Missed the Boat

I think maybe these jackets by Woolrich missed the boat. Probably because they were faddy only a couple years ago. Parkas have been missing the distinctive lining at the hood for the past few seasons. You could say that it makes sense, as this fur lining seems more luxurious than practical.

Back in the day, Woolrich used to make a lot of these parkas. The Europeans loved them, but with the global warming fad catching on, their sales dropped. You can't order them off Woolrich's website. Ebay is probably your best bet.

Why the blogosphere doesn't love these is a bit of a mystery.



Rappers love anything exotic around their neck, woman or animal. "The Crew" love rappers ('specially Big Boi). I should see a coat like this in my blogroll at least twice a day. Does not compute.



Italians loved them. Looks like this Italian lost his parka a while back. I guess it explains why his sportcoat is longer than his puffy bomber.

"The Crew" loves Italians. I would've expected to see the "retro Italian" fad rolling around already.



Does anyone remember 13th & Wolf? The dude knew where it was at.

My only explanation for all this is that "The Crew" is actually PETA. Makes a whole 'lotta sense, actually.

JK.

Real reason: Have you ever seen someone shoveling horse shit in a coat like this? Neither have I.

Pictures robbed from:
sumbro?
13th & Wolf
The Internet

What Went Wrong?

Let's take a theoretical world. Everyone dresses in a uniform 1984 style. None of this personal style crap, just clean cut. Take American individualism and the desire to consume differently than others out of it. Everyone eats the same food, wears the same briefs, and wakes up at the same time every morning. Then, out of somewhere awesome, someone starts to do things differently. Underwear is put on backwards, cookies are for breakfast, and said person rolls out of bed at noon; just in time to miss the staff meeting.

Unfortunately, this is not where menswear has come from the past few years. Uniforms? They're out the window. Individualism? It's rampant to the point of bad taste.

Collections tend to want to progress with the male. They take him from his basics one season, onto the stripes and patterns the next. They seem to be trying to help him build his style. Here's the problem. People buy individually, and buy into the advanced seasons, thus missing the point of actually building the basics. JCrew falls into this problem this season.



Credits to SF

Awkward three button or 3/2 roll jackets (they're loosely ironed, meaning that you should be individual and unkept), tuxedo orphans, and silly hipster hoodies abound.

All this? All this would be great if menswear were coming from that theoretical world described above. As mentioned previously, it's not. It's coming from a world where men wore whatever they wanted. And now if they wear a collar, it's quite the step up. Dressing like Frank suggests isn't much more individual than wearing flippy flops and a trucker hat. Sprezzatura is not going from Threadless t-shirts to undone french cuffs flopping around your wrists. It's not mismatching a tuxedo jacket with your pants. It's not throwing a bunch of crap together because the male should be an individual.

Brands like JCrew need to spend time perfecting the basics. It's not going to happen after one season. It'll probably take five.

Maybe menswear needs to spend some time in North Korea.

FYMW

Fuckyeahmenswear is funny. There is no doubt. I didn't want to write this but I feel that people don't quite get it. Is it his/her/it's/Maurice's hip-hop references? Is it how he/she/it/Maurice knows menswear better than your average tumblr ass clown? Sarcasm? His/her/it's/Maurice's corruptions of Bastian and Cucinelli? Is it that he/she/it/Maurice makes fun of our ridiculousness?

It's not.

It's funny because FYMW so subtly strokes our ego.

People love inside jokes. It makes them feel included. Do you know the difference between a Danner and a Bean Boot? Good, then you're in. By poking fun at menswear, FYMW assures us of our presence. He/she/it/Maurice builds our ego by tearing us down. Like when your best friends rag on you for being a character, or for being unique, FYMW does the same thing.

People seem to think that FYMW is so great because it makes us introspective and cast off our absurdities. The former is true, but there is a secondary effect to this introspection and it is not that we cast off our absurdities. It makes us believe that our preposterousness is actually a good thing. Few menswear bloggers/readers are in 7th grade, the last thing we want to is to fade into the background. We revel in our quirks.

We love ourselves so much.