Tracksuit bottoms with classic tailoring

[radicaldog]

Alan Flusser is a fan. I confess I've done it occasionally, but only when wearing a tweed jacket as outerwear. Thoughts? After jeans, is this the last frontier in saving the tailored jacket, or is it a hopeless aberration?

(I realise this is CM-adjacent, but I don't fancy the prospect of the colonel Blimps on there slapping me on my wrist for ever entertaining this mode of dressing; so, apologies for squatting in SWD.)

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Alan Flusser looks terrible 50% of the time tho' and this looks pretty hopeless. Track pants with long coats, the Y3-type mix of track and street worn with Yohji runway type tailoring might work - a lot of Japanese darkwave labels do this kind of thing. But straight up CM jackets with track pants just looks bad.

 

[Genericuser1]

That will go great with the AE Park Ave with lug sole......

If you are going to wear a jacket then wear real pants otherwise just don't bother.

I have athletic pants and I wear them for athletic things. It's in the title.

 

[Fuuma]

Alan Flusser looks terrible 50% of the time tho' and this looks pretty hopeless. Track pants with long coats, the Y3-type mix of track and street worn with Yohji runway type tailoring might work - a lot of Japanese darkwave labels do this kind of thing. But straight up CM jackets with track pants just looks bad.

I had only seen him look awful but then I had never actively looked for images so it was pretty much the same two posted in jest on this forum, I like this look:

The decor of his shop(?) seems to be calculated to make dudes think it is ok to like clothing if you're not a poof (or insert another homophobic slur) cause like it's super hetero to purchase ties at a tie bar or whatever that thing he's reclining on is. The ******* british upper class club deco (leather, dark wood, whisky bar looks, golds and retro lighting) is just the worst design choice unless it is actually a vintage place that has been preserved.

 

[dieworkwear]

I like Alan's look in the photo directly above, and his more classic outfits. I'm not crazy about the experiments he sometimes takes outside of CM.

I continue to think that a good outfit has to be in tune with culture. You can't just randomly mix things together. IMO, this is where a lot of CM guys just end up looking bad. The rules are in place to keep you within a certain formula, which is itself socially derived from pre-80s upper class culture. But when guys realize that suits and sport coats might be too dressy for some environments, they then just switch out sport coat for some other jacket -- safari, chore coat, Teba, etc -- without changing anything else. This mashing of styles just ends up looking culturally confused. At best, it makes you look like an iGent.

I can't explain why some mixing works and some don't, but I generally feel that it's about how sensitive you are to culture. Meaning, cuture in general, not just clothing culture. Many of the outfits posted in the SWD tailoring thread make sense to me because they're connected to something -- a cowboy look, 70s sleaze, techwear and an imagined future, and so forth.

IMO, a lot of CM casual experiments fail because guys aren't looking out into the world and getting into cultural things. THe CM outfit makes sense to everyone because it's hegemonic. It's like RP English -- everyone understands it. But then to do casual experiments well, you have to draw from niche cultures, and some guys (not speaking about radicaldog) are bizarrely anti-culture. Like, they take pride in being super disconnected from pop culture, music, TV shows, etc. Which is fine, but for dress to make sense, you can't just randomly mash things together.

 

[pwbower]

I like Alan's look in the photo directly above, and his more classic outfits. I'm not crazy about the experiments he sometimes takes outside of CM.

I continue to think that a good outfit has to be in tune with culture. You can't just randomly mix things together. IMO, this is where a lot of CM guys just end up looking bad. The rules are in place to keep you within a certain formula, which is itself socially derived from pre-80s upper class culture. But when guys realize that suits and sport coats might be too dressy for some environments, they then just switch out sport coat for some other jacket -- safari, chore coat, Teba, etc -- without changing anything else. This mashing of styles just ends up looking culturally confused. At best, it makes you look like an iGent.

I can't explain why some mixing works and some don't, but I generally feel that it's about how sensitive you are to culture. Meaning, cuture in general, not just clothing culture. Many of the outfits posted in the SWD tailoring thread make sense to me because they're connected to something -- a cowboy look, 70s sleaze, techwear and an imagined future, and so forth.

IMO, a lot of CM casual experiments fail because guys aren't looking out into the world and getting into cultural things. THe CM outfit makes sense to everyone because it's hegemonic. It's like RP English -- everyone understands it. But then to do casual experiments well, you have to draw from niche cultures, and some guys (not speaking about radicaldog) are bizarrely anti-culture. Like, they take pride in being super disconnected from pop culture, music, TV shows, etc. Which is fine, but for dress to make sense, you can't just randomly mash things together.

Very well said. This brings some clarity to some of my confusion around failed casual CM attempts.

Do you think Flusser is kind of reveling in his own idiosyncrasies and even eccentricities? In other words, isn't he in fact trying to be incoherent because that's what makes him feel good? Sort of GTH. I wonder.

I'm personally indifferent to his track pants, though I enjoy the humor in them. But I don't think you can really copy that sort of outre style. You'd have to invent your own.

 

[dieworkwear]

Do you think Flusser is kind of reveling in his own idiosyncrasies and even eccentricities? In other words, isn't he in fact trying to be incoherent because that's what makes him feel good? Sort of GTH. I wonder.

I don't know his motivations or inspirations because I've never spoken to him. My guess is that he's just having fun with his clothes, which is fine. I don't find the casual outfits to be that compelling because they don't make sense to me in terms of any cultural language.

 

[Parker]

Thoughts?

What Would Agnelli Do?

 

[Nyarlathotep]

What Would Agnelli Do?

Wear three watches the same time?

 

[物の哀れ]

I like the overcoat and sportswear look.

 

[radicaldog]

What Would Agnelli Do?

If he had been born after 1975, say, he might well do it. Not many Italians of his generation wore double denim, for comparison.

 

[radicaldog]

for dress to make sense, you can't just randomly mash things together.

I completely agree. But I think there is a culture-rooted way in which a version of the tracksuit bottoms and sportcoat combo can work. It's a kind of updated campus style. Students, including grad students these days, wear a lot of athleisure, and have done so for a long time. And certain types of tailoring are still loosely associated with academia: tweed or cord jackets, etc. So one can mix. We see these old pics of students with slacks and loafers and a sports sweatshirt, and we just flip it: sports bottoms (classic/vintage-style grey marl, nothing shiny) with a shetland sweater over a tee and a tweed or cord jacket as outerwear. Add basic trainers, no silly stuff like Flusser's silk scarves or pocket squares. I think it looks fine in the right context. Note also that the colour and texture combos are very similar to the classic one with flannels etc. Does that make sense?

P.S. Fwiw, I think Flusser looks pretty awful in most of his photos, even the ones from the 80s: even when wearing standard CM rig in a CM era he just looks too considered. But I'm interested in his abstract idea about this particular combo.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I like the overcoat and sportswear look.

Yeah, this is almost an emerging orthodoxy found across a wide variety of what were once #menswear brands and higher end streetwear brands (AMI, ALD / Noah / Todd Snyder / JCrew, to name but a few): luxe or luxe-adjacent sportswear with big coats. I don't find it particularly interesting aesthetically, but it looks comfortable and easy to wear, and it's not suprisingly very widespread.

 

[radicaldog]

Yeah, this is almost an emerging orthodoxy found across a wide variety of what were once #menswear brands and higher end streetwear brands (AMI, ALD / Noah / Todd Snyder / JCrew, to name but a few): luxe or luxe-adjacent sportswear with big coats. I don't find it particularly interesting aesthetically, but it looks comfortable and easy to wear, and it's not suprisingly very widespread.

Right. Now swap the big coat with a big tweed jacket, and you're still in the same ballpark, no? There's a whole tradition of wearing tweed jackets as outerwear after all.

 

[Gus]

I like the overcoat and sportswear look.

Well, the polo coat was worn before and after polo matches, so yes to wearing it over sportswear.