The Oxford-Shoe-Worn-Casually Appreciation Thread

[物の哀れ]

Imagine if everyone outside the club was also dressed the same way. And at the TGI Fridays. And Olive Garden. And neighborhood shopping mall. And on lunch break from work. Getting the picture?

This sounds great - everyone would be stylish.

 

[dieworkwear]

Imagine if everyone outside the club was also dressed the same way. And at the TGI Fridays. And Olive Garden. And neighborhood shopping mall. And on lunch break from work. Getting the picture?

I can't transport myself to this imaginary world, so it's an impossible hypothetical. But I can't think of a corollary in other areas of creative expression. Is a song only good when it's contrasted against bad songs? Is a painting only beautiful when it's in a museum full of bad paintings?

And in any case, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Even if it was necessary to have poorly dressed people to have well-dressed people, we can say that some people are poorly dressed.

 

[acapaca]

This sounds great - everyone would be stylish.

For a little while.

As I'm sure you probably know, there are theories about how and why fashions change. It may not be possible to ever really prove this, but the theories seem to hold up to observational data. Just to really simplify (the complexities can get interesting), it goes something like this:

Well, first you have to believe in sort of 'classes', or social strata. If that bothers you, then just stop reading now. But if you're okay with that, then let's carry on.

The basic idea is that people in lower classes -- and by that I mean all classes lower than the highest class -- will imitate the dress/style/fashion of those in the/a class above them. Those in the higher class will respond to this, because otherwise it may not be apparent that are indeed actually in a higher class than those below them (who now look like they do), by wearing something different from their imitators.

And that's why things keep changing. Again, that's just a simplified version, but you get the drift. (And already know this, I'm sure.)

 

[acapaca]

Is a painting only beautiful when it's in a museum full of bad paintings?

They only put curated artworks in the museums. Do you understand sampling?

And in any case, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Even if it was necessary to have poorly dressed people to have well-dressed people, we can say that some people are poorly dressed.

Yes, we can say in that case that some people are poorly dressed. In fact, we can say that exactly half the people are dressed more poorly than the other half.

 

[dieworkwear]

Yes, we can say in that case that some people are poorly dressed. In fact, we can say that exactly half the people are dressed more poorly than the other half.

Are you saying that you can't make normative judgments about aesthetics, only descriptive?

 

[acapaca]

Are you saying that you can't make normative judgments about aesthetics, only descriptive?

I'm saying that normative judgments are useless without a frame of reference.

 

[dieworkwear]

I'm saying that normative judgments are useless without a frame of reference.

I think this was originally about where we should take style inspiration. Someone said that the average person on the street doesn't wear X. I said that we should not take style inspiration from the average person on the street because most people here think the average person on the street is poorly dressed. As such, if you take style inspiration from that person, you will also be poorly dressed.

I think you said that the average person is dressed "averagely." I said that this is the difference between descriptive and normative judgments. I'm fine with saying that the average aesthetic is not pleasing. I don't want to take dress direction from people who I don't think are well-dressed.

Now you're saying that well-dressed people are only well-dressed because of the existence of poorly dressed people. Even if that were true, how does this fit into the discussion?

 

[Sirguywhosmiles]

Vilify me if you want, but dressing is performance art to me. Enjoyable, but performative nonetheless.

If I was the last human on earth, I'd probably dress like Adam Sandler.

Did you not see Will Smith's natty wax jacket in I am Legend? Streetwear I know, but not Adam Sandler.

 

[Sirguywhosmiles]

....Is a bit like someone in rural Missouri declaring what people in LA or New York wear.

EDIT: To clarify, by what authority do you declare these statements?

England is a smaller country than the US. I imagine many people can live their whole lives in Missouri without leaving the state; but even wizened old farmers in James Herriot's time would have travelled up to London occasionally.

 

[ValidusLA]

England is a smaller country than the US. I imagine many people can live their whole lives in Missouri without leaving the state; but even wizened old farmers in James Herriot's time would have travelled up to London occasionally.

Fair play. But this still probably doesn't afford them the ability to wax poetic a what Society is wearing in London with any form if accuracy.

(Also I picked Missouri because its like.... not that remote and has a big(ish) industrially historic city.)

 

[breakaway01]

I'm saying that normative judgments are useless without a frame of reference.

Then you don’t understand what “normative” means. It is a value opinion of what should be. A normative statement “people should not kill other people” is valid regardless of the actual murder rate in society.

 

[breakaway01]

@acapaca I thought I had a general sense of where you were coming from but now I am getting confused.
I thought you had stated in the past that you didn’t believe in normative rules of dressing and that people should do as they please and inform themselves by what they see around themselves. Now I think you’re suggesting that being stylish is defined by NOT looking like most people? so on the one hand we have your original argument that wearing oxfords with chinos is acceptable because it’s worn widely but now this argument that you can only be stylish by comparison to the “average” in society (so one shouldn’t go by what one sees around them if the goal is to be stylish?)

 

[Sirguywhosmiles]

Fair play. But this still probably doesn't afford them the ability to wax poetic a what Society is wearing in London with any form if accuracy.

(Also I picked Missouri because its like.... not that remote and has a big(ish) industrially historic city.)

Hmmmmm. I would have thought Britain is fairly homogeneous as far as CM clothing goes; businessmen in Leeds will be closer in dress to those in London than those in Missouri might be to those in LA. Perhaps I should have emphasised that instead of the frequency of travel to London!

Edit to add: I suppose I should explain that every group of British people I know, including some from remote parts of Wales, includes a few that moved to London and stayed, and a few more that worked for a good while in London and then moved back, or on to somewhere similarly remote. Landscape gardeners and farmers in Porth Call have old school friends in finance in The City. The UK revolves around it's capital city-which is massive compared to the size of the country-far more than countries that have smaller capitals and a greater diversity of large non-capital cities. It is more centralised, both physically and psychologically. So the average British person is more familiar with London than the average Australian is with Canberra; or the average Frenchman with Paris.

Now if you mean Society as in the upper class or aristocracy, yes someone from Yorkshire, even someone interested in clothes, may not be familiar with what they wear in their leisure time. I would hazard a guess that they wear a lot of loafers with their casual wear, but it is only guess, and I've no idea about suits.

 

[bicycleradical]

Admittedly, the sub-set of men who wear dress shoes at all is far smaller. And I am not speaking about quality dress shoes. The majority of dress shoes I see are Rockports and Cole Haans at best.

Absolutely. The people who I see wearing loafers with suits are usually on their way to or from the office. Outside of that circle, the amount of people wearing dress shoes is pretty small.

 

[yorkshire pud]

Fair play. But this still probably doesn't afford them the ability to wax poetic a what Society is wearing in London with any form if accuracy.

(Also I picked Missouri because its like.... not that remote and has a big(ish) industrially historic city.)

We also Don

Fair play. But this still probably doesn't afford them the ability to wax poetic a what Society is wearing in London with any form if accuracy.

(Also I picked Missouri because its like.... not that remote and has a big(ish) industrially historic city.)

I used to travel down to London quite often for work, so I got to see regular people in bars, restaurants, hotels and railway stations etc.

We meet lots of people from London visiting our little bit of Yorkshire.

London is only three hours from where we live by rail despite our proximity to the National Park.

I personally would say Manchester (famous for it's music scene and two world class soccer teams) is more Stylish than London, it's just cooler and more laid back than London, which is a shadow of it's former self because the locals have been increasingly forced out of the city thanks to high property prices

Leeds/Bradford and Manchester were vitally important in the development of modern clothing, Textiles from these mill cities were shipped across the Empire and they were at the forefront of the industrial revolution along with Birmingham.

In fact originally London (Londinium) was only the capital city of the Southern part of Brittania, The Romans had another much more beautiful Capital in the North now called York (Eboracum) in Yorkshire (it also has a famous city in the USA named for it), many famous battles for England took place in Yorkshire and it is the largest county, it's rural but it isn't a backwater, many famous Artists originate here, and it has it's own culture to some extent.