Is it me or has it become harder to sell things on Classifieds or anywhere else?

[belfastboy]

It hadn’t occurred to me that a fellow asking about the appropriateness of wearing a hat to a job interview would be wearing the thing once he was seated and the interview was under way.

But, to go off on yet another tangent …

When was the last time you saw a hat rack in a waiting or reception area? My lid typically stays atop my noggin until I’m called to see the doctor or the accountant or whoever.

Unless it is a church or someone's home the hat stays on my head. Thought about converting to Judaism so I could legit leave my hat during services but laziness got in the way.....again.

 

[belfastboy]

That’s the world I and a whole lot of other people knew. Goods of all sorts went from uncle to cousin to cousin to brother to sister etc., etc., etc.

If there were any stigma attached to it, it didn’t stick to me, not in my early years, anyway. It was only later, when I found myself in the company of the better off, that I got the sense that our stuff was on the shabby side and that others perceived it that way, too. This realization wouldn’t have much troubled me had it not so troubled the Old Man, who seemed pathologically incapable of not sizing himself up relative to others.

My parent's living room from 1950 was an exact replication of the 1950's. They moved into their new home bought new furniture, paid cash except for the dining set that they didn't pickup til early 1951 having purchased it on layaway (what a concept!). It sat that way for decades as my father passed away later in that first decade and the living and the entire house became a museum of 1950's living....a living time capsule. When we sold the house after my mother passed away in 2012 many of the pieces were still in use. Chrome dinette, dining table, buffett & chairs, stove.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have a row of pegs next to the accessible bathroom that are supposed to be used for hats, but they are seldom so used. And as a result, we have a beer box absolutely bulging on any given day with lost headgear of all kinds (one of the kids used to indelicately refer to this as "the lice box.") Most of the hats are the usual knit beanies or "Dad Hats," but occasionally something more elaborate will show up. Owners come to claim them about half the time, and every six months the unclaimed go to Goodwill.

 

[Rmccamey]

I still feel much the same. Virtually every TV show is a repackaging of the same shows from previous years, and so on, and so on. The same with so many movies. How many more times is a James Bond theme going to be an "inside job"? How many more times is Batman going to save the world?

The thing with the nineties is that. while I was living thru them, I felt like they had no style of their own. Everything felt like a regurgitation of the dreariest aspects of the previous three decades. Nothing was interesting. Nothing was distinctive. Nothing was worth bothering with. It's like being "nostalgic" about a brown paper bag. Which I guess is something you could get nostalgic about now...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I still feel much the same. Virtually every TV show is a repackaging of the same shows from previous years, and so on, and so on. The same with so many movies. How many more times is a James Bond theme going to be an "inside job"? How many more times is Batman going to save the world?

I learned one thing from James Bond movies. You never want to be 003 — it’s the red shirt of British espionage.

 

[Destruct]

Speaking exclusively from eBay leather jacket selling - I've had pretty good luck this year. I definitely get more movement on my items on eBay though I would prefer to sell on TFL since eBay takes a cut and alerts the IRS at the end of the year with my annual revenue.

 

[tonyb]

…

I'm still considered very much an atavist by many around where I live, for the simple fact that I still refuse to have or use a cellphone. I'm not trying to be twee in this refusal, it's simply that I've never had one, and I can see no good reason why I should. I obviously have a computer, but for a lot of reasons I refuse to let it be the center of my life. As for the way I dress, well, I believe that everyone should dress in a way that looks good *on them.* And you don't want to see what I'd look like in a band t-shirt and velveteen yoga pants. And I'll also acknowledged that, being in show business, there's been a certain career advantage to dressing in a way that fits the environment in which I work. Being a sort of "living trademark" can be job security, and when you're a sixty year old woman with no other means of income that's something you need all of that you can get.

As for "rose colored" atavism, I'll just point out that anyone who's followed my writings around here over the past eighteen years knows if there's anyone on this site who doesn't "romanticize the past," it's me. Nor do I, or will I, romanticize any aspect of the present.

I’m reminded of a coworker from 30 or so years ago who had no computer, had no intention of acquiring a computer, and saw no reason why he would ever want one.

Another coworker and I told him the day was coming when he would have a computer, for the very reason he had a car — he would need it to participate in the economy. He would need a computer because everyone else had a computer.

I stay in touch with this fellow, online, of course.

The day is already upon us. I could function in this economy without a smartphone, but it would be more difficult and ultimately more expensive. My daily routines aren’t the same as everyone’s, but they are typical of many — most, even, I’d guess.

I don’t fetishize the thing, though. My current one is the cheapest iPhone they got. It has a smallish screen, which happens to be cracked. But it does what I need it to do and lots I really don’t. And that’s the biggest drawback to the things. A person can easily find himself burning up the hours in matters that really don’t need doing.

 

[tonyb]

My parent's living room from 1950 was an exact replication of the 1950's. They moved into their new home bought new furniture, paid cash except for the dining set that they didn't pickup til early 1951 having purchased it on layaway (what a concept!). It sat that way for decades as my father passed away later in that first decade and the living and the entire house became a museum of 1950's living....a living time capsule. When we sold the house after my mother passed away in 2012 many of the pieces were still in use. Chrome dinette, dining table, buffett & chairs, stove.

Gotta wonder if your mother was leaving things unchanged in the perhaps unconscious desire to hold onto pieces of life as it was before your father died.

 

[belfastboy]

Gotta wonder if your mother was leaving things unchanged in the perhaps unconscious desire to hold onto pieces of life as it was before your father died.

Possible, but poverty played a larger role. Single mom, no skills, 3 kids, 2 preteen, one an infant. To her credit in the last years of her life she endeavoured to clear out 60+ years of accumulated 'stuff' to save me from having to dispose of it (but not all of it!). It was fun to read ALL my report cards from Grade 1 thru 12. Apparently I was a stellar student in grades 1 thru 3 then from there I entered into a downward trajectory that lasted all the way thru university.

 

[tonyb]

As for "rose colored" atavism, I'll just point out that anyone who's followed my writings around here over the past eighteen years knows if there's anyone on this site who doesn't "romanticize the past," it's me. Nor do I, or will I, romanticize any aspect of the present.

I believe I’ve witnessed an evolution of sorts in your perspectives over the 18-plus years I’ve been hanging around this joint. That’s true of most everyone, and that’s mostly to the good. (Although I’m sure we can all point to notable exceptions.) If never altering one’s positions is a sign of anything it might be a resistance to learning from one’s own experience. Bullheadedness, we might call it. I spent most of the first 18 years of my life answering to such a personality, and at this late date I believe I have a clear view of how it rubbed off on me.

Are we the same people we were a couple decades ago? I suppose we are, in most ways. My fundamental values haven’t changed much, but with advancing years I find myself less absolutist, less “utopian,” in my views. Humans are imperfect, as are their contrivances.

 

[Benny Holiday]

With the rise of interest rates over the past year and a half and the hit to mortgages in way overpriced Sydney town, the economy has slowed right down here. Luxuries and extras are forgotten by more than half the people I work with at least. They're just living week to week. Strangely, the few that do have some money all seem to be taking trips to Japan (no kidding, I've spoken to eight or nine people over the last month who are all going there) and maxing out their credit cards to do it like that's not gonna bite them in the rear over the coming months.

The government is trying to tell me inflation has dropped from 8% to 4.8% over recent months, but my house and contents insurance, car registration, petroleum (gasoline) are all 30% more expensive than a year ago except for electricity, which is 55% dearer. So I'm not sure where they get their figures from, though I suspect it's from an edible baked pastry flying in the upper atmosphere, if you get my drift.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Just yesterday I paid property taxes for the year. The county assessor’s office put some comedians on the payroll, by the looks of it. They seem to be of the opinion this house is worth at least $100K more than we could dream of selling it for. It might have fetched something a bit closer to that assessment a couple-three years ago, when mortgage interest rates were less than half what they are now. For people buying now, it takes more than one working-class income just to pay the housing costs.

Gas prices are down around here, to well under three bucks per gallon, which doesn’t affect me much, seeing how I don’t put many miles on the car these days. Food prices are high, relative to what they were, but I understand that ours are a bargain compared to what most of the rest of the industrialized world lives with.

Restaurant prices are way up, though. A burger and fries, or an omelette with hash browns and toast, typically runs 15 to 20 bucks at a sit-down joint with table service. And that’s before tips and taxes. Dinner out at a fancier place is at least twice that much. At least. We went out to a mid-range Italian place last weekend. It ran us $110. We won’t be doing that again anytime soon.

 

[tonyb]

… When I first walked in the door here, the emphasis was very strongly on the artifacts and general culture of 1930s-40s, with a secondary spread into the 1950s. Most of the people here seemed to have come to that interest via the "swing revival" of the late 1990s. Most of that initial cadre has long since left -- some moved on because they lost interest in that period, and some moved on because of the general drift of the forum away from that initial focus. ….

I got the sense that on the more “male-oriented“ side (for want of a better characterization) — the hats and leather jackets and all — the early members regarded FL as a sort of spin-off of an older online “community” called Club Obi Wan, a destination for the Indiana Jones devotees. Its coinciding with the swing-era revival you alluded to attracted much of that initial membership. Or so it appeared to me. Those more familiar with those earliest days are welcome to correct the record, should such correction be in order.

Let’s not write its obit just yet. An online search for the sorts of things discussed here almost always shows Fedora Lounge threads near the top. I suppose that explains the waaaay disproportionate numbers of visitors (as opposed to members) on this site at any given time. There‘s just tons of info here, most of it reliable. But let’s not let it become a static repository. I appreciate members with real expertise — such as DecoJoe67, who posts photos and descriptions of his vast radio collection — for taking the time to share that stuff with us. There are myriad places online devoted to very specific vintage matters (house-brand console stereos, for instance), which are great resources in their way, but for those with a more general and/or casual interest in vintage stuff, there is no rival to the FL. And should a person wish to take a deeper dive, well, what is there to know about hats and old leather jackets that can’t be found here?

 

[Edward]

Faux fur lapels, anyone?

Ha, guilty as charged.... Twenty odd years ago, I emceed a regular rocky horror screening wearing a probably 1970s pure poly (I mean, it was an absolute fire hazard!) dinner suit to which I added faux leopard fur on the lapels...

What you can't see here is that the pocket square was a particularly cheap and nasty pair of skimpy ladies' knickers. It was a different time...

I still feel much the same. Virtually every TV show is a repackaging of the same shows from previous years, and so on, and so on. The same with so many movies. How many more times is a James Bond theme going to be an "inside job"? How many more times is Batman going to save the world?

I suppose there only are something like twelve stories, after all.... bond has become one of those mythologies like Arthur or Robin Hood that it seems will be retold over again for every generation, each retelling telling us as much about the target audience as about the story itself.

I got the sense that on the more “male-oriented“ side (for want of a better characterization) — the hats and leather jackets and all — the early members regarded FL as a sort of spin-off of an older online “community” called Club Obi Wan, a destination for the Indiana Jones devotees. Its coinciding with the swing-era revival you alluded to attracted much of that initial membership. Or so it appeared to me. Those more familiar with those earliest days are welcome to correct the record, should such correction be in order.

The place was already up and running when I arrived, but as memory serves the original inspiration was to serves as an outgrowth from COW, for those for whom the Jones saga had awakened a broader interest in the period.

Let’s not write its obit just yet. An online search for the sorts of things discussed here almost always shows Fedora Lounge threads near the top. I suppose that explains the waaaay disproportionate numbers of visitors (as opposed to members) on this site at any given time. There‘s just tons of info here, most of it reliable. But let’s not let it become a static repository. I appreciate members with real expertise — such as DecoJoe67, who posts photos and descriptions of his vast radio collection — for taking the time to share that stuff with us. There are myriad places online devoted to very specific vintage matters (house-brand console stereos, for instance), which are great resources in their way, but for those with a more general and/or casual interest in vintage stuff, there is no rival to the FL. And should a person wish to take a deeper dive, well, what is there to know about hats and old leather jackets that can’t be found here?

Certainly much more useful than a Facebook group. FB has its place, but I struggle to comprehend why for some it has replaced forums, given how poorly it functions as an archival tool. Fine for general chatter in the now, but try and find a half-remembered useful post from six months or two years or ten years ago.....

I have a feeling we'll see a revival in 30s & 40s stuff all over again in a few years time, as fashion cycles go. All we need is for the kids to cotton on that the only way to sartorially rebel now is to wear a suit...

 

[Benny Holiday]

Funny we should be mentioning all this now, as just this morning one of the big news stories breaking is about price gouging by the energy companies here. According to the reports (and my empty wallet) Australian households have been charged $1,000 a year more than big businesses would be charged for using the same amount of power.

The companies released their half-yearly financial reports that showed the cost of electricity for ordinary Australian households has jumped by $100 a megawatt hour but for big business it has gone up by just $30. Origin Energy bumped up residential bills by $72.30 a megawatt hour but hit business with just a $4.10 increase. This has resulted in Origin Energy doubling its profits in the last six months from $399 million to $995 million, while AGL’s profits were up 78% and Energy Australia’s tripled its local revenue to $94 million in the middle of the financial crisis.

The Minister for Energy Chris Bowen has promised to get prices down by $275 on average by the end of 2025, but so far, the papers and radio are reporting, the independent Energy Regulator has not success in holding back the price gouging. (Yeah, I've noticed that, thanks for nothing).

 

[tonyb]

…
I have a feeling we'll see a revival in 30s & 40s stuff all over again in a few years time, as fashion cycles go. All we need is for the kids to cotton on that the only way to sartorially rebel now is to wear a suit...

I’ve been hearing about “the return of the hat” for a couple decades now. I got no data, but anecdotally I can report that the “return” has been slow in coming.

I suppose there is a larger percentage of fellows wearing “proper” hats than there were 20 years ago, but it’s still not nearly as common as it was in the “Golden Era.” Not even close. And I doubt any of us here will live to such a “return.”

But it’s not that hat wearing is necessarily eccentric anymore, either. Not in some contexts, anyway. Brimmed hats (lower quality ones, generally) are on offer in many men’s clothiers these days.

As to suits …

David Bowie could rock a suit. The Beatles wore matching suits in their early years, as did many rock bands back then. And R&B acts all but demanded it. So yeah, I could see suits becoming fashionable among young men again.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Do you good folks in the USA and UK have this phenomenon where young guys wear skinny suits with no socks? Just trouser legs that are too short, then two inches of hairy ankle, then shoes. It's gotten really common around here.

 

[Edward]

I’ve been hearing about “the return of the hat” for a couple decades now. I got no data, but anecdotally I can report that the “return” has been slow in coming.

I suppose there is a larger percentage of fellows wearing “proper” hats than there were 20 years ago, but it’s still not nearly as common as it was in the “Golden Era.” Not even close. And I doubt any of us here will live to such a “return.”

I think fashion in general is just too splintered now (possibly a good thing), and too ephemeral, for any one thing to be dominant in the way it once might have been. I'll be surprised if anything challenges the knit beanie for supremacy in Winter now, but otoh, I'm definitely seeing a rise of brimmed hats in Summer. Climate change may well impact there.

But it’s not that hat wearing is eccentric, either. Brimmed hats (lower quality ones, generally) are on offer in many men’s clothiers these days.

Yes, I wouldn't call it quite mainstream, but definitely it's becoming a lot more common.

As to suits …

David Bowie could rock a suit. The Beatles wore matching suits in their early years, as did many rock bands back then. And R&B acts all but demanded it. So yeah, I could see suits becoming fashionable among young men again.

My theory, such as it is, is that the death of the suit as mandatory officewear will eventually kill off the perception of it as being something worn by the establishment / "the man", younger folks will - after, what, three, four generations of it now? - finally stop seeing 'all denim, all the time' as being in any way rebellious, associate jeans with The Man, and turn to suits to rebel. Post-covid, the world is undeniably more casualised; surely it can only be a matter of time before youth tribes rebel against that?

 

[tonyb]

Do you good folks in the USA and UK have this phenomenon where young guys wear skinny suits with no socks? Just trouser legs that are too short, then two inches of hairy ankle, then shoes. It's gotten really common around here.

I’ve seen it. It’s not common, not in the winter, anyway. But if the young fellow is thin enough and if his suit fits him well enough it can be an okay look in my book (although I could live without the high-water pants length), although I’d advise my fellow larger (and older) gents against it.

I was known for my socklessness going back 30 years or more. But that was when the rest of my everyday attire consisted of well-worn pleated white formal shirts with blue jeans and Converse All Stars, or the occasional pair of Jack Purcells. I liked that look then, and I still do. Put a decent hat atop it all and go conquer something.

Before then, even, I appreciated David Letterman for kinda legitimizing wearing sneakers with suits.

 

[tonyb]

..,
Yes, I wouldn't call it quite mainstream, but definitely it's becoming a lot more common.

I edited my post to more accurately reflect my sense of the level of hat-wearing among the masses, as it does more coincide with yours.

Wearing a ”proper” hat may not have a guy sticking out like the sore thumb of lore, but he might still be identified as “the guy in the hat.”