Women Chasing Men and Dressing for What's Important

A few years ago, Gay Talese, one of the pioneers of literary or “new” journalism, gave an interview to the then online presence of GQ and Details, Men.Style.com:


Two points in Talese's discussion bear attention.

First is his account of the Italian passeggiata in his parents' village:

At night, the men of the town would parade around the fountain….It was a fashion show unreported, uncovered, unphotographed...a tradition of men walking around and the women looking at them -– and maybe picking a man they would like to know. And then they’d tell the brother, the father, and something was arranged.

The role-reversal here is striking. Although the idea of the peacock is nothing new, we in the U.S. at least tend to think of romance as happening along the opposite lines: Women dress up and men (wearing just about anything, really) chase them.

We probably think this way because of the movies we watch, but the funny thing is, regardless of who chases, women ultimately do the choosing, right? The actuality of the American situation is not, therefore, all that different from what's described here. The passeggiata custom is just more honest about it than the typical Hollywood narrative. So why not change our perspective?

In my view, men should focus their energy on refining themselves -- dressing up their characters as well as their bodies, everyday, indoors and out -- and see who shows up to choose them. Likely, men who go this route will have far more options than they would chasing individual woman after individual woman until one said "yes." The irony, in other words, is that with this approach, men actually do more choosing than they do with the current method.

The second point that bears attention is Talese's assertion that he "always dressed up for the story," meaning, his work as a journalist itself merited the respect inherent to dressing up, regardless of the company he kept:

It wasn't who I was with....no matter who I'm talking to, I'm dressing up, not for the people but for the story. It's ceremonious, it's celebratory, it's important.

A friend of mine and I used to dress up for exams in grad school and our reasons were the same as Talese's. Imagine, though, if we as a society dressed up for everything we thought was important and refused to do unimportant things. What would the world -- and our lives -- be like?

Pet Peeves and Idiosyncrasies (Aphorism No. 4)

Pet peeves are things about everyone else that annoy you; idiosyncrasies are things about you that annoy everyone else. With one of these all fights begin.

Previous aphorisms: Dressing for Existence (no.1), Art (no. 2), The Gentleman Formula (no. 3)

Swagger and Sophistry at the Iowa GOP Debate

At this point, I don't have much of a stake in who wins the Republican nomination, but I do have some opinions regarding the candidates at last night's debate:

First, Rick Santorum was right about being slighted on talking time. I know he says dumb things now and then, but fair is fair.

Second, Michelle Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty are amateurs. They spent the entire night in the sandbox, throwing boogers at each other. And they don't give arguments; they just say "my record, my record" over and over again, which is not the brightest move, given the relatively stratospheric qualifications of others competing.

Newt, on the other hand, surprised me. I was ready to write this guy off, but he was good last night. He rebuked Chris Wallace with authority and he looked consistently relaxed the whole evening. When he cited cases and statistics, he did so naturally, as if he actually has some experience and doesn't need to memorize a list of facts off a card before taking the stage. This was not the case for any of the others, save perhaps Herman Cain, believe it or not. I did find Newt's attempts to capitalize on Reagan's success objectionable, but he largely vitiated the offense in most cases by providing other examples to make the same point. Of course, this "I'm too experienced to be worried" projection was probably his strategy, but the point is, he pulled it off. All in all, I'd say he outperformed the rest of the group.

And who doesn't love Ron Paul? Every time he starts ranting about the Iraq war with that high-pitched voice of his, I want to give him a big bear hug. Moreover, even though nobody has any idea what the country would look like if anyone actually listened to him, the guy makes a lot of sense.

My overall assessment, without further commentary, is that if last night's debate were the winnowing fork, there wouldn't be anyone left but Mit, Newt, and Paul. The rest of the candidates handled themselves with mediocrity at best and should go home.

The Gentleman Formula (Aphorism No. 3)

If you dress like a gentleman, you'll feel like a gentleman. If you feel like a gentleman, you'll act like a gentleman. If you act like a gentleman, you'll be a gentleman.

Previous aphorisms: Dressing for Existence (no.1), Art (no. 2)

Art, an Aphorism

Nietzsche's aphorisms vary widely in length, sometimes occupying a single line, sometimes going on for several pages. By this standard, every entry on this blog (and most others) qualifies as an aphorism (see here for more on this). But I have also inadvertently begun a series of posts dedicated to coining aphorisms in the more narrow sense of short sayings (see here for the first time I tried this). Here then is one on art:

The best art examines you more than you examine it.

Nietzsche Was a Blogger

I know, I know; Nietzsche would hate being called this, but hear me out.

Because the internet is systematically making us dumber via training us to prefer our information in bite-sized pieces (see here), the task of the blogger is to say as much as possible in a matchbox of space. Every word must count; every thought must be clearly -- and, in the best-case scenario, beautifully -- expressed.

The other day, I was talking to my good friend (and Nietzsche scholar) about this curious and intellectually challenging enterprise. He said "Well, you know, that's essentially what Nietzsche was going for in his aphoristic style." But, he pointed out, the problem with such a pithy, aphoristic format is that it makes the author extremely susceptible to being misunderstood.

Indeed.

I'm not sure what to say about this latter fact, but I will say that with such a forefather in our lineage, practitioners of our craft (that is, blogging) have much to live up to and, in my opinion, change.

Film Review of "Terri"

I just wrote a film review of Terri for the culture section of America, a Catholic weekly periodical. If you're interested, it's here.

Joseph Abboud on Happiness and Why American Men Don't Dress Well

The April 2011 issue of MR (Menswear Retailing) magazine features an interview with Joseph Abboud, President and CCO of HMX and its flagship brand Hart Schaffner Marx.

For those who aren't in the know, here's a fast crash course: Abboud is a great, classic-but-not-stuffy (if you know what I mean) designer of American men's apparel. He's worked for a few different companies, including Ralph Lauren, but he's most famous for his eponymous label, Joseph Abboud. A few years ago, he decided to sell this line (and its company, JA Apparel) because he was spending more time administrating than designing and he wanted to get back to the more creative aspect of the trade. Trouble ensued, however, when he founded a new label, Jaz (get it...Joseph abboud z), and JA Apparel successfully sued him for violating his non-competition clause. After spending two years in litigation and losing Jaz, Abboud went to work for HMX, who hired him as their chief designer with more or less carte blanche authority.

In the interview, Abboud talks about his legal battle as well as a number of other subjects, but two points in particular caught my attention, his comments about the American male's lack of sartorial awareness and his views on happiness. Regarding the former, he says:

My goal is for more men to embrace fashion and style rather than be afraid of it. As an industry, we've done a terrible job of conveying an appreciation for fine clothing. The Europeans grow up with it; it's in their pasta. Here, we turn guys off with ridiculous runway presentations so they think fashion is totally frivolous. If you're a major New York newspaper, don't show a guy on a runway on a horse with war paint and expect that your reader is going to understand your message. Talk to guys in a language they can understand.

So, part of the reason American men don't dress well is that the fashion industry makes the whole enterprise seem ridiculous.

Then, regarding happiness, he says:

I'm not much of a socializer: I don't have lots of friends, I don't go to many events or parties beyond what I have to do. My real happiness is my work and family. In fact, I had a great evening last night teaching my daughter Ari some tricks for memorizing the American presidents...

Last summer, my older daughter Lila interned at HMX. One of her jobs was to straighten out these boxes of old swatches and she came to me with this mushroom-colored Donegal piece of sweater that she thought I might like. It was so gorgeous that I built an entire collection around it; it was one of our deliveries for fall 2010. And the next time she was at our offices and saw that collection, she was beaming; she was like, "Daddy, I discovered that swatch!" Now that to me is happiness.

Work and family equals happiness. What can I say? The guy has his priorities straight.

Be Nice and Clean

Recently, my girlfriend and I decided to go to NYC with no plan, thinking we'd figure out what to do when we got there. (We live in Connecticut so this isn't too radical.) Among other things, we ended up roaming around the upper east side, where we stumbled upon a couple gems.

The first one was Tender Buttons, a very vintagey closet of a place that sells fasteners of all sorts, from classical and custom to novel. I was drooling. My girlfriend was drooling for me. It was closed.

Then, just two doors down on 62nd street, we bumped into an equally manly operation: The Art of Shaving. Now, I've since learned that this is a multi-city chain with locations all over NYC that I never even noticed and that they have ads in GQ, Esquire, and so on. At the time, however, all I had to go on was the experience I was having and it was fantastic.

The 62nd Street store is small, about the size of an efficiency apartment. It has an affable manager, Angelo Ramirez, whose inexhaustible knowledge and obvious shaving prowess makes you want to take out a straight razor and shave like your grandfather.

After several weeks of mulling it over, I finally decided to pony up for a starter kit and I'm happy to report that I'm really into it. I love the ritual, the different steps in the process, the pre-shave oil and the after-shave balm. I love the way shaving like this slows down and elongates the part of my day devoted to taking care of myself.

This got me thinking. Women spend all kinds of time on their hair, their make-up, their clothes, their everything. Why do we men cheat ourselves out of the few things we used to take this seriously? It's not as if we give up virility by lathering up with a shaving brush or making our beards look regal. If anything, men were manlier in the days when they did these things as a matter of course. And we can't blame being "too busy" because most women are just as busy as we are and they don't stop doing their hair. So what gives? Why don't we do this very cool, multiple-step shaving ritual thing anymore?

Dressing the Man or Dressing Like Him?

As you may have guessed (from this, this, and this), I wear a tie most days, regardless of occasion. Now, some people might ask, as one friend recently did, "Why do you want to dress like the man?" ("the man" being used here in the 1969 sense of the term). Why not, the logic might go, just wear "whatever" during the day and put on something special when going out? Since I think this is a fair question, I thought I'd address it here.

For me, "the man" shouldn't be the only one who gets to dress respectably on a daily basis. If we avoid wearing something simply because "the man" wears it (a development he may even welcome), he is just as instrumental in determining our attire as he would be if we flocked to wearing it in imitation.

Furthermore, our age of any-garment-goes makes our decision to dress especially independent. Far from "dressing like the man," wearing a tie and so on every day in the current climate, where it's not required (or even preferred), demonstrates agency; we dress because we want to.

In contrast, when we just wear "whatever" most of the time, putting on "something special" for swanky social functions, we indicate that, on certain occasions, we don't wear what we really want but allow others (usually "the man") to dictate an apparel we wouldn't normally don.

Or so it seems to me. What do other people think?

Hey, Comb It Like Dapper Dan!

In another June 2011 piece, Menswear magazine hails the coming of a new old hairstyle: the slicked back look. Crediting Mad Men's Don Draper for the advent of the recent trend, the article names several prominent offenders: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney. The following pictures should do for reference:

Some of these guys have been wearing their hair slicked back on and off, in the movies and out, for years so attributing the resurgence of the look to Mad Men might be overstating the case a bit, but the hairstyle does seem fairly prominent on red carpets these days. Some other personalities famous for sporting the do at one point or another: Zac Efron, Johnny Depp, and Alec Baldwin. But if all this feels just a little too close to Gordon Gekko, the upside is that if the style does take off outside celebrity land, at least we'll be able to wear hats again without looking like we just got out of bed.

Beckham: On the Tar Heels of a New Image

Tracking the ways in which football (soccer) megalosuperstar David Beckham emulates his hero Michael Jordan is not really even interesting anymore, but here goes. The new Menswear (June 2011) reports that, next February, Beckham will unveil his new cologne, "Homme" ("man" in French for those of you who took the easy way out in high school).

Said his business manager, Simon Fuller (the brains behind the British Pop Idol, its stateside spin-off American Idol, and the Spice Girls): "The next ten years will see David evolve into being recognized not just as an iconic sports figure but also as an important entrepreneur" (p. 13).

Sound familiar? As the all-too-real press kit on Aaron Sorkin's fictional dramedy Sports Night put it, "'Jordan by Michael' [MJ's actual cologne] reflects Michael's transition from inimitable basketball legend to dashing, on-the-go businessman."

Ahem.

Fashion Care Symbols

Ever been stymied by those perplexing care symbols on garment tags? Well, the American Cleaning Institute, formerly known as the Soap and Detergent Association, comes to the rescue:



Another helpful guide is available from the American Society for Testing and Materials, via the Missouri Textile and Apparel Center.

Work Clothes Update

I recently saw Tree of Life. I think it's a very important and beautiful film and, at some point, I might say something about it here. For now, however, I simply want to point out that the Brad Pitt character works in the yard and on his car in nice clothes and great shoes.

While these garments appear to be ones from his normal wardrobe rather than ones he specifically designated for gritty tasks, his sartorial practice here nevertheless functions as a case in point for the work clothes discussion on this blog (see here).

This got me curious: Was it common for men in the fifties to refrain from changing for yard and car work (like the Pitt character), did they change into high quality but slightly blemished attire (like I advocated), or did they do something else entirely? Does anybody know?

A-Shirts Underneath: What's the Point?

Here's something that's always puzzled me: Why do men wear those ribbed tanks (technically called "A-shirts" but commonly known as "wife-beaters") under nice -- I mean well-made, expensive -- shirts?

If you don't like undershirts at all, that I can understand; in fact, on one level, it's immanently sensible to avoid wearing an undershirt if you prefer fine garments because it allows you to feel the exquisite material against your body all day.

But the reason the rest of us put on an undershirt -- that is, a tee -- with such clothing in particular is that we want to prevent our underarm perspiration from rendering it impossibly rank (you can get several days' use per washing with an under-tee) and, worse, ruining it with permanent discoloration. An A-shirt may keep the torso in general dry, but it doesn't address the majority of the problem, namely, pit sweat.

So why wear one, at least when the clothes are nice? Why not wear a tee to save the shirt or nothing at all to feel the fabric? Is it because A-shirts hug the body, making it feel sleek and taut? Then why not use them for other purposes, like pajamas? (This is what I do.) Or is it because it feels cool to look like a rapper (since most guys who wear these things for undershirts unfasten a button or two to let everyone see what they've got underneath)? Really, I could use a hand with this one.

Changing the Subject

I recently came across the following aphorism:

A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject.

The quote is often attributed to Winston Churchill, though Churchill scholar Richard Langworth insists otherwise (see here).

For my own part, I'm less interested in who said it or in whether it accurately describes a "fanatic" as I am in what it says about discussion and debate in friendly and polite settings.

Some of the standard adages floating around on this topic are "don't talk about religion and politics" and "don't give your opinion on a subject unless asked." The problem with the first of these is that it precludes some of the most stimulating and life-giving conversations possible for all parties involved. The problem with the second is that, for all the self-denial endured, the principle doesn't accomplish much in terms of its intention. It assumes either that most people don't ask for others' opinions or that, when they do, they actually want to hear them. In reality, people frequently ask for others' views on hot topics, seemingly in hopes that their interlocutor agrees with them or at least doesn't have a good reason for disagreeing. When such hopes are dashed, uncomfortable interaction ensues and it doesn't make much difference that the interlocutor was officially asked to opine.

The bottom line is that, at times, we all want to talk about the big, important subjects and it's simply not reasonable to expect agreement all or even most of the time. The key, then, is not how we get into the debate, but how we get out of it (and what we do while we're there). This is why the quote is important. In a polite setting -- for example, dinner with friends, as opposed to, say, arguing with a lover about something that has to be resolved (use your imagination) -- if the conversation is going badly enough for it to be obvious that one interlocutor is no longer interested in convincing or in being convinced, the debate should be over and someone (hint: the one still enjoying the debate) should change the subject. Otherwise, a great deal is fair in love in war, so long as the lovers and warriors are still interested in loving and warring, respectively.

Work Clothes

I really like wearing ties. This is not a secret; I've said it here. I love the way they look, I love what they stand for, I love the way the stiff material guides my neck into proper posture.

My problem, however, is that the place I work gets me very grungy and thus necessitates wearing "work clothes" -- and here I don't primarily mean the apparel one wears on the job (at some point, I hope to do a post about "work clothes" in this more narrowly-defined sense as well) but, more generally, the apparel one wears for any endeavor bound to sully up raiment: changing the oil in the car, mowing the lawn, and so forth.

Since my job obliges wearing this type of clothing, I've been spending a lot of my existence in uninspiring attire. And while part of me would love to change into nicer clothes when I get home from my job, the other part militates against putting on a shirt and tie for dinner, etc., only to take them right off again to go bed.

What to do? Well, recently, I decided to incorporate a tie into my work clothes outfit. This would allow me the joy of daily wearing ties without having to change into them for that express purpose. I selected a few ties that are high enough in quality to be appealing yet are mildly deficient in some way that disqualifies them from my normal tie rotation: e.g., they're a bit too long or short, perhaps lightly stained, and neither decorative nor versatile.

Of course, wearing a tie requires a somewhat nicer shirt, which might call for better pants. Since I have some pretty good bleach-splashed or red soda-speckled shirts and trousers, I went for the full work clothes makeover.

Wearing this new garb got me thinking. Why do we throw away nice but stained clothes while hanging on to cheap, baggy jeans and freebee tees to wear for yard work? We wouldn't be caught dead in this stuff under normal circumstances, but somehow it's good enough when we're working? Wouldn't we rather wear that shirt that makes us feel like a million bucks when it invariably has something go wrong with it? I understand we might not want to wear hot, constricting clothes for strenuous activity, but a lot of nice clothes are not hot or constricting (hey, yank that tie down a little!) and a lot of work is not strenuous. In these cases, wouldn't the work be more enjoyable if we conducted it in an outfit we liked?

Fashion and Posture

In her fascinating study on human posture, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, Esther Gokhale reports that debilitating back pain is a distinctively Western, post-nineteenth century problem for which the fashion industry is partly to blame (see pages 10-15 in particular). Elaborating on this charge, she notes that, around the time of World War I, French fashion magazines began to feature models with a supposedly more relaxed and casual but quite unhealthy posture. The idea was that the previous, more upright and therefore more natural and healthy, stance was stiff, rigid, and passé. Today, she says, clothes are made to fit the newer, more unnatural positions, which we have long since habituated.

According to Gokhale, if we abandoned this bad posture in favor of that which prevailed in Western culture prior to the twentieth century and still prevails in indigenous populations, we would experience a number of positive changes: less or no back pain as well as relief in muscles and joints all over the body; more energy, stamina, and flexibility; less stress.

This raises a host of questions in my mind. First, if clothing manufacturers alter the way they cut fabric so it will lay correctly on people adopting a new, unhealthy posture, doesn't this mean it will no longer sit well on someone striving for the older, more salutary stance? In other words, when clothes change in this way, don't they start encouraging the bad posture rather than merely accommodating it?

Second, I want to know which types of clothing do this. Is it just the ones we immediately think of as casual (jeans, t-shirts, etc.)? Is it not these at all but other types of garments? Or is it all clothes, including suits and dress shirts? After all, even dress clothes have been modified for comfort over the years and this "comfort" would have to be defined by what has been comfortable according to the reigning (in this case, unhealthy) posture.

This whole topic is really just a side issue in Ms. Gokhale's larger discussion so she doesn't fully address these concerns and I'm having trouble finding other sources on the matter. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Gentlemanly Fighting

How should a gentleman fight with his woman?

Some of you are thinking a gentleman shouldn't fight with his woman at all. Others of you have accepted that, at least in your relationship, fights are inevitable and you're just wondering how to get to the other side of them without feeling like you took a vacation from being a gentleman. Either way, we can all agree that very few people are talking about this and it would be nice if we talked about it more. We know it's good to hold doors for women, give them our seats on public transportation, and lift heavy things for them, but what do we do when we disagree with them about a very tense and important subject? In my view, the standard gentlemanly platitude, "the man is always wrong" is just not going to do it here.

As before, Esquire magazine's May 2011 guide to marriage comes to the rescue, this time with a "philosophy of fighting." Two of the important takeaways for me:

1. Part of the reason we don't like fighting is that it shows us a side of ourselves we don't like. This side is always there, but it gets forced out of hiding in really ugly, deeply personal battles with someone we care about intensely.

2. When we fight, we're fighting for power, but if the fight is healthy, it should be about making sure our power is equal to, and not more than, our partner's.

Regarding the first point, I think it's salutary to realize, and ultimately accept, that we're capable of some pretty dirty tricks and fatal blows. The same "opposites attract" situation that brings this fact to light, however, can also serve as a vehicle for mitigating it. If you're a spendthrift and your lady's a saver or one of you has a rough personality and the other is gentle, you can, at least in theory and perhaps with professional counseling, help each other: The spender can help the saver lighten up while the saver encourages responsibility; the rough can toughen up the smooth while the gentle inspires a softer touch. But this process happens through getting annoyed, getting angry, hurting and getting hurt, and, most importantly, forgiving. You change because staying the same affects someone you love.

On the second point, I don't think any of us really wants to have more power than the person we deeply cherish; we just get afraid that if we don't protect our power, we'll end up with less. I remember not wanting to tell my girlfriend that something she did hurt me because if she ever wanted to hurt me, she could do it again. I was startled to discover that she couldn't care less about the quasi-Kantian, golden-rule bullshit I was giving her and was far more moved to love me better simply by hearing she'd hurt my feelings.

So here's what I think we have to do. We have to learn to give our partner power. When I admitted my girlfriend hurt me, this is what I was, in effect, doing. She could have taken this power -- for example, storing the information and using against me later, just as I had feared. But she gave it back: She listened, understood, apologized, and promised to work on the tendency that inspired the action. Of course, this only works if our partner is open, wants us to be happy, and knows how to respond to being given power. So we need to make a pact with our woman to give and give back power in both directions. It's scary, but it's the only way. Anything less is just dating for fun.

Is Your Wardrobe as Green as You Are?

George Carlin famously pointed out that we love hording stuff and buying bigger and bigger houses to put it in. This is only partly true, however. The other half of the story is that when we don't want or can't afford a bigger house, we streamline, throwing a bunch of stuff away to make room for more. Throwing stuff out is thus as much a part of consumerism as buying stuff (see here, for example, or here for a fun cartoon).

The problem with this is that it makes landfills bigger. Throwing things away is not really getting rid of them; it's making someone else deal with them instead. While recycling can be a good way of getting around this problem, the things we think we've "recycled" often end up with a very different fate from what we have in mind, being more or less trashed (see this other cartoon).

So what does all this have to do with the subjects we talk about here? Well, most of us who like clothes -- me, many readers of this blog -- buy a lot of them and we don't always, or even usually, wear out what we buy. Taking them to thrift shops can be good, but if the reason we don't want them is that they are ripped, impossibly stained, or newly out of style, no one else is going to want them either and the only thing we'll have accomplished is having the thrift shop throw them out instead of us. So it doesn't solve the problem.

Perhaps we could come up with a solution, though. My own suggestions toward this are the following:

1. We could keep our buying to a minimum, attempting to wear the clothes we have, and, when buying, buy wisely. This is a tough one. After all, shopping is fun, right? We're being trained to view buying things as a hobby, a social activity, a therapy, and much more, but we can resist this. In pursuing a more environmentally responsible wardrobe, we can seek out garments that are made well and won't fall apart (like most clothes are designed to do). This will probably mean spending a little more money upfront, but I think it's worth it. We could also stay away from clothes that only go with a few others others or are strictly in style and thus likely to be deemed passé by fashion spin doctors in a year or two.

2. We could vastly reduce the amount of clothes we throw away by being more reflective about the issue, beginning by asking why we are discarding a given item in the first place. Is it because it's stained? We could relegate it to work clothes (as I argue here). Is it because it has a rip in it? We could stitch it. (If I can do it, anyone can.) Or, if it's a really hard repair, why not have it tailored, which would also benefit local artisans? Or maybe we're getting rid of the piece because we've been unsuccessful in keeping our eighteen-year-old waistline. In that case, we could think of someone who would love to wear the garment. If no one fits the bill, a couple options remain. If it's a shirt or pair of trousers, we could cut it into rags to shine our shoes, work on our car, or clean our house. This does, of course, amount to throwing the garment away eventually, but it happens a use or two later and, in the latter case, replaces the paper towel waste that would be there anyway. Alternatively, if it's a blazer, tie, or hat, we could take it to a thrift shop.

These are just ideas to get us started. I'm open to others. The main point is simply that when we buy clothes, we should think of them as ours and not be so quick to throw them away, or so quick to buy them in the first place, thinking we can just discard them later. If we're going to be putting these things on our bodies, don't we want them to be so much what we're looking for that they're worth keeping, repairing, using, loving?

270 Seconds to a Better Marriage

This month's Esquire (May 2011) has a cluster of features on marriage, being a good husband, and so on, many of which are interesting and helpful. Among these is an insert on page 152 offering a baby step approach to improving the marriage relationship from the guy's perspective. It takes less than five minutes and works like this:

In the morning, as soon as you (the guy) wake up, spend ninety seconds giving your wife the "greatest good morning possible": I love you truly, madly, deeply, etc. If she's asleep? No difference; "she'll hear you anyway."

Then, after work or anytime you've been away for at least two hours, give her your full, undivided attention for ninety seconds before you do anything else. "If she's happy, you go happy; if she's low, you go low. Look in her eyes long enough to discern her eye color. This says I value you; I need you."

Last, spend ninety seconds engaging her sometime during the final half hour before bed. In this moment, "do not talk about children, money, or work. Don't talk about the past at all. Look at her, stroke her hair, snuggle up to her, tell her you love her."

Voila.

Now, this, I think, should work. My reasons are two. First, no one is suggesting that we men do this 270 seconds per day and no more; rather, the idea is that it's very easy to go whole days without really paying attention to your wife and that this is bad for marriages. If we do the 270, though, we'll never be in danger of accidentally giving our marriages this kiss of death. Our wives will never feel that "you never talk/listen/pay attention to me." This alone is worth the price of the magazine (or a decade subscription, for that matter).

The second reason I think this approach should work is that the 270 seconds would tell us how much more of this direct attention is necessary on a given occasion. On some days, the "I care" communicated in the 270 might be sufficient to help our wives feel loved, rendering palatable the fact that we have to dash off subsequently and accomplish something. On the other days, the 270 would tell us what else we need to do to love our wives properly, presumably resulting in their appreciation and keeping the relationship rewarding for both parties.

Now, to me, the middle ninety seconds seems the toughest. Focusing on our women right before bed is a no-brainer, right? After all, it's half the reason we're in the bed to begin with. The 90 second "good morning" is not quite as easy, but still very doable, even pavlovian: It becomes the first and most important of the many things we do to start our day and, before long, we're experts.

But right after being apart for a substantial portion of the day? Who knows what state we might be in. For my own part, I usually want to talk about philosophy or whatever else has been rolling around in my head all afternoon. Not the usual woman's favorite topic, even if some of them do enjoy it from time to time. Or our day might have really sucked, making it difficult to refrain from blurting this out before we find out if their day was worse. But this, I submit, is the challenge. It simply must be done. Perhaps we men could make some sort of pact to encourage each other's diligence in this matter.

Apparelexicon: A Glossary of Sartorial Terms

I haven't been able to find a decent online glossary that explains clothing terms in clear and enjoyable prose so I thought I'd create one. It's going to start small and then I'll add to it over time. Hopefully, I'll think of a good way to incorporate pictures at some point. Let me know if there are any terms you want moved up on the priority list.


Argyle -- The preppy, diamond pattern you see on socks and sweaters, sometimes worn by professors and ostentatious golfers. Named after the region in western Scotland, home of the specific tartan from which it spawned.

Bespoke -- See Made-to-measure.

Boutonnière -- French for buttonhole, but signifies a flower or miniature bouquet worn in the buttonhole of a suit lapel.

Check -- Any pattern where vertical and horizontal stripes are superimposed.

Corduroy -- A vertically or, more rarely, horizontally ribbed fabric, usually used for trousers and sports coats. Contrast with the diagonally ribbed twill.

Felt -- A fabric made not by spinning and weaving yarn but by kneading (or, rolling) wool, fur, or hair and pressing it while applying heat and/or moisture to make the fibers mat together into a smooth surface.

Made-to-measure -- A garment you have made specially to fit your unique dimensions, as distinct from a ready-to-wear garment you buy right off the rack (and possibly alter a bit).

Off-the-peg/rack -- See Ready-to-wear.

Pills -- The little beads that form on sweaters, sheets, flannel shirts, and the like after a few or many washes (called "pilling"). More common on synthetic fabrics (think satin sheets) or clothes made of cheap materials (think merino wool sweaters from Banana Republic), they can be removed with an ordinary shaving razor.

Ready-made [suit, shirt, etc.] -- See Ready-to-wear.

Ready-to-wear (aka. ready-made, stock, and off-the-peg) -- A garment you buy right off the rack (and possibly alter a bit), as opposed to a bespoke or made-to-measure garment you have made specially to fit your unique dimensions. The film Prêt-à-Porter, with Julia Roberts, derives its name from the French equivalent for this term.

Repp -- Technically a twill, or diagonally ribbed, silk, but in practice, a “repp tie,” for example, means one with two different-colored but equally-sized (a half inch or so) stripes, like those worn by college types.

Sartorial -- From the OED: "of or relating to tailoring, clothes, or style of dress." Comes from the Latin for tailor, "sartor," which in turn stems from "sarcire," meaning "to patch." Incidentally, the sartorius muscle in the inner thigh, used in crossing one thigh over the other, received its name from these cognates on the observation that such is the typical posture of tailors.

Seersucker -- That puckery, pastel and white striped cotton fabric you see men wearing with straw hats and the like during the summer.

Shantung -- Wild (i.e., raw) spun silk with slubs, or lumps and nubs, on the surface of the fabric, making it look like someone yanked out chunks of the weave with a seam ripper or other sharp object. Has a linen or rough cottony feel and derives its name from the province in China, where it originated in 1882.

Slub -- A lump, knob, or other irregularity in the surface of a [usually silk] fabric. Produced by knotting or twisting (called "slubbing") the yarn or by spinning fibers of various lengths together.

Tartan -- Any one of those many Scottish plaids you see on kilts and bagpipes, identifying the particular clan to which the Scot before you belongs.

Twill -- Any diagonlly ribbed fabric, as distinct from the vertically or, more rarely, horizontally ribbed corduroy.

What Do Women Pay For?

Sometimes, my girlfriend and I go clothes shopping together. We actually happen to be in the rare and lucky position of mutually enjoying this process, regardless of who's doing the trying on.

I've noticed something interesting, even puzzling, on these trips, however: The cost of a garment often has less to do with its quality in women's apparel than it does in men's.

Now, this doesn't apply so much when it comes to lower-end stores. At the mall, Target, etc. -- even Macy's -- most of the clothes, regardless of gender, are not very high in quality. They look cool, but they're going to fall apart in a couple years, tops, which most people don't mind because everything will be out of style by then anyway. In a lot of these lower-end establishments, the women's clothes are even absurdly cheap: five, ten, twelve, twenty dollars. This, I think, is closer to what the clothes are actually worth than what men are paying in similar stores. Presumably, the rationale here is that women need lots of clothes so each garment should cost as little as possible. And, of course, you get what you pay for: The clothes in such venues are shabby for both genders, even though you pay a little less for this shabbiness in the women's case.

But in the higher-end places, the situation is more interesting. When I go to a men's boutique -- at least one where they actually sell suits and ties, etc. -- what I'm paying for is the quality and expertise. The material feels great and lasts forever (ten to twenty years at least) and a guy comes up to me who can tell me all my sizes without a tape measure and point me to everything in the store that looks like I was born to wear it. When I take my girlfriend to a women's boutique, however, the clothes feel the same as the ones at the mall even though the tags are in the triple digits (Ann Taylor and maybe Talbots constitute exceptions, though these aren't technically boutiques). The expertise isn't usually there either: There's normally a young, heavily accessorized salesgirl who sits in a chair, popping her bubblegum while we look through the racks.

What gives? What is the rationale for spending so much in these types of stores? If it's just a desire to look like a model, can't women satisfy this demand at the places charging twelve dollars a garment? Do many women just enjoy the experience of buying expensive things? Or am I missing something? Anyone should feel free to weigh in, but comments from women are especially welcome.

Dressing for Existence

I've been monkeying around with a reformulation of the classic adage "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have." I think it should be: "Dress for the existence you want, not the existence you have," but I'm also considering "Dress for the existence you're creating, not the existence you were given." What do people think?

Philosophers' Clothes: Nietzsche II

In another excerpt from his bio, R.J. Hollingdale reports that:

[Nietzsche's] appearance during the ten years he was in Basel excited comment because of his excessive attention to dress, amounting almost to dandyism...he was, apart from an old state counsellor from Baden, the only man in Basel to wear a grey topper. [p. 49]

Interestingly, Hollingdale also quotes one of Nietzsche's students who noticed his snazzy duds but nevertheless observed that "his whole personality expressed nothing less than indifference to whatever external impression he might be making."

So, was Nietzsche a pretty boy or was he uninterested in looking good for others? The answer, it turns out, might be both. Hollingdale says that even though Nietzsche was always decked out to the nines, "by 1875 dressing well was probably a habit rather than a conscious effort."

This sounds right to me and I think it's both interesting and important. When one begins to formulate a philosophical approach to attire (something I'm convinced Nietzsche had), obsession with clothes is, I think, inevitable. This has certainly been the case for me. Not long ago, I thought, "I really don't want to be thinking about clothes this much."

Now, however, I can feel the obsession fading because there's not much to think about anymore. I've already figured out which types of clothing help me become who I want to be and which ones just encourage vanity or sloppiness. Furthermore, people in my life have gotten used to the way I dress and no longer need it explained to them. And the philosophical constraints that spawned my style in the first place don't afford much room for reinventing it. The details are also becoming second nature: Matching parts is getting easier and, at this point, I pick the day's tie and knot without much deliberation and usually have it around my neck in under a minute, no mirror.

So while it's true that being philosophical about clothes involves some initial fixation on fashion, it subsides as the sartorial philosophy takes shape. For those who aren't happy "just wearing whatever," I find this temporary obsession a welcome alternative to the mania that goes with searching for flashy or entertaining clothes, which never ends because the entertainment a garment provides evaporates at the same rate as its novelty.

Previous Philosophers' Clothes posts: Nietzsche

Of Neckties and Constancy

The international website for Andrew's Ties, who, incidentally, make a decent necktie for the price, has an aphorism I think many readers of this blog would appreciate:

Tell any man you like his tie and you will see his personality open like a flower.

The important point here, at least for me, is not that such a compliment bolsters a man's confidence in how he looks. Rather, the point is this: Wearing a tie in this day and age, especially when it's voluntary, is fairly uncommon. If a man does it, he shows that he cares about what he puts on, as opposed to sliding into whatever is merely inexpensive, sufficiently modest, and not unduly confining. If a man feels greater attention in this matter is also valuable to others, it will continue to be valuable to him.

Of course, all this is true for the rest of his clothes as well, but the tie, at least as I see it, is a symbol. When I was growing up, no matter what kind of upheaval visited my dad's life, he always got up, put on a tie, and went to work. If he was unemployed, he did the same thing to go out and look for jobs. Because of this, the weekend t-shirt was special. He had accepted his responsibility every day and the end of the week meant there wasn't any left. He was free to relax and his attire expressed that. When I put on a tie, I feel myself joining my dad and a chorus of other men who have put aside their laziness or fear about the chaos life often brings and accepted the task before them. When someone appreciates that I'm wearing a tie, they're appreciating this decision.

Philosophers' Clothes: Nietzsche

Here is the first in a series of posts I'll be doing on philosophers and clothing, devoted either to a story about a given philosopher's sartorial tendencies or to a comment one of them made about attire or fashion. Here then is a biographical vignette from Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy, by the well-known Nietzsche biographer and scholar, R.J. Hollingdale. It recounts the philosopher's preparation as he anticipates meeting Wagner for the first time (on November 8th, 1868):

Thinking there would be a large gathering, Nietzsche visited his tailor, who, as it happened, had promised to have an evening suit for him that very day. The suit was not quite ready, and he was promised it in three-quarters of an hour; when he went back, it was still not ready, and it was at last presented to him at half past six. With it came a bill, which the tailor's assistant demanded should be met before he would part with the suit. Nietzsche hadn't enough money on him - or in his possession very likely - and tried to put the suit on (he had taken his own off to try the new one on for size); a struggle ensued in which the tailor proved the victor; he disappeared, taking the suit with him, and Nietzsche stormed out into the pouring rain, fearful that by now he would be late for his appointment and hoping his old clothes would do. As it turned out, there was no large gathering: just the Brockhaus family, Nietzsche and Windisch, and Wagner. [pg. 40]

Hollingdale goes on to say that the evening went very well. Wagner played the piano and he and Nietzsche had a long discussion about Schopenhauer. Then, at the end of the visit, Wagner invited him back for more music and philosophy. The moral of the story (for our purposes, anyway): Take your costume seriously, but not too seriously.

Cornel West Talks Clothes with Prepidemic

Last spring, public intellectual Cornel West, did a few short interviews on clothing and style with Prepidemic Magazine. These are the more interesting among them.

In this first piece, Prepidemic asks him for his definition of style. He says this "has to do with the ways in which you are able to orient your critical intelligence, your spirituality, and your sense of character," or, more succinctly, "it's how you move through space and time." Even more interesting, however, is his claim that style cannot be without substance. In other words, the expression "all style and no substance" is a contradiction in terms if, by the former, one means "genuine style," which entails substance. This is not easily obtained, however. To have substance and thus style, he says you have to come to terms with who you are, which involves examining "the dark corners of your own soul....you find your voice, then you've got your style."


The following piece reifies the previous one's notion of style in the example of fashion. Here, Mr. West makes a very explicit link between how he sees himself and the world on the one hand and what he wears on the other. His attire actualizes his philosophy.


Getting still more specific, yet less philosophical, Mr. West discusses some of the features of his particular "uniform."

Brooks Brothers

One of the things this blog seeks to do is gather relevant information from other places -- magazines, books, websites, etc. -- and talk about it here. For example, this month's Menswear (April 2011) has a write-up on the current owner of Brooks Brothers, Claudio Del Vecchio.

A central argument of the piece is that crusty old dinosaurs shouldn't give Del Vecchio flack for some of the more daring garments in Brooks' new, so-called "Black Fleece" line. (By means of a link that probably won't be operational for all that long, the current men's offerings can be seen here.)

Brooks Brothers was always an envelope-pusher, the argument goes, and so our affinity for it as the conservative guardian of traditional American style is misplaced. We must therefore allow, even expect, it to continue its own tradition of setting the standard by forging ahead of the status quo. The article offers some examples of its track record in this regard:

Brooks is the source of many men's wear innovations now taken for granted. It introduced the seersucker in 1830; the first ready-made suit in 1845; the button-down collar in 1896; the repp tie in 1920; and argyle socks, in 1949. [p. 32, see here for definitions.]

Now, don't get me wrong; this is an impressive list and I'm not opposed to the Black Fleece line anyway. In fact, I even like some of it. But those who feel differently are probably not objecting to the changes simply because they don't like innovation, full stop; rather, I suspect they like the clothes they've been buying for fifty years and don't want to see them disappear. Regardless of whether Brooks came to their style by innovation or by following the crowd, these men like that style and aren't keen to see it go. Fear not, the article says; some things are just too classic to trash. I don't therefore think the Black Fleece is going to push out the more traditional fare; I'm simply pointing out that the argument bolstering this new endeavor isn't the sharpest. If the reasoning is: "Brooks always innovated, why not now?" an easy response is: "Because, before, innovating led to a more useful, high-quality, and thus popular product, whereas now it's leading to flashy, impractical couture for runway models."

Some other interesting tidbits from the article:

1) Brooks Brothers' mission statement, something it's not changing, is "To make and deal only in merchandise of the finest quality, to sell it at a fair profit and to deal with people who seek and appreciate such merchandise." This is a great mission statement.

2) Brooks made the coat Abraham Lincoln wore the night he was shot. Talk about classic.

3) Del Vecchio collaborated on the wardrobe for Mad Men with Janie Bryant, the show's costume designer.

Being Considerate

My interest in the gentlemanly ideal began just under two years ago. I was visiting a friend in Santa Barbara and finding myself with a great deal of free time for research, contemplation, and media consumption. During this time, I listened to a sermon by the somewhat infamous Seattle pastor, Mark Driscoll, entitled “Humble Christians.” The entire sermon is here, but YouTube has a nice excerpt of the part that really struck me:


As it happens, Driscoll's IPod Idol example is especially uncomfortable for me, as I used to do this quite frequently. In fact, one time I did it in the early morning while everyone was asleep in the home of friend of a friend, whom I was visiting in Texas. (This post is going to make me sound like a perpetual vagrant, which is not entirely accurate; the relevant events just happened to occur while visiting various friends.) More gentlemanly than I, this friend found me a new place to stay, citing some other reason for the required departure. I didn't then know how embarrassed I should have been, but I do now.

Returning to the subject at hand, however, I was particularly struck by Driscoll's assertion that "we live in the most inconsiderate age. People are unbelievably inconsiderate" but that humble people "recognize, hey, there's other people and some of them have needs; I'm not the center of the universe. I should be attentive to them." When he asked "How considerate are you?" and said not to rate yourself, but to ask your friends, etc., I didn't have to contact anyone. I knew my roommates would not give me a very flattering score.

After mulling over this realization for a few days, I was visiting another friend in L.A. Among the other books on his shelf were a few volumes of the immensely influential "Gentleman" series by John Bridges and Bryan Curtis. I opened up "As a Gentleman Would Say" and read the following lines from the introduction:

Gentlemanliness goes deeper than mere nice manners, it requires preparation, so that, whenever possible, a gentleman can do his part to make the world a much nicer place in which to live.

Driscoll and Bridges/Curtis proved to be a powerful combination. They were communicating the same message: Most people are inconsiderate, but no one should be comfortable with it. The answer was clear: We need more gentlemen.

Attire and Behavior

This blog operates on the presupposition that the way we dress and the way we act are related. For example, people who dress casually tend to behave casually and people who dress formally tend to behave formally.

It could be that attire is, in part, responsible for behavior. Or it could be that people who are already disposed toward a particular style of behavior choose a corresponding style of attire. A still further possibility is that some third factor impels individuals toward a mutually supportive attire and behavior. The point for the time being is not to decide this question. In all likelihood, it will vary from case to case and, in some instances, no correlation whatsoever will be had.

Still, there seems to be some connection between what we put on and how we act. This blog, then, among other things, will concern itself with fashion not so much as an avenue of self-expression or as an art form, but as a vehicle for facilitating open, respectful, and authentic relations with other people.