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.