The CM Graveyard: First Sartoria Partenopea... next J. Crew?

[surrender]

I have a soft spot for Barney's, since I bought my first ever "nice" clothing item (a pair of Earnest Sewn raws, lol) from the short-lived Co-Op in the Houston Galleria. Back in 2006, I think, with some spare money after paying tuition. Also bought my first GYW shoes from them, a pair of Paul Smith Ricards from when PS shoes were still worth buying. I still have them over 10 years later and they look fantastic.

 

[LA Guy]

I was at Barneys on Saturday. Those signs are all over the place and the racks look like they were hit by bombs. If you ever questioned the power of retail display, go look at how ****** a rack of expensive clothes look when no one cares to straighten them out.

lefty

It's basically been looted at this point. It was already sacked and pillaged, and it's basically just people stripping it for spare construction materials at this point. I liked Barneys (at least the LA one) in the early 2000s, but even as early as 2012, the designer floor during sales time was looking like a Filene's basement.

Ultimately, I think that the problem with department stores, and I see this online as well, is a people problem. I look at the videos by the owners of a small store like @shopcanoeclub that show incredible product knowledge - https://www.styleforum.net/threads/canoe-club-official-affiliate-thread.641486/page-31#post-9976336

vs the styling videos for say. this really excellent Schott leather jacket, from Nordstrom:

Nordstrom

and the second just can't beat the first "Real leather... wow. Style with jeans and a tee shirt. You don't say..."

 

[Aquafortis]

One data point. I have a leadership role in a Treasury organization in a F100 company and have had similar roles for at least the last 10 years. I own at least 75 ties. In the last 24 months I have worn a tie exactly once.

"Tie"...what's a tie? ?

I was at Barneys on Saturday. Those signs are all over the place and the racks look like they were hit by bombs. If you ever questioned the power of retail display, go look at how ****** a rack of expensive clothes look when no one cares to straighten them out.

lefty

Yeah, I've been scared to even walk into Barneys San Francisco for fear of the kitsch overload and general post-scavenged chaos and depressing disarray. I've only frequented the store in the last few years and liked their fragrance department, but always found the clothing selection was confused and all over the place. But then, I'm not into $1K sneakers and $3K tracksuits.

 

[shopcanoeclub]

Appreciate you @LA Guy ❤️

 

[LA Guy]

Appreciate you @LA Guy ❤

Real recognizes real.

 

[bry2000]

Real recognizes real.

. Nvm.

 

[shopcanoeclub]

<3

 

[LA Guy]

One data point. I have a leadership role in a Treasury organization in a F100 company and have had similar roles for at least the last 10 years. I own at least 75 ties. In the last 24 months I have worn a tie exactly once.

I haven't worn a tie regularly since high school. I do think that uniforms in high school can be useful. Though they don't actually flatten out the gap between socio-economic classes - we all knew who had the nice shirts, the nice shoes, and who had the junk - it does build some discipline and esprit de corps, mostly in the unified hatred for the uniform. It also taught us some amazing skills. to this day, I can put on an tie a tie in under 15 seconds - just enough to slide into class without being given a demerit for wearing the uniform improperly. It also taught me the art of extortion. Some people regular undid the tie of a few dopes who never did learn to tie their ties, and would charge $5 to retie it, and then a regular $5 to not unknot it on them. Of course, this was also an excellent lesson in cultural capital and good old fashioned oppression. Uniformly, the kids doing the extorting were the kids of professionals and white collar workers, and the kids doing the paying - well, their fathers did not wear ties either.

Outside of high school, though, I see very little functional use of an enforced dress code. There has always been this rather strange argument made that a dress code makes people respect their work more. I've never seen any statistical nor anecdotal evidence for this.

Though I don't wear suits myself, I feel that their relegation to fashion item would be good for them. A lot of the cultural baggage around wearing a suit would be lost in a few decades, and it would become another source of inspiration for designers. There would be repro (aka classic) suits, and suits that are more modern, whatever modern will mean in a few decades. While there will always be those who bemoan the loss of X and the downfall of society, and I can't believe that someone eating at per se is wearing Balenciagas, the ones that look like socks - the landscape of menswear will just be the richer for having a new and rich source of inspiration that is nearly completely decontextualized from its origins.

 

[clee1982]

I don't mind modern suit, I just haven't seen one done well.

p.s. I don't consider Boglioli/Camoshita as modern suit, I mean something like Abasi Rosborough. AR looks really cool, but a bit too futuristic..., lots of "casual jacket" still got traditional element to it (TS(s)/EG/Oliver Spencer etc.)

 

[Caustic Man]

There has always been this rather strange argument made that a dress code makes people respect their work more.

You've never been in the military. But I'm not sure it has more to do with respect for the work than it does with respect for oneself. A uniform is to be achieved. A suit is to be worthy of - or at least it was. Here's some interesting anecdotal evidence: in the early 20th century industrial workers, mechanics, and custodians all often traveled to work in suits. While working they wore practical workwear but when they left work they would change back into their suits for the commute back home. These men weren't trying to hide their professions; they would have fooled no one. Rather, I would say that they had a respect for themselves that told them that they were worthy of the suit, just the same as any banker or politician. That respect for the self can lead to better work. Or so the idea goes...

 

[dieworkwear]

You've never been in the military. But I'm not sure it has more to do with respect for the work than it does with respect for oneself. A uniform is to be achieved. A suit is to be worthy of - or at least it was. Here's some interesting anecdotal evidence: in the early 20th century industrial workers, mechanics, and custodians all often traveled to work in suits. While working they wore practical workwear but when they left work they would change back into their suits for the commute back home. These men weren't trying to hide their professions; they would have fooled no one. Rather, I would say that they had a respect for themselves that told them that they were worthy of the suit, just the same as any banker or politician. That respect for the self can lead to better work. Or so the idea goes...

In the early 20th century, people with respectability wore frock coats. The suit wasn't regarded in the way people regard it today. Proper gentlemen wore frock coats, and older gentlemen, particularly those of the upper classes and who valued tradition, looked upon the suit with disdain.

Tradesmen and even criminals wore suits simply because that's what people wore. The suit was clothes, no one associated it with the kind of respectability politics people confer to it now.

Studies on productivity show that people work best when they're comfortable. The "studies" on the suit and productivity are little more than pop psychology.

 

[Caustic Man]

That's not exactly true. Labor historians have investigated the meaning of working class clothing in a variety of ways and it is clear that tailored clothing has long had bourgeois and "respectable" middle class connotations. I suggest "Ready Made Democracy" by Michael Zakim for a full treatment of this. Indeed, in the early and middle 1800s, when clerks began flooding New York and other urban centers, it was a running gag that they spent nearly all of their meager salaries on clothing so as to appear respectable and worthy of their new, semi-professional, jobs. These were mostly young men who grew up on farms, after all.

I don't remember the name of the book, but the notion that 20th C. working class men wore suits as a sign of respectability doesn't originate with me, it comes from real research. There is a small trove of books within the field of history that trace the meanings of men's clothes. I can recommend further if you wish.

 

[dieworkwear]

That's not exactly true. Labor historians have investigated the meaning of working class clothing in a variety of ways and it is clear that tailored clothing has long had bourgeois and "respectable" middle class connotations. I suggest "Ready Made Democracy" by Michael Zakim for a full treatment of this. Indeed, in the early and middle 1800s, when clerks began flooding New York and other urban centers, it was a running gag that they spent nearly all of their meager salaries on clothing so as to appear respectable and worthy of their new, semi-professional, jobs. These were mostly young men who grew up on farms, after all.

I don't remember the name of the book, but the notion that 20th C. working class men wore suits as a sign of respectability doesn't originate with me, it comes from real research. There is a small trove of books within the field of history that trace the meanings of men's clothes. I can recommend further if you wish.

I've read Ready Made Democracy.

The kind of respectability people refer to here comes from a gentleman's ethos. Farmers weren't considered gentlemen, and gentlemen of the time period you're talking about wouldn't consider the suit to be respectable.

 

[Caustic Man]

I don't think that's right. And "Ready Made..." is part of the reason why. If you disagree with him maybe that's for another discussion. But I actually don't think you and I are in as much disagreement as you might think. I'm taking a broad definition of the suit and you seem to be talking largely about the "lounge suit." An important distinction, I'm sure you'd agree. I also don't think we have the same notion of "early" when we say early 20th. C. You talk about frock coats as if only the earliest years of the 20th. C matter. I take it to mean the period up to World War 2. Lastly, I think we diverge in our definitions of the class sections in this discussion. When you say "gentleman," and because you used the term "upper class," I suppose you to mean only the very elite. But I include the broad categories of middle class respectability culture that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continues to this day. But beyond that, I think you're simply factually wrong when you say that working class people wore suits simply because that was clothes.

Anyway, long story short, I don't think we agree on enough terms of debate to make this discussion worthwhile. Nevermind that we disagree on some facts.

 

[kammerer66]

The suit was clothes, no one associated it with the kind of respectability politics people confer to it now.

Ordinarily, their clothes were unspeakable. The party had aged their jeans and blue shirts by years. Where was the trouser knee unburst? Where the shirt unripped? If any one else had died, they could have borrowed clothes; but there was no person
in Tortilla Flat who was not going to wear his good clothes to the funeral. Only Cocky Riordan was not going, but Cocky was in quarantine tor smallpox, and so were his clothes. Money might be begged or stolen to buy one good suit, but money for six suits was simply impossible to get.

Pilon, for once in his life, descended to absurdity. "We might go out to-night and each one steal a suit,” he suggested. He knew that was silly, for every suit would be laid on a chair beside a bed that night. It would be death to steal a suit.

“The Salvation Army sometimes gives suits,” said Jesus Maria.

John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat, 1935