you are looking to convey power and authority in a fairly straightforward way you should avoid them.

It's kind of funny that rules for city suits seem to be becoming more and more restrictive, even though fewer and fewer people work in the city and the city itself is not what it once was. What is the proper standard for a suburban office park?

I've seen some pretty wild things from the '60s and '70s done up by otherwise conservative Savile Row tailors.

 

[mt_spiffy]

Originally Posted by triniboy27

Hacking and ticket pockets on Savile Row (Stuart Lamprell) suit.

LOVE it. If I had my choice ALL my suits would have hacking AND ticket pockets. AND be 3 piece!