because y'all like my wardrobe stuff

[rm]

So this morning I finally figured out how to tie a half-windsor. Yes, I was using a shitty knot (four-in-hand) before this. I feel so stupid it took this long for me to get it, although I do lay some of this on being left-handed and so no drawing of this sort of thing can make sense to me ever, but I almost don't care how stupid I feel about having not gotten it, because I am so hideously pleased with myself now.

Of course, this was a random, half-asleep grokking of it, so I'm not actually sure I'm going to be able to repeat the feat, but I think so. Anyway, this knot? fucking superior.

Comments

[marcmagus]

I think most people have no idea how a suit is supposed to fit, let alone how to go about obtaining one. Since they're mostly taking their cues from each other at this point, and they're coming from a distinctly American style of preferring to look a bit daringly casual [that whole cowboy thing], they all end up looking like they're wearing Daddy's old clothes that are a tiny bit too big and were never altered to fit, with a tie they kind of threw on because they don't really know how to tie it. Except the jackets, which look like they were bought just prior to their last growth spurt, in which they gained a couple inches in the arm and either lost or gained about four inches in the waist [so they're either swimming in the thing or their belly is straining at the buttons, but the arms are too short regardless].

I'm pretty sure much of my own wardrobe fails on at least some of these tests. Finding stuff that fits is harder than is credited, and, since nothing fits OTR, expensive. I think most of us were never taught how to shop for things that fit right.

I've accepted in the last year that the 4IH has its place [see cruentum's comment, for example], and it is the current style, but I think the whole thing is often done extremely poorly, to the effect that it looks like men can't dress themselves, as you mention.

[ckd]

In my case, I have a suit that fits, or at least should still fit since I just bought it last year. I have never worn it.

I bought it for a round of job interviews, because in my field (systems administration/IT) nobody wears a suit, or even a tie, if they can help it. However, both of the places I wound up interviewing told me not to wear a tie to the interview (in one case, adding "or you will be mocked") and so I didn't.

The best part? One round of interviews was on April 1, and a bunch of the people I talked to that day were wearing suits as part of a gag...and each of them was quick to reassure me that they didn't really wear a suit and tie normally.

I love this field. A shirt with a collar and pants that aren't denim? That's dressing up (aka my normal workday routine, since I try to stay a notch above the general run of sartorial "splendor" in this crowd).

As an aside, it's been so long since I wore a tie I don't even know which knot I use (though it's probably a four-in-hand); I'd actually have to put one on and tie it to be sure. I do always make sure the knot looks good, so I hope to avoid "the whole thing is often done extremely poorly" as you describe it.

[marcmagus]

I'm in software dev; I know whereof you speak, and also love it. My workday wardrobe is pretty much identical to yours: trousers year round, polos and short-sleeved button-downs in the summer, full sleeves the rest of the year.

My wardrobe is consequently skewed to the extremes, with a batch of jeans/t-shirts for casual stuff/convention-going, a batch of trousers/shirts for business/casual dance, and then a jump to a 3-piece suit, a tuxedo, and a tailcoat for stuff that requires those levels of formality. [And if you'd asked me 6 years ago, I never would have believed I'd need either a tuxedo or tails, let alone both.]

That whole cowboy thing

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Ahem. In this part of the world at least, the real cowboys would have been much better dressed for a formal occasion(like a real live theatre or a fancy-do.)

"Learn how to do this right, son. You might have to meet the Queen someday." My Southern daddy used to say this.'Mom told you to say that.' 'She did not. It was your great-grandmother.'

How the West was won. Up here.

Re: That whole cowboy thing

[marcmagus]

I apologize. I'm sure I could have come up with a better way of evoking the idea I wanted to, or at the very least least made it clear I was referring to how culture has endorsed and reacted to its own stereotype of itself rather than any real people.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that cowboys are either sloppy dressers or inappropriately casual, and I'm sorry I ended up doing so.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Oh good God, yes.

It makes me sad.