overplayed style

but yeah ice cr?m otm

just liking the vibe and acknowledging its somewhat arbitrary stylistic concerns is imo a much more defensible pov imho

right milo, just saying that workwear doesn't have a monopoly on 'durability' or 'timelessness' -- v often these are just values we assign to clothes when we want to flatter ourselves as savvy consumers -- and there is a lot of workwear inspired clothes made now that will prob look awful & dated in a few years, so *shrug*

How is it not virtuous, though? If you can find and afford eggs from pasture-raised chickens is that not better for the environment and the chickens vs. factory farming? Is it not better to get tomatoes that grow in your local climate from a farmer's market rather than ones trucked in from across the country?

Comparing Americans to the developing world on this stuff is pretty ridic, IMO. We are making choices from a different set of options.

We're all first-worlders who waste money (relative to the developing world) left and right, even when we're not even middle class for our society. Do beer drinkers and record collectors not care about the developing world either?

Demanding that everyone follow suit on your personal choices would be shitty, but it's also a strawman 99% of the time.

I mean, I'm not doing this ^^^ (this time) but it's hard to argue with the fact that 99.99% of us are all incredibly wasteful every single day and don't really give a shit enough to seriously change our behavior. and the fact that we all are isn't an excuse for us being!

Too much assigning of motives on this thread, IMO, bordering on strawmen. Real Dudes drive like this, organic consumers eat like that, so-and-so want to feel like savvy consumers.

and there is a lot of workwear inspired clothes made now that will prob look awful & dated in a few years, so *shrug*

This reminds me, wasn't there a ridic expensive flannel linked upthread that is just like a hundred others except slightly differently styled/colored to be both reminiscent of yore and also have just that right-now touch? Yeah, THAT subtle distinction is precisely what will date it eventually.

I don't think that it's that being a locavore/consumer of "quality" goods is or is not virtuous, it's that it's no more virtuous than say calling yr mom now and then

there's nothing wrong with buying durable, well-made clothes and wearing the hell out of them; just don't try to convince me that 90% of the ppl on this bandwagon will still be dressed like this in 5 years

its not virtuous, its a hobby

Too much assigning of motives on this thread, IMO, bordering on strawmen. Real Dudes drive like this, organic consumers eat like that, so-and-so want to feel like savvy consumers.

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Tuesday, February 15, 2011 3:23 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah w/e ill believe this when friends stop hyperventilating abt plastic shopping bag

btw i flatter myself as a consumer every time i go thrift shopping so it's not like i'm judging anybody

Virtuous doesn't mean saving the world with every purchase. But if you're in a position to buy food with less environmental impact, or objects made by people receiving a decent wage and you choose to do so, then I'd say you've done something that is basically good for society.

yeah but that 'good for society' evaporates as soon as you drive 2 miles (etc.) - I mean it's good to do things that aren't objectively bad for the world, but you gotta put them in perspective

perspective being 'basically everything you do every day is really, really bad for the world'

calling yr congressman once is better than buying ten pounds of organic produce

Who's not putting them in perspective, though? Outside of Alice Waters (who is crazy IMO) I've never really heard anyone say you're a bad person for not being a locavore. Certainly never heard it re: clothes.

(and how does a completely separate act negate positives? Do people not drive to buy winter grapes from Chile and sweatshop Nikes?)

I've never really heard anyone say you're a bad person for not being a locavore.

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Tuesday, February 15, 2011 3:41 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

srsly

perspective being 'basically everything you do every day is really, really bad for the world'

My Congressman is Joe Barton btw, calling him would be infinitely less productive than eating a single organic grape.

this thread is about scoffing @ style bloggers ppl, come on

it'd be like if ppl in england started fetishizing what wealthy english "farmers" wore as they tramped around the property with a shotgun broken over their arm....oh wait

but afaict in britain what we got of this trend is burning out really fast, and will be gone again in a year. entry level alts buying h&m/top man versions of barbour jackets. true hipsters seem to have moved one to a c.1980 home counties punk thing, doc martens, donkey jackets, cheap wool sweaters, etc.

for me one of the weirdest things about the 2010/11 version of this style is that, at least insofar as i experience it via blogs and occasional visits to austin/la/ny, it so reveres english manufacturing. this is not something i have ever heard advanced here.

(actually the weirdest thing is those blog posts articles by people who have convinced themselves that there is a street off oxford street where people discovered the secret of shaving in 1790.)

anyway my point is not to lol at americans but to point out that the preppy/lumberjack looks are not ambient vibes that will never go away. and yes they are played out. there i said it. boom.

anyway wrt to styles being "overplayed": the reason prep/lumberjack can even be ~over~ played is because they're background styles in american couture pretty much since rich ppl and the frontier were invented. they'll subside in time and ranchers and yacht owners will still do what they do.

xp!

(actually the weirdest thing is those blog posts articles by people who have convinced themselves that there is a street off oxford street where people discovered the secret of shaving in 1790.)

yeah, this, for real. shaving being a "thing" is almost certainly overplayed, and i'm glad i don't know many ppl that go into raptures about their boar hair shaving brush and whatever

obvs weve gotten a lil far afield and im not trying to totally impeach anyones motivation, i just want to impeach it a little - i def think there is a desire to embue what are essentially stylistic choices w/greater meaning - this prob has something to do w/people viewing themselves as powerless consumers ~modern lyfe~ etc

basically otm

~fashion~

Maybe I'm easier going on this because I don't seem to know anyone who's annoyingly obsessive about any of it. IRL I know a couple of people who wear flannel shirts, in e-life I 'know' people who are interested in how leather ages so they like, took up belt and wallet-making as a hobby. Prep never much of a thing here, few Texans would willingly emulate fratboys from the southern East Coast.

I also don't read style blogs.

thought dubya was still kinda popular?

Have people ever not imbued their (fashion) choices with greater meaning?

But yeah, feeling like you had a personal hand in creation via consumption is a selling point for some stuff. Everyone wants to curate their life, etc.

Dubus emulates Texas workwear on his ranch.

fratboys from the southern East Coast

this is not prep btw

haha for real. i went to school w/some serious blue bloody preps and they def were not wearing baggie khaki shorts, flip flops, and raggedy white ball caps

there are def preppy frats out there, not the majority, but they exist

there is amongst more than a few of my friends a certainty that quality is meaningful - not that they dont have logical arguments but fundamentally they believe this in a sort of mystical way - i somewhat vibe to that but i think theres a lot of gross materialism and unexamined resentment toward how the world works there too

i blame zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

come to newport in june & i'll show u mad prep

haha for real. i went to school w/some serious blue bloody preps and they def were not wearing baggie khaki shorts, flip flops, and raggedy white ball caps

― ullr saves (gbx), Tuesday, February 15, 2011 3:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is what they dressed like when i was in hs, tho actually flip flops hadnt hit yet, old boat shoes more like

jerry bear lacrosse tees

like the archetypal working outdoorsman this trend evokes -- his attitude towards clothes is functional, practical, and disdainful of fashion -- if he wears his boots out, or his shirt tears and the wife can't mend it, well he just reorders the same thing from the supply catalog

Yeah, this. You probably all hate my dad by now but he has re-ordered the exact same pair of ugly as ASS glasses frames every two years for my entire life. There's no affectation -- he 100% can't be bothered.

Anyway, thread is proving Lamp, elmo, and jho were correct from the beginning. And Hurting, too, now that I look back. And the whole thing about clothing having or needing a narrative goes back at least as far as J Peterman, who did it first and best, imo, and sold exactly these kinds of overpriced artisinal wares.

"co-ed naked" tees amirite icey

o jesus

some preps dressed that way (abercrombie and fitch y'all), but the ppl that had like buildings named after them at ivy league univs and shit were a little more formal

also fwiw popped-collar preppy was definitely a trend on campus like for real ten years ago. lotta frat dudes semi-ironically wore 2+ polos in contrasting colors and shit. there was a jokey article in the newspaper about the maximum number of collars one could pop, with like a dude wearing five polos

ok the other uk/us difference i want to note is that the u.s. preppy hipster look seems to be emulating real young rich people. maybe part of the reason young people haven't taken to that so much here is that young rich people here do not dress like that. if you're dressing like here that you're dressing like people who died of cirrhosis while thatcher was PM. young rich people here do the too posh to wash thing.

"co-ed naked" tees amirite icey

― tangelo amour (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, February 15, 2011 3:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

guys all the hicks in my rural MNan high school wore those too.

see also Big Johnson shirts

Yeah but frat-boy prep isn't real prep, it's some Jersey Shore-level BS I always thought...?

theres venn diagram there for sure

Was just peaking in here to marvel at the fact that this conversation is still going. You all have a lot to say about this, huh?

While doing so I saw this: And the whole thing about clothing having or needing a narrative goes back at least as far as J Peterman, who did it first and best, imo, and sold exactly these kinds of overpriced artisinal wares. My parents got the catalog when I was little and I used to read it cover to cover. I thought it was the greatest thing. Also, someone once told me that the guy who played Peterman on Seinfeld was actually J Peterman and for the longest time I totally believed them.

peaking? peeking. ugh.

'Real' prep is indebted to old money southern gentleman just as it is the Kennedys.