The problem with British suits...

... is the fact that the British insist on having their pleats on their trousers the wrong way round (and they even dare call them forward pleats! bah!). I dislike pleats in the first place, but having them mirrored! Annoying!

Some thoughts on clothing

I ordered Nicholas Antongiavanni's The Suit a while back and apparently it arrived today. Too bad I was leaving Helsinki in the morning and when I checked the emails on the train, it was already too late to pick the book up from Sanomatalo. I should be reading Organizational Behaviour for the Work Psychology & Leadership exam right now, but instead I've been reading Antongiavanni's articles online. And I must say that I have fairly high expectations for the book right now.

It's obvious that I don't agree with everything he writes, but that's not an issue. I actually prefer when instead of being all politically correct people actually offer something provocative to bite into. Especially when the person has demonstrated a fair bit of knowledge on the subject. And in this case I would think that the aforementioned author is quite knowledgable in said field.

Anyway, some things I don't agree with him are, for instance, that men shouldn't wear black suits. His argument ran along the lines of black being such a dominant color that it eats up all other colors. I personally, however, like black suits for the crispiness and contrast. And besides, formal wear is something that is worn less often these days, so I don't really feel that tuxedos and tailcoats own the exclusive right for black any more (ok, dark blue might, according to some sources, be an even more preferrable color for a tux than black...).

Then there's the issue of stripes and tapered suits. The issue with pinstripes or chalkstripes is understandable in the context of tall men. I won't argue with that. But I happen to like stripes and because I don't need to please anyone except myself, I'm fairly content in wearing stripes. The second issue was with slim suits. I've already given my views on slim suits before and I don't really like this ultra-slimness. But Antongiavanni suggests in one article that tall men should prefer more cloth over less cloth. I would prefer to take the route of doing some exercising and trying to develop a somewhat, shall we say, bulkier physique to compensate for the tallness. And I would also offer the point that if a slim and tall man wears suits with more cloth and which don't bring out the physique of the wearer, there may be a problem that the man is lost inside this big pile of cloth. And that's not a pretty sight.

Granted, I'm sure that Antongiavanni has mastered the art of clothing and that his suggestions are very good and knowledgable. However, I personally prefer some things over others and my personal preference overrides other things, where possible, and I feel that instead of trying to hide the slim and tall body, effort should be spent into developing the body itself and then embracing the good features, not trying to hide the slimness with various trickery. And as said, I like pinstripes...

Is this it for tailcoats?

I just finished reading an article from a few years back by Nicholas Antongiavanni on the status of tailcoats. I have to agree that the tailcoat is one of the most brilliant items of clothing today. I personally don't own one, but I've worn one on some occasions. But Nicholas outlines some points and trends in fashion and style and without a doubt I can believe that tailcoats will be all but extinct in the near future. Americans already consider the Tux to be the most formal thing. At least the rather small group which I've talked to regarding this seemed to believe so...

But Finland seems to be perhaps one of the last standing bastions of the tailcoats. There are essentially two types of white tie events in Finland these days; the ball held by the President of Finland on the independence day and then academic ceremonies. Even in the student world, white tie is the preferred form of dress for the annual celebrations for different guilds and student bodies. Naturally there's an increasing trend to use a dark suit with this latter event, considering that acquiring a complete white tie attire will be fairly steap to your average student who looks to stear clear of loans and finance his/her studies with the dismal student allowance and by working on the side.

As such, however, be the tailcoat as brilliant as it is, I will not see myself purchasing one anytime soon. Unfortunately.

(Oh, and I finally got around to ordering Mr. Antongiavanni's book, The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style.)

Cufflinks

Can't remember if I've noted this before, but cufflinks are quite possibly the best things in the world. They're the extra mile towards differentiating yourself from the masses. Especially useful for work-related things. And especially disregarded and ignored by most. But nonetheless, I think that in certain situations it's extremely important to quietly give out the message that you're the type of person who also focuses on the small details on the quest to perfection.

An interesting statistic which I've come across in the past six or seven months is that just about all management consultants appear to wear double cuffs and cufflinks, about half of the venture capitalists I've seen wear double cuffs and cufflinks, and just about no ICT consultant wears cufflinks. Naturally the situation may be different, but this is just something I've noticed recently when looking at the appearance of the people who've been lecturing to us at school or at work-related seminars. Also gives some food for thought; at least I'll be wearing cufflinks to all future interviews...

Jeans

Ok, so the last post was about suits. Today I went looking for new jeans from Salo (yes, I know, I could've picked a better town for this...) and it turns out that getting jeans is incredibly difficult. You can't just go in and tell them that "I want a size 152 dark grey suit with slight pinstripes in a slim cut, side vents, two buttons and notched lapels". Or I guess you could, but they'd be lost. Or I'd have to learn the jeans jargon.

Anyway, after 15 minutes I got sort of desperate and decided to just go to the next store and just take something that didn't have holes in the pockets (see? I'm quite an easy customer after all). So now I bought some random jeans that didn't have holes in the pockets. The entire purchasing process was also quite interesting. When I came into the store the girl started asking what brand I wanted. Brand is a completely secondary thing, in my opinion. Especially considering that they weren't even selling any especially prestigious brands. I'm sure they make a decent buck with the inflated prices, but this itself is an interesting case, as I some blokes from the Boston Consulting Group were giving a lecture a while back and they talked about the trend of trading up. Trading up is essentially the phenomenon of people focusing on some things that are important to them and shelling out the bucks to buy the premium product (or brand) and then scaling down in something else to make up for the dent. This in turn leads to the top, high-end brands and the bottom low-cost suppliers to lead the way and leaving the guys in the middle to deal with a slow and painful death.

Secondly, who the hell actually wears the jeans that they sell these days? I mean, there's only a marginal group of jeans from the catalog that you could actually wear to work. And what is it with the ultra-slimness? This iteration of the ultra-slim trend in clothing has been going on for a year or two now, wouldn't it be time to ditch it once and for all and banish it for all eternity? Ultra-slimness in clothes is not in any way aesthetic - not in suits, not in jeans. Period.

Looks like this is turning into a rant and I could go blasting away at a lot of stuff, but I think instead I'll just stop now...

The problems with suits...

The problem with suits is multifold. Essentially getting a good suit and looking great in it is a long-term process involving sweat, money, and time. Or that's the conclusion that I've come to. Granted, I don't have any first hand experience.

The problem is this: to look incredibly good, you first have to invest time and effort into getting your body into good shape. Then you have to invest more time and effort into maintaining yourself in good shape. Although one might argue that this should be done anyway, so it's not that big a deal. But at least to me it takes some work. I mean, it's not like I'm in that bad a shape, but that's mainly thanks to buying some free weights for myself. So now I just daily do a bunch of sit ups, push ups, squats, throw around some hand weights, etc. But sometimes there may be a week or two during which I do nothing. And this year I've been to the gym at work... Oh... Three times? Pathetic.

Then the problem with suits. The suits that come from the rack rarely fit just right. Then there's the whole process of adjusting the suit, or should be. I haven't been arsed to, since the 152 sized suits with a slim cut for the jacket suit me (no pun intended) decently enough. And every time you buy a suit, it should be the same process. And what if you change brands? You'll have to check the sizing again.

So then... The money. Bespoke. Costs like hell, but should be worth it. Now you have to find a tailor. Then you, according to some guidelines, need to have at least two to three jackets/suits made to see the quality and get to grips with your tailor and for the tailor to get things just the way they should be. Apparently they'll naturally create - draw, cut, sew - the suits to fit you just right. But there is some small variance.

And then the issue with personal taste. Being the slightly slim but tall person I am, and also been putting on some mussle mass, I would want my suits to have form fitting jackets and a sharp shoulder line. Something you'd imagine that a somewhat sporty suit would have. Except that it shouldn't be too clean, i.e. the shoulder padding should look just ever so slightly as if it'd form according to my shoulders, but still flatter the torso by giving a sort of athletic look. Without too much padding.

Difficult? You bet. And without being able to drop two grand a suit (in pounds sterling...)? Doubly so.