The Adventure Continues

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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.