CarnivalSeb

Many popular menswear headlines can be made more interesting if you add some political, historical, or technological dimension to them, rather than just tell people how to dress and what to buy. Examples: Boring: "Here's how to dress for the office." Interesting: "Here's how contemporary office dress culture reflects the last century of liberalism." Boring: "Here are the best shoes this season." Interesting: "Here's what Victorian shoemaking can tell us about AI." Boring: "Here are affordable alternative to this season's best bags." Interesting: "Here's how federal budget cuts have made it harder to spot labor exploitation in global supply chains, which shows up as 'hot deals' for consumers." Boring: "Here's how to dress hot and sexy." Interesting: "Here's a history of how people have covertly expressed sexuality through clothes during times when such expressions were taboo." I would argue that the more people engage with these histories and find deeper meaning in clothes, the more they're able to dress in ways that allow them to express what they want and feel satisfied by what they wear, rather than blindly buying whatever is on a "fall essentials" list.

The more parochial, the more moralistic, and the more narrowly you defined heterosexual male behavior, the harder it will be for you to wear classic men's tailoring because this style of dress will mark you as a dandy today. If you allow people to wear whatever they want in public — from Cheeto-stained ducky pajamas to tutus with Army boots — the easier it will be for you to wear whatever want. This includes tailoring in any color, material, and style: conservative worsteds associated with Ivy Style; wool-mohair blends with a slight sheen, like Giovanni Agnelli walking out of supper clubs; or slutty 1970s suits with flared trousers. Alternatively, the more parochial and moralistic you make dress, the more you have to adhere to the ugly, awful standard for heterosexual male presentation: a limp golf polo paired with slim fit stretch chinos, walnut colored dress sneakers, and a modern Rolex.

It's very easy to wear a suit and tie in any major city, even if the aesthetic has mostly disappeared from daily life, because there are people outside wearing pink tutus with Army boots. As usual, your liberation is connected to other people's liberation.

I retweeted this earlier today and received some hostile comments, so I thought I'd share a story. The photo on the left shows Constable Sukhvinder Singh Sunger, a Canadian Sikh police officer who recently led the Vancouver Police Pipe Band at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The event is held at Edinburgh Castle, and it celebrates military bands from around the world. Thus, for the event, Constable Sunger wore traditional Highland dress with a ceremonial dastār (Sikh turban). I think he looks resplendent for all the reasons I've mentioned in my previous threads: the use of "shape and drape," texture, and the semiotics of clothing. But some were less enthused about a Canadian man of South Asian descent wearing Scottish clothing. So I thought I'd share a story about Alexander Haughton Campbell Gardner, an adventurer and mercenary born in 1785 in what would become modern Wisconsin. By his own account, his father was Scottish, and his mother was Anglo-Spanish, although at least one of his contemporaries thought he was Irish. Either way, he would be considered "white" today. At the age of 24, he traveled to Europe and, shortly after, began exploring Russia and Central Asia. It was in Central Asia, he claims, that he started to adopt the local customs and mores, often presenting himself as Muslim. Although one wonders how easily he was able to blend in, as he stood six feet tall and had a penchant for drinking. According to him, he was captured in Afghanistan in 1824, but ended up joining a rebel force, commanding 180 horsemen, and marrying a local woman, with whom he fathered a child near Parwan. His wife and child were later killed after his patron's defeat, which drove him to Punjab. It was in Punjab, he claims, where he joined the Sikh Army, eventually rising to the level of Colonel. He claims to have been present at Lahore, then the capital of the Sikh Empire, and says he killed 300 men during a fierce clash. Much of Gardner's life is hard to verify, as many of his fantastical claims come from his much-contested memoir, which has little to no third-party corroboration. However, one thing is certain, if only because we have photographic evidence. Later in life, he had a striking style of self-presentation. In the photo on the right, you can see him in a tartan suit and Sikh turban. His facial hair is long because many Sikhs believe not cutting your hair shows respect for God's perfect creation. Gardner was a man of American descent, European lineage, and Central/ South Asian cultural identity. He died with the name Gordana Khan. This complex form of diasporic identity goes back to 1785, shortly after the United States declared independence from Britain. In my opinion, it goes to show that culture is porous and identities can be complex, not as clear and "pure" as many would like to pretend.