Trad and Effort

19124 Views 118 Replies 37 Participants Last post by heimskringla, Jan 4, 2009

heimskringla

Discussion Starter · Dec 11, 2008

Do forgive me if this has been beaten to death already. However, in following this forum for the last few months, I have come to a conclusion about what attracted me to the 'trad' style in the first place.I enjoy the apparent effortlessness involved--except most of you put quite a lot of effort in to dressing in a particular way.

Much like GHWB I grew up in a family in which it was normal for men to dress in this particular style; plain front trousers, a properly fitting jacket, and a presentable pair of shoes were de rigeur for the men in my family, even after we ceased to have an abundance of wealth. My grandfather certainly had a favorite haberdashery or two, but I never recall him fussing over whether or not his jacket had darts or a rolled lapel. He always insisted that a gentlemen must never try too hard to dress well, because in doing so he was likely to appear pretentious. There's a certain austerity in that statement, I suppose, but that particular ideal is one that many older "WASP" families cherish deeply.

I suppose that what I'm saying is that I find it very difficult to fuss quite this much about what I'm wearing; I prefer a sack cut when I have the opportunity to wear one, but I wore a darted 2b charcoal suit last Friday evening (to a business casual dress dinner) and received a number of compliments. I also don't feel awkward when appearing without a jacket on a day-to-day basis; I enjoy them, but if it's too warm and humid, I'll dispense with the jacket. I wear a tie when the mood strikes, but I'm more comfortable in the heat with the first button of my collar undone.

I wear an OCBD and plain front khaki trousers on a daily basis. They look good; I can meet with students and administrators informally dressed this way. I don't have to spend too much time considering what I'll wear in the morning; I own 14 OCBD shirts, one polo, a pair of loafers, a pair of slip on Sketcher's, and a pair of captoe oxfords. I rarely experience a moment of indecision when the available choices are light blue, French blue, white, ecru, and pink.

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· #4 · Dec 11, 2008

heimskringla said:
Do forgive me if this has been beaten to death already. However, in following this forum for the last few months, I have come to a conclusion about what attracted me to the 'trad' style in the first place.I enjoy the apparent effortlessness involved--except most of you put quite a lot of effort in to dressing in a particular way.

Much like GHWB I grew up in a family in which it was normal for men to dress in this particular style; plain front trousers, a properly fitting jacket, and a presentable pair of shoes were de rigeur for the men in my family, even after we ceased to have an abundance of wealth. My grandfather certainly had a favorite haberdashery or two, but I never recall him fussing over whether or not his jacket had darts or a rolled lapel. He always insisted that a gentlemen must never try too hard to dress well, because in doing so he was likely to appear pretentious. There's a certain austerity in that statement, I suppose, but that particular ideal is one that many older "WASP" families cherish deeply.

I suppose that what I'm saying is that I find it very difficult to fuss quite this much about what I'm wearing; I prefer a sack cut when I have the opportunity to wear one, but I wore a darted 2b charcoal suit last Friday evening (to a business casual dress dinner) and received a number of compliments. I also don't feel awkward when appearing without a jacket on a day-to-day basis; I enjoy them, but if it's too warm and humid, I'll dispense with the jacket. I wear a tie when the mood strikes, but I'm more comfortable in the heat with the first button of my collar undone.

I wear an OCBD and plain front khaki trousers on a daily basis. They look good; I can meet with students and administrators informally dressed this way. I don't have to spend too much time considering what I'll wear in the morning; I own 14 OCBD shirts, one polo, a pair of loafers, a pair of slip on Sketcher's, and a pair of captoe oxfords. I rarely experience a moment of indecision when the available choices are light blue, French blue, white, ecru, and pink.

Welcome to the Catch-22 of AAAC: you can only be trad if you effortlessly dress in trad clothes; you can't be effortless if you're taking the time to read and post on forums like AAAC.

Embrace the hypocrisy.

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· #16 · Dec 12, 2008

The Louche said:
The OP makes a very good point. And I find it true that at the (wealthy east coast) roots of Trad/TNSIL men gave only a bit of thought to their clothing and had relatively few items. Somehow they always seemed to have looked quite good and had consistency in the items they did own (all 3/2 sack jackets for some reason, all shirts were button-downs for some reason, etc.). I will always be confused as to how such a non-chalance can result in true style. Hell - a lot of these guys even looked great in stuff that was handed down from their fathers and presumably didn't fit perfectly, was shiny, frayed...

But the points made about the relative lack of information in those days are definitely true. Maybe if they had the internet they would be more fastidious.

As to the line quoted above - and this highlights my confusion about how fastidious and good results may be mutually exclusive - what do you have to say about all of the very dapper Brits from years ago. SR customers are most certainly concerned with detailing, etc. By default.

I'm still confused by this whole topic

I think a good portion of what is "trad" is mythology invented by members of this board. Not trying to knock you Louche, but these ideas you have about how East Coast establishment guys dressed in the 1950s...are these personal observations that you made in the 1950s? If not, what's the source?

Speaking only for myself, I never even heard of a 3/2 sack until I came on this board. "OCBD" is a term that I don't think existed before AAAC, and if you look at old pictures of, for example, the Kennedys, they wear plenty of clothes during what many here would say was the "golden age" of trad that don't fit into what folks here would define as trad.

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· #26 · Dec 12, 2008

wnh said:
No, "trad" isn't just a re-branding of Ivy campus fashion from mid-century, but a rather narrowly defined subset of that fashion. Therefore, no mythology.

If it's such a narrowly defined subset, how come people still argue about what it is after several years of AAAC and several thousands of posts?

Are Timex watches trad? How about Timex watches on grosgrain straps? Alden 405s? Needlepoint belts? Pink oxford shirts? If so, based on what?

Further, what about 1950s "trad" fashions that look goofy now? For example, are there any among us wearing pants that are so short they don't even tough the top of the shoe? That's what THEY wore, so far as I can tell.

This is all based on mythology, and that mythology is fueled by the collective creativity of folks on AAAC. I suspect not more than 5% of this board is old enough to remember details of what people wore in the 1950s, and I suspect less than 2% went to an Ivy League school (and I'm guessing 0.1% went to an Ivy League school IN the '50s). The "inspiration" for the trad look is an image that I suspect no one here has experienced. Therefore, folks create a mythology to fill the gaps.

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· #28 · Dec 12, 2008 (Edited)

wnh said:
That is, "trad" isn't 1950's and 1960's style, but inspired in large part by certain aspects of that style. There seems to me to be little arguing here among the more established members...When we try to equate "trad" with 1950's Ivy League style, we're in error. But when we acknowledge that trad is drawn from 1950's style, without being entirely dependent on it, I think we're correct. In short, trad is what it is.

Respectfully, I think this is incorrect. The first statement that I take issue with - that "more established members say" is what I believe logicians call an appeal to false authority. Illogic like this is what makes the myth exist. Being a "more established" member of this board is meaningless without some bona fides. Find me a member of this board that went to Cornell in 1958 and who was into fashion then, as he is now, and I'll listen to him about the way things used to be and ought to be now. By contrast, show me a 20-something from the midwest who went to a state school who has read a bunch of posts on this website and has access to his dad's credit card to buy at Brooks Brothers and I'm not going to give deference to his statements about the way things "used to be."

Second, I agree "trad" is drawn from the 50's style...but that's not that helpful when you try to say what trad "is." I'd have a hard time thinking of any piece of clothing in our society that I couldn't somehow analogize to something available in the 1950s.

In other words - to my thinking - the only thing that bridges that gap is an invented mythology.

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· #29 · Dec 12, 2008

wnh said:
It's not based on mythology, because people actually wore these things.

Maybe we're defining mythology differently. I'm defining it as adding a significance that doesn't inherently exist. The GHWB attire thread is a perfect analogy: some people say he's a perfect trad because there are old pictures of him wearing OCBDs and 3/2 sacks. OK, fair enough. Now, for every one of those pictures, I can find you 10 in which he's wearing a point collar, pleated pants or a darted blazer. What's mythological is that wearing a 3/2 or OCBD has some special cultural significance or that the 1950s wearers of them really cared either way whether their jacket was darted.

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· #34 · Dec 12, 2008

I don't get this idea that Made in the USA is a requirement of it being trad? American roots?

I disagree. How about fine sweaters made in Ireland, tweeds from the UK and oilskins from Australia? None of them are American-made or have US roots, yet I suspect people here would say those are quite trad. So...is it really about being "made in the USA?"

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· #36 · Dec 12, 2008

I am 100% NOT accusing you of anything, but it seems to me that the distinction between what foreign stuff is OK and what isn't is whether white people make it.

Not a lot of people around here talking about their Peruvian poncho.

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· #38 · Dec 12, 2008

ACtually, I hope people like Paper Clip, Untilted and Patrick - my three favorite dressers by a lot on this site - continue to post as much as ever.

One of my daily highlights is seeing what you fellows are wearing every day and getting ideas from it.

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· #41 · Dec 12, 2008

Joe Beamish said:
I'm not concerned with the ethnic heritage of the people who make the clothes I buy. I just tend to prefer that my stuff is "made in USA".

Fair enough, but I don't think we're on the same page. Paperclip was saying that he likes his stuff made in the USA and I pointed out that a number of trad items were well within the "trad canon" that are NOT from the USA (e.g. Irish sweaters, tweed from the UK).

Now, if you tell me that you like Irish sweaters and tweed, but only when they're made in the USA, that's different than the point Paperclip and I were going back-and-forth on. If, however, you tell me that foreign-made stuff is OK as long as it's a tweed, Irish sweater, or the like, then that puts you in the same camp as P.C.

Either way, I'm truly not trying to make a moral judgment. As a fiscal conservative who believes in laissez faire economics, I disagree with promoting "Made in the USA" consumer goods (unless there is some unique reason they can ONLY be made here or the USA industries can provide the same quality at a better price than an overseas competitor). However, I certainly recognize that there is another side to that argument and respect it.

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· #46 · Dec 13, 2008

AldenPyle said:
In the 1950's and early 1960's, there was a recognized and widely adopted style of dress that was referred to as the Ivy League style in the mid 1950's and the "natural shoulder" style in the late 1950's and early 1960's. There were a number of distinct characteristics of that style including natural shoulders (of course), unshaped chest, straight hanging lines, flat front and cuffed trousers. All of these characteristics are the same as the details that "trad" is supposedly obsessed with. You can call these characteristics "rules" or not, as you like. There were other styles available, of course, so people who wore this particular style were clearly making a choice. Moreover, it can be seen from uncounted ads from this period that these distinguishing characteristics were a selling point for clothes of this style. Consider this ad from an 1955 issue of the Cornell Daily Sun.

Note, this is not an ad in a fashion magazine or Esquire. Just an ad from a run of the mill independent haberdashery targeted at the average student in the campus newspaper. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that afficianados of this style knew exactly what they were looking at and that these details were important to them. Or, at the very least, that people trying to make money selling clothes thought it was important to them.

I've seen these ads, and understand what you're saying. I think you're responding to a slightly different point than the one I was trying (perhaps poorly) to get at. I say that what is "trad" has been totally mythologized by AAAC. What people wear now and call "trad" (needlepoint belts, grosgrain watchbands w/ Timex, pink oxford shirts, Alden 405s) has nothing to do with the look in those ads. Indeed, I suspect a pink OCBD would be as foreign to those guys in the 1950s-60s as pleated pants a and a darted suit.

Let be be finale of seem.

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· #48 · Dec 13, 2008

Fair enough. Now do a search for darted blazer and pleated pants and let me know if you get any hits.

One swallow does not a summer make.

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· #49 · Dec 13, 2008

Check this thread, discussing a 1956 J. Press ad for PLEATED pants: https://askandyaboutclothes.com/community/showthread.php?t=49091

Almost any argument can be proved looking at only some of the evidence. Here, however, I think when one looks at ALL the evidence, it supports the idea that trad is a myth (how else do you explain the store that bests embodies "trad "at the time that best embodies "trad" selling the product that is the antithesis of what people claim IS "trad?").

Or, to paraphrase W.S.:

Let be be finale of seem, the only trad is the trad of our pipe dreams.

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· #56 · Dec 14, 2008

White Birch said:
Having been to a few graduations of my cousins and friends at Ivy League schools, specifically UPenn, Princeton, and Yale.
...
There is no mythology, you just haven't been to the right places. Trust me.

FWIW, I'm a graduate of UPenn, then went on to grad school at Georgetown. Outside of HYP, you're not going to get much more of a snobby/eastern elite group than with the crowds at those places.

My observation: that the crowds at Penn and G'town, including the old timers (I too attended plenty of graduations), dress just about the same as everyone else.

Maybe I "haven't been to the right places" as you suggest. Wouldn't be the first time...

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· #57 · Dec 14, 2008 (Edited)

AldenPyle said:
In the period after 1954 or so, the "Ivy Look" was a youth oriented style that put a heavy emphasis on the very same styling details that the "Trad" purists (one of which I am not) do. That's no myth, as I am sure you must admit. Prior to that time, odd trousers with English style forward pleats were certainly worn on Ivy League and other campuses and for many years may have even been considered THE correct university style. In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised if, circa 1950, most dress pants at Press and other similar stores were pleated nor that they remained in stock in later years.

For any so called tradition, be it clothing or Thanksgiving or engagement rings or whatever, there is a natural tendency for people to exaggerate an unchanging continuity of customs and no doubt at various times participants on this forum have fallen prey to this tendency. You can call this mythology if you want, but this mythology has been part of the natural shoulder style almost since its inception perhaps because, youth oriented though it might have been, the natural shoulder look always styled itself as a throwback to pre-war styles. Consider this ad that the same store ran in the campus paper in 1960

To whatever degree that "Trad" is BS, its a line of BS with a long pedigree.

I'm not sure I follow. This ad indicates the store has a "trad" department that is separate from the rest of the store. But the trad store's featured item is a corduroy suit. I don't think a corduroy suit is what the folks here consider trad, do you?

I think this ad supports my theory that what is "trad" to folks on AAAC has very little to do with what was once called "trad" (or, put differently, what folks call "trad" here is just some mythology).

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· #60 · Dec 15, 2008

Topsider said:
:icon_headagainstwal

:stupid:

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· #62 · Dec 15, 2008 (Edited)

Where were you cord suit fans when the membership of this board was nearly universally panning them and insisting they're not trad at all?

https://askandyaboutclothes.com/community/showthread.php?t=57868&highlight=corduroy+suit

White Birch has an excuse - he was looking for a date for the junior prom (should've gone with a more standard BB suit than the cord...). However, the rest of you fans had your chance to step up and missed it...

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· #67 · Dec 15, 2008

WNH, you're kidding, right? This board is full of people who spend hundreds of dollars on a single pair of shoes (how trad!.../sarcasm) and, with a straight face, advise each other to buy $500 blazers. Yet, when it comes to a thread on cord suits, a total of 3 out of 24 participants own one. Of the 24 posts on the thread, about half said, outright, cord suits are awful. The other half don't think they're so bad...but barely any actually own one.

The point I was making is that what "trads" wore in 1950 is totally different than what "trads" wear today. That's supported by the fact that in a discussion on this board about cord suits, barely 10% (3 of 24) have one.

Capice?

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· #68 · Dec 15, 2008

Topsider said:
:deadhorse-a:

Come on, topsider: you may disagree with me, but you've got to give credit where it's due. The "I'm with stupid" icon was perfect given your icon...

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· #70 · Dec 15, 2008

As usual, WNH, you're being reasonable.

I give. You win.

This comment you made is one I found particularly agreeable:

"Trads" in the 1950's did wear different things than "trads" wear today, namely darted suits and pleated trousers, but I'd argue that "trad" then and "trad" now are two different, though related, things, today's "trad" being a refinement of the "trad" of a few decades ago.

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· #72 · Dec 15, 2008

Topsider said:
I'm not sure what you're suggesting, that you think I'm stupid? Correct me if I've misinterpreted.

If that's what I'm supposed to give you credit for, don't hold your breath.

No, topsider. I wasn't intending to call you stupid, I was intending to mock your use of an emoticon.

If you don't think using an emoticon is childish and dumb, then I'm afraid you're beyond my assistance.

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