Uncomfortable Truths

[TheFoo]

Originally Posted by Gutman

So what? Is that referring to the sofa mafoo has in one of his pics? Looks great, lots of cheaper versions of that sort of thing around, if that's what you want. Can't begrudge someone spending what they have, otherwise where will it end? There will always be people better-off and worse-off than yourself, so comparisons in either direction are not helpful for a contented disposition and healthy outlook on life.

The biting irony of this is that the comment comes from a man who could easily have afforded a Florence Knoll sofa if only he had bought himself two or three fewer pairs of bespoke shoes from Paris.

If we're going to make ill-informed value judgments of others' expenditures, we might as well assume the perspective of the general population. Which would the average person on the street think is more of an extravagance, a $6,000 sofa or a $3,000 pair of shoes?

 

[sho'nuff]

reading this whole thread...sigh

 

[aportnoy]

I wish I had as many shoes as I have.

 

[DoubleDomer]

^ we will never see the entire collection no matter how long we wait.

 

[TheFoo]

Originally Posted by aportnoy

I wish I had as many shoes as I have.

That isn't truth. It's sickness.

 

[LabelKing]

Corsets are uncomfortable.

 

[aportnoy]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

That isn't truth. It's sickness.

Fair enough.

 

[LesterSnodgrass]

Maf - don't fret, my wife thinks you're an attractive chap. Of course she is Chinese and recently came to the defense of a family friend who named their son Chiang Kai Shek Johnson. Maybe its an Asian thing. Draw your own conclusion.

 

[Mr T]

I once bought a Florence Knoll sofa for $15 on B&S but wasn't happy with the fit.

 

[binge]

 

[Mr T]

- Lady Canuker isn't really her avatars.

- You are just a collector of clothes. You are no cooler than an avid stamp or butterfly collector.

- You used to be normal but now when you notice a small unironed area on your shirt it bothers you all day. In fact, you spend most of the day strategically sitting so that part of your shirt faces away from people. (OK - that was me today but you get my drift)

- You dress for yourself but feel cheated when no one notices your colorful socks.

- Despite the jokes, you wish you could dress as impeccably as Mafoo.

- Ann Hathaway is hot, but not really that hot.

 

[emmanuel]

Apparently thrifting and ebay shopping can still create snobs

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

That isn't truth. It's sickness.

SF: Down with the sickness.

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by RJman

• Sportcoats and suits are costume today.
  
• Every bit of quality in menswear is either going to disappear or get exponentially more expensive in the years to come.
  
• Even the best bespoke clothes cannot make you skinnier/handsomer/younger/more muscular.
  
• She doesn't care about your new shoes.
  
• Expensive shoes and suits will not save you money in the long run.
  
• The archetypal forum shopper who buys everything at 95% discount is only contributing to the death of his favorite brands.
  
• If you get to the point where you feel ashamed because you have not bought a $6000 couch or a Linn hi-fi, you need to spend time away from this forum.
  
• You can work insanely hard for the best years of your life at the expense of spending time with the people you love or doing the things you enjoy in order to afford the things a tiny percentage of posters here take for granted, but you will never play in their league, afford the things they enjoy or be able to enjoy the things they afford, because you will never be able to have time, and that's a luxury that can't be posted in WAYWN.
  
• No matter how clearly you specify what you want, how many times you put it in writing, and how long you have been working with an artisan, you will never get EXACTLY what you wanted. Some detail in your mental ideal didn't carry over.

Originally Posted by RJman

I see what you did there.

That reminds me:

• No one can afford a Knoll sofa for his foyer on a first-year lawyer's salary.
  
• You will not perfect the fit on bespoke shoes/suits until your third or fourth order. So all your saving up for the culmination of your dream won't actually hack it.
  
• Nothing can justify the price of a bespoke shirt over $300 except your own perception of its value. A Jantzen whose fit you've perfected over a few orders is almost as good as a bespoke Matuozzo or Bugelli or Charvet. But Charvet kept me sane.

Originally Posted by mafoofan

I love it: another hate thread!

Here's an uncomfortable truth: RJman's snarkiness is an expression of incurable bitterness for those he perceives to be better off than him in even the tiniest, most superficial way. He doesn't want a Florence Knoll sofa or bespoke shirt from Anna Matuozzo--he just doesn't want you to have one. Unless you're Bill or Matt. Then it's okay and he looks up to you.

Originally Posted by RJman

My experiences with Lanvin always took the place around the times when I had brushes with insanity.Ooh! Keep going, please! I'm sure you can accuse me of a Napoleon complex, of being gauche caviar, of being pseudointellectual, vain, pathologically insecure, narcissistic, and probably secretly **** too.

FTR, I used to want a Knoll sofa.

Also, no one actually looks up to Bill. He tries too hard.

PS: thx for teh new sig. kthxbai

Originally Posted by mafoofan

Of all those things, only the insecurity is something I pick up on. The rest is too easy to project when you want to think poorly of someone. For whatever reason, you fixate on my conspicuous consumption more than anybody else's conspicuous consumption on a forum you'd only participate in if you were interested in conspicuously consuming things. You do your grocery shopping at Charvet, yet yelp on and on about some random junior attorney on the internet who has a sofa you used to want. I bet Brown did it to you. The place is largely filled with two types of student: (1) those who are not well-off and resent the well-off while desperately trying to emulate them (aka Democrats who want to be wealthy), and (2) those who are well-off and resent themselves for not being the bohemians they don't really want to be (aka wealthy Democrats). So, sadly, I understand where you're coming from more than others. But that doesn't make any of your fixation less annoying.

Can't we just be friends? Sheesh.



I have to look up to everyone. Hell, when I met Manton, I don't think I even got a look at his face. All I could see was torso.

Originally Posted by mafoofan

They wouldn't let me passed the ground floor after they learned I was only a first year associate.

Originally Posted by mafoofan

The biting irony of this is that the comment comes from a man who could easily have afforded a Florence Knoll sofa if only he had bought himself two or three fewer pairs of bespoke shoes from Paris.

If we're going to make ill-informed value judgments of others' expenditures, we might as well assume the perspective of the general population. Which would the average person on the street think is more of an extravagance, a $6,000 sofa or a $3,000 pair of shoes?

This to and fro has been bothering me more than it should, probably because I think there has been a misunderstanding. I quote the relevant posts above for reference. My only crack aimed at mafoo in the posts prior to his was the couch. Just about every other "truth" I noted came from experience. I certainly did not have mafoo in mind (in particular) in writing that "[e]ven the best bespoke clothes cannot make you skinnier/handsomer/younger/more muscular". That, unfortunately, is the unfortunate reminder I get looking in the mirror as my thirties tilt me towards early middle age. Another poster did a "FTFY" to change the wording in that post to allude to mafoo's head. Nor was my comment about Jantzen measuring up to Charvet/Matuozzo/Bugelli aimed at mafoo. Matuozzo and Bugelli I named as being two of the best shirtmakers in the minds of the foraz. Mafoo of course has contributed to Anna's renown (and to that of her balls), but before him there were iammatt and T4chan. My mention of Charvet, of course, was again aimed at myself, in recognition of the silly indulgence it was.

My comment about the couch is not a "value judgment", nor do I envy you because I cannot afford it or because it is some sort of "Rosebud". It was intended, clumsily, to those readers younger than us (of which there are a growing number) who seem impressionable enough to choose a career based on its perceived remuneration. The NYT has been a target of a lot more of my opprobrium for its glamorization of this profession without reflecting its many, many... responsibilities. I hear, as I so frequently do these days, Omar Sharif in Memories of Midnight intoning bitterly, "It was hard work, not luck!"

I leave aside the oddity that mafoo takes dozens of immature cracks about his height, head size, foot size, glasses size and facial expression with humor and more grace than most of us would, yet a comment about his couch has caused him to unchain himself against me.

 

[dkzzzz]

Clothing is what separates us from apes!

Clothing and spectacles!