If the suit in the suit-and-loafers ensemble is a union suit, the wearer might be a rebel or a doofus, or just insane. Or maybe a fugitive who was able to grab just a union suit and loafers before making his getaway.
I suspect that the British have a word that describes exactly the man in the picture—prig, prat, twit, and twat all came to mind, but I can't helping thinking that there's a mot juste.
Arrrrg I wish I could find that series of youtube videos that were a monologue of some crazy country squire played by apparently a well known character actor who also wrote the things arrrg.
I live in Los Angeles. Not only is it about as rural as a city can get
My career as a public radio and television host doesn't require sober business dress.
Also, I never wear pants after 2PM.
Holy fuck this guy is a mess. It's absolutely crucial to dress like a 100% tool to take the dog out for a potty, but it isn't necessary to wear PANTS to WORK?
There is a lot about California I don't understand.
Either you're mind-too-fining or I am.
4: Jim Broadbent, "A Sense of History"? I love it.
Like, it's cool if you don't wear pants in LA. Some of my best friends don't wear pants in LA. But they don't run fashion blogs with condescending advice about dressing like a "grownup." I suppose maybe that was a joke of some kind, but the rest of the blog is filled with inconsistencies and ignorance, so I'm not feeling very generous in my assumptions.
There is a lot about California I don't understand.
Having just watched "Bill Cunningham: New York", I can safely say that the incomprehension is mutual.
1: undoubtedly the British are the masters of the mot juste, but in this case there's a good old American word that describes the person in the picture best: douchebag.
Though he is a dapper looking douchebag it has to be said.
we are not told what those considerations are or that reasoning is in the present case or in the case of, for instance, the buttoning or otherwise of one's bottom button.
This vaguely implies that long before Edward VII, whether to button the bottom button (at least in waistcoats) was not an unambiguous question.
Probably an undergraduate business major from a mediocre school.
I am slightly unwilling to believe that someone went out of the house dressed like that, but the photographic evidence suggests either that he did, or that he has a room in his house with a very convincing backdrop indeed. He looks like he is on his way to a fancy dress party, where the theme is "what an American ponce might imagine a Maltese pimp might have dressed like in the 40s".
Basically (and here, like a dominant chord resolving triumphantly to the major, I cash the cheque so kindly written for me by my American friend in comment 1), he is dressed like a bit of a cunt.
An outside description, which links to this bit of illuminating tediousness.
Hang on, "loafers" are just slip-on shoes, aren't they? No I'm sorry that's absurd. What could be either "rebellious" or "doofus" about such an amazingly prosaic and everyday footwear choice? I suspect the problem here is that this bloke doesn't wear a suit for work, doesn't know anybody who wears a suit for work and in general doesn't really understand that suits and shoes are actually normal everyday work clothing, rather than special things to pull out of the dressing-up box.
Well, he does call it "how to dress like a grownup" rather than "how to BE a grownup". So you're probably right.
13 Gets it right. Also "Twerp".
I don't understand this thing about not wearing pants in Los Angeles. I mean, a lot of women wear skirts, fine. And there'll be a few Scotsmen in kilts and Malays in sarongs. But are we to believe that the sidewalks of Beverley Hills teem with red blooded Americans running around in their Y-fronts? Seems unlikely.
I'm in Los Angeles wearing pants, and feel I shouldn't be. But I'm going to have another run at the Passover dishes before I take them off.
Good God. For a start, I've been to LA and anyone who wears tweed in an LA-type climate s going to suffer exactly as much as they deserve. Tweed was invented in Scotland for heaven's sake. And he's wearing a sweater underneath it. Insane.
dsquared in 16 is more or less right but I would say that he actually looks more like a "wanker". But that's splitting hairs. I also think, contra the OP, that he would look like one whether he was in the city or not.
That photo is now my mental image of Myles. (If you don't know who that is, consider yourself lucky.)
I live in LA, and it's quite cold right now actually. Also, whenever I see a man wearing pants, I demand that he take them off, immediately. For propriety's sake.
ajay, I'm glad you're here, because it gives me an opportunity to tell you: YOU RUINED MY LIFE! I thought that Mitchell and Webb Nazi clip, which you linked to in a comment, was funny, so I watched a few more clips. Then I watched every episode of That Mitchel and Webb Look. Then I watched every episode of Peep Show. Then I watched all of David Mitchell's soapboxes, then clips of Mitchell rants from game shows, and then I stopped before I embarrassed myself further.
25: ah, so clearly you're ready to learn about the wonder that is Bill Bailey.
dsquared in 16 is more or less right but I would say that he actually looks more like a "wanker". But that's splitting hairs. I also think, contra the OP, that he would look like one whether he was in the city or not.
I vote for "twat" personally. And, yeah, the look's totally wrong for "country gent" too. The sweater shouldn't be there, the cap's the wrong colour, the shoes look off, and the dog should be a hunting dog of some kind.
I think some of Bailey's material may be lost on Walt. There's a lot of stuff that'll only make sense to someone steeped in British culture, like the tranced up BBC news music, or his cockney song medley. Still, worth a shot. He is brilliant.
27: well, let's not argue. There is absolutely no reason why he can't be all three.
The shoes definitely look wrong. They look like plain black lace-ups; should be brown brogues.
I know country gents, I work with country gents, country gents are friends of mine, and this man is no country gent.
28: true enough, but I think that Walt will still appreciate things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0
I vote for twat, although 16 makes a strong case. And yes, brown brogues, ffs.
re: 28
There's also the Mighty Boosh, which I believe Sifu T of this parish has watched.
I can't watch videos at work, ajay. What's the video of?
Ah, yes. I was actually considering mentioning that in my post as one that would cross the Atlantic well. Though, to be honest, I think more credit is due to Eldon than to Bailey for that one.
I'm on the pictured guy's side, and dislike all of you.
Why does a blog about dressing like a grownup have multiple posts fussing about how to get your jeans to fade attractively? Not that grownups don't wear jeans, but do they really worry about the details of how they fade that much?
re: 37
Quite. Buy 'em, wear 'em, throw them away when the holes get embarrassing.
I'm willing to let him live only because he doesn't have the dog on one of those hellishly annoying very long retractable leashes. That the dog might have more freedom doesn't mean the dog ALWAYS needs to be at the full limit of the damned thing.
|| Can anyone help me with search terms for an unfogged comment thread?
There was a thread where mcmanus was making a whole bunch of comments about Jews. I think that they were really anti-semitic ones. Somebody called him on it, and then someone else, responding to the calling out, wrote, "Why is this night different from any other night?"
It totally cracked me up, and Passover made me think of it.
I'd also love to find the thread in which OPINIONATED JESUS said, "I HAVE BEEN TO THE OLIVE GARDEN AND IT WAS AGONY."
|>
Here you go. Googling "this night different" popped it right up.
Scanning the thread in 41 reminded me that I was startled to hear our building secretary say something about someone trying to jew her down, in a story she was telling me. Like, in 2011.
I had an odd anti-Semitism-related moment at work yesterday. I was talking about old jobs with my boss, and contrasting the first firm I worked at, a famously pleasant, low-key, friendly place as law firms go, with the snakepit I worked at immediately before coming to work for the state. And my (Jewish) boss asked "Was it that the second firm was more Jewish?" In the abstract, not a totally insane question -- the first firm was an old WASP firm, although (as I responded to my boss) there were plenty of Jewish lawyers there when I worked there.
But a weirdly hostile thing to ask me: I can't think of how to read the question other than as "So, was the problem that you're an anti-Semite?" She didn't deliver it that way, I didn't take offense, the incident is over. But it was peculiar.
And then I found five dollars hidden with the afikomen at the seder I was going to last night.
Hang on, "loafers" are just slip-on shoes, aren't they?
I'm guessing by loafers he means boat shoes.
ajay, I'm glad you're here, because it gives me an opportunity to tell you: YOU RUINED MY LIFE! I thought that Mitchell and Webb Nazi clip, which you linked to in a comment, was funny, so I watched a few more clips. Then I watched every episode of That Mitchel and Webb Look. Then I watched every episode of Peep Show. Then I watched all of David Mitchell's soapboxes, then clips of Mitchell rants from game shows, and then I stopped before I embarrassed myself further.
And now, take a trip to the sitcoms north of the border.
I can't think of how to read the question other than as "So, was the problem that you're an anti-Semite?"
Or, "Were my people the ones acting like assholes?"
re: 46
Speaking of Burnistoun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goTk960CKYk
Notwithstanding Jesse Thorn's tooltasticality, let us not forget that one shouldn't wear penny loafers with a suit, but there are many slipon styles that serve nicely. The height of the vamp and the shape of the toe make a great deal of the difference.
44: When I first came to Babylon Byzantium the big city I was taken aback, and I remain slightly dismayed, by the prevalence of "WASP firm" and "Jewish firm" identities in the law dodge and the banking racket and so on.
The fuckup on the front page of PTO about the leek is a really good example of this kind of douchebaggy nonsense.
51.1: Yeah, the end of socially acceptable anti-Semitism in hiring is only about a long career ago; older partners now started their careers when there were big firms where you just wouldn't be likely to get hired if you were Jewish, and it's clearly remembered which were which. (Actually, come to think, I'm not sure of the timing. But people are certainly aware of the firm histories.)
53: I think you're probably right about the timing, but what sort of shocks me is that those reputations have survived a couple of decades of what I hope have been outreach and action by the various firms, and certainly the law and business schools that feed them, to counter that history. In the world of my egalitarian, ecumenical daydreams, students in the Pleistocene the years when I was in school, would not have been, and certainly students today would not be, telling one another that "Firm X is very WASP-y/Jewish/Ivy League/Irish Catholic/etc."
I'm speculating here, but I think there's a couple of reasons. First, I don't think the firms are terribly ashamed of their history -- it wasn't, as far as I know, a big battle to integrate them (as much as they are integrated now, of course), but sort of a smooth progression from "Of course we don't hire Jews, they wouldn't fit in" to "Of course we don't discriminate by religion," without a big embarrassing fight about it. And second, firms really do have organizational personalities, and I think the personalities get attributed vaguely to the ethnic-hiring history of the firm: the sort of place that was slow to hire Jews comes off as a generally conservative/stuffy kind of place, even if the stuffiness doesn't have anything to do with antiSemitism anymore.
23: thank you very much for that particular image...
ttaM, that show seems really funny. Of course there are sketches that are really on the far edge of comprehensibility for me.
55: Very fair -- and God knows an organizational personality/culture tends to live its own life, notwithstanding efforts to divert it.
18: That first link is kind of sad. I don't listen to Jordan Etc.!, but the Penny Arcade guys tend to approach media outside a very narrow band of Penny Arcade-sympathetic outlets in a hostile mood at best. I suppose one can't argue with their success (webcomic, books, outside writing jobs, two very popular gaming conventions, etc.).
I'm guessing by loafers he means boat shoes.
I wouldn't assume that. There is definitely a line of thinking that classes loafers as too casual to wear with suits.
re: 58
Because I don't get Scottish TV at the same time as Scotland [living in London] I only see it in bits, mostly via Youtube, although it is, I think, broadcast in England at some point. But yeah, it's funny.
That particular sketch has had me trying not to laugh at my desk.
"They guys lack creativity in their verbal threats."
That's not particularly incomprehensible, I don't think. Or at least it's a realistic representation of how people actually speak.
Ooh, I just discovered Bill Bailey. I thought his humour translated pretty easily though I've certainly not seen all his oeuvre. It seems like a few years ago everyone I knew (which is a small group) was watching The Mighty Boosh. I haven't seen Burnistoun - yay, more to watch!
No, don't show me more links. Christ, are you people conspiring against me?
64: We just want you to be happy, Walt, whether you want to be or not.
There is definitely a line of thinking that classes loafers as too casual to wear with suits.
I'd agree with this, but then I haven't ever worn slip-on shoes since the age of about 10, when we had to wear them in gym class. (The only exception, I suppose, being wellies.)
I haven't worn shorts since I was 14. There was a moment a few summers ago when it seemed that shorts were becoming really cool and necessary, so I bought a pair and wore them exactly once. I am not into shorts. The only NYers who can get away with shorts are very skinny wealthy-looking boys, of the sort who also wear loafers and comb their hair. The shorts themselves are close-fitting and tailored. This loose cargo-short thing that Californians do just doesn't fly here.
When a friend of mine, a grad student in CA, got a summer internship in New Jersey, he didn't think until the last moment to ask me if I thought it might be necessary for him to wear pants to work, which would be a problem since he doesn't own any. He just didn't know anyone who wore pants. Of course, the employer's response was, yes, we're very casual! You can wear even a nice pair of khaki pants!
The only NYers who can get away with shorts are very skinny wealthy-looking boys, of the sort who also wear loafers and comb their hair.
Or, you know, those of us who don't give a fuck.
re: 66
Shorts are, and have been, ubiquitous here. Mostly very short shorts, on women. It's been one of those fashion trends, like skinny jeans, that seems to have acquired a zombie-like persistence.
But you grew up elsewhere, right LB?
re: 65.last
Yeah, I have a nice pair of suede loafers, with crepe soles, but I'd never wear them with a suit. That said, I can't remember the last time I wore a suit. At least a year, anyway.
70: But not wearing shorts to work isn't specific to NYC.
67: Not to work, though, right?
Tell it to the New York Knicks. And the New York Red Bulls. And the US Freakin' Open. Sheesh. Some people.
Not to work, certainly. I do have them categorized as playclothes. But I see women in fashiony shorts, worn with tights, walking around downtown looking as though they're going to office jobs.
It is true that I was in NY visiting my grandparents, in my 20s, and put on a pair of cut-off shorts, and felt like total idiot all day while we were out and about, doing mostly stuff in midtown.
Of course people wear shorts to, say, go running, or pop down to the store, or go to the beach, or sleep. I also don't wear flannel pajama pants to teach in.
In Bermuda appropriate business dress is suit jacket, shirt, tie and business shorts (ie just like suit trousers in material and cut, but short). The effect is frankly horrifying.
Who was it in "Hitch-Hiker's Guide" who wore "black jewelled battle shorts"?
74: But I see women in fashiony shorts, worn with tights, walking around downtown
I've occasionally seen this too, which is why I bought the pair of shorts I have, which are straight-legged and made of suit stuff. I think I have learned that it isn't for me.
So "doesn't wear shorts" means "doesn't wear shorts to be a professor".
re: 76
Like LB I'm sure I see people are wearing them -- 'cocktail' shorts -- to work, with tights and smart-ish shoes. Not just people wearing them to college, or for general hanging out.
The effect is frankly horrifying.
...like the guy from ACDC.
79: It's been an odd little fashion window of the past couple of years that has opened for a few kinds of a few shorts on a few people for work-related purposes. It isn't open very wide even still.
Or, you know, those of us who don't give a fuck.
Yes. Summer in NYC can be brutal, there's no reason to not wear shorts and sandals if you're not going to work or a date.
I see looks like this not terribly infrequently. I think shorts come off in NY as either totally scruffy, like they might anyplace: appropriate for beach, park, grocery store, running errands, doing anything without a dress code where you don't care if you look slovenly, or alternatively as serious fashion, like at the link.
If there's an NY difference, it might be that there's a sort of business-casual level of shorts-wearing that's available in California but not here.
re: 85
Yeah, very common here. The person in the photo is British, also.
Serious men, wearing serious shorts to work.
The thing I always found odd is English boys at independent schools wearing shorts as part of a uniform. In winter no less.
This town is so weird, because of the river. People wear bikinis to the grocery store, only sometimes with cover-ups. College kids strip and sunbathe by the river in between classes. (Not the college I'm at.) I see more flesh here than I've ever seen in my life. It's not limited to beautiful people, either, which is very nice.
88: as Douglas Adams pointed out, this makes a lot of sense for small, energetic boys, as science has yet to come up with self-repairing trousers, but we all have self-repairing knees.
Bill Bailey
"We got ten requests for, we got Bill Bailey, and we played them all"
It's not limited to beautiful people, either, which is very nice.
For whom?
Ever since the "Ventis" incident, I'm convinced that you people will believe literally anything about Los Angeles (how have I not made money from you chumps yet?), but (a) men over 25 generally wear pants, not shorts, and it is generally unacceptable to wear shorts to work unless you're a delivery guy or a union cameraman; (b) no one dresses like this moron except people who want to look like morons; (c) I'm pretty sure that the "I don't wear pants after 2pm" thing was a joke. All clear?
You're commenting from a sensory deprivation meditation tank right now, aren't you? That's where Californians spend all their time when they're not surfing or doing coke.
93: Wait. You mean it's not the case that people from Ventura County are believed to be generally angry and hostile and are therefore called "Ventis"?
So I see. What can I say: I've never had occasion to visit L.A., and if I recall that thread correctly, someone had said that the guy responding to Tedra was constitutionally (something like that) bound to respond in such a way, and that was apparently not because he was 89. So.
Suffice it to say that I had no intention of repeating Halford's alleged information.
no intention of repeating Halford's alleged information.
Generally a good plan, I have to say.
In any event, the outfit on the guy in the original PTO post is truly horrible in all kinds of ways. The hat, beret of sorts, really tops it off. Poor guy.
Also, New Yorkers are fast talkers who don't look you in the eye. And dsquared is Welsh, and you know what that means. San Franciscans are all like, "Are you going to the bunny party or the pillow fight?"
I've heard of snuggle parties, which are, like, so 2003 and way creepy, but I wouldn't put a pillow fight past SF.
Wasn't there a flash-mob thing in SF that was a huge pillow fight in the street? Maybe it wasn't SF, but I thought it was.
The bunny party I made up, but I bet we could think of something it might be ... in San Francisco.
It was a lovely touch, parsi, and I will totally steal it.
Learn to play the game, Parsi. You could totally have made up facts about bunny parties for at least this comment thread.
I mean, unless you aren't a jerk who enjoys manipulating people through lies. But then I don't understand you.
Don't fake it Halford; I know you been at every bunny party in LA, getting your bunny on.
106: Oh, hell, I tried very briefly to think of some story when I made up 99, but my dinner was ready in the kitchen and I was hungry enough to go get it.
I'll never make it in this racket.
You people hating on shorts need to lighten up.
The bunny party I made up
No you didn't:
Mostly my knock on San Francisco is that the whole playground thing has become extreme, kind of a summer camp for grown-ups, planned activities, etc. I think I've mentioned hearabouts the day I walked around town, running into randomly and visiting with people I knew from different walks of life, all of whom happened to be going to "the bunny party," except for the last one, who when I asked "so, are you going to 'the bunny party'?" responded, "No, I'm going to Big Wheels drag racing."
Wait, so Parsimon just played the players? Well done.
112: I knew I was getting that from somewhere. In the absence of any idea where, I figured "I made it up" served as well.
Business shorts (Darwin, Australia).
(More prosaically)
Pillow fight.
You never want to make the mistake of bringing a bunny to a pillow fight.
I'm convinced that you people will believe literally anything about Los Angeles
Well, we have to make up for all of Megan's comments about how the East Coast is some kind of mythical place or hoax or whatever.
I've heard of snuggle parties, which are, like, so 2003 and way creepy, but I wouldn't put a pillow fight past SF.
Are snuggle parties the same thing as cuddle parties? I had an LJ friend back around that time who befriended the founder of some cuddle party business, and wrote a bunch of posts about the parties. It sounded amazingly unpleasant to me, but maybe that's just me.
Sorry, you're right. Cuddle party. I had the name wrong. Cuddle party is worse.
We didn't actually make it to the bunny party. FWIW it was around Easter.
I know there have been pillow-fight flashmobs in downtown LA.
Nice one, parsi.
Probably every major city in the West, I'd have thought.
It's still around Easter. Does the West Coast have its own Easter, too?
I don't know from bunny parties, but Facebook tells me that the girl I lost my virginity to lo these many years ago attends parties at the Playboy Mansion fairly regularly.
Moved up from hooker to madam, eh?
127: tell her to watch out for legionnaire's disease.
This bunny party looks pretty low-key.
130: Do you mean "Maximum Mac n' Cheese - Epic Meal Time", or the Tahrir Square footage?
Stupid broken link - this should work.
