The Official Dieworkwear Appreciation Thread

[willy cheesesteak]

I’m going to take a contrarian view here but Derek’s exposure on Twitter is, IMO, a good thing and I think it’s unfair to distill it down to sh*tposts.

He’s engaging an audience with new information that overwhelmingly aren’t people who would ever read a menswear blog let alone step foot into even lurking on here.

Certainly there are some downsides and he’s gotta work within the confines of a less than optimal platform but it’s genuinely cool to see a whole new crop of people starting to absorb and learn and ask questions. If you take a peek at Derek’s replies not just his original tweets he’s engaging in good faith and fielding questions about all sorts of things.

I’ve had normie friends send me his tweets and ask about them, ask about different looks and brands and try to learn. These aren’t guys who would come on here. Plus maybe he’ll convince a handful of them to stop wearing dress sneakers with chinos.

^this guy gets it

 

[Cause Moe]

I think that this is the depressing thing about social media. The platforms are designed for virality, and anyone with a big microphone eventually becomes a demagogue, whether consiously or subconsciously.

A battery of engagement metrics is shown to you constantly, and we are easily manipulated animals.

I'm showing my age by remembering fondly my days arguing things on alt.martial-arts.

You youngsters may not even remember the world before alt.* even existed, much less the mythical world before the Big 8 was created by the Great Renaming. When such abominations as trolling, flame wars, and "LOL" were first spawned; before the dawn of history. Or at least before the dawn of soc.history. To Gen Z, this gibberish may seem like speaking in tongues.

 

[Texasmade]

^this guy gets it fuchs

ftfy

 

[ericgereghty]

I love Derek's writing, but I find tweets like this really embarrassing. It's not a flex to brag about having to block people because you're incapable or unwilling to deal with dissent, it just speaks to being thin-skinned.

In general, I really hate microblogging and I yearn for the return of long form content, not just from DWW but from any writer who has made the unfortunate decision to transition to 240 character shitposts. The latter may be great at providing dopamine hits, but for anyone trying to actually learn as much as they can about clothing or shoes or putting together a coherent wardrobe, it becomes near impossible to follow and search up older posts, which is particularly unfortunate when the person in question has a wealth of knowledge to potentially share like Derek does.

I also can't help but notice that, due to the incredibly short lifespan of content and due to the considerably larger and less knowledgeable audience that Derek is speaking to, that he ends up repeating himself over and over and over. Yes, the Nike x Tiffany collab is insufferable, as is much of hypebeast culture, but does it really bear repeating dozens of times? Likewise with the idea that putting together a coherent look has more value than owning flashy individual items, which is actually incredibly informative and absolutely warrants deeper study; yet I've actually never seen DWW explore the idea in-depth and have mostly just seen him repeat it over and over in the form of criticizing jewel colored shoes and blingy watches. The ideas are there, but they're never elaborated on, and the result is really unsatisfactory and frustrating.

I probably sound really whiny and entitled, but I learned a lot from Derek's old website, and I'd really like to see more focused and nuanced content like that. As is, I don't think I've actually picked up anything from his twitter that wasn't already expressed either here on StyFo or on his blog.

Exactly this. Twitter sucks, and, despite it being a disservice to Derek's abilities, everything does basically boil down to shitposting, his included. I deeply enjoy Derek's DWW posts, and his contributions in general, but, if I'm being honest, don't think I've learned anything of note from his tweets...aside from the fact that people can manage to be insulted by literally anything and everything is somehow racist. Again, this is regrettably the design of the platform.
That he manages, with very ho-hum posts (in that they are hardly inflammatory) to offend the worst of all folks across the ideological spectrum speaks to the shithole that app really is.

I've always hated Twitter. It's fundamentally designed to favor hot takes over thoughtfulness. Twitter under the new management is pretty unbearable. I feel like a worse person every time I am on there.

Truly insufferable. Makes me yearn for the days of facebook arguments lol. In fairness, not like folks were on FB to have their opinions challenged, but at least the capacity for proper debate existed. Twitter, safe to say, does not...though I have a number of excellent zingers I have ready to unload at a moment's notice

 

[symphvaria]

I’m going to take a contrarian view here but Derek’s exposure on Twitter is, IMO, a good thing and I think it’s unfair to distill it down to sh*tposts.

He’s engaging an audience with new information that overwhelmingly aren’t people who would ever read a menswear blog let alone step foot into even lurking on here.

Certainly there are some downsides and he’s gotta work within the confines of a less than optimal platform but it’s genuinely cool to see a whole new crop of people starting to absorb and learn and ask questions. If you take a peek at Derek’s replies not just his original tweets he’s engaging in good faith and fielding questions about all sorts of things.

I’ve had normie friends send me his tweets and ask about them, ask about different looks and brands and try to learn. These aren’t guys who would come on here. Plus maybe he’ll convince a handful of them to stop wearing dress sneakers with chinos.

Don't get me wrong, Derek's Twitter activity is not the end of the world and it definitely isn't all doom and gloom. His audience is large enough that even the aforementioned small percentage of people who are genuinely interested in and open to hearing his viewpoints are enough to vastly outnumber the regulars on StyFo. He has 128 THOUSAND followers, even just 5% of that is already about 6400 people, and his follower count is far more likely to be made up of people receptive to his ideas, as opposed to his overall Twitter engagement.

None of that changes the fundamental points outlined in my original post though. The sheer quantity of his audience does not make up for (and arguably is a pretty significant contributor to) the inability for him to go indepth on whatever topic he chooses to talk about. If someone is completely new to shoes, you'd already have a difficult time trying to convince them that dress sneakers look terrible; imagine trying to explain to them differences in lasts or stitch count and why it's worth a multi-year wait and several thousand dollars for a pair of bespoke shoes.

For the layperson who doesn't know the first thing about menswear and has probably never worn a suit in their adult life, Derek's Twitter is a godsend for being introduced to the subject. For someone who already knows the basics and wants to learn more and with finer nuance, and above all, acquire taste, Derek's Twitter is near totally useless for anything more than cheap gags, where the DWW blog was (and still is, assuming whatever post you're looking at isn't already full of dead links) a treasure trove of resources and information. Surely there must be a healthy middle ground to strike between the two.

 

[LA Guy]

Don't get me wrong, Derek's Twitter activity is not the end of the world and it definitely isn't all doom and gloom. His audience is large enough that even the aforementioned small percentage of people who are genuinely interested in and open to hearing his viewpoints are enough to vastly outnumber the regulars on StyFo. He has 128 THOUSAND followers, even just 5% of that is already about 6400 people, and his follower count is far more likely to be made up of people receptive to his ideas, as opposed to his overall Twitter engagement.

None of that changes the fundamental points outlined in my original post though. The sheer quantity of his audience does not make up for (and arguably is a pretty significant contributor to) the inability for him to go indepth on whatever topic he chooses to talk about. If someone is completely new to shoes, you'd already have a difficult time trying to convince them that dress sneakers look terrible; imagine trying to explain to them differences in lasts or stitch count and why it's worth a multi-year wait and several thousand dollars for a pair of bespoke shoes.

For the layperson who doesn't know the first thing about menswear and has probably never worn a suit in their adult life, Derek's Twitter is a godsend for being introduced to the subject. For someone who already knows the basics and wants to learn more and with finer nuance, and above all, acquire taste, Derek's Twitter is near totally useless for anything more than cheap gags, where the DWW blog was (and still is, assuming whatever post you're looking at isn't already full of dead links) a treasure trove of resources and information. Surely there must be a healthy middle ground to strike between the two.

Twitter is not conducive to a discussion that starts "So, here is a cool thing" generally speaking. Nearly everything devolves into a flamewar.

 

[emptym]

Some seeds fall on the path,
some on rocky ground,
some among the thorns,
and some on good soil.

 

[JohnMRobie]

Piggybacking on this. Derek released his podcast with Jeremy Kirkland/Blamo today and his newfound fame on Twitter was a long topic along with an interesting discussion about what makes something luxury that spiraled out of his knock on the Nike x Tiffany collab.

Kind of interesting to hear his take on how he sees it, the benefits and how he’s changed his use.

 

[LA Guy]

Piggybacking on this. Derek released his podcast with Jeremy Kirkland/Blamo today and his newfound fame on Twitter was a long topic along with an interesting discussion about what makes something luxury that spiraled out of his knock on the Nike x Tiffany collab.

Kind of interesting to hear his take on how he sees it, the benefits and how he’s changed his use.

What was his take on Nike x Tiffany? It's an ugly ass design. The Diamond Co Nike "Tiffanys" are way better.

 

[JohnMRobie]

What was his take on Nike x Tiffany? It's an ugly ass design. The Diamond Co Nike "Tiffanys" are way better.
\

There was some of that re:design - How it’s just dissociated from anything and just slapping a marker on an item to show it’s expensive.

The discussion kind of picked up based on a couple Twitter threads he’d done on the downfall of formerly luxury brands that essentially figured out they could slap their label on anything and sell cheap crap as aspirational luxury so everyone could get something with the brands name on it. Hermes making tchotchkes, Brooks brothers slapping the Golden Fleece pig on a 50 t shirt, Abercrombie selling dumbed down Americana, etc. brands that used to make cool things but no longer really do.

But the discussion was actually really interesting and got into a back and forth about what is luxury? Is it driven by craft? Sort of but that wouldn’t make sense if Brooks Brothers used to be a luxury brand selling machine made OCBDs and sack suits. Is it the clientele? Is it scarcity? Is it price?

Derek seemed to sort of settle in on craft. Jeremy settled in on something being sort of unobtainable (from a price standpoint mostly) but also an experience. Rob kind of settled in on something that justifies its price through materials or make and the story. They also agreed authentic scarcity plays a role but the artificial scarcity and “drop culture” (my words not theirs) did not.

 

[ericgereghty]

What the hell is a blamo?

 

[eighttrees]

What the hell is a blamo?

Blamo! Podcast

A podcast exploring the world of fashion with the people shape it.

blamopod.com

 

[sargeinaz]

lmfao it’s not that deep fam

Lmfao you’re so corny fam

 

[BlondJamesBlond]

Oof, taking German classes in high school really warped how I read some words. TIL that Die Workwear is not pronounced "Dee".

 

[willy cheesesteak]

Lmfao you’re so corny fam

sorry, who are you?