Random Fashion Thoughts (Part 3: Style farmer strikes back) - our general discussion thread

[nahneun]

My mom doesn't understand why I wear vintage clothes and why I sometimes pay so much money for them. When she was growing up in Vietnam, only poor people wore second-hand clothes. Or kids whose parents didn't care about them. Supposedly, some Vietnamese people also think wearing second-hand clothes can bring bad luck, as the garment might have a "ghost" in it.

She also doesn't understand why I prefer older buildings, older cars, dusty records, etc. She prefers everything to be modern and new -- new buildings, new cars, new clothes, well-known luxury brands, etc. I associate vintage things with cool people I grew up admiring. I think it's completely cultural.

is this the same ghost that also inhabits fans in korea?

 

[dieworkwear]

From Retromania by Simon Reynolds (I also liked his book on post-punk).

View attachment 1635651

Book was published in 2011, I bet rappers must be into vintage houses and neo-foodie dining by now. If someone has an article on post-Kanye middle-class taste rappers I'd love to read that.

There's certainly a modern class component, but with regard to my mother, the difference is generational and not class. My mom and her side of the family occupied a higher social station in Vietnam than the one I occupy in the US. She came from a wealthy family and I'm very middle class.

Jennifer Le Zotte has a good book titled From Goodwill to Grunge: A History of Secondhand Styles and Alternative Economies. It traces not just the modern meaning of second-hand clothing, but how that meaning has changed over time. During the Elizabethan era, charity shops were somewhat uncommon in London. Even as recent as the 1950s, wearing second-hand clothes came with a stigma in the United States. At some point, wearing vintage was a sign of rebellion and associated with cultural capital, and then things switched.

My mom would also never dream of allowing strangers to rent her home, and yet AirBnB exists. These attitudes can change between generations.

 

[mmmargeologist]

Don’t short urself. U author the #1 mens fashion blog on the internet.

 

[mak1277]

My mom doesn't understand why I wear vintage clothes and why I sometimes pay so much money for them. When she was growing up in Vietnam, only poor people wore second-hand clothes. Or kids whose parents didn't care about them. Supposedly, some Vietnamese people also think wearing second-hand clothes can bring bad luck, as the garment might have a "ghost" in it.

She also doesn't understand why I prefer older buildings, older cars, dusty records, etc. She prefers everything to be modern and new -- new buildings, new cars, new clothes, well-known luxury brands, etc. I associate vintage things with cool people I grew up admiring. I think it's completely cultural.

I like patina, I just don’t want it to be someone else’s, I want it to be mine.
I want to go through the time to break things in for myself and enjoy that process.

 

[double00]

service economy jobs generally don't feature an equity interest, unless of course you're in the consignment game

 

[peachfuzzmcgee]

I like patina, I just don’t want it to be someone else’s, I want it to be mine.
I want to go through the time to break things in for myself and enjoy that process.

But unless you actually so some work and not just sit around all day behind some desk, you'll never get patina.

I guess unless you buy clothes that loses color if you even look at it too hard.

 

[mak1277]

But unless you actually so some work and not just sit around all day behind some desk, you'll never get patina.

I guess unless you buy clothes that loses color if you even look at it too hard.

It takes a little longer when you can only break stuff in on weekends but it’s not impossible. I also keep a fairly small rotation of stuff and having a 3 year old helps ruin things pretty fast, too.

 

[troika]

Your EG vs my EG

 

[Spehsmonkey]

Any experiences with/opinions on the quality of Officine Creative shoes? Anyone know whether their cordovan is actually legit (i.e. worth the cordovan mark-up)?

 

[Chaconne]

Wasn’t goodyear welting consider good and a selling point at one time? Seems like a bunch of folks turn their noses up at it lately. Is it not that great a feature or is this just a case of

 

[whorishconsumer]

Zips.

 

[XWT]

Wasn’t goodyear welting consider good and a selling point at one time? Seems like a bunch of folks turn their noses up at it lately. Is it not that great a feature or is this just a case of
View attachment 1635872

GYW is good in general, but it's not the end-all-be-all of welting techniques.

Bespoke shoemakers, including the cool cats Indonesian makers whom we all love, are mostly using hand welting. PNW bootmakers are using stitchdown more than goodyear welting.

I think it's a case of people getting to know more about construction techniques and wanting to have different things. When you have a few pairs of GYW perhaps you're looking for something else for your Nth pair of shoe.

The most complaining I've seen is Viberg fans. They tend to have a very specific idea of what makes Viberg good, and that idea includes a stitchdown construction.

 

[Fuuma]

There's certainly a modern class component, but with regard to my mother, the difference is generational and not class. My mom and her side of the family occupied a higher social station in Vietnam than the one I occupy in the US. She came from a wealthy family and I'm very middle class.

Jennifer Le Zotte has a good book titled From Goodwill to Grunge: A History of Secondhand Styles and Alternative Economies. It traces not just the modern meaning of second-hand clothing, but how that meaning has changed over time. During the Elizabethan era, charity shops were somewhat uncommon in London. Even as recent as the 1950s, wearing second-hand clothes came with a stigma in the United States. At some point, wearing vintage was a sign of rebellion and associated with cultural capital, and then things switched.

My mom would also never dream of allowing strangers to rent her home, and yet AirBnB exists. These attitudes can change between generations.

You can sorta see that Reynolds is not too familiar with the class and cultural situation of immigrants as he disposes of them in one sentence and presents them as a block (i.e. no classes or national specificity), I wouldn't presume to know either but in the West the post WWII culture was almost universally enamored with the latest trappings of modernity (i.e. look at atomic age design). This return to the old (of which Reynolds is both a participant in and an analyst of*) arrived when widespread doubts about the inevitability and even desirability of progress were shared by large swaths of the western population (in other words not just readers of Heidegger or whatever).

*He doesn't see it as a positive development though but as a renunciation

 

[Chaconne]

GYW is good in general, but it's not the end-all-be-all of welting techniques.

Bespoke shoemakers, including the cool cats Indonesian makers whom we all love, are mostly using hand welting. PNW bootmakers are using stitchdown more than goodyear welting.

I think it's a case of people getting to know more about construction techniques and wanting to have different things. When you have a few pairs of GYW perhaps you're looking for something else for your Nth pair of shoe.

The most complaining I've seen is Viberg fans. They tend to have a very specific idea of what makes Viberg good, and that idea includes a stitchdown construction.

Yeah, I lurk several shoe threads including Viberg and was just wondering where the dismissive tone some posters have towards GYW was coming from. Your impressions sound correct.

 

[Fuuma]

Yeah, I lurk several shoe threads including Viberg and was just wondering where the dismissive tone some posters have towards GYW was coming from. Your impressions sound correct.

Do you care though? I dunno how my footwear is made, the more traditional makers seem to be better made than the designer stuff but I buy on aesthetics (of which stitching and leather is a subset of) and that's about it.