If your wardrobe is too large, you end up looking worse.

agreed

Originally Posted by bigbris1

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For me, it comes down to an issue of space and favorites. I don't keep anything not worn in a season. For spending (since I refuse to buy on credit), I have set numbered limits on any given item. 25 shirts, 10 suits, 10 pairs of shoes, 5 odd coats & trousers. I have a box where I store ties and once it overflows I start giving stuff away.
Where do I sign up?

Originally Posted by 0b5cur1ty

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This thread remains interesting. I think it's becoming apparent that the focus of the discussion shouldn't so much be on the size of your wardrobe in terms of pure number, but on its cohesion (or otherwise). While it's not necessarily true, for most of us, cohesion is easier with fewer items than with more.

This is pretty relevant for my personal situation. I'm very new to caring quite a bit how I dress, and like most newbies, have a wardrobe comprised of various stuff I bought before I knew or cared, augmented with various stuff I bought once I started knowing and caring. And once I started caring, and learning, of course I still made some mistakes or at best some directionless purchases.

My "problem" is that I really don't (yet?? ie, will I ever??) have a style. I seem to equally enjoy and get compliments in my Italian suits and my J. Press / Paul Stewart "trad" odd jackets. Can I reconcile them? Do I need to?

Originally Posted by apropos

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Then again, it could just be a load of bull: a massive, messy attempt at justification/intellectualisation of wardrobe choices/size coupled with a desperate (unrealised) need to have these choices be acknowledged by others as the 'right' ones.

Remember those points for the thread about compulsions. They feed the compulsions.

I would prefer more, but i dont have a wardrobe thats nearly the size of some of the stars on this forum.

I think if you have a purpose for everything that it works, but if you're just buying at random by what strikes you, then its doesnt come out well.

I always think of what else i'll be wearing with what i plan to buy and if its something that stands out too much on its own, i pass on it (Thanks foof for this idea, it works well).

I tend to buy many patterns in the same style, like for shirts i've found i really like button down collars in solid, tattersals or ginghams. Thats the bulk of it, they work with everything then i have a few others that are for more formal occassions.

Some it still needs some tailoring work, but overall i'm pretty happy with the direction that its going, and i think expanding it more will be helpful.

I dont like my clothes to look too worn in, too fast, so i like alot of them.

For items like shoes and jeans i dont buy as many as i should so they look worn in faster.

Originally Posted by apropos

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Where do I sign up?

See sig

Originally Posted by Bartolo

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My "problem" is that I really don't (yet?? ie, will I ever??) have a style. I seem to equally enjoy and get compliments in my Italian suits and my J. Press / Paul Stewart "trad" odd jackets. Can I reconcile them? Do I need to?
I don't think you have to. I dress less Trad (generally) the more formally I dress. There's nothing wrong with variety. I think they'll be reconciled by how you put ensembles together.

I haven't had the time to give this thread the thought or replies I would have liked. But a few points spring to mind, presented here in abbreviated form:

1. Looking "too new" is not only about the clothes themselves and the wear they've received, but the way in which they're worn and the wearer's objective in doing so. We've all seen the newly minted Junior Vice President look. Generally these poor souls wear outfits composed of conspicuously expensive clothes fresh off the rack. It's easy to detect this, and I tend to think SF's emphasis on lifestyle sometimes fosters this. Guys who try too hard too look monied generally look terrible, except to other guys with the same ambition, or to the type of women interested in that. It's not just about the clothes, but about the striving they represent.

2. The issues we see in WAYW are, on the whole, not so much a reflection of volume, I think, but a representation of the difficulty of establishing a personal style. Money can't buy taste. On the other hand, I'm sure Vox could dress well if he lost all his possessions in a fire and had to buy a temporary wardrobe for $100 from a thrift shop. Learning to coordinate color and proportion isn't easy, and I tend to think we put too little emphasis on it here, depending too heavily on "quality" and "brand" (and, yes, discount price) to carry us through.

3. As a corollary to that, another issue we see in WAYW is the hubris of youth. SF is a pretty young forum, overall, and younger guys are naturally drawn to peacocking. Many are also new to "nice" clothing, and they've had relatively little time to develop their tastes. Restraint often comes with age, and with experience. I certainly hope I will dress better at 55 than I do now, and I imagine it will be in a more subdued fashion. Unless, as I fear, my taste for eccentricity gets the best of me.

4. I have now amassed a wardrobe that I consider too large. I have too many shoes I have not worn, too many items that see too little wear. I keep saying I will sell some of them, but then keep putting it off. I am, in my view, failing to edit properly. This is not true for everyone with a large wardrobe, I am sure, but I also suspect it's a temptation. I would rather have a few items that I love than many items to which I am indifferent. Unfortunately, I have not found a sure way to identify the items I will love other than trial and error. This is one reason I try to avoid paying retail, and, in a way, I envy those so certain of their tastes that they want to pay full freight. Ultimately, though, I think we all have to cull the wheat from the chaff, and we pay a price if we don't.

OK, this has not proven to be so abbreviated after all, so I'll cut it off here.

Owning a look or your own set of clothes has to do with self and context. If one starts with what has, acquires over the course of a couple of years better clothes, even with a particular bent to them, and remains in some kind of contact with the environment of what is worn where one lives and works, then one is likely to own one's look. The alternative is costuming, or more likely here, eccentricism ala LabelKing.

I'm happy to accept that this has to take a couple of years so that one can feel the give and take of context, and that this is thus easier for those past college age and therefore for whom the world has slowed down.

If one's wardobe is so big that one doesn't get to try ones pieces out in various contexts and to have time to edit it, one is unlikely to have ownership of the clothes.

Being American, I have to say that context is more important than heritage in this.

Originally Posted by bigbris1

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For me, it comes down to an issue of space and favorites. I don't keep anything not worn in a season. For spending (since I refuse to buy on credit), I have set numbered limits on any given item. 25 shirts, 10 suits, 10 pairs of shoes, 5 odd coats & trousers. I have a box where I store ties and once it overflows I start giving stuff away.
If this works for you ... fine. Personally, I'm not willing to live by such limits.

Originally Posted by RSS

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If this works for you ... fine. Personally, I'm not willing to live by such limits.

I have your back on this...we're outnumbered (ironic, isn't it?) but we'll go down fighting.


- B

Originally Posted by Olly

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That's very heroic of you, Mr. Vox.

Does it bother you not to be able to blink?


- B

The academics I know that express that academic/country unpressed rumpled tailored clothing stye really look rumpled and drapey- they wouldn't show up in WAYRN shots as paragons.

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Originally Posted by radicaldog

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I guess that's one of the reasons why I don't do WAYWRN!
At a recent birthday conference at the University of Chicago, the best dressed academic was a senior professor from Oxford. His shoes really set him apart as wearing good clothes (a brown plain toe derby- this is science, after all) and his jacket was this tweedy affair. Not a standard upright flap pocketed thing, but patch pockets, very soft, and draped Not draped as in the merest hint of drape in Vox's jackets, but draped as in a Ann Demeulemeester cardigan. And he, like all the other jacket wearers in the auditorium and in front of the audience, wore it open. It hung in soft folds around him. This is as close to my context as it gets- so I have to imagine this conversation with a bespoke tailor. "Chris", - this is Chicago, right, so there is only one here, right? "Chris, I'd like a jacket that is draped, soft, and looks good hanging open." I'm not sure what Despos would say, but I have to imagine the collective SF horrified. But my world isn't of the city and of business, it is of the country and of academia. Now excuse me while I go clear brush and visit the scarecrows.

Originally Posted by james_timothy

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his jacket was this tweedy affair. Not a standard upright flap pocketed thing, but patch pockets, very soft, and draped Not draped as in the merest hint of drape in Vox's jackets, but draped as in a Ann Demeulemeester cardigan. And he, like all the other jacket wearers in the auditorium and in front of the audience, wore it open. It hung in soft folds around him.

From one of Murdoch's gossip & propaganda rags, referenced in another thread: The politically frustrated Anthony Eden expressed himself through dandyism when a younger parliamentarian, but Ã

lan came back to haunt him. Cruelly Bertrand Russell concluded: “Not a gentleman; dresses too well.” I think Bertie expressed something quite close to my original concern. Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6869033.ece (NB: The sartorial Eden many of us rightly admire is the one of his later days.)