Things to consider: vintage style and your style

[Carlisle Blues]

Have you thought about what it means for you, as an intelligent human being, to take your style cues from a culture you can't really be part of - in fact, one that has all but ceased to function?

Actually the "culture" is alive and has a continuum. Each passing generation touches and concerns the next generation and influences it. The is no finite beginning and end. In fact that influence reaches back several generations and forms not only our manner of dress, but, our customs, speech and manner of thinking. To name a few.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But what if trash-picking is a traditional part of your culture? Ask any small-town working-class New Englander about that.

 

[Fletch]

Then you should at least have the authenticity to look like a trashpicker. lol

 

[PrettySquareGal]

But what if trash-picking is a traditional part of your culture? Ask any small-town working-class New Englander about that.

Oh you mean the antique dealers!

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Oh you mean the antique dealers!

Antiques preserve the tradition, at least in the mind of the collector.

 

[Tiller]

Sorry old boy I hadn't noticed that you edited your post.

The poster at Andy's (on page 4 or 5 of the thread, IIRC) actually seemed to be rebutting some of the trads on that forum, who "solve for x" in their clothing and then let it go at that.

I'll be honest I jumped the gun and saw that it was Andy's, and simply assumed it was another trad argument against the vintage community. Which usually amounts to "you look like a gangster!" lol. So after taking a quick glance at the post I thought it was just a different argument to the same debate (last thread I read there was about how Fedora's have no purpose in modern times, albeit was an old thread, but after reading it I haven't been back).

In that light, it seems our opinionmaker may be saying, "Wear what suits you - as long as it's relevant." I still question that taste has to do with relevance. We have to be appropriate - for the occasion, the weather, the surroundings - but we don't necessarily have to be relevant to some greater context - which may not have anything to do with us personally, and which is, most likely, a subtle kind of fashion, not style.

I0MO style has nothing to do with the relevance of a surrounding area. In particular the opinions and taste of those around you. So I would assume that in his world view if one is a member of the "English" in an overwhelmingly Amish community one would have to adapt to their traditional early 19th century fashion in order to stay relevant to the area he finds himself. Or in other words "when in rome". The idea that one MUST adapt to one's surrounding areas in order to be stylish, sounds like he is advocating a chameleon type of fashion, changing ones shorts to match those around you. Changing Oscar Wilde's saying from

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

to

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every time we are around different social economic groups, sub-cultures, and communities.

Such an idea is ridiculous in my opinion. What separates style from fashion imo is not only it's individuality (in our case the type of hat, scarves, cuff links, tie, shoes, cut and quaility of the suits/shirts we wear) but it's timelessness. For all the insults, and alteration it has suffered over the decades the suit has the same general form that it had 100 years ago. The fact that the vintage community exist, and is being copied in many modern fashion outlets is testament to it's timelessness. The fact that some fear of standing out to much by it contributes to its individuality.

Where once the suit was seen as a piece of conformist apparel forced upon the masses by "the man", today it has an almost rebellious air to it when worn by a twenty something male in a vintage cut, or reproduction. The style and not fashion aspect of it comes from the fact that it is different from the modern conformity (t-shirt, jeans) and is if anything an outright rejection of the relative fashion vibe of the age.

IMO the argument of "relevance" (beyond the weather, occasion and other practical arguments) is in general an argument for conformity. To me it says "you can touch the envelope but don't push it." or "you can have hints of a personality, but don't own it yourself." If style only means one can chose a blue, red, or black tie, but not a green one (to risky for one's surroundings), then what separates any fashion from one another?

Because I like irritating you, and myself,

My girlfriend being annoyed at me and refusing to talk irritates me, the Lounge and you don't old man. I'm just something of a prima donna who does a bad cankerous young man impression don't take it to serious I don't .

let's consider a more extreme position yet, from a women's clothes advice blog, SoStyled.com:
This kind of thing always makes me think of a good careerist, someone who's internalized the ethos of her industry. Maybe of all industry.

Although their maybe something to the idea that style starts out as a fashion, the idea that style doesn't last is simply incorrect. As said before imo for something to be "stylish" and not "fashionable" it MUST be timeless, in other words it must stand athwart time yelling NO.

People who are dedicated to fashion are dedicated to the flavors of the month, people who are dedicated to style are dedicated to a timeless song the continues to beat on despite the ups and downs of time.

Whether someone in the "fashion" industry can survive if they are dedicated to style I'm not sure, but I am sure that someone in the clothing industry can if they have a passion for their product and know how to sell it.

 

[JimWagner]

What separates style from fashion imo is not only it's individuality (in our case the type of hat, scarves, cuff links, tie, shoes, cut and quaility of the suits/shirts we wear) but it's timelessness.

Admittedly cherry-picking from a rather lengthy post, but that comment about timelessness cuts to the nub of the matter for me.

If you carefully choose the elements of your wardrobe that work best together, suit your particular frame and have that look of class it almost doesn't matter what time frames the individual elements come from or are inspired by. You will look and feel good and people will respond positively to your appearance.

Do it badly and you'll be wearing a costume. Just my opinion about that, of course.

 

[R.A. Stewart]

Over at Smokers Forums there is a saying that comes up every now and then when we are discussing the merits of various pipes and tobaccos: "Smoke what you like and like what you smoke."

For various reasons I am not a true vintage connoisseur: I have neither spare funds nor spare time in abundance, I've never had the passion to get deep into a particular era, and at 59 I need to keep focused on those things I am passionate about. But I've always felt the appeal of past styles, especially those of the 30s and 40s--and then the sixties --so as I get a little more confident in my tastes, I've developed a personal style that harks back, in a kind of eclectic way, but would mostly not be considered authentic. That's what works for me. At the same time I can appreciate and even admire someone else's careful re-creation of a particular style of the past--care, attention, taste, and craftsmanship are valuable in themselves and all too scarce, and the result can be so attractive as to be a real gift to the world.

~Rich

 

[Scotus]

Tiller, your last post there is a good one.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. I suppose what someone chooses to wear depends on many factors and the personality of the one who is wearing the cloths. MOST people are simply conformists, and I don't think that applies to anyone here.

You have to have the personality to pull off with confidence clothing that is vintage, IMO (I would never wear "true" vintage, only new vintage). Also, there are people in professions where vintage would NOT work well on a daily basis (thankfully, I'm not). Fashion/style can be a very individual thing.

 

[AntonAAK]

Science presumes that there is one true, correct answer. Art does not. Science is to a great degree static - the journey mostly ends once we've solved for 'x', once we've discovered the answer, once we've come up with the formula that makes sense. Art is not static - it evolves.

I don't know if this original Ask Andy poster knows anything about clothes but I can tell you that he knows absolutely nothing about science.

 

[LordBest]

Art implies that the aesthetic is subjective to the viewer, science that it is somehow quantifiable. Neither seem particularly apt to apply to clothing in my view. Indeed if he were correct then he should acknowledge that people who copy from 1930s catalogues are being true to their conception of style as a subjective aesthetic.
I must not have noticed science become set in stone, perhaps someone can furnish me with a reference.
It is also absurd to criticise people for copying from 1930s etc pictures. How is that any less silly than copying from any modern photographic fashion source, a fashion blog or even looking through a store catalogue? The illustrations of the 30s spread the fashions then, as contemporary illustrations to do today. Some of us choose to take inspiration from the former.
I hate modern clothing, why should I wear it if I can wear vintage style clothing which I love? The reverse applies to others. It seems to be that true style is wearing what you like and what suits you.
On the whole the comment reminds me of why I've been on the Fedora Lounge over a year while spending perhaps half an hour at Ask Andy.

To be very nitpicking, there was no Prince Edward VIII. There was Edward, Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VIII and shortly thereafter, the Duke of Windsor.

 

[Valhson]

I don't know if this original Ask Andy poster knows anything about clothes but I can tell you that he knows absolutely nothing about science.

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing when I read it. I love how people look at stuff in black and white only. Absolutes are fun to play with in a sprite-esque manner.

 

[Miss 1929]

If you have to Ask Andy, you have no style.

 

[Zip Gun Aria]

Sorry to go all Roland Barthes on your collective arses, but that, unfortunately, is how I think when faced with unthinking cultural programming.

Anyone who posits a normative cultural credo apart from personal preference, apart from the thrill of wearing what feels good, is foregrounding their own subjective taste and calling it objective truth.

Or to put it another way: A dear friend of mine was a journalist who awoke one day and found himself schizophrenic -- literally. He went from monitoring chemicals in the city water supply for the Oregonian to believing that God had doped his fellow citizens with hallucinogens and left him undrugged so as to wield his awesome mental clarity against the Gaseous Vertebrate.

When I spoke to him later, I read him the riot act: You're hearing voices, right? I can tell. But answer me this: The voices, do they come from the inside or the outside? Because if you think they come from the outside, then you really are going crazy.

If people think they've stumbled onto some absolute guide to the fashion zeitgeist, then they're deluded. If they understand their taste is subjective but trust it, then they can be trusted.

 

[Lauren]

Well said.

 

[Shangas]

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every time we are around different social economic groups, sub-cultures, and communities.

That made me laugh! Probably because it's true...

 

[resortes805]

I think what is often lost in these types of arguments is just how much artistic creativity goes into dressing vintage.

For those that wear exclusively vintage, we don't "fashion" our looks, so much as we curate! Our personal aesthetics are our forms of art.

Secondly, with a limited and rare market of goods, vintage wearers really have to be creative with their style and make do with what we can afford, or simply with what garments have survived and are available to us. This need to make-do have forced us to mix, match, and take chances with looks, simply because we have to. I'm not talking about Johnny Depp who can afford thousand dollar vintage suits from kakkoii mono, I'm talking about the kid down the street who loves the vintage look and are out there scouring the thrift stores for items that will work.

 

[MikeBravo]

Don't try weaseling out by calling what you love "art," either. They're a step ahead of you there, too. (Remember the old rule: it's only art if you can't take a leak in it. I'm not sure where this leaves, say, analog records or classic film, but I'll deal with that another time.)

I had to chuckle at this. Where does it leave Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"? Called "the world's most influential piece of modern art" - see link below

Literally something you can take a leak into http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/12/02/1101923273643.html

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Digest and incorporate some. He makes some good points.

Dressing well is an art, not a science. Science presumes that there is one true, correct answer. Art does not. Science is to a great degree static - the journey mostly ends once we've solved for 'x', once we've discovered the answer, once we've come up with the formula that makes sense. Art is not static - it evolves.

[trim]

The problem with a great deal of this (and other) 'fashion/style' forums is that people become fixated with what they've taken to be (or made) dogma, and dressing up like some 50s movie star they've nominated as their 'style paragon'.

He's right. The problem, of course, being that many who try this get it awfully, unviewably, wrong

Even stranger, they attempt to copy looks off illustrations made in the 30s/40s/50s. Did Prince Edward VIII copy his 'looks' off cartoons and line drawings of people in the 1900s or 1890s? Of course not. Does Rubinacci copy a jacket's cut exactly off a 60s catalogue? Of course he doesn't. Does the Savile Row of today look exactly like the Savile Row of 1950? Of course not.

Right again. Using the images to get tips is useful. Going all out to replicate the man from the Interwoven socks ad … probably a bit much. This is my favourite, by the way:

Dogma implies unchanging, inflexible. Art isn't - style isn't. If you want to dress in every way like someone considered well-dressed from the 50s or 60s, more power to you. But you're not well-dressed for today. You're well dressed for the 50s or 60s. There is a difference between 'new' and 'worse'. And to sepia-tone a 'golden age' of men's dress as hold it up as some form of 'lost ideal' is just sheer ridiculous - so there weren't any shabbily dressed people in that halcyon age?

My 0.02.

But he seems to have an inability to follow his reasoning through to its logical end. He forgets that the absolute epitome of "style", as opposed to fashion, today is "being different". He forgets, or seems unaware, that those dressing like men of bygone eras are different, very different.

Therefore, to end my 0.02. He seems to have his head screwed on, and shares many of my own issues with many wannabe "well dressed" but really just "rules" obsessed, "buttoned up" forumites. His problem is that he's misunderstood modern style in quite a fundamental way.

bk

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

If fashion is about fitting in... just try it at a nudist colony.

Maybe we also want to fit in...at our vintage peer group. We like to get compliments too. It's not really about being rebellious against the mainstream.
Even punks fit in.

I have to agree it needs more creativity to find all the old items than to go to the store and buy a modern suit. We still have to find combinations that will work. So it's the same thing as dressing modern and fashionable but in another frame. A frame that you choose for ourselves. Workwear or suits? Late 40s or early 30s? Maybe both mixed together?

I don't think vintage is dogmatic per se.
The poster of the original text at AAAC points his finger at others too. Maybe he is self conscious about his style or he feels threatened by people who look for authetic vintage clothes? Maybe someone criticised his polyester suit?
If you're really confident with what you wear and who you are, you don't need to look down at others. There is an irony in posting something like this in a public forum about fashion guidelines. Guidelines are not laws. If you don't like them, ignore them. If you sign up in a forum...don't try to find a conspirancy. Get over it.