Sneakers With Tailoring: Yes, No, Maybe?

[JFWR]

The whole white shirt discussion happened a long time ago, and it ended up being a very long thread. I think it would be more useful to just read that thread, rather than debate specific examples here.

In the outfit I described, I would only wear a light blue or a white-and-light-blue striped shirt. But if someone wanted to rusticate it, I think tattersall would be OK.

Wear something like this but with a green corduroy sport coat and brown suede chukkas, loafers, or derbies.


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My green jacket is almost exactly the shade of O'Tooles. It doesn't seem like this sort of blue would go well with it.

I have worn the jacket with tan chinos, though.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[dieworkwear]

I don't think I'd have any qualms about wearing these. It's sometimes hard to tell by the pics when it comes to shades like this, but to me they look like they'd just wear like brown.

Which outfit looks better to you?

Or

 

[acapaca]

With that outfit I'd be fine with the dark brown, I suppose, but I may not be the best person to say, because I don't own (or wear, obviously) that green kind of tweed. If I were to wear the loden shoes I imagine I'd be pulling a jacket more toward a darker, maybe chocolatey, brown.

Sometimes you don't know till you see it all together, though! You're sure right about that.

 

[radicaldog]

But how can bright white sneakers not draw your eye down even more than tan shoes??

White is no colour, just like black. And in fact many hold that black shoes work even with quite light suits.

 

[radicaldog]

I'd pair green shoes with tans, greys, and browns chiefly

Fwiw, I think this artistic/pictorial approach to dress is a bit of a category mistake, much like architecture that is too sculptural, to the detriment of the context and function of a building. But of course many like these sorts of buildings. It’s a very postmodern taste, whereas I suppose I remain a bit of a modernist.

 

[radicaldog]

But let's be clear that you also believe there is no way you, or presumably anyone else, can know what message any given person will receive.

But the point of taste in the traditional sense is that it only matters how the relevant class receives things, not “any given person”. Mutatis mutandis this is also how many style subcultures work.

 

[radicaldog]

I liked his work as a self aware pastiche of classic menswear within a streetwear context

Exactly. I think the inspiration here was probably green Doc Martens—a punk staple. But JW is pretty avant-garde stuff, hardly classic. Maybe this can all be settled if those fond of blue/green Oxford just say they’re dandies uninterested in CM. To each their own etc.

 

[radicaldog]

Brown corduroy trousers.
White dress shirt + tie.
Green corduroy jacket

Double cord separates? Bold. But look, if this is your idiosyncratic dandy aesthetic, more power to you.

I do think a lot of this debate could be avoided if we stopped the turf war about what is classic. Do you really care if there is a consensus that the above outfit isn’t classic? Because I think there is.

 

[Waldo Jeffers]

Drakes did some dark green boat shoes a couple of years back that looked pretty sweet and a nice alternative to navy boat shoes. I could easily wear these with most of my summer clothes

 

[Hellbent]

Double cord separates? Bold. But look, if this is your idiosyncratic dandy aesthetic, more power to you.

I do think a lot of this debate could be avoided if we stopped the turf war about what is classic. Do you really care if there is a consensus that the above outfit isn’t classic? Because I think there is.

I think the different opinion about what is classic are important to discuss. This being the classic menswear part of the forum after all.
At the same time, to make an analogy to photography, I view the consensus a bit like the rule of thirds and golden hour light. It's important to learn, but It gets boring if you never branch out.

And by the way, I still can't see how sneakers with tailoring can be so controversial. I mean it has been done basically since the 50s/60s, by people commonly referred to as icons, like David Niven for instance. It's not really branching out that much.

 

[clee1982]

Drakes did some dark green boat shoes a couple of years back that looked pretty sweet and a nice alternative to navy boat shoes. I could easily wear these with most of my summer clothes

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I think this works but definitely not traditional CM

 

[acapaca]

But the point of taste in the traditional sense is that it only matters how the relevant class receives things, not “any given person”. Mutatis mutandis this is also how many style subcultures work.

Except in this case he goes out of his way to say that there is nothing classist or elitist about it. (Even though it's about harkening back not just to specific clothes from a specific era but to specific clothes worn by a specific class of people from a specific era. It sometimes gets hard to juggle the apparent inconsistencies.)

 

[Waldo Jeffers]

I think this works but definitely not traditional CM

I guess not but wouldn’t be hard to wear with a blue blazer

to bring it back to sneakers, could swap out for these too

 

[acapaca]

I think the different opinion about what is classic are important to discuss. This being the classic menswear part of the forum after all.
At the same time, to make an analogy to photography, I view the consensus a bit like the rule of thirds and golden hour light. It's important to learn, but It gets boring if you never branch out.

And by the way, I still can't see how sneakers with tailoring can be so controversial. I mean it has been done basically since the 50s/60s, by people commonly referred to as icons, like David Niven for instance. It's not really branching out that much.

Yes, I do think this is an important discussion to have -- if for nothing else, to settle on some ground rules. Just exactly where are those margins between categories, where 'rules' may stop to apply.

Take the case of Stoffa. This is a very well respected new and up-and-coming brand, as I understand it. How do we categorize their work? They appear to cover a range of...oh, how to put it...levels of formality.

Much of it seems straightforwardly inspired by classic looks, if styled with modern twists.

It seems that in each of the images above the look on the right is anchored toward the formal end of things and the look on the left more casual. Do the looks on the right qualify as CM? What about the looks on the left, what are they? Are they SWD? (The guy in the second pic on the left, is that sneakers with tailoring?)

I spend a lot of time myself in tropical places and in settings that make no specific demands in the way of dress code even for business meetings and the like. I often wear something along the lines of this guy on the right:

Except the shirt would be a standard one, in linen or maybe poplin, and the shoes would be loafers and not sandals. What would you call that look? Each of the three individual pieces -- tailored trousers, penny loafers, basic shirt, in my case -- are definitely CM on their own, as component pieces in a 'uniform' sort of outfit. But it's a casual look, with no jacket. Yet it's clearly not streetwear. What is it? What principles, if any, should apply?

 

[apShepard]

Green shoes are ugly af and a bit cringy, same as fun socks. I don't know why or how that has to tie in with whatever the upper class wears.