After the underwhelming response to yesterday's post, I think I had better get back to basics before I'm left with the corpse of a blog on my hands.
Someone posed this question over on AAAT a couple of days ago: "Why is a 3 button sack jacket better than a regular old 2 button jacket?" It seemed to be an ernest question, which is nice. Very often questions like this one are really just traps intended to make the answerer look foolish.
The best way to answer this question is just to say "Because it is more trad." People might get irritated because they think you are being circular, but there is simply no coherent, straight forward answer to such a question. The bottom line is that nothing in the trad wardrobe is better. It's just trad.
This is easy enough to understand, but it does get harder to swallow when talking about cordovan shoes. These shoes, as you've noticed, are expensive. It seems reasonable to ask why they are better, but you will regret trying to answer that one. They aren't better. They're just trad.
This, I think, is the reason that all efforts on the trad board to talk only about clothes are doomed to failure. Clothes, especially trad clothes, without their connotative attachments are ultimately meaningless. And talking about them in that way is just too boring to bear.
14 comments:
Although you are right on the money with respect to 3/2 sacks, I respectfully disagree about the cordovan shoes. I think they ARE better. 1) The leather itself is much higher quality than your average "calf" and 2)the purveyors of cordovan shoes are universally top quality outfits who put out a superior product in terms of craftsmanship.
I wouldn't have believed it until I tried them myself. They ARE expensive, though. Time will tell the true value.
Naval Gent
Oh, I forgot to mention...
Great Blog. I enjoy your writing.
Naval Gent
Navel Gent, Thanks for looking at and commenting on the post. And thanks for the compliment on the blog.
I think disagreement is fun.
I'm no critic of the cordovan shoe. I own several pair and wear them almost every day. They do have some great things about them. I like the greasy luster they have and their resistance to gouging is a big plus. But they have their limitations as well. Their stiffness can make them uncomfortable at times, they are hot in the summer, and they loosen up in unpredictable ways. I think that if it were as universally prized as it is by us, more of the British and Italian shoemakers would have embraced cordovan.
I have my own sentimental reasons for liking cordovan. Nothing earth shaking, but I'll probably write about it soon. I'm running out of topics.
Thanks again,
lw
A sack suit and a pair cordovan shoes do seem the essential prerequisites to Club Trad, of which I’m a card carrier.
After some thought, I wonder might this be easiest to explain in the context of fanaticism, whereby strict rules and intolerance bind insiders to certain standards. How incomprehensible and foolish this all must appear to those outside the group?
Chops, President Elect of the Trad Governing Body.
Chops,
Congratulations on the Trad Governing Body thing.
Incomprehensible and foolish it seems to most of the members of my immediate family. But they've learned to laugh about it.
Strict rules and intolerance do seem to come into play, but in the end it's all about the look, yes?
I'm with Chops on this and that anchor cranker who weighed in earlier.
As a card carrying member of the Union League Club of Chicago and Philadelphia (just don't ask about my writing those bad checks a while back), Cordovan shoes are key amongst those of us in the know at the club.
Whilst I will leave my Lobbs outside of my locker while I work out (lest the smell of my shoe leather impart itself upon my Anderson and Shepard), I would never leave my cordos out 'cause the bastards in my club would steal them in a New York second.
I will add this, in 1985, I purchased a pr of Brooks Cordovan wing tips. They were around $350 then. I still have them today after unknown number of resolings and one over haul by Alden. Horse butt is an amazing thing.
The problem with discussing the "connotative attachments" of trad clothing is that nobody can agree on what, if anything, it all means.
This leads to all sorts of bizarre arguments, which can be amusing for a time but ultimately become tedious.
Although the recent efforts by the English guy are noteworthy if only for their grandiosity.
As I read Mr. Tee-Hee Aren't I Clever's latest material (on the Style Forum and Film Noir Buff) I thought, OK, let's accept the premise, that this guy set up an elaborate Internet con in 2004 and has roped us all in on a completely bogus "Trad" idea.
That means he's been working on the operation for four years.
Four years of plotting and preparation.
And he's calling US suckers?
PLS, I don't know if private connotations are such a problem, though they can lead to tedious discussions as you suggest. I think they are just part of the can of worms. Maybe the bigger problem is that we talk too much about things that aren't worth talking that much about.
And you're right about the english patient.
lw
Circular indeed!
'Because it's "Trad" ' means nothing.
You got "Trad" off the internet.
Did you think that it just grew there like a plum?
All man made things are made by somebody. "Trad" included. Problem?
Why not just enjoy it. Why fret over if it's real or not? If you wanted reality you'd switch off your computer, no?
Best -
Russell Street.
And he appears. The creator and the destroyer. The sunrise and the sunset. The ying and the wang.
Look what you have wrought. Like Frankenstein, you will be undone by your own creation.
warmest,
lw
I promise I'm not as dark as I pretend.
Not the creator, but the promoter.
Not the destroyer but the improver.
There will still be a "Trad" when I'm done. Promise.
It's bigger now than before & it can be made smarter now than before too.
The schtick I do on the Net. has a point. It works.
And I alone am happy to gurn and caper to get results. And results are my only interest.
Enough of this. I really do like your blog. More photos?
Best -
Jim.
Jim/Russell/simon,
Please see remarks under "Ivy for Everyone." I'm no good at the 3 conversations at once with the same person thing.
lw
Will do.
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