derek guy
@dieworkwear • 1,560,956 subscribers
Menswear writer. Editor at @putthison. Bylines at The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, Politico, Esquire, and Mr. Porter
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I think Hasan could use a tailor, but I disagree with your reaction to that specific suit. My impression is that Hasan's jackets don't fit as well as they could because he has a very broad chest. In the first photo, you can see how the jacket's collar isn't really seated correctly, which is causing the lapels to spread apart. In the past, I've talked about a collar gap, where the back of the jacket's collar lifts from the person's neck. This can be easier to spot in two-dimensional images. But a correctly seated collar isn't just about that one part — it's about the totality of the collar. In the second slide, you can see photos of four men with similarly broad chests. None of the men featured in this tweet have a collar gap. But notice how, in the second slide, the jacket collars sit better on all four men. They come up on the wearers. Edwin DeBoise, founder of the bespoke tailoring house Steed, once explained this to me as an issue of crooking and straightening a jacket. I should warn ahead of time: this issue is controversial among tailors and notoriously difficult to explain even in person, let alone online. The issue revolves around something called the neck point, where the jacket's shoulder seam meets the collar. When drafting a pattern, a tailor can adjust the neck point and shoulder line so the collar sits correctly for the person's build and posture. In the video featuring Edwin, you can see how a jacket can be thrown off depending on whether the person has a prominent chest and erect posture or a small chest and stands very stooped. You can try this at home. Put on a tailored jacket (suit jacket or sport coat) and throw your chest out like you're very proud. This will cause the jacket to be thrown off your shoulders. This is similar to what's happening on Hasan's jackets. To fix this, the tailor will need to adjust the neck point, which can only be done during the pattern drafting stage. You can't adjust it in ready-to-wear. Many made-to-measure programs, possibly even most, can't accommodate this. In the fourth and final slide, you can see Hasan in a Zhongshan suit, which is a traditional Chinese garment modeled after something Sun Yat-sen used to wear (which, in turn, is modeled after gakurans, a Japanese school uniform). You can see this suit does not have this problem. Whatever you may think of the style, it's well tailored in a technical sense. If the jacket's neck point were incorrectly placed, you would see the top few buttons starting to pull. Instead, the body fits very cleanly and the front-back balance (how the jacket hangs from the shoulders when seen from the side), seems to be correct. Many people nowadays use the term "tailor" to mean all sorts of things. For instance, if they see trousers they think are too baggy, they will often say something like "those pants need to be tailored." All they are really saying is "that garment needs to be slimmed down." This is partly because their experience with tailoring is limited to alterations and they are mostly buying ready-to-wear. But tailoring isn't just about slimming things down. Something can fit quite full and still be made correctly. IMO, it's useful to separate out the styling of a garment from its technical construction/ fit.
derek guy1,473,278 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen
The reactions to this tweet are telling. About a year ago, I spoke with someone who has worked in the high-end denim industry for a few decades. He's traveled the world to meet with some of the best indigo dyers, fabric weavers, and cut-and-sew factories. He lives and breathes denim. We talked about whether the US could ever create a high-end denim industry that could rival Japan's. His answer, delivered to me without any sentimentality, was a straightforward "No." According to him, the issue isn't just history. To be sure, Japan has a long history of weaving textiles, which has led to a particularly robust denim industry in and around Okayama Prefecture. It was here, after all, that farmers found that the soil was too saline for rice cultivation sometime in the 17th century, so they switched to cotton. Over the next four hundred years, cotton cultivation here supported the development of yarn spinning, fabric weaving, and eventually a cut-and-sew industry that specialized in producing some of the world's best jeans. Economists call these "industrial clusters," which can be remarkably durable and particularly fruitful for innovation. But according to my friend, history is not enough to explain why Japan excels at producing high-end denim. He believes culture also plays a role. It can be uncomfortable to invoke culture as an explanatory variable, especially in today’s political climate. To be sure, sometimes "culture" is just used as a lazy variable to explain things when someone doesn't know enough about history, institutions, or laws. It's not the first variable I turn to when trying to understand social outcomes. However, my friend feels strongly that differences between Japanese and American culture lead craftspeople in Japan to approach spinning, dyeing, and weaving more as an art than as an industrial processes. They are also more open to experimentation — tinkering with machines to get neppy weaves, using slubby yarns, dyeing hanks in unique ways. In the US, he claims, people are much more focused on profit and efficiency. There's less appreciation for craft and therefore less incentive to produce the kinds of unusual, labor-intensive fabrics that distinguish high-end Japanese denim. I still think some structural factors are involved. In a nation of 350 million people, I'm confident that there are tens of thousands of people interested in craft. However, they can't become artisans because few apprenticeship programs exist. Skyrocketing rents and car dependency make it hard to earn a living as an artist or craftsperson, as you have to forgo earning a lot of money for a long time. The US government also provides little support for apprenticeships and craft-based businesses. Additionally, US fashion media focuses much more on trends and celebrities. In Japan, you can find hundreds of speciality publications that really get into the weeds about bourbon, woodworking, denim, tailoring, and any other hobby you can imagine. This creates an informed consumer base ready to purchase things from artisans. This came to mind as I scrolled through the replies to this tweet — the incredulity of jeans costing $300 and confident claims that jeans are just jeans. Lots of people insisting that some brand's $100 jeans are the same as these that cost $300. $300 for jeans is not even expensive in this corner of menswear. This Business Insider episode below gets into why a pair of Momotaro jeans can cost upwards of $2,000. It has much to do with how the material is dyed and the fabric is handwoven. Is this ridiculous? Yes, on some level. But to my mind, no more ridiculous than a lot of stuff celebrated in the US, such as monster truck rallies, sports memorabilia culture, and the garages full of expensive recreational equipment that gets used once a decade. Textiles are one of our earliest forms of art, so it's never a surprise to me to hear that some prosaic garment can be made in a more artisanal and thus expensive manner. Of course, whether you're willing to pay the price of these garments is another matter. But appreciating craftsmanship is always free.
derek guy858,473 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen
Javier Milei's tailoring is bad in ways that need no explanation, but the reason why people react positively to the King of Spain's outfits may not be immediately obvious. Last week, the Spanish media released a video of the King celebrating as the national team qualified for the World Cup finals. In the video, we see a rare moment when the King is not wearing a tailored jacket but rather a very simple, casual jersey. Here, you can see the King's actual physical form. He's tall and lean but not particularly muscular. I suspect that if he dressed this way most of the time — slim jeans with a football jersey, or perhaps a t-shirt — no one would really remark on his style. On the second slide, you can see the King as he normally appears in the media, and suddenly he looks much better. Yes, it helps to be tall, handsome, and even bearded, but here the tailoring is doing the heavy lifting. There are some obvious things, such as the precision of the tailoring. Everything fits cleanly without much puckering or pulling. The collar hugs the neck. The jacket also covers his seat, which allows the buttoning point to be placed just below the narrowest part of his torso. This button placement elongates the lapel line and allows the waist to be cinched a bit tighter. But there are also less obvious things. Compare the broadness of this shoulder line to the video of him just wearing a jersey. The chest also curves outward slightly, making him look much more muscular. The result is a V-shaped silhouette sitting on what would be a set of columnar legs (if you could see them in the photo). As I've explained before, this is entirely the effect of good tailoring. The combination of shoulder pads, wadding, and ironwork creates that molded shoulder line. The sculpted chest is created using haircloth, canvas, pad stitching, and ironwork. You can see this in the third slide, where the innards of a suit jacket are exposed. If you hold up a T-shirt, dress shirt, polo shirt, or soccer jersey like this, it will not hang the same way because the material is limp and lacks structure. Being muscular and wearing tight suits will not achieve the same effect. On the contrary, it will produce exactly the opposite. You can see this in the fourth slide with Conor McGregor. Here, we get three things. First, the shrunken tailoring produces all sorts of ripples and wrinkles. Second, the small jacket actually hides the V-shaped figure underneath. Third, and perhaps most importantly, he looks tight and uncomfortable. Whereas the King always looks confident and at ease — making his style appear effortless — McGregor here looks forced and contrived. This is not to say that slim-fit tailoring (or slim-fit clothing in general) is always bad. They can look great on certain figures. I'm only trying to highlight an important principle: the point of clothing, whether suits or otherwise, is not always to recreate your physical form. A bomber jacket can have a rounded silhouette; an overcoat can have an elongating silhouette; a suit can have a V-shaped silhouette. All of these are ways that clothes can give different impressions other than your corporal form. One of the most common misconceptions I see on Twitter is people who think clothes "fit badly" because they don't exactly conform to the person's figure underneath. They assume, for instance, that a shoulder seam must end at your shoulder bone. Not so. Every aesthetic — whether traditional tailoring or counter-cultural — has its own rules for fit, silhouette, and styling. A good outfit is about knowing how to communicate in those visual languages. The King's style is broadly well-received because he's communicating in a hegemonic visual language. Everyone understands classic tailoring to be "good," just like how many people think Received Pronunciation is "correct." But there are, in fact, many different visual languages, none more legitimate than the other, even if they may not play a hegemonic role. Baggy jeans may look great in certain aesthetics for reasons not dissimilar to the principles discussed here.
derek guy1,238,534 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Someone on here said they wish they had opportunities to wear nice clothes, but as a dad with growing kids, they have to wear things that allow them to do chores. I don't think dressing well is the same as dressing up. I also don't think that your relationship to clothes has to be about impressing others. So even if someone doesn't find your outfit cool or stylish, there can be elements in the attire that make you feel your best. Of course, I can't easily lay out this wardrobe for you, not least because we're on Twitter. Getting people into the right clothes requires time, conversations, and experimentation. But if I were a dad with growing kids and needed clothes suitable for chores, I'd opt for stylish versions of workwear. Such clothes can be as cheap or expensive as you'd like. For instance, you can find fatigues at Army surplus stores for about $50 or at specialty boutiques such as Bryceland's for $388. Carhartt's double-knee pants are $65, but Polo Ralph Lauren sells a pair I especially like for $400. Levi's has double-knee jeans on sale right now for $40; Self Edge, my favorite denim shop, has an endless selection of Japanese raw denim selvage jeans for $250 and up. None of these are necessarily better or worse than the others; it's about figuring out which you prefer. Actor Rajiv Surendra, whose YouTube channel I really enjoy, recently addressed this when talking about a pair of white Filson pants that he's been wearing when working with red clay. White pants, of course, are notoriously difficult to keep clean. But when made in a more rugged workwear style and rendered in a heavier, sturdier material, they can withstand wear and tear and look better with age. By wearing these pants when he makes pottery, Surendra has stained his white pants a slightly dusty red — and they look better for it. You can get lots of clothes like this: work shirts made from chambray or denim; stout cotton sweatshirts instead of fine merinos. If the clothes snag or rip, great—learn to repair them yourself or send them to a mender. Visible mending can actually add charm to a garment (as you can see in the last slide). A few years ago, I interviewed my friend Andrew Chen, co-founder of one of my favorite denim brands, 3sixteen. At the time, he was raising two young sons (they are older now) and thus needed durable clothes that could be easily thrown into a wash. He said he favored materials that are easy to care for and suit his busy lifestyle. That meant heavier, textured flannel shirts (what's known as a "low-tension" weave in the industry), denim trucker and jungle cloth deck jackets, waxed leather roper boots, and of course, raw denim jeans. My friend Brian Davis, founder of one of my favorite vintage menswear shops (Wooden Sleepers in Tuckahoe, NY), is also a father. He favors vintage LL Bean, Champion sweats, and militaria. I imagine if he could speak to you now, he would recommend getting a pair of vintage US Army fatigues (pre-1980s, so they're made from pure cotton instead of a poly-blend), vintage oxford cloth button-down shirts (Brooks Brothers), and a Lee 101 trucker for summer and an LL Bean barn coat for fall. There are two reasons why you may enjoy these clothes. First, they are durable and will last a long time. Second, they will show patina with age. Over time, you will notice that your jeans are getting threadbare around the knees from playing with your kids on the floor; the chambray work shirt will have stains from where they chucked food at you. On dressier garments, these may spoil the aesthetic, but in workwear, they only add to the charm. The fades, rips, stains, and repairs are part of the look. Since such stains are related to people you love, the clothes will only be more cherished, incentivizing you to repair things rather than throw them away. Getting to this position requires knowing a bit about the history of these garments, so you know how to style them, as well as something about materiality. It helps to understand different fabric weights (e.g., 10oz vs 16oz cotton), materials (e.g., drill, duck canvas, chambray), and dyeing or finishing techniques (e.g., raw, unsanforized, mercerized). I'll will try to cover these here in the future. For now, you can also find this kind of information at Put This On and Die, Workwear, where I've done the bulk of my menswear writing for the last fifteen years. The information is available for free (no paywall or subscription service necessary). Relevant channels mentioned: Rajiv Surendra's YouTube: rajivsurendra Andrew Chen's Instagram: andrew3sixteen 3sixteen's Instagram: 3sixteen Wooden Sleeper's Instagram: woodensleepers
derek guy175,679 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
![You are incorrect. There's no connection between sexuality and gender identity. A man can be gay, straight, bisexual, or otherwise, and identify as masculine, feminine, or neither. If you wanted artistic depictions of "robust masculinity," as you say, you can always go back to J. C. Leyendecker, a German-American immigrant responsible for producing some of the best commercial art during the early 20th century. Leyendecker, who is widely believed to be gay, created "The Arrow Man" for Arrow Shirts and hundreds of The Saturday Evening Post's covers. If you're into menswear, as I am, you are undoubtedly familiar with his work, as he created much of the menswear art during that period. "Trad" corners of Twitter also often put his art forward today as representations of "traditional Western society." Or you can check out Osmar Schindler, whose works are markedly homoerotic. See Muskelspiel (Muscle Play, 1907) and Germanic Warrior with Roman Helmet (1902), pictured in the second and third slides below. These images celebrate "robust masculinity," but there are often layers of meaning, which makes his work interesting. What you're hinting at is a stereotype that has always been around but, in my opinion, crystallized after the trial of Oscar Wilde. In his essay "Out of the Closet," Max Mosher writes about some of this history. An excerpt: “Pansy, Nellie, swish, queen: the fairy went by many names, but one thing universally acknowledged was that he wasn’t a ‘real man.' Sexual theories of the time suggested that homosexuals were women in men’s bodies, unnaturally devoid of masculinity. But the easily recognizable identity proved useful for lonely men desperate to find each other. Gay men flocked to the stereotype like fairies to a flame. [Later], masculine gays felt alienated from an identity that didn’t represent them; early queer activists worried that the fairy stereotype gave the community a bad name.” In the 1970s, gay men rejected this "fairy" stereotype and embraced over-the-top representations of masculinity, often forms connected to the working-class male. In San Francisco, some of these men were known as "The Clones" or "The Castroids" (for how they would hang around Castro Street, a historically LGBTQ+ area of the city). Moser continues: “Clones had taken the look of the working-class male and sexualized it, emphasizing muscles through tight t-shirts, and shapely buttocks through deliberately shrunken jeans. The Clone Look was, in fact, a deconstruction of the traditional male, a kind of ‘butch drag.’ By dressing like ‘real men,’ clones had discovered that masculinity was a performance with costumes no less contrived than the fairy’s tailored suits or the radical drag queens’ gowns. The Clone Look, the first style to say it was okay to be both gay and masculine, may have encouraged thousands of men to come out.” Today, much of this aesthetic has been co-opted by the far right, as conservatives wear skin-tight Buffalo plaid shirts, stretch denim, and work boots. Regardless, I don't care for the original image not because it depicts masculinity — which I'm totally fine with and in fact have built a career in writing about as an aesthetic — but because it's cliché. To be sure, it's remarkable as photojournalism, as it captures the moment when Secret Service agents rushed Reagan out of the Augusta National Golf Club when someone crashed the gate and took people hostage in 1983. But people are not necessarily reacting to that moment; they are reacting to the semiotics of the image. I find the image cliché because it's so inert and overdetermined. There are no layers to the image; people are just into the accumulation of masculine tropes in a small frame — preppy clothes (symbolizing wealth), semi-automatic weapons (violence), and a sense of urgency (ACTION!!). I find it cliché the same way I find it cliché when a certain kind of guy loves referencing the Scarface scene where Tony Montana says "say hello to my little friend." The red-carpeted mansion (wealth), shootout with semi-automatic weapons (violence), and fast-paced scene (ACTION!!) have some obvious appeal. But... it's also pretty cliché. You are easily impressed by low quality symbols, which is perhaps why our current political moment is so exciting for you.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2086563138481381888/amplify_video_thumb/2086557586678251520/img/ynB1h_6haBQvlPbO.jpg)
You are incorrect. There's no connection between sexuality and gender identity. A man can be gay, straight, bisexual, or otherwise, and identify as masculine, feminine, or neither. If you wanted artistic depictions of "robust masculinity," as you say, you can always go back to J. C. Leyendecker, a German-American immigrant responsible for producing some of the best commercial art during the early 20th century. Leyendecker, who is widely believed to be gay, created "The Arrow Man" for Arrow Shirts and hundreds of The Saturday Evening Post's covers. If you're into menswear, as I am, you are undoubtedly familiar with his work, as he created much of the menswear art during that period. "Trad" corners of Twitter also often put his art forward today as representations of "traditional Western society." Or you can check out Osmar Schindler, whose works are markedly homoerotic. See Muskelspiel (Muscle Play, 1907) and Germanic Warrior with Roman Helmet (1902), pictured in the second and third slides below. These images celebrate "robust masculinity," but there are often layers of meaning, which makes his work interesting. What you're hinting at is a stereotype that has always been around but, in my opinion, crystallized after the trial of Oscar Wilde. In his essay "Out of the Closet," Max Mosher writes about some of this history. An excerpt: “Pansy, Nellie, swish, queen: the fairy went by many names, but one thing universally acknowledged was that he wasn’t a ‘real man.' Sexual theories of the time suggested that homosexuals were women in men’s bodies, unnaturally devoid of masculinity. But the easily recognizable identity proved useful for lonely men desperate to find each other. Gay men flocked to the stereotype like fairies to a flame. [Later], masculine gays felt alienated from an identity that didn’t represent them; early queer activists worried that the fairy stereotype gave the community a bad name.” In the 1970s, gay men rejected this "fairy" stereotype and embraced over-the-top representations of masculinity, often forms connected to the working-class male. In San Francisco, some of these men were known as "The Clones" or "The Castroids" (for how they would hang around Castro Street, a historically LGBTQ+ area of the city). Moser continues: “Clones had taken the look of the working-class male and sexualized it, emphasizing muscles through tight t-shirts, and shapely buttocks through deliberately shrunken jeans. The Clone Look was, in fact, a deconstruction of the traditional male, a kind of ‘butch drag.’ By dressing like ‘real men,’ clones had discovered that masculinity was a performance with costumes no less contrived than the fairy’s tailored suits or the radical drag queens’ gowns. The Clone Look, the first style to say it was okay to be both gay and masculine, may have encouraged thousands of men to come out.” Today, much of this aesthetic has been co-opted by the far right, as conservatives wear skin-tight Buffalo plaid shirts, stretch denim, and work boots. Regardless, I don't care for the original image not because it depicts masculinity — which I'm totally fine with and in fact have built a career in writing about as an aesthetic — but because it's cliché. To be sure, it's remarkable as photojournalism, as it captures the moment when Secret Service agents rushed Reagan out of the Augusta National Golf Club when someone crashed the gate and took people hostage in 1983. But people are not necessarily reacting to that moment; they are reacting to the semiotics of the image. I find the image cliché because it's so inert and overdetermined. There are no layers to the image; people are just into the accumulation of masculine tropes in a small frame — preppy clothes (symbolizing wealth), semi-automatic weapons (violence), and a sense of urgency (ACTION!!). I find it cliché the same way I find it cliché when a certain kind of guy loves referencing the Scarface scene where Tony Montana says "say hello to my little friend." The red-carpeted mansion (wealth), shootout with semi-automatic weapons (violence), and fast-paced scene (ACTION!!) have some obvious appeal. But... it's also pretty cliché. You are easily impressed by low quality symbols, which is perhaps why our current political moment is so exciting for you.
derek guy519,630 Aufrufe • vor 23 Tagen
I've used French American Reweaving (NYC) and Without a Trace (Chicago) for invisible mending and reweaving. I think both are very good at what they do and can recommend their services. There appears to be another US-based company, Garment Butler (Denver). Their work also appears to be very good. If you have holes or tears in fine tailoring or knitwear, you may find their services useful. As usual, this is not a paid tweet, as I don't do paid tweets. I randomly came across this company and thought I would mention them, in case it's helpful. I think it's better to buy quality clothing that you keep and repair, rather than crappy clothes that you dispose of and replace. IG garmentbutler
derek guy198,372 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen
Personally, I'm not into half- or quarter-zips, but the style undeniably works for certain personalities, such as boring suburban dad types (I say this affectionately). If you want to wear one, I think half- and quarter-zips do better when they feel like sportswear or have texture. Notably, the King of Spain's quarter-zip appears to be made of a heavier fabric and fits a bit fuller, giving it a rounded silhouette. You can see something similar in slides two and three. In slide two, we see a Drake's quarter-zip made from Casentino, a Florentine textile traditionally used for winter overcoats. This heavier, stiffer material gives the garment its own kind of structure that would not be possible with a softer, lighter-weight material. Michael Hill, co-owner and creative director at Drake's, told me some years ago that this design was inspired by an old running jacket in his wardrobe. (Remember this word: sportswear). Aaron Levine did something similar earlier this year. In slide three, you can see a half-zip he made from a wool boucle fabric. Boucle has a texture similar to the hair on a Bichon Frisé. This half-zip has a roomy, cropped body, which gives it a rounded silhouette. The adjustable cord at the bottom accentuates that effect. The overall feel is very old-school sporty. IMO, these styles are more flattering and stylish than quarter-zips you see from brands such as Peter Millar (slide four). Theirs are made from a smoother, silkier fabric and sit closer to the body. The effect is more "modern business casual" than "old school sporty." Due to the material and cut, the garment does not really have its own shape. As always, I strongly believe that you should dress how you want. If you are indeed a "modern business casual" guy who loves Hermes ties, Patagonia fleece vests, and Peter Millar quarter-zip sweaters, then have it. I only encourage people to think about dress as a kind of social language. And when you see something you like, consider more than the basic dimensions. People who like how the King of Spain looks in a quarter-zip will likely rush out to buy one without considering the more nuanced dimensions of clothing design, such as silhouette and texture, or where the designer draws their references. Such variations, while subtle, can have an outsized impact on what a garment telegraphs and how it looks on you.
derek guy966,233 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
These four outfits, of course, are modeled after what the band members wore on the cover of Abbey Road. The three suits were drafted and cut by Edward Sexton, who sadly passed away three years ago. IMO, he was one of the most important and elegant tailors of the 20th century.
derek guy279,073 Aufrufe • vor 15 Tagen
this is what some of you look like in short sleeve button-up shirts
derek guy2,052,414 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
IMO, a lot of people don't have a worldview. For them, politics is about gender performance. Andrew Schulz fantasizes about joining the military to fight for his country, but won't set his thermostat to 78°. It's not about civic responsibility, but about performing machismo.
derek guy850,413 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
On April 30th, Josh Smith of Montana Knife Company said you won't have to worry about tariffs if you buy American. Last week, he realized his costs are going up bc he imports equipment and steel. And so do his suppliers. IMO many people aren't aware of how much they import.
derek guy6,043,532 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
I don't know anything about womenswear, but I stumbled upon Caleigh O'Donnell's Instagram last year and find her content to be very smart. Goes beyond "here's how to look cool" or "everyone needs this" cliches. Many frameworks can be applied to menswear. IG itscalbal
derek guy610,866 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat