Photo Credit: Ralph Lauren Ad
As I still struggle to return to good health, I sincerely hope to be posting regularly soon. That be said, I thought I would post a photo from Ralph Lauren to demonstrate a cream trouser and tweed jacket combination. I many of the preppy/trad world does not approve, and many do not approve of Ralph but I still like and enjoy the look. The tweed jacket in this photograph isn't bad either.
38 comments:
The jacket definitely looks at least one size too small.
Very nice...hope that you are feeling much better.
WINTER WHITE BY ANY OTHER NAME....
Idiosyncratic dressing is common enough among WASPy types who, true to character, inevitably come up with practical and often charming excuses for their sartorial mismatches (i.e., the duffle coat worn over the dinner jacket-"It's the only thing that keeps the cold off me while we're waiting for the car"; or in the case of the late
11th Duke of Devonshire, who wore pale lemon yellow socks (his racing colors)with his bespoke lounge suits and laced oxfords-"They're warm and no one else wants them so they're wonderfully cheap."
If you must wear white trousers year round, be they Devonshire cream, bleached whale bone, cement or, God forbid, "winter white," you should find a clever excuse for it or winter in the southern hemisphere where it would be summer and your white pants swell.
Of course, meeting the season by matching your tweeds with a pair of sensible grey flannels or sturdy tan cavalry twills would be simpler, far less conspicuous and more traditional. In a word - WASP
Good WASPs do not choose their clothes by mimicking runway models at fashion shows. Rather they select sensible, well-made, inconspicuous clothes that may be worn year after year without considering whether they are "fashionable" by the haute monde.
I really like this look. Hope you're on the mend, Richard.
The "trousers" seem a little immodest, don't they? They are a little too tight in the crotch to be tasteful. Also, the trousers are so short that the model looks like he is getting ready for a flood. The point you are missing is that true WASPs have a relaxed, casual approach to dressing: practical concerns override style.
Check out this article:
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/where_the_wasps_are/
A critical look at the tv show Gossip Girls and the myth of WASP dominance in NYC.
The trousers are indeed too short and too tight.
The body of the jacket is indeed too short, as are its sleeves.
The shoes appear to be cluttered to go with those trousers.
No.
Nice. Wishing you a speedy and healthy recovery.
Selfishly wishing you a speedy recovery so that we can have something good to read again.
You should give up now while you're down. Obviously you are running out of ideas and even those are not really WASPy are they? Ralph Lauren is Jewish not a Gentile, therefore his is not a WASP and shouldn't be making WASPy fashion. Plus it's all Made in China.
The last comment it's a little, ehrmmm..., racist? maybe?
The next to last poster is racist, rude, and possibly not too smart. I wish it was he (or she) who was sick --hopefully something to do with their finger joint so they couldn't type anymore.
Is that supposed to mean that Ben Silver is also not WASPy because he happens to be Jewish?
Nonsense.
For the uninitiated:
http://www.bensilver.com/
I like cream pants in the fall/winter. Call it what you will, but they make for nice change of pace.
Richard, Where are you????
Kathie
Richard - where are you????
sorry richo, i didn't mean to kick you down while sick. I am not anti-Semitic. Ralph used to do WASP very well 20-25 years ago but not now. Its for people who read this blog and take themselves too seriously. like people in california. people who were born in the 1980's and now wear kelly green and call themselves prep. with flip flops and euro trash eyewear D&G etc
Okay, Richard - this is enough!! Are you okay? At least have Mrs Richard give us an update!!
Kathie
I kid you not, Richard: We really miss your postings.
Get well quick, my friend.
Technically the comment about RL not being WASPY is true; Ralph Lauren is not a white Anglican saxon protestant… that being said i like his clothing
Today, can one be a Black Catholic WASP? I would say "yes", since WASPishness has become a matter of style, taste, bearing, dress, and mentality.
I would argue that the term WASP is being used more and more in a metaphorical sense, since many WASPs may not have Anglo-Saxon roots or be Protestant, although most are, indeed, White. (The term in its original meaning is redundant since Anglo-Saxons are White).
Maybe Richo lost his membership at the Country Club?
Richo where are you?????? Sick, in hospital. if so get well soon.
PS RL is no WASP. He doesn't even play squash. His ancestors are from Eastern Europe!
Then, the Kennedy family, is not WASP?, 'cause they are catholics, not protestants. But for me, John John is one of the icons of the WASP fashion.
I really think that the term WASP, now is more oriented to fashion, social class, or attitude. Not oriented to where your ancestors are.
I have a friend in Boston. He's catholic, his grandparents are spanish (from Barcelona), and if you can see how he's dressed... wow!! It's pure WASP style.
you are confusing waspy and an anglophile; wasp has everything to do with your heritage and your religion. JFK jr was not a wasp either...
Language changes.
According to Merriam-Webster, today, WASP is especially used to refer to "a member of the dominant and the most privileged class of people in the United States" and the White+Anglo-Saxon+Protestant are no longer the exclusive defining features of the term.
Anything that memeber of the Wasp 101 Society can do to help?
Perhaps we could at least share some home remedies with you if we know what's troubling you.
Once again, best wishes for a speedy recovery.
THE END OF WASP 101- CLASS IS OVER
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
This blogger paid a genuine compliment to WASPs and their taste in clothes by posting more or, at times, less convincing examples of the ilk. He has accepted accolades and stinging critisms alike in his effort to bring attention to his own interpretations of the WASP look.
Illness, disinterest or weariness of withering critism has silenced him.
He is no purist. He needn't be and he is not alone. WASP style continues to be appreciated, imitated, carefully copied and often reinterpreted by many- from well regarded American coturiers like Michael Kors (who offers a splendid, bright plaid jacket a la Mad Men this season) to ready made shops catering to the young snappers like J. Crew who boast about their Yorkshire tweed jackets with patch and flap pockets (at Brooks prices!)and skinny striped ties your father might have worn at college.
Of course, Ralph Lauren does his part too. A dicussion whether his house has done more good than harm in introducing a new generation to WASP style is for another post and probably an entire blog. His clothes can sometimes be theatrical or dandified and his polo player logo as large as a medieval breast plate! However, I think he should be given credit, in particular, for carefully copying earlier WASP staples like the undarted camel hair polo coat with cuffed sleeves and the plain, navy, thick-ribbed, boat neck, varsity sweater (Why on earth did Spaulding stop making these?), thereby preserving them from extinction whilst Brooks went on its roller coaster ride with Marks and Spencer (the Wal-Mart of Britain-selling dog food and dresses under one roof) and J. Press offered poorly-tailored darted overcoats. Some of us remember those dark days before Brooks turned the corner with their new Anglophile Italian owners and J. Press finally offered a voluminous polo coat in the fall again.
True blue bloods still go to their father's (and often grandfather's) little tailors who they address as Mr. So-and-so and who call them by their Christian names; get their first flannel, patch pocket, sack school blazers at Brooks (which now have to be made-to-order by Mr. Greenfield because the ready-mades don't hold up); continue to patronize their campus shops for grosgrain watchbands decades after graduation; and know that shaggy dog refers to a sweater and not a pet. They may even break their own rules about unnatural fibers and buy flat front J. Press kahkis in poly cotton blend because nostalgia trumps quality and they've always bought them there.
These days, WASPs and those who want to dress like them must do more than perserve inherited relics (usually tweeds and ties survive); have their father's suits retailored (Bernard Weatherill in New York used to do this beautifully) and telephone their man at Brooks or Press for new shirts twice a year (Their measurements are on file.). Of course, they do all of these things. They also:
Glance at Etro's (appaulingly priced) witty, tweed jackets with Chipp-like linings with nostalgia; serupticiously snap up old Sero oxford cloth button down shirts and threadbare Norman Hilton jackets donated to the church bazaar and they PRAY--pray that the local campus shop will continue to unearth forgotten old stock McGeorge shetlands and Bass weejuns tucked away on remote shelves in the storeroom; that their damned Methuselahian great-uncle will die and leave him the contents of his clothes press; and perhaps even that someday Encylcopedia Britannica will create an idiosyncratic but meaningful entry revealing who supplied Abercrombie and Fitch with their tweed jackets in the middle of the twentieth century.
"The work begins anew. The hopes rises again and the dream lives on." Goodbye Richard.
Marks and Spencer the Wal-Mart of Britain???
Marks and Sparks is still a source of Harris Tweed Jackets and traditional tattersall and windowpane check twill shirts in autumn tones.
That doesn't sound like Wal-Mart to me.
Etro?
Give me Marks and Spencer any day!
Dear Anon,
The upside is that despite the disappearance of black-and-white tv, dial telephones, mechanical adding machines, wringer washing machines, disposable flashbulbs, white cloth bandaids, one-flavor-only toothpaste, non-pull-tab beercans,etc., it is still possible for me to get an cotton oxford cloth button-down shirt, a regimental stripe necktie, chinos and twills, and penny loafers fifty years after I first adopted that particular uniform. Possible thanks to the Brothers Brooks, J. Press, L.L. Bean, and yes, even thanks to Sears Roebuck (disguised as Lands' End). That, sir, is something for which to be thankful. I can even find AA four-o-sixes, a reasonable replica of the frames I wore 50 years ago, Parker Jotters, and besaides the coffee today is certainly better than it was im 1958! A lot to be thankful for.
THE VERY UN-WASP ONE STOP SHOP
Yes, the Wal-Mart of Britain- following the "everything under one roof" philosophy. No WASP I know would buy their tweeds or shirts from the same shop that sells them appliances, toys, maternity wear and lunch to go. Although it is true that some very aristocratic Brits brag they buy their underwear from M & S as a nod to their egalitarianism.
M & S may well sell jackets made up in Harris Tweed (although I confess I have seen some very cheaply constructed glued and fused jackets made of Harris Tweed cloth as quality of cloth and quality of construction are different matters)and they may even sell made-to-measure shirts in every pattern under the sun to wear underneath them, probably near the bathroom accessories or perhaps near the televisions, but this does not a WASP shop make.
Whatever the merits of M & S ready mades, under their stewardship (1988-2001) the quality and range of Brooks Brothers offerings(a very WASP shop indeed) declined sharply. This view is held by Brooks loyalists and old guard tailors there alike who have stronger words than mine. Just compare the catalogs from then and after the del vecchio family took over or better yet stroll into the Madison Avenue shop and look around for yourself- a transformation or restoration depending on your point of view.
M & S was trusted with the ownership of a great American WASP establishment and determinedly tried to destroy its discriminating WASP identity and turn it into another mass market department store like M & S. Long time Brooks devotees nearly lost a cherished family friend.
A few words about my "glance" at Etro tweed jackets- Etro has produced some brightly patterned, tweed jackets with interesting, witty linings that remind me of some of the more spirited cloths and lively jacket linings once available at Chipp, and for some older readers, Lord of New York. I need not defend the WASP credentials of these shops that catered to younger American WASPS of a certain generation. Although the cut and length of the Etro tweeds are decidely young, the quality of the soft tailoring is excellent particularly in the soft shoulders-an important feature in both WASP and Neopolitan tailoring-- and is superior to that found in many ready made jackets.
Etro tweed jackets are not for Cable Car/Andover Shop purists but neither are Marks and Spencer jackets. Moreover, when judged on the merits of quality of cloth, quality of tailoring, pattern and retro style Etro is imcomparable to the lesser offerings of M & S.
"Give me Marks and Spencer any day!" I suppose that's a defendable position for a Marks and Spencer shareholder but it is a harder sell if one insists on the WASP virtues of quality cloth and a good fit. Next, I suppose I'll read about someone's purchase of swell tweed and tattersall shirt from Wal-Mart. Good God!
1958 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR or THE LAMENT OF THE WASP
True, one need not travel back in time to find the articles of clothing you mention. Indeed, my post argues, to the contrary, that some contemporary American couturiers, mass-market clothiers, and, at present, our beloved Brothers and Press (now greatly improved and restored)offer attractive solutions amenable to brother WASPs. Thanks be to God.
Even so, I cannot help but notice that my old tweeds, weejuns made in Maine and nowhere else (many times resoled), and ever-durable McGeorge shetlands are without contemporary peer in quality. I am unashamedly wistful for a Brooks Brothers where a young Norman Hilton (who made many jackets for them) wouldn't dream of darting a jacket. The best fitting, most well made clothes I have are inherited many from makers and shops that are ghosts.
As to your tongue-in-cheek lament of various outmoded things from Christmases past- I have no passion for these with the possbile exception of my unwavering support for the rotary dail telephone - one of which stubbornly remains in my kitchen and I confess pleasure at hearing the sturdy "clunk" of the receiver when conversation ends.
I don't mind modernity a bit. I live in it for goodness sakes. I do mind a decline in quality. It betrays a carelessness and results in the culture of the disposable. Good suits just don't wear out- or shouldn't.
My first new suit was one of my father's oldest ones. My dad took me to have it retailored for me. I still remember the old Greek tailor saying "They don't make cloth like this anymore." It is from Brooks Brothers, made of plain, dense, bluey grey English cloth that was bullet-proof--a three button sack with flat front pants. The jacket fit to my shoulders like a sweater. It still hangs in my closet. Can it copied? Yes. Can it be replaced? Not without a time machine.
Best,
Thankful.
Dear Anon,
GREAT posts! I like the way u write. You should have your own blog or maybe take over this one if Richard has given up. Keep praying! You should join Ask Andy About Clothes Forums if your not a member already. Their into details like u. Cheers!
P.S. I agree Etro's a little out there but Marks and Spencer SUCKS!
shall i begin the funeral?
it's not nice to leave your readers hanging! :)
Are you really surprised Suzanne? DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD! You guys need to come on over to ASK ANDY FORUMS where we know about real WASP style and don't wear cream pants in the fall. This guy was a joke!
R.I.P.
Richard,
Not polite to leave a beautiful woman waiting. That is ungentlemanly.
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