Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Do you think wider lapels/ties will ever come back into fashion?

FedoraFan112390

Practically Family
Messages
642
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Do you think wider lapels and ties - say as big as they were in the 1940s or 1970s - will ever come back into style for men? Not just among suit suits, but regular button down shirts?
 

The Good

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,361
Location
California, USA
As a young man, I get the impression that narrow lapels, even outright thin, are still perceived to be very fashionable. I tend to wear the more moderate side of narrow for my own suits and sports jackets, although I've got a wide lapeled mid-grey tweed overcoat and a grey herringbone tweed jacket with moderate-wide lapels. I'm interested in the late 50's and 1960s history of the particularly narrow fashion, but it's also been around well before too, during Edwardian times. As for ties, I would relate them in much the same ways to the lapels. I don't think mainstream department/clothing store ties will get wider than 3.5 inches, or even 3 1/4", for a few more years if there is no change in fashion towards width. I do appreciate the narrower lapels and ties, but it would be nice to see wider ties with more of a '40s taper shape come into stores, instead of being almost completely rectangular. Currently, I think somewhat wider ties than the more fashionable tend to be thought of as more formal or workplace appropriate, although I am not sure about particularly wide ties, approaching 4 inches.
 
Messages
17,261
Location
New York City
Assuming ties survive, then yes. The fashion industry will need to sell a new set of ties, suits and sport coats to all the people currently buying the narrow ones. At some point, when the narrow-craze has run its course, the public will be ready for the "fresh," "new," "exciting," "retro" (or some other trite adjective that the fashion industry will pull out) wide ties, suits and sport coats. Wide-to-narrow-and-back has had a few cycles already so, in time, it will happen again.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,111
Location
London, UK
Everything runs its course. lapels and ties have gone as thin as they can now; the only option for change is to broaden. If fashion was minded to bring back the style abomination that was the eighties, then nothing can be ruled out.

Ties... maybe neckwear will disappear, though given that the squarest, least stylish people in the known world (see, for instance, current UK Prime Minister, Callmedave Cameron) are minded to make a show of rarely wearing a tie, I wouldn't rule out a big comeback in ties for those who consider themselves to have more suss about their clothing.
 

The Good

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,361
Location
California, USA
Something might supersede the regular tie as we know it, but I'm not so sure, as for over a century, long neckties have remained dominant. I think bow-ties are seen as either too quirky or tricky for the average man to adopt, short of using a pre-tied one (I believe nice ones do exist, and I own a few). The 19th century through early 20th century had many changes for mens neckwear, going from late 1700s stocks and cravat styles at the start of the 1800s, through more variations of cravats and string ties, bow ties, and eventually something resembling modern long ties beginning around the 1870s or 1880s. I think the tie as business and political wear may continue at least into the next decade, and likely through the proceeding decade or two after that, but it does appear to be on a downward spiral, even with the minor reemergence of ties into high fashion, the suit/shirt/tie workplace, college campuses, compared to ten years ago. This downward trend mostly impacts the thinking of average men today, but if the businessmen and politicians stop wearing neckties almost entirely, then it will enter the realm of ultra-conservatism or eccentricity, perhaps occasionally or frequently showing up in the realm of high fashion.

Everything runs its course. lapels and ties have gone as thin as they can now; the only option for change is to broaden. If fashion was minded to bring back the style abomination that was the eighties, then nothing can be ruled out.

Ties... maybe neckwear will disappear, though given that the squarest, least stylish people in the known world (see, for instance, current UK Prime Minister, Callmedave Cameron) are minded to make a show of rarely wearing a tie, I wouldn't rule out a big comeback in ties for those who consider themselves to have more suss about their clothing.

I wouldn't want suits to be like most of those from the later half of the 1980s and '90s, going forward. I don't think that was a good era for mens' clothes, generally. I confess to normally disliking heavy shoulder-padding across the decades, including the '30s, '40s, and '50s. I do like those Winchester contrast-collar and cuffs shirts made fashionable in the 1980s, appearing in movies like Wall Street and American Psycho. Those also existed before, however, and you could still buy them now. In fact, I saw a man wearing a blue-white contrast shirt today.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,111
Location
London, UK
It colud well be we'll see a resurgence in some form of alternative neckwear. The four in hand can certainly be argued to have been the dominant neckwear item of the twentieth century. I do recall a brief, mid-late eighties UK fad for bolo ties (they've always been a popular option for Teds, of course). Maybe, with so many men optiong for the open-neck shirt as a standard when they're free to choose, we'll see fashion bring back the cravat. It's not unthinkable; a few years ago, a high-street ties-and-accessories chain in the UK had a couple of cravatas in their line.
 

green papaya

One Too Many
Messages
1,261
Location
California, usa
probably only as a Fad or short time, and only for young men's styles

since extra large neck ties & collars are not practical, they will come and go while classic styles remain
 

jamesmac1801

One of the Regulars
Messages
100
Location
California
I think so. Some 80s power suits had wide lapels and some 90s suits did. Also most ties in the 90s were wide just with ugly colors and designs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

emigran

Practically Family
Messages
719
Location
USA NEW JERSEY
Assuming ties survive, then yes. The fashion industry will need to sell a new set of ties, suits and sport coats to all the people currently buying the narrow ones. At some point, when the narrow-craze has run its course, the public will be ready for the "fresh," "new," "exciting," "retro" (or some other trite adjective that the fashion industry will pull out) wide ties, suits and sport coats. Wide-to-narrow-and-back has had a few cycles already so, in time, it will happen again.


Yessir... I would certainly agree...it's not us but the marketing fahionistas...
Just don't throw anything away...!!!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,637
Messages
3,085,428
Members
54,453
Latest member
FlyingPoncho
Top