Jan Libourel
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 854
I think I am about to give up! I realize that I live in a very casual region, but still...! Here are a couple of recent happenings:
Saturday before last, my wife and I visited Fashion Island, a very upscale shopping mall in Newport Beach, in other words in one of the most affluent communities in the whole country. As it turned out, I was almost the only man around wearing so much as a sport coat. Overwhelmingly, the males were clad in the usual "grunge" uniform of T-shirts (polos for the more elegant) all worn outside jeans or cargo shorts, while their feet were shod with sneakers or sandals. If it had been a blisteringly hot day, there might have been some excuse on the grounds of comfort, but it was a cool, blustery spring evening. I felt I was much more comfortably clad than most of them.
Yesterday, I visited the re-opening ceremony for the Colorado Lagoon (a body of salt water near my house) after it had undergone a makeover, the second in a few years. At the previous such ceremony a few years ago a number of the local dignitaries were clad in suits, so off the ceremony I went in my medium-blue, casually styled suit with a jaunty dark orange tie with blue crabs on it (appropriate for the occasion, thought I). Hardly had I arrived, when I encountered the alcalde of our great city. He was wearing shorts and an open-necked shirt. I greeted the alcalde in his native Spanish, and he complimented me on my command of Spanish. (Actually, I probably couldn't have said much more. My Spanish is very limited.) Actually, the alcalde was one of the best dressed men present. Almost all the other men were wearing T-shirts, shorts or jeans. I was the only man in a suit. No sport coats were visible either. A couple of people complimented me as the best dressed man present. I said I wasn't because I was completely out of sync with everybody else present. I did see a lot of friends and neighbors. I also had to fend off a fighting pitbulldog from springing on my nice suit. Lest this sound alarming, she was an old friend, a girlfriend of my dog Cyrus.
I know plaints of this sort have turned up with some frequency in menswear fora. However, in a world of cargoes and sandals, I increasingly wonder about the relevancy of discussions about button-down collar rolls, bluchers with a suit, etc. I also have to wonder about the point of acquiring an expensive wardrobe, when it serves only to make one an oddity in most circumstances.
Actually, I'll continue to dress considerably better than reigning standards, but then I already have my clothes.
Saturday before last, my wife and I visited Fashion Island, a very upscale shopping mall in Newport Beach, in other words in one of the most affluent communities in the whole country. As it turned out, I was almost the only man around wearing so much as a sport coat. Overwhelmingly, the males were clad in the usual "grunge" uniform of T-shirts (polos for the more elegant) all worn outside jeans or cargo shorts, while their feet were shod with sneakers or sandals. If it had been a blisteringly hot day, there might have been some excuse on the grounds of comfort, but it was a cool, blustery spring evening. I felt I was much more comfortably clad than most of them.
Yesterday, I visited the re-opening ceremony for the Colorado Lagoon (a body of salt water near my house) after it had undergone a makeover, the second in a few years. At the previous such ceremony a few years ago a number of the local dignitaries were clad in suits, so off the ceremony I went in my medium-blue, casually styled suit with a jaunty dark orange tie with blue crabs on it (appropriate for the occasion, thought I). Hardly had I arrived, when I encountered the alcalde of our great city. He was wearing shorts and an open-necked shirt. I greeted the alcalde in his native Spanish, and he complimented me on my command of Spanish. (Actually, I probably couldn't have said much more. My Spanish is very limited.) Actually, the alcalde was one of the best dressed men present. Almost all the other men were wearing T-shirts, shorts or jeans. I was the only man in a suit. No sport coats were visible either. A couple of people complimented me as the best dressed man present. I said I wasn't because I was completely out of sync with everybody else present. I did see a lot of friends and neighbors. I also had to fend off a fighting pitbulldog from springing on my nice suit. Lest this sound alarming, she was an old friend, a girlfriend of my dog Cyrus.
I know plaints of this sort have turned up with some frequency in menswear fora. However, in a world of cargoes and sandals, I increasingly wonder about the relevancy of discussions about button-down collar rolls, bluchers with a suit, etc. I also have to wonder about the point of acquiring an expensive wardrobe, when it serves only to make one an oddity in most circumstances.
Actually, I'll continue to dress considerably better than reigning standards, but then I already have my clothes.
