Disagreeable Menswear Post Of The Day

In principle there is a difference. A natural material, can be broken down and reused. A mix of natural and artificial fibers, are much harder to brake down into it's sub components.
A product of good quality can in theory be repaired (how many do so, is another question..). One of bad quality is not as likely.
Baungart and McDonough's Cradle to Cradle is a good read on the subject.
 
I find it hard to believe the arrogance that clothing is somehow impacting the planet and that a cheap jacket is somehow not as environmentally friendly as going 7 grand bespoke. On the scale of things, the impact is zero.

If you buy the cheap jacket from somewhere local and then wear it for years and years, then it most likely is as environmentally friendly as 7 grand bespoke.

The problem is when you get 1 million people buying cheap jackets, wearing the jackets a couple of times, and then throwing the jackets away, so they go into landfill or are burned. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon with fast fashion nowadays (and is apparently more common amongst women than men).

One jacket - negligible impact.
One million jackets - perceivable impact.

Also, with regard to Mother Nature being resilient - I entirely agree that talk about how "the world is going to end" is overegging the pudding. The world will go on. The concern is whether it will be a world that will be as hospitable to humans as the current one. We are disposable - Mother Nature can carry on without us. We, however, are acclimatised to living in a fairly narrow range of conditions.
 
All right then, since we're determined to break down Crompers' tosh:

Natural fibres break down more easily, and bespoke quality items are more durable and easy to repair. That's fact. What the likes of Crompers don't seem to understand is that for anything to be, er, sustainable, it needs to be economically sustainable. The Alex McIntoshes #woke menswear experts and craftsmen of this world are not helping the planet by pricing themselves out of the mass market.

Then, to add insult to injury, they drop in some mumbo-jumbo about the "post-material" economy. Post-material? Don't they charge a price for their super duper designer items?

If these geniuses want to make fashion sustainable they must 1) make durable items in 2) natural materials that 3) can be repaired, at 4) prices accessible to the mass market.

But they're not doing it. Because they want to be rich, just like the rest of us. If they're smart enough to lecture us on sustainability, surely they can figure out a way of lowering production costs and passing the lower cost on to the customer.

The interview itself is cringeworthy. The fact that it's Crompers makes it worse. Sustainability starts with frugality. Crompers, with his multiple copies of the same item of clothing, with his hundreds of suits and dozens of overcoats, is anything but frugal.
 
I think #menswear is only slightly more sustainable in the long run than disposable clothing. #menswear still relies on clothing churn. Years ago, Simon posted something to the effect that once you have a decent wardrobe you can kind of plateau and focus on other things. And look how far he's come in the other direction and turned into a massive clotheshorse. nothing wrong with it, but call it for what it is.

But #menwear isn't sustained by those people who buy a few Edward Green shoes and then resole them for rest of their lives.

It's sustained by people like Simon who continually push and/or buy the next big thing just as in fast fashion. now your Edward Greens are obsolete. The main difference being that people will sell their Edward Greens, rather than throw them, as a pair of H&M shoes maybe.
 
What about this poor chap, should he be denied the right to wear a suit for a job interview because he can't afford super Napoli TM bespoke? I think you will agree the suit has give him a certain gravitas compared to his everyday Nike and heavily tattooed look. You would probably think he was a Philadelphia lawyer or investment banker.....but then again you can't polish a.....:

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I think #menswear is only slightly more sustainable in the long run than disposable clothing. #menswear still relies on clothing churn. Years ago, Simon posted something to the effect that once you have a decent wardrobe you can kind of plateau and focus on other things. And look how far he's come in the other direction and turned into a massive clotheshorse. nothing wrong with it, but call it for what it is.

But #menwear isn't sustained by those people who buy a few Edward Green shoes and then resole them for rest of their lives.

It's sustained by people like Simon who continually push and/or buy the next big thing just as in fast fashion. now your Edward Greens are obsolete. The main difference being that people will sell their Edward Greens, rather than throw them, as a pair of H&M shoes maybe.

People like Crompers are massively influential in the post-social-media economy. So he deserves all the flak he gets when he preaches about sustainability. He dismisses brands which try to strike a balance between durability, natural materials, and item cost (i.e. the mass market), which is just about the only place the sustainability revolution can happen, if it ever does. I mean brands like the Northampton shoe manufacturers (natural leather, can be resoled, made in the UK with its strict environmental regulations). But he worships and promotes brands which have next to zero impact on sustainability because their sales volume is tiny.

Bottom line: Crompers should stick to How-To guides. Even his reviews are all virtue-signalling bollocks nowadays.
 
Even core of PS is rotting - latest post proof he can’t put together basic outfit without looking awkward
 
The trouble isn't how to make something sustainable. Is what sustainable really means in the first place. What's wrong with calling it "minimum waste", or "durable", or "local", like we did until the 1990s?

If you mean durable items, then you're perfectly right. Items that last longer are less likely to end up in the rubbish heap, and we make make fewer of them because people don't need to keep buying to replace worn-out stuff.

But no. That's not sophisticated enough. We have to attach a snazzy label and call it "sustainable", and give it that insidious veneer of virtue-signalling. Look! Here's a SUSTAINABLE T-SHIRT! I am a cutting-edge uber-minimalist designer! I MAKE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN.

Load of bollocks, the whole lot of them. Crompton alone has a bloated wardrobe that could clothe a hundred men. How is that sustainable? Only fifty sheep were slaughtered in the making of this movie. Only five hectares of land were turned into desert in the making of this shirt.

Menswear has disappeared up its own arse. This is the man, if you please, who lines surplus vintage combat jackets with real fur.

Good poast, but #Menswear disappeared up its own fundamental orifice well before Mr C. added his two penn'orth.
 
What about this poor chap, should he be denied the right to wear a suit for a job interview because he can't afford super Napoli TM bespoke? I think you will agree the suit has give him a certain gravitas compared to his everyday Nike and heavily tattooed look. You would probably think he was a Philadelphia lawyer or investment banker.....but then again you can't polish a.....:

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I helped start up a charity like this here - we dress people for job interviews - and I still do some dressing and other stuff. Increasingly we have to dress men Biz Caz not in suits. We have to be careful as we warn blokes:: " You'll be better dressed than the people interviewing you"


That said most blokes - from whatever background - love a suit. It's still the easiest and best way to dress. I've had hardened ex prisoners with crap tatts all over beak down and cry when dressed care-ingly in a suit saying " I never thought I could ever wear a suit and look like this" - Its sometimes very very rewarding.
 
I helped start up a charity like this here - we dress people for job interviews - and I still do some dressing and other stuff. Increasingly we have to dress men Biz Caz not in suits. We have to be careful as we warn blokes:: " You'll be better dressed than the people interviewing you"


That said most blokes - from whatever background - love a suit. It's still the easiest and best way to dress. I've had hardened ex prisoners with crap tatts all over beak down and cry when dressed care-ingly in a suit saying " I never thought I could ever wear a suit and look like this" - Its sometimes very very rewarding.
Well done to you.
I saw a documentary on the telly many years ago about a charity that did this kind of thing, it was like a boot camp for ex prisoners, long term unemployed, clueless, rehab graduates, ex-homeless, various other people from the lower rungs of the social strata. The ‘teacher’ was like a drill sergeant and some of the attendees had such low self esteem that they all had to practice every day looking him in the eye, smiling, shaking hands and saying “hello, how are you today?” - basic stuff that most of us take for granted.
They had to teach the women what a ‘pump’ is - basic low heel plain shoe navy or black - and the men had to wear a white shirt with collar and tie.

Of course after much trauma it ended with most of them securing decent jobs for the first time in their lives and it was finally revealed that the drill sergeant had been an attendee at one time before he learned the ropes and was now giving it back.

It made for much better telly than all the fake reality crap that’s stacked up these days. I suggested to my then company’s bosses that we start something similar which could feed in to being a resource for recruiting as well but they weren’t interested.
 
I have to ask is this a Drake’s model - i e part of their advertising. In case anyone thinks this is unlikely, remember the weird, long-haired, fiftysomething beanpole that they recently featured.

Nice to see their £895 houndstooth jacket. I have a similar one from Marks & Spencer. Mine is all wool, with a lining and proper pockets though and it was much cheaper. You wait long enough and everything comes back into fashion :-

‘I saw you coming’.
 
I have to ask is this a Drake’s model

I think that he actually works in their shop - I saw an interview or article about him a while back. Perhaps he normally looks better?

Edited to add - here is the article and I think that it's the same person:

 
Men dressed in Berluti from head to toe.

Antiqued leather suits.
Berluti style 1.jpg



A bloke in his 10,000 Euro jacket. :ahahahaha:
Berluti style 2.jpg



Antiqued leather green coat with a pink skivvy.
Berluti style 3.jpg
 
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I think that he actually works in their shop - I saw an interview or article about him a while back. Perhaps he normally looks better?

Edited to add - here is the article and I think that it's the same person:

Oh dear. He looks better in the plain dark jacket and trousers.

Tattoos and watches so he is a trendy type.
 

An interesting American look. Like RL in the 1990s. Why Drake's thinks this is for them is beyond me.

I have to ask is this a Drake’s model - i e part of their advertising. In case anyone thinks this is unlikely, remember the weird, long-haired, fiftysomething beanpole that they recently featured.

Nice to see their £895 houndstooth jacket. I have a similar one from Marks & Spencer. Mine is all wool, with a lining and proper pockets though and it was much cheaper. You wait long enough and everything comes back into fashion :-

‘I saw you coming’.

Houndstooth tends to date very fast and come in and out of fashion at the same pitch.
 
An interesting American look. Like RL in the 1990s. Why Drake's thinks this is for them is beyond me.

Rather insulting to Americans. I could imagine Crompton doing this for a bet though.

He would send him to a tailor in Naples, of course. Special care taken to emphasise his weight and stomach. Trousers carefully taken in so they looked too tight and had an unsightly rubber tyre effect below the waistband. High water trousers carefully adjusted to be too wide for such a look. Jacket left unbuttoned to emphasise the belly. Accessories - crumpled collar and spiv tie. Loud socks. Price of complete ensemble? If you have to ask you cannot afford it.
 
Rather insulting to Americans. I could imagine Crompton doing this for a bet though.

He would send him to a tailor in Naples, of course. Special care taken to emphasise his weight and stomach. Trousers carefully taken in so they looked too tight and had an unsightly rubber tyre effect below the waistband. High water trousers carefully adjusted to be too wide for such a look. Jacket left unbuttoned to emphasise the belly. Accessories - crumpled collar and spiv tie. Loud socks. Price of complete ensemble? If you have to ask you cannot afford it.

https://www.drakes.com/multi-colour-cotton-poplin-fun-button-down-shirt

And while we're on the subject of sustainability bullshit, notice the creeping use of "handcrafted" when all it means is "made". Handcrafted in Somerset. In my day, we'd say "Made in England" and that was that.
 
notice the creeping use of "handcrafted" when all it means is "made". Handcrafted in Somerset. In my day, we'd say "Made in England" and that was that.

Things have to be "artisanal" nowadays so as to attract people.

So we end up with artisanal, handcrafted coffee, specially made in small batches from shrubs grown on the side of a particular hill in a remote location. It doesn't really taste any different, but we like to persuade ourselves that it's better.

Essentially, it's all advertising puffery.
 
I was rather hoping ''artisanal'' would be well on the way out now especially artisanal gins which seem to exist of pretentious marketing people buying grain spirit in and throwing juniper and grapefruit into it in their back garden or lock-up and pretending they have a 1779 still that's been past on through the family.
 
Peter York wrote a small book a few years back called: Authenticity, which detailed and ridiculed this phenomenon.

Peter York: against authenticity
Nigel Farage, Oprah and countless artisan food outlets are all for it, but authenticity is now a vacuous concept

Peter York


The real deal: Oprah Winfrey in 2011.


The real deal: Oprah Winfrey in 2011. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Oprah’s on for it. A great swath of marketing people are on for it. And “human potential” development types are on for it, too. What they’re on for is “authenticity”, a word and concept fashionable in everything from emotions to materials. Think of politicians who “tell it like it is” (our Nigel), celebrity confessionals, bare-brick lofts and bushy beards in Shoreditch, or “artisan” foods. I have found it’s a word you tend to hear from people who have something to sell.

I’m dead against authenticity, immediately suspicious of the word and its intentions. It is a word that reminds me of the fast one about to be pulled, the value about to be added, the tosh about to be talked, the micro-connoisseur at your elbow.

1399.png


Now that the public has lost faith in politicians, banks and the press, the mass of PRs, ad execs, lobbyists and researchers have been casting about for reassuring ways to represent their clients. They have seized on a language derived from the worst kind of therapy; a language that dwells on being true to your emotions, to yourself, but doesn’t demand much more. Authenticity is the key word in this language, because it implies truthfulness with no uncomfortable requirement for facts. So the Tea Party, for instance, can claim to be more “real” – Michele Bachmann famously said “people like me because I’m authentic” – than pointy-headed eastern liberals, even though the party is backed by secretive billionaires. Populist movements always claim authenticity.

Be true to yourself: it’s a quasi-religious incantation – and tends to be about the individual “journey” (another favourite word in Oprah-land), rather than anything collective. Authenticity doesn’t do collective. The authenticity merchants always say that “society” has set impossible standards for us to follow: if you could only get back to your true self, everything in your life would click into place. No boring Occupy movements or keynote legislation are required.

Nigel Farage celebrates with a pint in  2014.

Nigel Farage celebrates with a pint in 2014. Photograph: Facundo ArrIizabalaga/EPA

They will be standing there with their props – typically, a flip chart with a lot of important-looking word clusters, a vase of lurid flowers, a Buddha head, or an Indian fretwork screen – but they won’t be saying anything with real-world traction; it’s usually head-bangingly content-free.

Now, here’s the uncomfortable bit: educated, thoughtful, middle-class people – Guardian readers – are every bit as susceptible to the authenticity sell as American rednecks. That’s why, for instance, thoughtful middle-class types have usually called it wrong in their musical choices over the last half century – looking for authentic meanings instead of a Big Sound. When the black bluesman Leadbelly was toured around by his sponsor, John A Lomax, for an audience of white liberals between the wars, he was made to wear prison stripes and stick to miserabilist heritage blues. What he really wanted to do was wear a nice suit and perform hotel jazz.

Just imagine the lives led in those 1720s houses in Spitalfields, so assiduously, so authentically restored. How authentic do you keep it? Do you want back the world of public executions and outside loos?

Authenticity has a cohort of semantic fellow-travellers – such as “spontaneity”, which is engaging enough in small doses, in dogs and children, but tiresome and selfish in any stretch from adults. As Steven Poole has pointed out, if you push spontaneity to its logical limits you end up with a sociopath.

Or take “vibrant”, increasingly an estate-agent spin for noisy areas with a certain kind of cultural consumption. The idea is Montmartre 1910, the reality is property development.

Or “passionate”, that favourite word of corporate speechwriters who have been told to make their robotic CEOs look interesting. “Passionate” is a key word for job applicants who are seeking lugubrious endeavours (as in “I’m passionate about serving coffee”).

And then there’s “creative”, which often shares a stage with “authentic”, because creative people, being so thoroughly blessed, are expected to be in touch with their real selves, whereas what they’re really in touch with is Urban Career Opportunities around the Silicon Roundabout.

My modest hope is that when you hear anyone using any or all of these words – I recently heard a robo-CEO use the lot, at the launch of a pricey building – you pause and ask yourself whether the speaker is not in fact offering anything real at all, but a re-badged Thatcher’s Child chancer trying to make a fast buck.
 
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Peter York wrote a small book a few years back called: Authenticity, which detailed and ridiculed this phenomenon.

Peter York: against authenticity
Nigel Farage, Oprah and countless artisan food outlets are all for it, but authenticity is now a vacuous concept

Peter York


The real deal: Oprah Winfrey in 2011.


The real deal: Oprah Winfrey in 2011. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Oprah’s on for it. A great swath of marketing people are on for it. And “human potential” development types are on for it, too. What they’re on for is “authenticity”, a word and concept fashionable in everything from emotions to materials. Think of politicians who “tell it like it is” (our Nigel), celebrity confessionals, bare-brick lofts and bushy beards in Shoreditch, or “artisan” foods. I have found it’s a word you tend to hear from people who have something to sell.

I’m dead against authenticity, immediately suspicious of the word and its intentions. It is a word that reminds me of the fast one about to be pulled, the value about to be added, the tosh about to be talked, the micro-connoisseur at your elbow.

1399.png


Now that the public has lost faith in politicians, banks and the press, the mass of PRs, ad execs, lobbyists and researchers have been casting about for reassuring ways to represent their clients. They have seized on a language derived from the worst kind of therapy; a language that dwells on being true to your emotions, to yourself, but doesn’t demand much more. Authenticity is the key word in this language, because it implies truthfulness with no uncomfortable requirement for facts. So the Tea Party, for instance, can claim to be more “real” – Michele Bachmann famously said “people like me because I’m authentic” – than pointy-headed eastern liberals, even though the party is backed by secretive billionaires. Populist movements always claim authenticity.

Be true to yourself: it’s a quasi-religious incantation – and tends to be about the individual “journey” (another favourite word in Oprah-land), rather than anything collective. Authenticity doesn’t do collective. The authenticity merchants always say that “society” has set impossible standards for us to follow: if you could only get back to your true self, everything in your life would click into place. No boring Occupy movements or keynote legislation are required.

Nigel Farage celebrates with a pint in  2014.

Nigel Farage celebrates with a pint in 2014. Photograph: Facundo ArrIizabalaga/EPA

They will be standing there with their props – typically, a flip chart with a lot of important-looking word clusters, a vase of lurid flowers, a Buddha head, or an Indian fretwork screen – but they won’t be saying anything with real-world traction; it’s usually head-bangingly content-free.

Now, here’s the uncomfortable bit: educated, thoughtful, middle-class people – Guardian readers – are every bit as susceptible to the authenticity sell as American rednecks. That’s why, for instance, thoughtful middle-class types have usually called it wrong in their musical choices over the last half century – looking for authentic meanings instead of a Big Sound. When the black bluesman Leadbelly was toured around by his sponsor, John A Lomax, for an audience of white liberals between the wars, he was made to wear prison stripes and stick to miserabilist heritage blues. What he really wanted to do was wear a nice suit and perform hotel jazz.

Just imagine the lives led in those 1720s houses in Spitalfields, so assiduously, so authentically restored. How authentic do you keep it? Do you want back the world of public executions and outside loos?

Authenticity has a cohort of semantic fellow-travellers – such as “spontaneity”, which is engaging enough in small doses, in dogs and children, but tiresome and selfish in any stretch from adults. As Steven Poole has pointed out, if you push spontaneity to its logical limits you end up with a sociopath.

Or take “vibrant”, increasingly an estate-agent spin for noisy areas with a certain kind of cultural consumption. The idea is Montmartre 1910, the reality is property development.

Or “passionate”, that favourite word of corporate speechwriters who have been told to make their robotic CEOs look interesting. “Passionate” is a key word for job applicants who are seeking lugubrious endeavours (as in “I’m passionate about serving coffee”).

And then there’s “creative”, which often shares a stage with “authentic”, because creative people, being so thoroughly blessed, are expected to be in touch with their real selves, whereas what they’re really in touch with is Urban Career Opportunities around the Silicon Roundabout.

My modest hope is that when you hear anyone using any or all of these words – I recently heard a robo-CEO use the lot, at the launch of a pricey building – you pause and ask yourself whether the speaker is not in fact offering anything real at all, but a re-badged Thatcher’s Child chancer trying to make a fast buck.
A fine one to talk. You cannot get more pretentious than Peter York.
 


Proud to make their stuff in China and stick that ridiculous Jort's face on their marketing campaign?

Speaking of sustainability, I'm told commuting from London to Inner Mongolia to stroke a few yak, paying off the ignorant peasants with a few pennies, then shipping yak wool to London again, weaving it, selling it at 50000% markup, then flying some reviewer twat from London to Mongolia, with his photographer sidekick, so he can fly back to London, and then gush about how sustainable it all is, is, er, sustainable.
 
Not really that familiar with him.

His prose can be a little... purple shall we say, but he makes some astute cultural observations.

He's spot on about the current craze for micro-connoisseurship. You see it everywhere. He's one of only a few cultural observers who I enjoy reading as he always has something interesting to say. That people find him irksome makes me like him even more.

Typically the more flak you get...the closer you are to the target.
 
I think that he actually works in their shop - I saw an interview or article about him a while back. Perhaps he normally looks better?

Edited to add - here is the article and I think that it's the same person:


Yup. thats him. i think he's one of the managers of the store. He has an interesting backstory that i heard on podcast. he used to own tattoo business. I am sure he knows what he's doing. Michael Hill or Mark Cho seem to know what they're doing, and he doesn't look like the typical #fuckyeahmenswear dude.

i find there is some overlap with punk sensibilities and those who wear classic menswear these days. their entry into it is more that now classic menswear is anti-establishment vs. business casual.
 
There’s a great quote by someone whose name I forget that goes something like “when the masses are all wearing polo shirts and khakis, wearing a suit - once the garb of dull corporate drones - is an act of subversive rebellion”
 
There’s a great quote by someone whose name I forget that goes something like “when the masses are all wearing polo shirts and khakis, wearing a suit - once the garb of dull corporate drones - is an act of subversive rebellion”

I think Baudelaire held a similar view in regards to Dandyism, seeing it as a act of rebellion against what he believed to be the conformity (mediocrity?) inherent in democracy.

...but he was French.
 
The fat blokes stuff is just badly cut, nothing else. I'm a pretty big bugger myself and his clothes are simply too big with too little shape. The trousers need to be longer and more v-shaped when going down to the shoes, no cuffs to create a longer line. The jacket has to be longer while the shoulders have to be to be stronger with more padding in an effort to create a waist with open quartes. You can't make someone look slim but you can make him look far more shapely.

Both the Grimbert guys of Arnys manage this rather well.
d38f2069c81b3e0966178118981ab8fb.jpg


bfe7caa8def8c9c1eef1cf1c9ee91596.jpg


tumblr_lxi11sqFHg1r2mxyyo1_400.jpg
 
His prose can be a little... purple shall we say, but he makes some astute cultural observations.

He's spot on about the current craze for micro-connoisseurship. You see it everywhere. He's one of only a few cultural observers who I enjoy reading as he always has something interesting to say. That people find him irksome makes me like him even more.

Typically the more flak you get...the closer you are to the target.
Where does he mainly publish?
 

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