For When Socks Just Aren’t Enough

Many ages ago in an enchanted forest in the wooded country of France, there was a man who was fed up with the little particles and stuff getting into his shoes and rubbing up against his skin and expediting the deterioration of his socks. Determined to put an end to his suffering, he took his mortar in one hand and his pestle in another and set out to fix the problems in his life. Unfortunately, these tools were useless for garment construction, and no pharmacist’s concoxion could effect an end to his particulate problems, so he sent off an order to the Sears catalogue and purchased spats.

While the preceding fable may be more fiction than fact, the agony of those who have suffered from abrasively aggravating atoms in their footwear is too real. If only the Jews had known of spats 2000 years ago, then Mary Magdalane might not have stirred up trouble by washing the feet of Jesus, who might have been able to live a long, fulfilling life, devoid of Pontius Pilates, angry mobs, and crucifixions.

Some of you may be wondering what exactly a spat looks like. Well, here is a public domain picture from Wikipedia:

You may have seen these on the feet of well-dressed dandies on the stroll from the late 1800′s until the Second World War. You may also have seen these on the feet of musicians in marching bands, or the soldiers of various militaries. You probably have not seen them on the feet of the present-day gentleman.

Some of you are probably wondering why anyone would need to keep dirt out of his shoes. Some of you may rarely get dirt in your shoes, if ever. But let us recall that in the days before our grandparents were born, before there were rubber-soled shoes, zipper flies, or even Volkswagens(!), the national pavement network was far less extensive. Dust and rocks abounded and were jettisoned from the roadway by every passing horse and carriage or horseless carriage. Most importantly, everything was covered in snow year-round, and people spent most of their time walking for miles up hills, which, due to the unusual seismic activity back then, often sank overnight and at lunchtime so that the poor schoolchildren would have to walk uphill both ways.

That said, we can now see that spats are in the class of garments that also encompasses raincoats, pocket protectors, and condoms: protective garments. Indeed, the full title, “spatterdash,” suggests that it is something for the “spatter” to be “dashed” upon. Leather shoes are difficult to wash; textile gaiters, leggins, or spats are easily washed. Those who shine their own shoes often would appreciate only having to shine the front of the shoe, since the rest of the shoe is covered by the spat and is, thus, protected from getting scuffed and invisible even if it gets scuffed.

So we have established the benefits of spats. Why, then, are they so unpopular? Well, first of all, paving is much more extensive, and shoes are less likely to become soiled as their wearers tread down city sidewalks (or, more likely, ride around in cars). Another possible explanation is that people today dress much more casually for traveling than they did a century ago, and that spats were particularly popular amongst travelers, what with the confusion of railroad stations, the dirt everywhere, the quite real possibility of one’s feet being tread upon, etc. Not wearing nice shoes to travel, people do not see a need to protect their sneakers. There is also the problem that spats are held in place by an all-important instep strap (also commonly seen on the very tight trousers and pantaloons of the Regency period, suggesting that spat-like ankle coverings were at one point incorporated into the trousers) which threads underneath the outsole in the raised area just in front of the heel.

The gap between the sole and the ground provides an ideal threading place for a strap

Many modern men’s dress shoes have a completely flat sole, thus making it impossible to wear spats without stepping on the strap and wearing it out very quickly.

Of course a very important factor to consider is the association of spats with the wealthy. Certainly there were many wealthy people who wore spats, but it does not seem the case that spat-wearers were exclusively the wealthy. Max Disher, the successful-but-not-necessarily-rich insurance-selling protagonist of George Schuyler’s 1931 novel Black No More, wears them, as does Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot in certain depictions. Nevertheless, the rich, particularly the snobbishly rich, especially young men born with silver spoons in their mouths, young men who would hardly have to work for their entire lives, were often depicted wearing spats. The past few decades have held a great disdain for the aristocracy, who were, admittedly, not altogether considerate of the good of society as a whole; thus, aristocratic mannerisms and styles have fallen out of favor as well.

Few of us today were alive during the era of spats, and so it seems unnecessary for us to bear the burden of our forebears stereotypes. Spats are something I would consider useful for the man who walks or cycles to his destinations in the large city in which he lives. I hope that, in my lifetime, the importance of automobile transportation diminishes for the average person’s daily commutes to work and leisure. With this change I would hope to see such practical garments as spats return to popularity. Knickerbockers have already regained popularity among cyclists.

Anyway, I can’t help but wonder what the rest of the world thinks of spats. Not necessarily the stark white ones; I am almost inclined to say that medium-gray or brown spats could be useful and unobtrusive today. But I am eager for someone to try to prove me wrong.

Upcoming Discussions

This is just an obnoxious interpost to inform all of you that in about 12 hours a new post will go up. I’ll be sleeping, going to class, and making a few revisions in the mean time.

Otherwise, I am very excited to see that people have been visiting the page. I thank you for your interest, and I would like to hear all of your opinions, especially those that will help me to make this blog more interesting.

Since pictures are what make the internet worthwhile, here’s a picture for you to enjoy: Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite Falls.

Entire blogs could be filled by discussing the awesomeness of Teddy Roosevelt. He’ll probably take up at least one post here.

Before We Dive into Very Deep Water . . .

. . . we must learn to tread water. I never understood why we didn’t learn to tread water until the second year of swim classes. I guess treading water isn’t the most useful skill, or perhaps it comes to most people intuitively. Anyway, this post is a preface to our discussion of suits.

This topic is so huge. I don’t even know how to go about discussing this. Many men are perfectly satisfied with a suit bought off the rack from J.C. Penney’s, others like to buy high end (but still ready-to-wear) suits from actual habadasher’s, and then there is the stratospheric echelon of bespoke. Then there are the types of suits worn by young men and old men, social liberals and conservatives, the masculine and the effeminate, Americans and Europeans, laborers and millionaires . . . the list would go on forever. The point is that there are suits for every kind of person, and the purpose of this post is to establish the elementary assumptions and postulates necessary for me to, in subsequent entries, commence with quibbling over trifles.

I have formulated my own ideal characteristics for a suit (according to my current whims): two-button, large, single-breasted coat with two flapped pockets and a breast pocket, single-vented, with relatively wide (but not 70′s wide) notched lapels, five-button vest with four pockets, with straight, wide-legged, plain front trousers with roughly a 13 inch rise, watch pocket, 21 inches at the hem, with turn-ups, in gray, charcoal, brown, or navy wool, relatively heavy and dull, in herringbone, pinstripe, or windowpane, or in a relatively dark tweed. While I am very fond double-breasted coats, I don’t own many, mainly because they are harder to find, and because the commonest are the type with only the one working button at the bottom, a look I associate with 80′s corporate Robber Barons. I don’t mean to imply that I disapprove of Robber Barons (this blog does not concern my other opinions); I just don’t want to look like one.

There exist contrary characteristics in suit construction: tapered legs, narrow legs, pleat front, peaked lapels (on a single breasted coat), solids, plaids, three button, four button, narrow lapels, double-vents. My subsequent writings in the matter of suits will explain my reasons for advocating that such suits be cut to pieces and used to insulate McMansions and will persuade you, too, of their unequivocal repugnance. Actually, I do not find such suits repugnant, nor do I advocate such things. In fact, I own such suits and wear them all the time; rather, there will follow a thorough analysis and evaluation of such characteristics.

It could be said that not all suits are created equal. Suits are part of a class of attire I call “informal” attire. The uninitiated many would consider suits to be, au contraire(!), quite formal, but there is a separate category to distinguish them from formal and semi-formal attire. Formal and semi-formal attire are white and black tie, respectively, also known as evening dress and the tuxedo, respectively (not counting morning dress). And, in perspective, formal attire has a relatively immutable form (it does change gradually over time, but at any given time the variations permissible are few). Tuxedos have a little more room for variation, but still there is much more flexibility with informal attire. Informal attire has all sorts of options for the kinds of shirts that can be worn; the color and pattern of the suiting fabric; the number and positioning of the buttons, vents, and pockets; the head-, neck-, and foot-wear worn; the presence of a vest; etc. This whole etymology and classification may be total swill, but I am taking the liberty of introducing it so that there is no confusion between a tuxedo and a suit.

Thus, it is important to remember all of these variations within this large category. These variations mean that a suit ideal for an evening social engagement might be undesirable for an appearance in court. The color, material, and pattern are critical for this reason. Lawyers all own a “sincere blue suit” for their court dates. Many men have a black or very dark colored suit for funerals. Entertainers often wear boldly patterned suits with exaggerated lines to distinguish themselves. Brown, beige, light gray, and green are probably the most informal colors. Charcoal, navy, and black are the most conservative colors (hence why one rarely sees the president wearing anything else). I’ve heard it said that pinstripes, windowpane, and herringbone represent decreasing levels of conservatism in the wearer. How true this is today I am unsure of, but this is plausible, and it certainly may have been the case in the mid-20th century, although I have noticed that Eisenhower had a penchant for patterned suits as far as I can tell, a penchant that casts some doubt on that hypothesis. My dislike for solid colors is chiefly a product of my considering them boring.

Another important distinction that I wish to make is the distinction between informal attire and casual attire. Wearing a tweed sportcoat and solid-colored trousers, I often receive comments from people who like my “suit.” A suit’s coat and trousers, I would argue, are necessarily constructed from matching fabric. While I am undecided as to what I think of this, vests have been, especially between 100 and 200 years ago, made of, as the 1907 Blue Book of Men’s Tailoring calls it, “fancy” material, or any material that contrasts with the rest of the suit. The coat and pants, however, must match.

Otherwise, this has been my preface to further discussion of suits. I hope that your appetites have all been whetted and piqued.

THE SUSPENSE!

I shouldn’t even be talking about these. Suspenders are merely a Victorian Era invention to hold pants up at heights far above the natural waist. They really do not look good, and the only reason way anybody got away with wearing them was by hiding them under a vest. Until the early 20th century, all men, or at least those who were of the artisan class or higher, wore vests.

Suspenders do have their uses. Certainly overalls benefit from them. As do those rubber pants that fishermen wear. Someone once told me about how great suspenders were because he could urinate without having to hold his pants up. I suppose this is one advantage, but I can say that suspenders are a great liability to the man who must take a dump and who is wearing a vest or sweater over his suspenders. Anyway, I have worn suspenders many times, and I can say that they’re somewhat comfortable, although I don’t know if they’re more comfortable than a belt.

The problem with suspenders is that the waistline of the pants does not conform to the body. In fact, the pants can even have awkward bunching from the attachment points of the suspenders. The lack of tightness means that shirts come untucked more easily.

Suspenders are mostly a novelty in my opinion. They are a supportive undergarment. I’d consider it to be a bit more acceptable for a man’s suspenders to be visible than it is for a woman’s brassiere strap to be visible, but not much. I do condone the wearing of suspenders under a vest since the vest should cover any awkward gathering in the pants waistline, and the awkwardness of the suspenders themselves. I’ve found suspenders useful with heavy winterweight trousers. They seem to have a masculine quality to them as well. Suspenders have their uses, but the belt’s dominance as a means of holding up trousers is not something I question.

As always, I welcome your concurring or dissenting comments.

Hung from His Own Neck Tie

Much has been said about neckties over the years. Arguably bowties, ascots, and cravats would fall into this same category, but they’re all so damn special and I’m so scatter-brained that I’m going to stick to a pointed and narrow topic, because neck ties are pointed and narrow.

Before I begin, I concede that neck ties have no pragmatic purpose. They get in the way; they are vectors of disease transmission (neck ties are typically not washed unless stained); they are a real liability to police offers (who wear clip-on ties to make it harder for suspects to strangle them, the police officers, by pulling on the ties). Neck ties started to fall out of favor seemingly in the late 1960′s, at least among those who were rebellious and not constrained by some kind of system. Consider Paul McCartney, for example, who, in the films made of the Beatles’ January 1969 “Rooftop Concert,” wore a suit with a dress shirt and cufflinks but with no tie, even though it was frigid outside and they were performing atop one of the most fashionable streets in the world, Savile Row. I realize he’s just one example, but there were a great many people looking at him and thinking about how cool he looked.

The 70′s need no explanation. V-neck shirts with long, pointed collars that peeked out over the lapels of polyester leisure suits. Not everyone bought into that repugnant trend, but plenty bought into not wearing neckties. Now, 10 years into the 21st century, we’ve seen neckties dwindling in popularity.

Admittedly, for the girthy-necked, the neck tie and, almost more importantly, the buttoned shirt collar can impede circulation and respiration. Moreover, the almost airtight seal around the neck creates a virtual pressure cooker inside the shirt on a hot day.

Let’s consider why people wore neck ties to begin with. Oftentimes, academics will cite the origin of the necktie as having origins in scarves worn by Croatian soldiers. This is probably correct, because these academics probably did a lot of research and probably looked through a lot of old paintings and read the writings of tailors long gone. It seems to me, though, that this is a very specific analysis. That’s akin to proposing that bomber jackets are popular because military aviators in the World Wars wore them and everybody thought they looked cool. People wear bomber jackets because people have been making garments out of leather for thousands of years, and bomber jackets are just one permutation of this. The neck tie is just another variety of ornamental neckwear. People have been wearing ornamental neckwear for thousands of years. Whether it be a necktie, a scarf, one of those elongating neck rings worn by women in some tribe somewhere, the prayer shawl worn by Orthodox Jews, or whatever, people around the world have been wearing ornamental neckwear for years.

Why would people wear neckwear? Well, obviously scarves have some function in keeping the neck warm. But dog tags are just about the only functional form of neckwear, excluding perhaps some kind of novelty neck tie with a cup holder in it or something, and I wouldn’t consider binoculars hanging from the neck by a neck strap to be a form of neckwear.

Anyway, back to the topic of neck ties, I wear neck ties all the time, and I hear the question from time to time, why wear a neck tie? I’ll tell you why I wear a neck tie, actually. It’s because I don’t like having the top button unbuttoned on a dress shirt, but if I don’t wear a neck tie, people mistake me for a paedophile. And I consider the necktie to be an interesting opportunity to wear something with a particularly bold color scheme or pattern. I would never wear a purple shirt, purple suit, purple pants, or purple hat, but a neck tie that incorporates purple in its design I would consider.

Not to mention that wearing a necktie clearly sets the wearer apart from the non-wearers. When I wear a necktie, I find that people in the service industry, for example, are noticeably more courteous with me, perhaps because they expect a larger tip (an example of expectations affecting results?). Even though I am only 19, between my beard, necktie, tweed sport coat, and dress shoes, I have been mistaken for a professor. People have a higher opinion of necktie wearers. Of course, wearing a necktie also exposes one to the disdain of reverse snobs and others who see necktie wearers as oppressors.

Do I opine that all men should wear neck ties? No, because then the demand would go up and, hence, the price. No, but I do think that the necktie is an important form of neckwear that has its place in all levels of attire from casual to formal.

So that’s just my opinion on neck ties. Maybe some day I’ll talk about knots and tie clips. Or the other kinds of ties.

High-Rise Apartments and Trousers

This post does not concern high-rise apartments, contrary to what the title deceptively suggests. Nor does it exclusively concern rises that are high. No, we are here today to discuss the rise of a pair of pants.

Trousers have a few dimensions from which one can roughly divine the fit. Of those tossed around are the elementary waist and inseam, the less common outseam and hips, but also, most important to us here, the “rise” (approximately the difference between the inseam and outseam). The rise is the distance between the crotch and the top of the waistband.

The past few decades have favored low-rise pants for men. There’s one big factor behind this, if you’ll excuse the pun: low-rise pants do not flatter the paunch-bearers. There isn’t much of a recent historical precedent for low-rise pants; it was as long ago as the Enlightenment that low-rise pants, or, in this case, breeches, were popular. Paintings of men from the late 1700′s clearly indicate a preference for low-rise breeches. These same paintings also obviate this era’s preference for aristocratic corpulence. Thus, we have the connection between the low-rise pants and the panniculum.

Low-rise pants have other advantages though. For one thing, low-rise pants, which sit further down on the trunk, work well with a belt and shouldn’t require suspenders. Moreover, the waistline is closer to the midpoint of the entire body, breaking up the body into blocks of equal length.

Breaking up the body into blocks of equal length might not be desirable, however, especially for shorter people. Moreover, it is often accomplished just as effectively by the coat, which oftentimes ends around the midline, anyway.

So, you may ask, how does one select the rise ideal for a given situation? Well, for one thing, relatively high-rise pants have never fallen out of favor for white and black tie. In these instances, low-rise pants are essentially not an option. For everything else, however, low-rise pants are an option, and should be the primary choice for those of the rotund persuasion. Moreover, the dominance of low-rise pants today, with the trend even being taken so far as to include very low-rise pants for men and women alike, indicates that the trend-conscious man would not wear anything else.

But for those who do not adhere to current thinking in the world of clothing, and who do not sport a big gut, the option of medium- or high-rise pants is available. Higher-rise garments give the wearer a taller appearance and put the belt-line closer to the point of narrowest diameter on the trunk.

Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man depicts the idealized human form, the "midline" being the pursuit of low-rise pants, the "narrowest point" being the pursuit of high-rise. Notice that the "midline" sits near the center of Da Vinci's square.

So, in conclusion, I would advocate low-rise trousers for those among you who are chubby or who are a slave to trends; for those of you who are so ornery as to deliberately violate modern conventions (as am I) and who are relatively in shape, the medium and high-rise are an option.  Moreover, this issue will be discussed in further posts.