Sprezzatura vs trying too hard.

[Fading Fast]

Welcome, Vic. Thanks for the tip re: street x sprezza. I just spent about an hour looking at various pages on that site. Enjoyed it very much and I suspect that other Loungers will find it interesting too.

Agreed, excellent site. Thank you for posting the link.

 

[Seb Lucas]

I wonder where guys in the 1920s got their inspiration on how to dress?

There was a mainstream culture in those days and no internet. It was a lot clearer.

 

[BlueTrain]

Yes, but! Although the material in the linked reference, which was very interesting, by the way, did mention people wearing clothes for a long time, which still happens, I think that happened more than he suggests. Of course, it's usually older people who keep wearing their old-fashioned (last year's styles) clothes longer than the young crowd. Younger people, say, in their 20s, don't have old clothes to wear. They out grew them. And at any given time, only contemporary styles are available in stores, so that's what they buy. I recall seeing a man wearing what was clearly a 1940's style double-breasted suit in the early 1960s. His sister was a schoolteacher and one who started teaching around the time my mother was graduating from high school.

Also, people who don't dress up very often, men anyway, sometimes get by with a single suit, so it can't be something that would look out of place at a funeral or for an interview. But dressing up even for those reasons seems to be, well, a little old-fashioned.

 

[Shanghailander]

[

The band of acceptable daily garb for men has gotten so narrow and so narrowly casual, that anything beyond dark jeans and a collared shirt is likely to draw attention. Even a simple sport coat thrown on top will raise eyebrows. This means that if you are a man who desires to make dressing a pleasure, and if your interest turns towards tailored clothes, the "don't draw attention to yourself" rule for tasteful dress isn't going to be a very useful maxim for gauging the quality of your kit.

Ah, but if you have confidence, and still find pleasure in dressing yourself in style, there are subtle rewards. On three occasions I have talked my way out of a traffic ticket I am sure would have failed if I had dressed like most men my age do. Out and about, I see passersby (women) smile as they glance at me. I have had men cross over in airport terminals just to tell me how great my suit looked.

I showed up as an extra for a movie shoot, but I looked so good in my Panama and linen suit the casting director decided to put me in a scene with the lead.

I recently returned from a conference - my profession is probably the worst dressed profession there is - but I wore a hat, a handkerchief, collar bar, tie, club collared shirt, and either a suit or pleated and cuffed trousers, vest, and jacket, every day. And every day I had half a dozen people come up to me and tell me how great I looked.

If the masses want to dress like the masses, fine - but that very lack of effort makes me look better without having to try very hard.

At the races this past summer, an elderly worker at the track came up to thank me for reminding him "what this place used to be like." Sadly, it didn't take too much effort at all on my part.

 

[BlueTrain]

Nothing is like it used to be and never was. Although you can be stylish and well-dressed, if you aren't dressed like everyone else, more or less, you aren't really in style. But your suit isn't at all old-fashioned. Not to me, anyway, but one doesn't see many light colored suits anymore. A tan poplin suit is perfect for hot summer weather, which we're still having here in October in Northern Virginia. I imagine they're still available but as hard to find as a suit with two pair of pants.

"The coat and the pants do all of the work but the vest gets all the gravy."

The spats are pushing it, though. I do recall seeing a man wearing them when we were in Bermuda about 40 years ago. And that reminds me of something.

Some styles don't travel very well. For instance, one can see an ordinary man's suit anywhere in the world and they all look pretty much the same, although when I was in Germany a few decades past, there were some distinctive styles I've never seen elsewhere. Didn't see them in Germany the last time I was there, either, for that matter. Likewise, blue jeans are the same everywhere. But you don't see red canvas pants overseas.

 

[Tiki Tom]

WTF? Heaven help us. No! Not to mention that it is just plain ugly. Hideous.
Definitely falls into the category of "trying (way) too hard" or something.
Please: someone tell me that this is not real.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kinky...-harness-has-a-weird-identity-crisis?ref=wrap

 

[Edward]

WTF? Heaven help us. No! Not to mention that it is just plain ugly. Hideous.
Definitely falls into the category of "trying (way) too hard" or something.
Please: someone tell me that this is not real.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kinky...-harness-has-a-weird-identity-crisis?ref=wrap

Surely a joke? I completely see the fashion potential of the actual harnesses pictured lower down (twenty years ago I was all about Westwood circa Seditionaries) but that weird flowery thing.... especially over the top of a suit... I just don't quite get the design.

I could see a leather harness having its practical uses, if adapted like a shoulder holster. I always wanted a shoulder holster for my mobile phone, but that could lead to security problems of its own!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Ack! When this pop-up ad invaded my browsing, I at first thought it was a joke.
Brace yourselves. Fall Fashion Weeks are coming.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Sprezzatura; they are still writing articles about it. Not sure how I feel about this example. I'd probably go with a traditional dress shirt, myself.

The article is not bad. I especially like their advice:

Don't overdo it. The 21st century Italian peacock – of the kind documented in street style shots from the likes of the Italian menswear fair Pitti Uomo – does not have sprezzatura, for he lacks restraint, subtlety and, often, taste. Sprezzatura is, in contrast, all about little details, and less is more with those.

Don't think too hard about it. If it doesn’t come naturally, arguably it’s best just not to go there and to stick with the tried and tested, socially accepted notions of dressing well. Make too much of it and there’s a risk of being called out; and self-conscious sprezzatura is not sprezzatura at all.

https://www.fashionbeans.com/article/how-to-dress-with-sprezzatura/​

 

[Nobert]

I finally decided that the best way to describe Sprezzatura is that it's the sartorial equivalent of Zaphod Beeblebrox saying, "Now, which of these chairs is the best to be caught nonchalant in?"

 

[Tiki Tom]

I have no idea why this just popped into my feed (it’s not as if it is a new video.)
Anyway, I still love this stuff because it is the perfect car wreck of trying so hard to look effortlessly roguish that the result often looks painfully contrived.