Top Hat Good

March 27, 2012 7:49 PM

Guide to buying a top hat - Charles Henry Wolfenbloode gives advice on buying a topper.
posted by unliteral (81 comments total)

Love this...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 7:52 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was thinking about top hats just today! Wow! Thanks!
posted by SPrintF at 8:06 PM on March 27, 2012

"I will not comment about how he wore his OBE"

Too true.
posted by honest knave at 8:07 PM on March 27, 2012 [5 favorites]

that is the greatest set of FPP tags I have ever seen.
posted by xbonesgt at 8:10 PM on March 27, 2012 [6 favorites]

Finally, a fashion blog that gets me!
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:15 PM on March 27, 2012

"I will not comment about how he wore his OBE"

Well, I knew it was bad when he was wearing his condom on his right breast.
posted by eriko at 8:26 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, mourning bands are just that: for mourning and it really is illogical to even wear one at all with normal top hats but everyone has forgotten what and why it’s there in the first place.

I don't even know what any of this means, but it is amazing. After reading this article I feel like there are people who own them almost like pets? They need grooming and care and specialty boxes for travelling, and cost thousands of quid for bits of fur. AMAZING.
posted by jetlagaddict at 8:27 PM on March 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

Oh my goodness, I have a folding top hat from my youthful dreams of opening as a magician at the pantages. It is just wonderful if just a smidgin small and it's the very rare costume party that I can get away with wearing it. Popping it open is an incredible snapping sensation.
posted by sammyo at 8:30 PM on March 27, 2012

My hat is off to this man.
posted by bongo_x at 8:30 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I assumed, from the name "Wolfenbloode", that it surely must be a joke, but it totally isn't. Now I'm actually dismayed that I'd have to pay extra for a topper that fits my big ol' haid.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:36 PM on March 27, 2012

I was thinking about top hats just today! Wow! Thanks!


Ditto, i was looking at some for a photo shoot idea, and while i know a bit about fashion, this is damn near obsessive. O_O
posted by usagizero at 8:38 PM on March 27, 2012

I've got a vintage top hat (poppable, to my delight! Yes, the author of this article would sneer at me... :) ), which only needs the ribbon edging replaced. Someday soon...
posted by IAmBroom at 8:39 PM on March 27, 2012

Aha, so that is the origin of the "typewriter hat" image - it's a hat conformateur.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 8:47 PM on March 27, 2012

Now you tell me that I have a mourner's top hat. Good thing no one around here knows (or cares) as much as this good fellow.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:52 PM on March 27, 2012

I assumed, from the name "Wolfenbloode", that it surely must be a joke
It's not his real name. It's the name of his academic robe tailoring business. His real name is Charles Rupert Tsua.
posted by unliteral at 8:54 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

this is damn near obsessive.

Yet at one point this was all common knowledge.
posted by bongo_x at 9:07 PM on March 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

Ugh. I met people like him at Oxford who were obsessed with the minutiae of Sub Fusc. The kind of people you would cross the street to avoid, frankly.
posted by unSane at 9:07 PM on March 27, 2012

Yet at one point this was all common knowledge.


To the richest 1% of the population.
posted by unSane at 9:07 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

(and an obsession with it was the surest sign, then as now, they you were very definitely not in that 1%)
posted by unSane at 9:08 PM on March 27, 2012

Really, you don’t think common people could tell a nice top hat from a cheap one, and what a mourning band was? I don’t think that liking clothes or tradition is a sure sign of a crusher of the lower classes.
posted by bongo_x at 9:17 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Jesus Christ, do you know *anything* about what life was like for the working class in Victorian England?
posted by unSane at 9:45 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have been doing it wrong all this time. *Commits Top Hat Sepukku*
posted by ooga_booga at 9:47 PM on March 27, 2012

This is a fascinating blog, thanks for posting it. There is so much basic textile and clothing vocabulary I don't know!
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:48 PM on March 27, 2012

I made an early comment of "Christ, what an asshole" which was deleted, so I'll express my sentiment again, more elaborately.

It's kind of disgusting when people fetishize the trappings of a bygone era that was so completely defined by class distinction, zero social mobility, and hereditary privilege. The proliferation of minutely different styles of hats for different occasions was pretty much designed to keep the rabble out, since you needed not just the money to buy all of them, but the knowledge of which one to use when.

Christ, this guy even lovingly writes "Indeed, a gentleman would risk being spat at in the street if he did not wear a hat in the past!", and assumes the outraged tone so typical of the period:

"Invented by a Frenchman of all people"

"How times have changed. Now, you would find it difficult to see anyone wearing a hat these days as the continuous de-formalisation of dress and manners slowly creep in. The rot has set in and in due course, a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops would be considered too formal for businesswear… But I digress."

The rest from the high street are only suitable for the vulgar use...

Of course, this takes an absurd turn when you realize that the guy doing the fetishising is Asian, and would in no way be accepted by the pompous, racist, classist assholes of yore he seems to smitten with.

So, to summarize, "Christ, what an asshole".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:51 PM on March 27, 2012 [9 favorites]

Yet at one point this was all common knowledge.

I'm aware of that, but to us now, it's not needed knowledge. While not fashion, it's similar how people know computers, or some such. Not exactly surely, but i'm half asleep and hoping my point gets across.

you would find it difficult to see anyone wearing a hat these days as the continuous de-formalisation of dress and manners slowly creep in. The rot has set in

Yeah, i despise this attitude really. While i normally like Tim Gunn, this whole crusade against what they keep calling slobification really bugs the hell out of me. Fashion changes, and those who say we should stick to the old ways just reminds me of the people who cling to old ways just because they are older. I also hear it mostly from those who make more in a month than most people do in a year, and while i do know you can dress well no matter your income, i also know that unless you fit their narrow definition of what they consider good enough, you are a slob.

That said, i do like top hats and such, but i think that is the old goth in me. ;) I also want to say how i saw a photo of a lawyer who was protesting by wearing a hoodie under his suit coat, and the hood looked to be a part of the jacket, and thought that i hoped that some good designer runs with that idea and it takes off. Jackets with hoods, reminds me of older styles where hoods were more common.
posted by usagizero at 10:04 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

The more elegant (and proper) way is to wear it dead straight.

Who the hell is this guy to tell Fred Astaire how to wear a top hat?
posted by spasm at 10:13 PM on March 27, 2012 [6 favorites]

Here we have a person with a hobby that they do a huge amount of research and then write up exhaustive treatments of, for fellow internet hobbyists. Isn't this in the grand tradition of websites of yore? If you don't find his hobby interesting, no sweat, but isn't it a beautiful thing that someone is out there teaching himself how to hand-sew waistcoats according to the dicta of Beau Brummell or whatever?

This clothing stuff was oppressive when it had the backing of an oppressive establishment. But now that backing is gone, for all practical purposes. (The establishment has moved on to pay attention to different status signifiers.) Now we are free and able to just appreciate and enjoy the historical interest, the artisanship, etc. of these clothes.

If he were writing a blog about how to get your costume exactly right for a Civil War re-enactment, with tons of detail about how he's bought antique hand-tools online so he can get the buttons right, wouldn't we embrace that kind of idiosyncratic hobbyist website? Nerds of the world unite, is what I say.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:33 PM on March 27, 2012 [20 favorites]

And we have a new word for rulesy fashion jerks: conformateur.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:35 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

e.g., see some of his other recent posts:
I got this antique buttonhole maker for when I am learning tailoring by making myself formalwear.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:36 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

LobsterMitten: "If he were writing a blog about how to get your costume exactly right for a Civil War re-enactment, with tons of detail about how he's bought antique hand-tools online so he can get the buttons right, wouldn't we embrace that kind of idiosyncratic hobbyist website? Nerds of the world unite, is what I say."

Indeed. But we might not be quite so sympathetic if the person in question expressed his yearning for the antebellum south, where people knew their place, if you know what I mean, and there wasn't all this, well, uppityness.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:39 PM on March 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

Does anybody still wear a hat?

I'll drink to that
posted by munchingzombie at 11:09 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Of course, this takes an absurd turn when you realize that the guy doing the fetishising is Asian, and would in no way be accepted by the pompous, racist, classist assholes of yore he seems to smitten with.

HM I WONDER IF MAYBE THERE'S SOME HUMOR!??????

No you're right of course, impossible. How could I even think of it.

The irony of getting all "he is just a judgey mcjudgersons!" is pretty intense.
posted by kavasa at 11:13 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Jesus Christ, do you know *anything* about what life was like for the working class in Victorian England?

Wow, what a bizarre response. I’m not even sure what to say, mostly because I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, or your point. I do know a little about it, but I don’t think that a guy’s interest in past formal fashion celebrates the poor state of worker’s lives in the late 1800’s, or that "top hat=swastika".

Apparently there’s a competition going on to see who can be the most easily offended. It’s a tough race. Some people always feel like others are looking down on them or judging them.
posted by bongo_x at 11:17 PM on March 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

Of course, this takes an absurd turn when you realize that the guy doing the fetishising is Asian, and would in no way be accepted by the pompous, racist, classist assholes of yore he seems to smitten with.


This strikes me as an odd thing to say. It's about as absurd as a white guy who fetishizes samurai Eboshi from the Sengoku period. Or, if we want to be more in line with this fellow's heritage (but for which there are less actual examples), it's about as absurd as a white fellow who fetishizes Ming Dynasty wushamao.

I do wonder how far back one has to go before it's okay to "fetishize the trappings of a bygone era that was so completely defined by class distinction, zero social mobility, and hereditary privilege." Is Medieval reenactment in which one dresses up as a knight or Lord okay because it happened so long ago? This is an actual question that I've wondered about, particularly because I think historical costume in general focuses on the upper class of any society.
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:26 PM on March 27, 2012

kavasa: "HM I WONDER IF MAYBE THERE'S SOME HUMOR!??????"

I thought so at first, but I checked the rest of his site, and no, I see absolutely no humor at all. He constantly complains about modern fashion, how he spends so much money and effort on his own dress and thus judges everyone else by their mode of dress, etc. I wish this was meant humorously, but it's very clearly not.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:28 PM on March 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Mister Cheese: "Is Medieval reenactment in which one dresses up as a knight or Lord okay because it happened so long ago? This is an actual question that I've wondered about, particularly because I think historical costume in general focuses on the upper class of any society."

It's actually a very interesting question, I wonder about it myself. It seems to me that people who do reenactment and so on tend to either have a hugely simplified view of the historical period in general, or do huge amounts of research, but focusing entirely on getting a bunch of details right, and less on how society worked and the implications of that. I'm sure there are exceptions, though.

But yes, uncritically role-playing or yearning for bygone eras is often hugely problematic, in my view.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:30 PM on March 27, 2012

Every once in a while, Mefites miss a point in big silly way.

Hello people. It's a humour style known as "camp". Upper class foppery is a second favorite target of it, after feminine foppery. Please make a note and adjust your sensors accordingly. Thanks.
posted by Goofyy at 11:32 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Goofyy: "It's a humour style known as "camp"."

I know what camp is. Please provide an indicator on the site itself that this is at all meant humorously. I read large parts of it, I found absolutely none.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:33 PM on March 27, 2012

A hat tip to this hat tip.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:38 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I also see no evidence of humor, but I don't see where you're getting the unsavory overtones, Joakim Ziegler. Maybe he's just really into formal dress. He doesn't have also to be really into people knowing their place.
posted by kenko at 11:38 PM on March 27, 2012

I know what camp is. Please provide an indicator on the site itself that this is at all meant humorously. I read large parts of it, I found absolutely none.

And from that you’ve concluded that he means to oppress at the first opportunity?

Swastikas and Confederate flags are currently used to express that the one displaying them sympathizes with the worst parts of the cultures that they came from. They are meant to signal blatantly how you think about the world today. Everything does not have this same connotation. If someone wears an ancient Greek toga to a party it does not mean they are pro-slavery.
posted by bongo_x at 11:40 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

A top hit for the top hat.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:43 PM on March 27, 2012

He found absolutely none! Therefore it can't possibly be there.

That's okay, darling. We understand.
posted by Goofyy at 11:46 PM on March 27, 2012

Wait, so first it's "Hey, this is all meant humorously, lighten up!" and when I point out there's no sign of humor, then it's not meant humorously, but just no big deal?

And to illustrate his noxious attitudes, let's do some quotes:

"How times have changed. Now, you would find it difficult to see anyone wearing a hat these days as the continuous de-formalisation of dress and manners slowly creep in. The rot has set in and in due course, a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops would be considered too formal for businesswear… But I digress."

i am so anal about this that the first thing I do when I meet someone is to scan them from top to bottom to see what is amiss or placed there on purpose. The reason for this anality is, as said before, that I spent a lot of effort (and money) to get my dress correct and so it should be done correctly otherwise I might as well not have bothered.

Etc.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:48 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Goofyy: "He found absolutely none! Therefore it can't possibly be there.

That's okay, darling. We understand"

Condescending much?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:51 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

You know, what I really need.... I mean, I've thought about this, and I think given my lifestyle, I need a combined top hat and beverage holder.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:56 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

And to illustrate his noxious attitudes, let's do some quotes:

He’s stated that he likes to dress in a certain way and wishes others did the same. You, on the other hand, have called him an asshole and implied much worse, simply because of his preference in clothing. Who’s being judgmental?
posted by bongo_x at 11:57 PM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, he's a member of this club, whose website suggests a sense of humor combined with non-ironically liking to get dressed up in bygone trappings etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:03 AM on March 28, 2012

Also, for further evidence of intense classism, here's a nice little rant called "Chavs are what is wrong with Britain".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:13 AM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

and no, I see absolutely no humor at all.

Joakim Ziegler: it's humour. Perhaps that's why you're not picking up on it.

If you take that Chavs article seriously, it's time to close the browser.
posted by pompomtom at 1:05 AM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

"fetishize the trappings of a bygone era that was so completely defined by class distinction, zero social mobility, and hereditary privilege."

You know, the most famous top hatted fellow in American history was a self-educated frontier circuit-riding lawyer, who grew up dirt-scratchingly poor and became not just President of the United States, but arguably its greatest president.

They say he used to stash his legal papers in his unusually tall top hat to keep them dry while riding often-trackless routes from frontier courthouse to frontier courthouse. His top hats are the pride of the Lincoln collection at both the Smithsonian and the Lincoln Museum.

So, po-tay-to, po-tah-to, I see a top hat and think of a time when a self-educated frontier nobody could rise on talent and hard work to the highest office in the land and save the Union.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:23 AM on March 28, 2012 [5 favorites]

After skimming this guy's other articles (particularly the "soapbox" section) I have decided several things:

1) Dude is a complete raving lunatic
2) I want to get high as fuck with him on a weekly basis and listen to ancient / classical Chinese music for hours
3) "Buttonholes" is one of the funniest words to mis-read, especially when it involves people sticking carnations in them
posted by jake at 2:00 AM on March 28, 2012 [4 favorites]

Make sure to pass by MadAboutMonacles on the return trip.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:07 AM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh, for days when the 1% dressed the part. Nowadays they are happy to wear a trucker cap if any hat at all and a sleeveless undershirt stained with McDonalds food and chew tobaccy and listen to country music or classic rock while they tread on the dignity of the working woman. For all the advantages it gives, oppressing others should at least have a proper dress code.
posted by idiopath at 3:16 AM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Joakim: The attitude is the humour. It's a caricature, a mockery.

Part of the problem is that it is too easy. Just calling something "vulgar", in the proper use of the term, gets people's backs up, since mostly they misinterpret the word. We've all gotten far too vulgar for that sort of language. LOL!
posted by Goofyy at 3:24 AM on March 28, 2012

> Jesus Christ, do you know *anything* about what life was like for the working class in Victorian England?

Sure I do, I saw My Fair Lady.
posted by jfuller at 3:51 AM on March 28, 2012

I'm sorry, please forgive me. I should no better than to use terms like "we all".

Correction:
Some of us have gotten vulgar.

Others are so fisticated.
posted by Goofyy at 4:04 AM on March 28, 2012

sorry but to avoid being a bad person i only read twitters written by animals in funny situations

a twitter where a seagull talks about the deaths it would like to befall popular science fiction authors. that's yours, you can have it and there is no need to mention that i had any role in its creation or even to show it to me once you have created it
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:05 AM on March 28, 2012

Brilliant, but missing proper top hat etiquette for religion, rocking out and magic
posted by Tom-B at 4:20 AM on March 28, 2012

And we have a new word for rulesy fashion jerks: conformateur.

Or, for pearl-clutchy fashionable women, conformatrice.
posted by elizardbits at 5:31 AM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wow, this is so complex and terrifying, I don't ever want to wear a hat again!

That said, does a fedora make my t-shirt and jorts fashionable?
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:05 AM on March 28, 2012

If you wear a top hat in 2012, and you aren't British nobility, you look like you're trying too hard. If you wear a fedora, same deal.

Sorry about that.
posted by ellF at 6:40 AM on March 28, 2012

Oh, come on now, of course top hats were worn in China by members of the Axe Gang.

It's kind of disgusting when people fetishize the trappings of a bygone era that was so completely defined by class distinction, zero social mobility, and hereditary privilege.

I completely agree with you, people who like Jane Austen are literally worse than the Devil.

I mean, this is a person who runs some sort of tailoring business and has a top-hat obsession. That's kind of unusual, but I'm not surprised that one goes with the other. Unfortunately, people who get really into minutiae of one thing can often be ignorant of the larger historical context; witness, for example Rich Iott being puzzled about why people were making such a big deal of his dressing up in an SS uniform.
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:48 AM on March 28, 2012

Unfortunately, people who get really into minutiae of one thing can often be ignorant of the larger historical context; witness, for example Rich Iott being puzzled about why people were making such a big deal of his dressing up in an SS uniform.

The difference being that a political representative should have a little more understanding of why dressing as the SS might be offensive.

If Charles Henry Wolfenbloode thinks less of me because I don't go out every day dressed as Mister Peanut, I wouldn't vote for him either.
posted by dubold at 7:06 AM on March 28, 2012

I see absolutely no humor at all. . .

I see absolutely no humor at all. . .

Is it possible that you missed the huge antique photo at the top of the page?
 
posted by Herodios at 7:09 AM on March 28, 2012

Apparently there’s a competition going on to see who can be the most easily offended. It’s a tough race.

Introducing the Make Joan Baez Laugh tag!!

Announcer: It's time to play America's most challenging game show: Make Joan Baez Laugh!

Host: Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to Make Joan Baez Laugh! We've had over 2,000 amateur and professional comedians on the show trying to make Joan Baez laugh, and so far no one's succeeded.

Joan, how do you do it? Nine years without even cracking a smile?

Joan Baez: How can anyone laugh, Bill, when there's so much suffering in the world?

Host: I was sure that guy on last night was going to get to you, though. He did over twenty minutes of scathing material on Ronald Reagan.

Joan Baez: I don't think there's anything funny about Ronald Reagan. He is responsible for the escalating arms race, and for enslaving our Latino brothers and sisters. . .

-- SNL, November 8th, 1986

posted by Herodios at 7:16 AM on March 28, 2012 [10 favorites]

If you wear a top hat in 2012, and you aren't British nobility, you look like you're trying too hard.

Or a Freemason.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:17 AM on March 28, 2012

> If you wear a top hat in 2012, and you aren't British nobility, you look like you're trying too hard.

Baron Samedi looks fine to me.
posted by jfuller at 8:23 AM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

I can’t imagine what’s going to happen when there’s a post about railroad enthusiasts.
posted by bongo_x at 8:37 AM on March 28, 2012

Joakim: The attitude is the humour. It's a caricature, a mockery.

There is absolutely no basis for this assumption other than your certainty that he couldn't mean it. Meanwhile, the dude himself seems to have a healthy attitude to all this: "Regarding the insulting comments against me and the way I dress: I won’t go and defend myself. Doing so would mean that the way I live my life is wrong and needs defending. Alan Turing was told he lived his life wrong by being gay and look what happened to him. As Quentin Crisp (in The Naked Civil Servant) once said: “You cannot touch me. I am one of the stately homos of England.”"
posted by kenko at 10:31 AM on March 28, 2012

I was describing camp. It is possible Mr. Wolfenbloode does not intend the camp humor which I perceive. Oh well. It matters not a bit. I'm a right and proper vulgar slob. Which is to say, I'm from Michigan.
posted by Goofyy at 10:55 AM on March 28, 2012

How times have changed. Now, you would find it difficult to see anyone wearing a hat these days as the continuous de-formalisation of dress and manners slowly creep in. The rot has set in and in due course, a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops would be considered too formal for businesswear…

The history of Western men's fashion is one long process of de-formalization. The first European man to wear a short tunic and pants with a crotch (as opposed to a long tunic with separate stockings) was probably kicked out of his local tavern for daring to show off his, ah, package.

I really do appreciate the attention to detail that classic clothes fanciers bring to their hobby. I reject the adulation of some time period that they imagine to be unadultered (and the subsequent imagined societal 'rot').
posted by muddgirl at 4:03 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I reject the adulation of some time period that they imagine to be unadultered (and the subsequent imagined societal 'rot').

From a societal standpoint, yes indeed. From a purely fashion standpoint our present time sucks hard.
posted by bongo_x at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2012

When it comes to men's fashion, the variety of styles that men are allowed to wear is almost certainly the greatest it's ever been. Sure, some dudes use that freedom to 'rot' into ratty cargo shorts and flip flops, but others use it to greater ends than the uniform fashion of the past could ever achieve.
posted by muddgirl at 4:44 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Point taken, and well made, I guess I was referring to the average.
posted by bongo_x at 5:23 PM on March 28, 2012

I invited Charles to come in and have a chat but he said he'd rather not, primarily because of the haters in this thread. Shame.
posted by unliteral at 5:55 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I imagine the average Englishman in, say, the late 1800s was not wearing top-hats and morning suits, but I could be wrong about demographics.
posted by muddgirl at 6:56 PM on March 28, 2012

Well, I hope Charles won't be too put off by the comments here. There are 40 people who've faved the post and surely many more reading as lurkers who've enjoyed it, compared to just a handful who have voiced the worry about the clothing's connection to old social hierarchies.

Languagehat also posted it to his blog.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:39 PM on March 28, 2012

I imagine the average Englishman in, say, the late 1800s was not wearing top-hats and morning suits, but I could be wrong about demographics.

No they weren’t, but this is interesting;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260872/Ancestry-Edwardian-Englands-drunkards.html
posted by bongo_x at 8:24 PM on March 28, 2012

Sure, some dudes use that freedom to 'rot' into ratty cargo shorts and flip flops, but others use it to greater ends than the uniform fashion of the past could ever achieve.

Curious when you think that rebels used to be sharp dressers. Nowadays, I see this and all I can think of is this.

What some here interpret as snobbery is more to do with anguish at what deliberate slobbification suggests about the practitioner, if not society in general. The Tim Gunn sort of admonition I expect stems from a belief that "You're better than this, you're more than this." He, like Europeans, understands that as well as being nicer for others to look at than sweat pants and hoodies, sharp clothes can change your own outlook, your own sense of self worth and self respect. (Which is one reason school uniforms especially for underprivileged children is a good idea, by the way.) Willful slobbery is surrendering without a fight, and there's already enough ugly in the world. Same idea applies to settling for fast food, bad architecture, canned music, and Hollywood movies.

Which is why this guy makes you smile and these guys - not so much.

And of course, no discussion of fashion would be complete without some commentary by P. J. O'Rourke.
posted by IndigoJones at 7:31 AM on March 29, 2012

You are interested in antique clothing, yes? Prepare yourself to be amazed and delighted at Antiken Textilien, e.g. look at this topper and bucket.
posted by unliteral at 4:27 PM on March 29, 2012