How to dress well in CM without standing out too much

[Stylewords]

My posh--like, peers of the realm or thereabouts--left wing friends don't dress like that.

I think I prefer the tory of bumble to a "left-wing" peer of the realm.

 

[radicaldog]

these outfits have different meanings in different places.

Totally.

If I saw someone wearing a sport coat with desert boots here, I would think they don't know how to dress

Come on, I would've thought you'd know better than to dig yourself into another hole with arbitrary footwear rules by now.

If you don't know that desert boots with tailoring has been a thing since the mods and with various other Euro subcultures as well, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[mak1277]

Fair questions. As I was saying earlier, I'm aware that these political connotations are more evident in Europe. For example, think of the "Tories of Bumble" pic DWW posted recently:

View attachment 1672706

Isn't it obvious that this guy is conservative? I submit it'd be obvious to anyone familiar with the UK. It's also obvious from comments frequently make here that many igents see being well put together as connected to bourgeois, conservative notions of respectability. (I'm not judging, just describing.) Or just consider the different politics regularly on display in MC vs SWD: I don't think the differences are coincidental. Or look at this old feature by Corriere della Sera on politics and fashion in Italy. They correctly note that 40 years ago things were more clear-cut, but still, some elements are still there.

Interesting article, thanks for posting.

Hope my momentary curiosity doesn't turn into a full-scale thread derailment.

 

[dieworkwear]

Come on, I would've thought you'd know better than to dig yourself into another hole with arbitrary footwear rules by now.

If you don't know that desert boots with tailoring has been a thing since the mods and with various other Euro subcultures as well, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm just saying that it's not something worn in the US. So if I saw it on someone, I would think they're odd or they read about European dress cultures/ Mods. Which is to say they read menswear blogs.

 

[dieworkwear]

An example of highly politicized clothing in the US: bright red baseball caps.

Again, I think different areas have their own specific dress associations. If you were in Italy, maybe this particular item holds no meaning. But in the US, even if people don't see the message on the front, a bright red baseball cap will make people think about your politics.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I guess it's how we're used to seeing the world, but as a professor of sociology, I am sometimes forget that people don't see the world the way I do...

(only joking... maybe)

 

[comrade]

An example of highly politicized clothing in the US: bright red baseball caps.

Again, I think different areas have their own specific dress associations. If you were in Italy, maybe this particular item holds no meaning. But in the US, even if people don't see the message on the front, a bright red baseball cap will make people think about your politics.

It never rally entered my mind that my bright red Cornell cap connoted MAGA.
I wear it when I exercise and to my grandson's baseball games. I am in a Deep Blue
area and have never actually seen a MAGA hat on anyone. And I am an ABD in
political science. I must be losing it.

 

[radicaldog]

I'm just saying that it's not something worn in the US. So if I saw it on someone, I would think they're odd or they read about European dress cultures/ Mods. Which is to say they read menswear blogs.

Wait until they let us back in the country

I suppose in the US the closest example is Steve McQueen:

 

[pasadena man]

I'm just saying that it's not something worn in the US. So if I saw it on someone, I would think they're odd or they read about European dress cultures/ Mods. Which is to say they read menswear blogs.

The Colin Firth character, Bill Haydon (loosely based on the real life Kim Philby), the “Tailor” in the recent film “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, is a posh Oxbridge M16 officer who wears nicely tailored clothing with desert boots. The character is taken from the John le Carre novels.

 

[pasadena man]

Wait until they let us back in the country

I suppose in the US the closest example is Steve McQueen:

View attachment 1672739

Rugged tweed coats with desert boots was a thing for some American academics and brain workers from the late 60's through the 70's. Of course few ended up resembling Mr. McQueen above.

 

[dieworkwear]

Rugged tweed coats with desert boots was a thing for some American academics and brain workers from the late 60's through the 70's. Of course few ended up resembling Mr. McQueen above.

Wait until they let us back in the country

I suppose in the US the closest example is Steve McQueen:

View attachment 1672739

Oh, that's true. I forgot about Steve McQueen.

Actually think Pasadena Man is right. I think there was a sort of granola, left-leaning academic look that was partly about that type of clothes. I just so rarely see it nowadays that, if I saw it, I would think the person is more into style (meaning clothes) than politics (meaning, something natural to an existing subculture outside of clothes).

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Oh, that's true. I forgot about Steve McQueen.

Actually think Pasadena Man is right. I think there was a sort of granola, left-leaning academic look that was partly about that type of clothes. I just so rarely see it nowadays that, if I saw it, I would think the person is more into style (meaning clothes) than politics (meaning, something natural to an existing subculture outside of clothes).

That's pretty much how I dress when I travel for work reasons these days - or whenever it was that we could travel in the pre-pandemic era - especially in Europe. And I am precisely a 'granola left-leaning academic.'

 

[radicaldog]

That's pretty much how I dress when I travel for work reasons these days - or whenever it was that we could travel in the pre-pandemic era - especially in Europe. And I am precisely a 'granola left-leaning academic.'

Same here. Or even when I don't travel. Having said that, it looks as though the States is reopening in Nov and I'm due in a couple of East Coast college towns that month (wasn't counting on it), so I'll try and proselitise for the desert boots & tailoring academic look. One never knows.

 

[mak1277]

Oh, that's true. I forgot about Steve McQueen.

Actually think Pasadena Man is right. I think there was a sort of granola, left-leaning academic look that was partly about that type of clothes. I just so rarely see it nowadays that, if I saw it, I would think the person is more into style (meaning clothes) than politics (meaning, something natural to an existing subculture outside of clothes).

You're always telling people to buy suede chukkas to wear with tailoring aren't you? How is something like this all that different?

 

[pasadena man]

Same here. Or even when I don't travel. Having said that, it looks as though the States is reopening in Nov and I'm due in a couple of East Coast college towns that month (wasn't counting on it), so I'll try and proselitise for the desert boots & tailoring academic look. One never knows.

"The past is not dead. Actually its not even past".-Faulkner