Search Results for: suits ties

Old Ties

Clothing, Fashion, Grooming

At one point in my life I probably owned well over four dozen ties (neckties) simply because I wore a suit to work each day of the work week, and occasionally over the weekends as well (weddings, formal dinners and so on).  The inside of my wardrobe looked very much like this:

Ties back then were not just about dressing well, nor even some kind of workplace uniform.  They were a mark of your individuality, a means whereby you could differentiate yourself from all the other guys dressed like you in their blue or gray pinstripe 3-piece suits.

So I read this article with a certain degree of regret:

While the trouser suit – for men and women – continues to be a staple on catwalks at international fashion weeks, it seems that the old fashioned necktie isn’t quite so in favour with those seeking out business attire.  

On Twitter this week, City worker and think tank owner, William Wright, of New Financial, shared a snap that will strike anxiety into the heart of officewear traditionalists…a very pared down tie display. 

While the neck tie was once considered so vital to employees wearing a whistle-and-flute to the office that it spawned a whole shop – Tie Rack – dedicated to it, it seems the accessory is no longer on trend. 

Ignoring the teeth-grinding and pretentious “on trend” phrase — what we used to refer to simply as “fashionable” — the fact remains that with the trend going from “business suits”  to “business casual” to “casual” to “Jeremy Clarkson” to “one degree above fucking ghetto”, there is no future for men’s ties, which makes me melancholy.  It’s just another manifestation of what was once called “prole drift” — the propensity for society to degrade its appearance and manners towards the underclass and becoming a world of boors.

The plain fact is that putting on a tie makes a man look properly dressed when the occasion demands it.  I couldn’t think of attending something like a wedding, funeral or even a smart sit-down dinner without a tie.  Here’s what I mean:

Without a tie, even a decent suit looks wrong.

So I went over to my tie rack as it stands today, and counted my ties.  Eight neckties, two cravats and a bolo (string) tie — “Texas formal” — and that’s it.

My old tailor at Lightbody’s in Johannesburg is turning in his grave.

Afterthought:  A little while ago, New Wife and I were going out to dinner somewhere, and I put on a suit for the occasion but dispensed with neckwear because it wasn’t that formal an occasion.  When I asked her how I looked, she responded acidly:  “What about your tie?”

I was able to pull the Old Fart card here by putting my hand to my throat and feigning shock at my forgetfulness, but I don’t think she was fooled.  I think she has been sent to chide and chastise me by my late mother.

Suits

Guy Stuff

Every man should have at least one. (I’ve spoken on this topic before, but it bears repeating.)

I can already hear the moans: “I never need to wear one! Why should I own a suit?” and “I hate them?!They’re uncomfortable!” and “I won’t work for a company which insists on men wearing a suit!” and so on, ad nauseam.

Don’t care. There’s something about wearing a decent suit which not only makes a man look good, but feel good — provided, of course, that you feel comfortable wearing one in the first place. (And if you don’t feel comfortable wearing a suit, you should become so, by wearing a decent suit until you do.)

“I never go anywhere that requires me to wear a suit!” Then it’s time you upgraded your choice of places to visit.

Here’s the thing: men look good in a well-tailored, stylish suit. It almost doesn’t matter if your body shape is not like a movie star’s, because if the suit is designed properly, it will hide your shortcomings better than any other type of clothing. (And if you don’t care what you look like, or subscribe to the idiot notion that looks shouldn’t matter, then you need to grow the fuck up — because appearance matters, and always has.)

Here’s another thing: women like a man in a suit. You only have to see the female reaction to Mad Men‘s Don Draper and Roger Sterling for proof. Another manifestation is when a women says, “Man! You sure clean up good!”, because believe me, that’s a statement of admiration despite the ungrammatical choice of words. (What it means, by the way, is that she’s looking at you with new eyes — and likes what she sees.) For better or worse, people will always take you more seriously when you’re well-dressed, and a good suit will always leave a favorable impression.

I won’t even go into the topic of the importance of wearing a suit when applying for a job, because that’s self-evident.

As for color, it’s simple: dark and muted, grey or blue (charcoal or navy-blue, for the uninitiated). And it should be fashionable. Men are blessed with the fact that suits’ fashions don’t change from year to year, but they do change from decade to decade, which is at least as often as you should buy a new one.

And lastly, there’s a very good reason to have at least one suit handy: there will come a time when you absolutely have to have one. It might be a funeral, a restaurant with a dress code (and spare me the gripe that you’ll never go to a place that has a dress code — once again, grow the fuck up), or maybe there’ll just be a time when you have to impress somebody.

Here’s a little scenario for you all to chew on. Imagine that you achieve something of importance: you saved someone’s life, you donated a large sum of money to a charity, you won a sporting competition, whatever. Let’s say that a consequence of this achievement is that you’re invited to the state capitol so that the Governor can shake your hand.

Let’s be clear about this: you can’t go in jeans and a fucking t-shirt, because that shows immense disrespect to the person who wants to honor you. You’ll need to wear a decent suit.

A suit is like a gun: you hardly ever need one, but when you do, you’ll need it really badly. So have that suit handy, and every so often, wear it out to dinner or some social event. You’ll be amazed at the reaction. The old truism still applies when it comes to going out:  men wear suits; boys wear casual clothes. (In an old Cary Grant movie, a flashback made the 40-year-old Grant look like a teenager just by dressing him in casual clothes; when coming back to the present day, he wore suits — and matured instantly.)

Oh, and one last thing: colored shirts, no matter what the fashion magazines say, are for pimps and parvenu yuppies. The proper shirt color is white, with maybe a tiny pinstripe if you’re adventurous. (I have a number of identical “dress” shirts, all with a red pinstripe, because I once saw a good deal at Marshall Field and snagged a dozen. Good, discreetly-tailored shirts never go out of fashion.) And have half a dozen decent ties — not from WalMart or Target — at your disposal; once again, discreet “rep” ties with diagonal stripes never go out of fashion, ditto monocolored silk ones. And FFS: get a decent pair of black lace-up shoes to go with your suit, and keep them polished.

Take a look at the pics below: there’s barely a woman alive who wouldn’t respond positively to a man dressed like that — and if she doesn’t, she probably isn’t worth bothering with.

And the Governor would be equally impressed.

Every Minute

Fashion

…a fool is born, goes the saying.  And chances are that the first thing said fool will do is slap down $600 for a pair of… flip-flops?

I’m not kidding.

How the humble flip-flop became the shoe of the summer with unbelievable price tags to match

JHC.

I remember the wonderful little speech given by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, in which she schools ingenue Anne Hathaway about the importance of the color “cerise” and how great minds in the fashion industry planned its future appeal, years before it became “fashionable”.  (Don’t bother looking it up;  it’s dark- or cherry pink.)

I thought the speech was a great example of how easily people can be fooled into thinking that something of little value or consequence actually matters.

As an Olde Phartte of many summers, I can recall many stupid fashions — platform shoes, wide psychedelic neckties, wide lapels on suits, etc. etc.

But I never ever dreamed that fucking flip-flops — which should all be burned on a giant bonfire (along with their wearers*) — would become the new overpriced trend.

When I see F1’s Lewis Hamilton wearing a pair of Laboutin flip-flops in the pits, then I’ll know how far we’ve fallen.

Time for gin?  I think so.

*Note:  No snide references to Australians, the worst offenders in this footwear folly.

Old Times There Are Quite Forgotten

Business

“How are we going to keep the boys on the farm, after they’ve seen Paris?”

That was the plaintive question after WWI when a great many of the doughboys came home having done just that.  Actually, the really big shift came not after WWI, but after WWII as the U.S. had changed from an agricultural society to an industrial one, and the G.I. Bill almost guaranteed that the boys wouldn’t go back to the farm, but on to college (back when that was a worthwhile step) and into the great commercial-industrial complex.

And the commercial-industrial complex meant that for most men, the jobs were “white-collar” and therefore required a uniform of a suit and tie, worn each day into an office of some sort.

Now I’ve ranted about the clothing thing ad nauseam, and I’m not going to add yet another one.

But I remember talking to Mr. Free Market (whose company had had a dress code which pleased me greatly) and in those Covid Times of Working From Home, he made the comment:

“After all this is over, there is just no way any of these kids are going to wear a tie to the office ever again.”

He was right, as he usually is, but in fact that was not the really wrenching societal change which ensued.  In fact, the truly pivotal moment came about as a paraphrase of the first sentence of this post:

“How are we going to get them back into the office, once they’ve worked from home?”

Simple answer:  mostly, we’re not.  Here’s an example:

Big tech companies are still trying to rally workers back into physical offices, and many workers are still not having it. Based on a recent report, computer-maker Dell has stumbled even more than most.

Dell announced a new return-to-office initiative earlier this year. In the new plan, workers had to classify themselves as remote or hybrid.

Those who classified themselves as hybrid are subject to a tracking system that ensures they are in a physical office 39 days a quarter, which works out to close to three days per work week.

Alternatively, by classifying themselves as remote, workers agree they can no longer be promoted or hired into new roles within the company. 

Okay, let’s leave aside the utter bastardy of Dell’s coercive diktat — as an aside, why is it that the notionally laissez-faire tech companies often prove themselves to be worse than any of the Gilded Age’s robber barons? — and see what the employees’ response was:

Business Insider claims it has seen internal Dell tracking data that reveals nearly 50 percent of the workforce opted to accept the consequences of staying remote, undermining Dell’s plan to restore its in-office culture.

The publication spoke with a dozen Dell employees to hear their stories as to why they chose to stay remote, and a variety of reasons came up. Some said they enjoyed more free time and less strain on their finances after going remote, and nothing could convince them to give that up now. Others said their local offices had closed since the pandemic or that they weren’t interested in promotions.

“Take your promotion and stick it up your ass” — not quite the expected response, eh?

Looks as though that toothpaste has left the tube.  So companies are going to be saddled with these giant, expensive glass-and-steel vanity edifices, full of empty space and echoing corridors.

And I for one, having worked in such environs for many decades, have very little sympathy.

All-American Road Trip

Drive Time, Gratuitous Chick Pics

I think I’ve tortured everybody enough with my various dream road trips whether in France, Italy or Western Europe in general.  There’s only been one in the U.S., but even that involved furrin cars and -women.

So am I going to quit?  Hell, no!

Today’s trip is going to be All-American, in that the choice of car and female companion will feature no foreign entanglements* of any kind.

The trip?

Actually, you have a choice there too:  U.S. 1 (and 1A where available) along the East Coast, from Miami – Bar Harbor ME:

…and U.S. 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway/PCH) along the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle:

The East Coast trip is nearly 400 miles longer, and if you wish, you could skirt NYFC (or add to your pain by doing a loop around Long Island).

You can do the trip north – south or vice-versa (please specify which), and at a time of year which suits you (do tell).  The only hard and fast rule is to avoid interstate highways wherever possible.  The goal is to keep the shoreline on the side of the car as much as you can.  You may go through any of the cities you wish, but you can also skirt those which would make you homicidal with rage (NYFC, LA, Boston etc.) while trying to deal with the traffic and congestion.

As always with these scenarios, assume you’ll have trouble-free motoring en route, and a (shall we say) willing partner of the female persuasion in the passenger seat, and she will be as pictured.  Also assume that you are of an age which would do the driving and overnight stops, so to speak, justice.

Now the fun part:  the cars and companions. I’ve tried to avoid listing any of the cars and the women in earlier posts, which has made it quite difficult.  Here we go, and remember:  no substitutions.

1. 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and Angie Harmon

2. 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk and Candace Cameron

3. 1957 Corvette and Katherine Lanasa

4. 1957 Chevy Bel-Air and Mary-Louise Parker

5. 1957 Ford T-Bird and Téa Leoni

6. 1954 Kaiser-Darrin Roadster and Marg Helgenberger

7. 1956 Chrysler Imperial and Daisy Fuentes

(*I know, Daisy was born in Cuba.  Shuddup or she’ll be replaced with Whoopi Goldberg.)

Let’s go a little earlier, car-wise:

8. 1935 Auburn 851 Speedster and Nancy Wilson

9. 1936 Cord 810 and Eva Amurri

10. 1932 Duesenberg SJ and Dana Delaney

11. 1940 Packard Super-8 and Lynn Russell

12. 1933 Lincoln KB Victoria and Lisa Edelstein

That’s my delicious dozen.  If you’re unfamiliar with any of the options, you know where to look (duckduckgo).

Oh wait!  A wild card!

13. 1958 Chevy Apache and

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Up Yours, Governor (Part 2)

Anti-Gun Nannies, Good Stuff, Law and Order, Resistance

Adding to the fun and games response to NewMexGov Grisham’s “I’m banning gun carrying because it’s a health issue” initiative comes this most excellent news:

There are now six lawsuits (and counting) challenging New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order suspending Second Amendment carry rights in the Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque. While literally no local authorities are willing to enforce her clearly unconstitutional diktat, Grisham is still claiming that the New Mexico State Police will do her dirty work.

The State Police, however, have remained strangely silent on the matter and no one has been cited for any violations.

This afternoon, however, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez delivered the latest body-blow to the Governor’s authoritarian tendencies by announcing in a letter to Grisham that his office will not be defending her in court.

So this anti-gun asshole bitch will either have to pay the legal defense costs herself, or get some liberal law firm to do it pro bono — or beg for money from the Soros-type socialist billionaires.

Of course, she could always end this quite easily by killing herself rescinding the stupid order (thereby making the issue moot).

We await developments with bated breath.