The Oxford-Shoe-Worn-Casually Appreciation Thread

[Sir Jack II]

I'm an advocate of colour.

Well I’m an advocate of color.

 

[dieworkwear]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The logical conclusion of 'but this would be better' is that you'll be down to one single outfit you wear every day. It doesn't work that way.

 

[emptym]

There are at least two clearly wearing oxfords (jeans guy and wholecut guy)...

I didn't see anyone w/ wholecuts, but I could have missed it. Pic?

What if the baseball cap was Goodyear welted and made from green shell cordovan?

If it's fitted, then, OK, since those are the sleekest, most versatile caps.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The logical conclusion of 'but this would be better' is that you'll be down to one single outfit you wear every day. It doesn't work that way...

This would be logical only if no two (or more) things could be equally good.

 

[acapaca]

Here's wholecut guy:

This would be logical only if no two (or more) things could be equally good.

If all you can do is sort things into two bins, 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable', then you possess little in the way of discernment and less in the way of nuance.

 

[dieworkwear]

That outfit would be better with different shoes, but it's an otherwise good outfit. At the time that guide was written, Vox was pushing back a level of incoherence on the forum that was much larger and greater than what we're discussing in this thread (barring the blue and purple and green shoes). People were festooning their lapels with felted flowers, wearing fun socks with dark worsted suits, and often wearing bad tailoring. So he was trying to introduce an idea of how to dress more coherently and elegantly. It was not a prescriptive guide to be followed to the T. Much has been written about the "old English house look" (I think that's what Bruce Boyer called it), where sometimes you match different and disparate elements for pleasing effect. But the idea was to push people to think more about these issues.

I think a few things so far have been said, that bear repeating.

1. Restating Pete's point, people can wear whatever they want.
2. Restating Vox's point, if you dress as well as the guys in that guide, then you can also wear whatever shoes you want. But as Vox notes, arguing against the idea of rules, coherence, or tradition probably means you don't dress well
3. Restating Pete and Vox's point, it's about the overall outfit
4. Restating my point, this is not just about the shoes, but the general ethos of dress.

 

[deadfisheyes]

Actually, come to think of it, when I see photos of my dad and his side of the family in Vietnam during the 1960s, they were all very well dressed. They wore suits in an Anglo way (which is to say, conservative). I don't have a scanner, but can try to snap photos of the photos later. They wore dark suits, dark shoes, white shirts, etc. The cuts were reasonably good and the style Mod-ish.

Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam, also dressed in a very classic "European" way.

A friend of mine still has family in Vietnam. His family is reasonably well off, and when he showed me photos of a recent event, everyone was dressed very, very casually -- jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and the like. Perhaps Vietnam has also gone through a similar dress evolution as the United States, and the people who buy fancy dress shoes just want bright colors because old norms have little importance.

Photos of Bao Dai below.


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His Rolex recently sold for some insane amount of money



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Based on old photos, I see that before the 90s, people wear suits more frequently. My guess is that the new economic reforms and the end of the Embargo brought in an influx of American culture (which is already prominent) and consumer goods. From the 90s and beyond, most men, office workers are only expected to be in shirts (short sleeve is okay) and trousers, chinos. Suit is not largely required but still has a place as the "formal clothing" for special occasions or if you are a person of position.
Nowadays, hip hop clothing, athleisure, business casuals reign supreme for common wear. Suit is not much "menswear" but "formal wear" in most minds. Most don't want to wear a suit in fear of standing out.
The CM scene here is budding, though I don't find many who dress CM on the street. Hanoi probably has more people in jacket/ suit than Saigon (due to the weather).
Vietnamese tailors in the past learned from the French, which probably has strong British influence, so suits back then indeed have a very European cut. Most modern tailors now, favor Italian soft tailoring style instead.

 

[deadfisheyes]

I've never seen bright dress shoes worn in Vietnam, nor have I even seen them for sale. It's all black and dark brown, for the most part.

I feel like if there's a business casual uniform in Vietnam, it's black slacks (or skirt) and a white shirt (or blouse). So, naturally you will see mostly black shoes.

But that said, you also have to understand that there really are no higher-end shopping opportunities in Vietnam for shoes, or even RTW tailoring. Or at least very, very little. In this respect it is far less developed than the rest of SEA and certainly than East Asia. Perhaps as more players enter the market, there might be increased selection in certain things.

I have seen my fair share of Black trousers with tan shoes.
Most of what I see are tight, cropped business casual or sport wears or kayne west-ish street wears.
Crazy patina is sort of a trend here in Vietnamese shoes scene. But otherwise, for the general office uniform, you hit the nail in the head, white shirt with black trousers, with black lace-up, or plasticky slip-on.

 

[dieworkwear]

Nguyen Van Thieu also dressed well.

This is similar to how my father dressed in the 1960s. Camp shirts with high-waisted trousers for casualwear. And then dark grey or blue suits with very thin lapels for work. White shirts and black shoes to match. He later sported tweeds when he moved to a Western country.

Of course, all these people are hated. Bao Dai, Nguyen Van Thieu, etc. Most Vietnamese people think of Bao Dai as a puppet of the French government and they hate Nguyen Van Thieu for having abandoned the South Vietnamese. I remember when I was a kid, I saw a mob of people drag a shopkeeper out of his store because he put up a painting of Ho Chi Minh. One person smashed a glass bottle over his head, leaving him bleeding.

Tasteful foulard and Ivy Style two-button cuff

 

[88RSL]

Nguyen Van Thieu also dressed well.

This is similar to how my father dressed in the 1960s. Camp shirts with high-waisted trousers for casualwear. And then dark grey or blue suits with very thin lapels for work. White shirts and black shoes to match. He later sported tweeds when he moved to a Western country.

In Singapore too, when flipping through my History textbook, I noticed many of the politicians wearing camp collar shirts and high waisted trousers, their lapels were not narrow however

 

[apShepard]

 

[deadfisheyes]

Nguyen Van Thieu also dressed well.

This is similar to how my father dressed in the 1960s. Camp shirts with high-waisted trousers for casualwear. And then dark grey or blue suits with very thin lapels for work. White shirts and black shoes to match. He later sported tweeds when he moved to a Western country.

Of course, all these people are hated. Bao Dai, Nguyen Van Thieu, etc. Most Vietnamese people think of Bao Dai as a puppet of the French government and they hate Nguyen Van Thieu for having abandoned the South Vietnamese. I remember when I was a kid, I saw a mob of people drag a shopkeeper out of his store because he put up a painting of Ho Chi Minh. One person smashed a glass bottle over his head, leaving him bleeding.


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Tasteful foulard and Ivy Style two-button cuff



View attachment 1698665

1950s Saigon, apparently, Mod and Hippy culture had some influences here.

Hanoi 1951 and 1959

Young Ho Chi Minh, I think he wears suit pretty well here

Relevant to the thread, the guy on the right looks like he sported some suede oxfords.

Anyway, I'm too young to care about the political sentiments when talking about these figures. Bao Dai was definitely a style icon in his time, even now (among CM enthusiasts here). Vietnamese should just forgive each other and move on.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Well I’m an advocate of color.

I wouldn't boast about that if I were you...

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Of course, all these people are hated.

I wasn't going to say anything, but since you brought it up... I do wonder what good it does in demonstrating that generally nasty people dressed according to the class norms of their colonial capitalist times. Of course, royals, the nobility and the colonial capitalist ruling classes dressed this way; clothing was an essential signifier of class belonging. It is perhaps more interesting to see how critics and rebels dressed. See, for example, Sartre in the paparazzi shots of famous actors and intellectuals posing in cafés you also posted. Sartre of course was famously unfashionable for the time - like many of those Marxist intellectuals he was austere and proper, but not stylish. And of course, clothing has in many ways lost this same class signification, or is losing it. That's a good thing, isn't it? It's also one of the main reasons we having any of these conversations. So perhaps we should look to other rationales for Classic Menswear than - "hey look at this Nazi-sympathizing Duke, this misogynistic and corrupt industry baron, or this colonial apparatchik - weren't they well dressed?" And, if I can borrow from the fusty old-fashioned dressers of the Frankfurt School for a second, I wonder how much of the nostalgia for the fashion leadership of the ruling classes also hides an subconscious longing to be ruled, in other words, the second of the two authoritarian personality types that Erich Fromm identified (that were later popularized by Adorno). I am being simultaneously mischievous and serious, of course.

 

[emptym]

Here's wholecut guy:

View attachment 1698623


If all you can do is sort things into two bins, 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable', then you possess little in the way of discernment and less in the way of nuance.

That seems like a strawman. No one argued for that (except maybe @JFWR on non-team baseball hats and @yorkshire pud for any baseball hats). In fact, the post you replied to by @Patrick R said one thing is better than another, and to claim one thing is better than another already points to a richer scale than dividing things into acceptable and not. The only thing similar in your reply to my post is the number two, but my point was that if two things can be equally good, then your "logic" (saying one thing is better than another leads one to only wear one outfit) was incorrect.

Ah, the pic of @Montesquieu. Those could be wholecuts, but it's unclear. If we assume they are, it's arguable whether wholecuts are oxfords. I know some blogs categorize them that way, and I'm OK with that, but strictly speaking, they're in their own category. Oxfords have vamps that go over quarters. Wholecuts have neither vamps nor quarters. And they have different social meanings. Oxfords have an old-fashioned, trustworthy connotation while oxfords are edgier, more attention-grabbing. For example, I think oxfords are ideal for a job interview, but I wouldn't wear wholecuts to one. Wholecuts would be at home at a club or an art show. If they go ahead and say wholecuts are oxfords, then I agree with D that other options would be better with M's outfit, such as chukkas for cold weather, loafers for warm , or derbies in between.

 

[dieworkwear]

I wasn't going to say anything, but since you brought it up... I do wonder what good it does in demonstrating that generally nasty people dressed according to the class norms of their colonial capitalist times. Of course, royals, the nobility and the colonial capitalist ruling classes dressed this way; clothing was an essential signifier of class belonging. It is perhaps more interesting to see how critics and rebels dressed. See, for example, Sartre in the paparazzi shots of famous actors and intellectuals posing in cafés you also posted. Sartre of course was famously unfashionable for the time - like many of those Marxist intellectuals he was austere and proper, but not stylish. And of course, clothing has in many ways lost this same class signification, or is losing it. That's a good thing, isn't it? It's also one of the main reasons we having any of these conversations. So perhaps we should look to other rationales for Classic Menswear than - "hey look at this Nazi-sympathizing Duke, this misogynistic and corrupt industry baron, or this colonial apparatchik - weren't they well dressed?" And, if I can borrow from the fusty old-fashioned dressers of the Frankfurt School for a second, I wonder how much of the nostalgia for the fashion leadership of the ruling classes also hides an subconscious longing to be ruled, in other words, the second of the two authoritarian personality types that Erich Fromm identified (that were later popularized by Adorno). I am being simultaneously mischievous and serious, of course.

As discussed before:

1. I think CM as a style has a more complicated history. I don't think it just represents regressive politics

2. I'm OK with just liking something as a look.