Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Coolest Guys Wear Polo with Derek Guy
2.1k Plays1 year ago
On a very special episode of Apocalypse Duds, we unite with menswear writer, editor at Put This On, creator of @RLGoesHard Ralph Lauren Fan Club, reluctant Twitter celebrity, and occasional DJ: the omnipotent Derek Guy. We cover a lot of ground: Ralph Lauren the GOAT, The Politics of Americana, The Very Non-Trad Roots of American Style, Breakdancing, Remix culture, Lo Heads, the ideal Brooks Brothers Oxford, and way, way more.
Recommended
Transcript
The Friendship and Inspiration Behind the Podcast
00:01:17
Speaker
In the fall of 2020, I saw an extremely handsome olive, which Matt has corrected me is more of a sage green, like the Air Force color. That's a quote. Ralph Anarac for sale on Instagram by a seller whose name I would eventually become familiar to me. I bought it without much thought, but as we started talking, I realized that I had a ton in common with this merchant and we have been friends ever since. The seller of course was Matt and the purchase was the catalyst for this show. I wore.
00:01:45
Speaker
the interact today.
Derek Guy's Influence in Menswear
00:01:49
Speaker
And today we welcome menswear writer, editor at put this on creator of at RL goes hard Ralph Lauren fan club, reluctant Twitter celebrity, occasional DJ, Derek Guy.
00:02:02
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. Yeah, dude. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. I'm honored to be invited. Hell yeah, dude. Oh, the honor is ours. Yeah. In the menswear weirdo community that we somehow have established over the past 10, 15 years, we know that you are someone that we wanted to talk to, and we're both fans of your breakdowns of shit.
00:02:32
Speaker
We're just happy you were ready to pull it up with our bullshit. Right.
The Value of Vintage Clothing
00:02:39
Speaker
So we usually get started with, you know, kind of a don't want to call it a fit check, but just asking our guests what they're wearing today. So if you would like to divulge. Sure. I put ahead. Whatever. I suppose since we're probably talking about Ralph Lauren today, I probably should have worn something from Ralph Lauren, but I'm actually
00:03:00
Speaker
a pair of vintage stand ray painter pants and a t-shirt some years ago from Chemala. The vintage stand ray painter pants I think are better than the new ones because they're double knee but for some reason they took off the double knee
00:03:19
Speaker
Oh, that's weird. Maybe it's a cost saving things, I don't know. But if you can, if people can locate the vintage ones, I think they're great. Whether you keep the, because Peter Pan sometimes said that like, it's like a loop on the on the butt, essentially. So you have to make a decision whether or not you want to keep that. And if not, you can just snip it off.
00:03:38
Speaker
But if people can't locate the stand raise, Dickies has double knee white painter pants that are like, I don't know, I think they're like 30 or 50 bucks, you know, like they're basically workwear prices. And yeah, I think it's a, it's a great way to mix it mix up something that you know, if you're normally wearing jeans, something a little different.
00:03:58
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I've got a couple of pairs on like Carhartt, you know, just the basic utility trouser or whatever that I've thrifted in the past, I don't know, six months. And then like, I've got two, two caramel and one brown pair. And they're basically all I've been wearing for months on end now. Like just to, yeah, just a solid fit and very comfortable. Practical. Yeah, very practical.
Ralph Lauren's Impact on Americana
00:04:22
Speaker
So we've come here to talk about something in particular and while we were coming up with the copy for the show it was hard to come up with a way to describe Ralph Lauren's impact not just on American clothing but on America. So we wanted to talk about Derek, we wanted to talk about Ralph, we also wanted to talk about Americana and preppy style and more. So thanks for tuning in and I suppose to begin
00:04:47
Speaker
Derek, if you would tell us a little bit about your connection to the man, the myth, the legend, Ralph Lauren. You know, many years ago, I was sitting with my friend, John Luca, who runs a bespoke trouser company called Pomela. And we were at a hotel in San Francisco. He was hosting trunk shows. And he mentioned to me, he said, I recently met Ralph Lauren. I got so excited. Wow, you really met Ralph Lauren. That's incredible.
00:05:16
Speaker
So he pulled out his phone and he showed me this photo. He went to like some car show and Ralph one was there. And I thought that was just, I mean, to me, Ralph is like, he's the man. He's like the number one dude in menswear. And I thought what was really interesting to me is that John Luca, who
00:05:34
Speaker
grew up in Naples, now lives in Milan. He said that when he first visited a Ralph Lauren store, it felt like you were walking through the personal home and wardrobe of like the coolest guy you could possibly.
00:05:50
Speaker
felt the same exact way. I thought it was so weird that someone on the other side of the country would have walked through a Ralph Lauren flagship and had the same exact impression. And the guy essentially, in my mind, is like JFK Jr. It's like a sporty, preppy, but not like
00:06:08
Speaker
not like in a vineyard
Cultural Remixing of Ralph Lauren's Brand
00:06:10
Speaker
vines kind of like uptight way. He's just kind of like a cool dude. Like a playboy. Yeah, like a playboy. Like a millionaire playboy. Like a millionaire playboy. And yeah, that was my impression when I first walked through a Ralph Lauren flagship. But I think my first like real exposure to him is that in the 90s, I was really into music and dance and whatnot.
00:06:36
Speaker
And all the guys that I knew that were really into dance, not everybody, but at the time everyone wore like Nautica and Tommy Hilfiger and a lot of Polo Ralph Lauren. And Polo was the most dominant kind of, you know, it just took up tier, you know, spots one through 10 and everyone else was below that.
00:06:56
Speaker
And it was just the coolest guys wear polo. To me, it was a mix of walking into a Ralph Lauren flagship and feeling that sense of like aspiration. Whereas I, you know, when I walked by at the time when in the 90s, I might pass by Brooks Brothers, and I would recognize it as like,
00:07:15
Speaker
that's basically where, just to be blunt about it, where wealthy white people shop. I'm Asian, so, you know, I would recognize it as like, oh, that's where wealthy white people shop. But it wasn't necessarily, like if I walked by Brooks Brothers, I wouldn't be like, oh, I aspire to wear that. It would just be like, yeah, that's where wealthy white people shop. Whereas Ralph Lauren,
00:07:36
Speaker
had that image of wealthy whiteness, but there was a lot of aspiration in me anyway. And part of that was the context of how Ralph Lauren presented their clothing and then on the street, how people remixed the clothing and what clothing meant to the cultural scene that I was in. The cool guys wore polo. They wore it in a kind of like, I didn't even think of clothes in terms of like streetwear prep. I just thought of as
00:08:01
Speaker
Those terms weren't even in my head. You just knew what were the right Ralph Lauren pieces. You knew what they were supposed to look like and you knew what the look was because there was a look to the dance scene. And yeah, to me that stuff was just the coolest. Just out of curiosity, what was the look of the dance scene? Ralph encompasses so many different
00:08:24
Speaker
types of vibes and styles and what have you but like what were those kids wearing? So in the early 90s, in the late 80s, breakdancing had this like suit just got super commercial. Right. I mean, they were like, they were like home instructional VHS tapes that you could pop in and learn how to pop and lock and all this stuff.
00:08:44
Speaker
So by the early 90s, I mean, there were like coloring books on how to break dance and all sorts of stuff. So by the early 90s, a lot of guys just felt it was whack, essentially. I don't want to overemphasize that because there were still people that were into breaking and that was a legitimate scene. And I think dancing is cool in all forms. So
00:09:07
Speaker
It's not that I necessarily looked down on it, but at the clubs that I would go to, you could not break dance. If you did, I mean, you just get clowned. So in the early 90s, the early 90s to mid 90s, there was like a wave that started in New York called freestyle dancing. And if people go to YouTube, they can look up this video called Mob Tops, M-O-P-T-O-P-S, and then wreck and shop.
00:09:38
Speaker
in the early 90s that was a documentary that PBS produced and they filmed this dance crew called the Mop Tops and the Mop Tops were doing like a different kind of dance I guess.
00:09:51
Speaker
And this was like happening in Latin quarters. I mean, it wasn't just the mop tops. It was like a bunch of different crews. But but the mop tops became the face for a lot of guys outside of New York because this PBS tape would get passed around. So in the early 90s, you know, before like the Internet, you would, you know, like stuff would just get passed around like
00:10:11
Speaker
cassette tapes and VHS tapes like skate videotapes. It's like a dub of a dub of a dub of a dub. And as you know, as when you do more dubs, the quality of the recording degrades. So by the time this tape reaches California, I mean, a bunch of my friends and I were watching like this really scratchy tape, but it was
00:10:36
Speaker
to me like dopest shit I've ever seen and um I don't know how to describe it other than it was was not breaking it was its own kind of dance form that incorporated all of the um traditions I suppose and um you would go to these clubs
00:10:53
Speaker
It would be like these moving venues and people would really only go for the dancers. In fact, if like someone performed that night, it could even be like a big game. It could be like RZA or Mos Def or whatever. A lot of guys would get disappointed because they came to see the dancer. And the guys that were dancing would wear like the pewing collection
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, Ralph Lauren, you know, these like USA sweatshirts, a lot of block coloring, they'd wear these like, oftentimes a lot of these garments would have really large prints, like people climbing, people cycling, sailing motifs.
00:11:37
Speaker
and I think the only unifying kind of design element were these kind of like big blocky so although Ralph Lauren's a preppy brand I wouldn't necessarily like today we wouldn't necessarily call the garments preppy there were sportswear
00:11:54
Speaker
Um, but they were just, it just became a thing. Like, you know, like the p-wing collection became a thing. The USA switchers became a thing and you just knew what to get. The Indian head sweater was like a huge thing. Um, yeah. I mean, people went nuts over the Indian head sweaters.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that's what people wore and that was my introduction to it and really when I got more into Ralph Lauren to me that was like that's how I learned about that's how I started thinking about like tweed jackets or chambray shirts or oxford cloth button and over time I would end up realizing oh
Synthesis of American Style
00:12:31
Speaker
the Oxford cloth button down came from Brooks Brothers and you know the chambray shirt was originally a U.S. military garment or like tweed jackets oh there are these tailors in London who do bespoke version and I would just eventually branch out to quite honestly like the original um and you know most of my Ralph Lauren purchase now are like limited to double RL but I still I mean I still see the blue line kind of polo label stuff and think it's fantastic
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh, totally. And you know, Ralph basically took all of the various elements of American style and put them into one fucking place. Like, you know, he, he basically, I feel like took the model that had been set by these like, you know, mercantile stores, Sears, JCPenney, etc. And while they were declining, he, he elevated that, that model.
00:13:25
Speaker
in a weird way, like everything, you know, everything he made across the various lines had hearkened back to that thing, even like the, you know, as you said, the wild color box stuff, that was sportswear. So, you know, like, what does it mean that he almost defined Americana in just such a solid way, but what does Americana actually mean in terms of what he was seeing?
00:13:55
Speaker
So I think of this in a couple of ways. One is that, to me, if we're talking about, like, Americana as, you know, like, what is Americana? To me, that look was defined by Brooks Brothers, starting in the mid 19th century and certainly around the early 20th century. So Brooks Brothers started me in tratching, ready to wear suits.
00:14:15
Speaker
in the mid 19th century. By the early 20th century, they introduced stuff like Oxford cloth, or no, the original button downs were not made for cloth, but they introduced the button down collar. They introduced Shetland sweaters and polo coats eventually and all this stuff. And that to me is like the classic American look. And then on the other side, you had L.L. Bean, Abercrombie and Fitch doing the kind of sportswear version. So all of these clothes, they define, they gave
00:14:44
Speaker
they gave for American men's clothing they gave us like the ABCs the language of you know how to create but Ralph Lauren a lot of that stuff starting the early 20th century and moving forward into like the 80s a lot of stuff started to decline like it just was not
00:15:01
Speaker
Cool, it fell by the wayside compared to Armani and Versace and these kind of essentially more aspirational cooler brands. And Ralph Lauren to me took that language and he made it more romantic. And I kind of think of it as the difference between a documentary and a movie.
00:15:18
Speaker
And sometimes when you're watching a movie, you know, the historian is going to point out, well, that's not how something really happened. And, you know, like that's this detail incorrect. But the movie adds a luster to the story and makes it it gives it gives you emotion. Right. It's not purely just reading the facts as as it happened. It puts it into a storyline and makes it aspirational.
00:15:38
Speaker
And that, to me, is what Ralph Owen did for a lot of American clothing, is that he took all of that language from L.O. Bean, Abercrombie, and Fitch, and Brooks Brothers, J. Press. He has not really invented any real garments. He took all of these designs and he made it, gave it a story.
00:15:57
Speaker
And the other thing I think of is, what do we, what do we talk about when we think of Americana is that I think of someone from NPR recently interviewed me about Ralph Lauren. And it came to me when I was speaking to him that, you know, a lot of people look at Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers and Dave Press and all these, L.O. Bean certainly, and think of them as essentially like white people.
00:16:19
Speaker
And it's true that to the degree these are essentially white people close to the degree that America is essentially a white country in the sense I say that in the sense that white whiteness has like a primacy in American culture.
00:16:42
Speaker
and Ralph Lauren's clothes reflect a bit of that because it's American clothing so therefore it reflects a lot of whiteness.
00:16:52
Speaker
But America is also much more than just whiteness, right? It's the story of many different types of immigrants, different shores, the story of Black Americans, all types of people have lived here and contribute to that story. So even though whiteness has a primacy or dominance or hegemony in our culture, America is also much more than
00:17:13
Speaker
And that's how I think of Ralph Lauren. I think of Ralph Lauren as the quintessential American brand in that, yes, it does kind of reflect to this almost mythical and mythologized or romanticized view of this like white homesteader and, you know, kind of this kind of aristocracy, American aristocracy.
Cultural Diversity in Ralph Lauren's Narrative
00:17:33
Speaker
But
00:17:34
Speaker
As the clothes have been remixed and worn and have reflected different groups of people, it's also much more than that. We think of like the lowheads, the 90s, which is my first encounter with the look. That is not, it's not to say that a white person can't wear clothes in that sense, but the culture as it was represented at the time, white, I think of the many, many different immigrants who have adopted Ralph Lauren, aspired to Ralph Lauren.
00:17:59
Speaker
And they also wear it in, you know, like when they put it on their body, the meaning changes. It's like a different thing. So a lot of Asian immigrants wear Ralph Lauren. And I wouldn't necessarily say that they're aspiring to be white. They do recognize that it's, you know, again, whiteness has like a primacy and certain kind of aspirational, white culture has a certain kind of aspirational dominance in our culture. But I wouldn't say that the people wearing those clothes are trying to be.
00:18:28
Speaker
And that's one of the great things I think of when I think of Ralph Lauren is that it reflects a bit of that kind of white hegemony in our culture, which is unavoidable given that America is white. But it also reflects so much more in the sense that it reflects other parts of American culture that America is not made up of many, many people and stories. And I think that they do that better than, frankly, L.L. Bean and Brooks Brothers, Abercrombie and Fitch. Yeah.
00:18:58
Speaker
Partly because and I don't think it's of necessarily of their doing I think that's just because people on the ground Are who serve as kingmaker and they they decide they create them and they just happen to hmm
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, the low head thing is super interesting, because in a way it's a very subversive type of shit, especially with the, you know, the story, like thefts and things. Yeah. With Ralph Lauren, but it's like, yo, I'm gonna take this thing that is hyper expensive
00:19:34
Speaker
And it's going to elevate me because it looks hyper expensive. But, you know, then this this huge movement and cult grew out of that. And and honestly, one of my favorite, like one of my favorite things about just fashion of the past 50 years in general, like the low heads are just such a cool movement of people that are that that love Ralph and just love to rock shit in crazy ways.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. I have friends that have been wearing that look since I knew them in the early 90s. They haven't changed at all. It's been stylish the whole time. Totally. It's rooted in a classic language, and it's been made its own thing, and it's connected to an actual, in my view, an actual street culture, and that street culture retains cultural capital.
00:20:28
Speaker
So therefore the look constantly becomes, it's just forever cool. It's sort of like how the punk look is forever cool. One of the things that I get bummed about when I think of modern streetwear is so much of it is not rooted to a culture outside of clothing. It's not rooted to
00:20:47
Speaker
something else like a dance scene or a music scene or whatever it's just it's just about the internet you know whatever like fashion guys on the internet are into and that's when stuff becomes really fleeting because as soon as the thing on the internet passes you know a year later it's over whereas the great thing about the Ralph Lauren look is that you can generally build like a wardrobe and just wear that forever it's just so to me is it has always looked cool yeah yeah
00:21:14
Speaker
The subcultural elements of it too just feed into what I personally think is, you know, what sets apart someone that likes clothing from an outsider's perspective to someone that has like a basis, you know, whether it be punk or hip-hop or dance or whatever the fuck. Like there's so much of that and like you can tie a lot of the like
00:21:38
Speaker
a lot of the Ralph Lauren love to these various elements of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the great thing for me, I've been thinking about Ralph Lauren a lot lately because I've been thinking about how I'm always thinking about how you got to get more guys into clothing because of whatever niche that you're in, whether you're into like, whatever, you could be into like really basic kind of like preppy clothing or you could be
Fashion Accessibility and Ralph Lauren's Role
00:22:01
Speaker
into like
00:22:01
Speaker
capital or Rick Owens. But the whole system depends on new people getting into the stuff, contributing to the conversation, frankly, buying stuff so that it supports makers. And when I was young, Ralph Lauren was like a really easy way into that because the concepts are assessable. Even on the periphery, even if you didn't have any interest in clothing,
00:22:28
Speaker
you would understand the language of like tweed jackets and Western shirts and all this stuff just from like watching these. And nowadays, a lot of men's wear is so niche. And the conversations are so fragmented. There's no, there's no longer any kind of like dominant narrative. And the clothing prices are skyrocketing. I think it's so difficult for the average guy to get into stuff because they might look at
00:22:52
Speaker
you know, what guys that are into clothing are talking about. And it's so the conversations are so niche and insular. They're talking about like $1,000 jackets, $500 sweaters, $300 sneakers. And the designs are so kind of conceptual, like you're not going to get a guy off the street all of a sudden, like into capital. So there has to be some kind of like entry point. And I just often think of like, what is because I don't, I don't think that young people
00:23:21
Speaker
attracted to Ralph Lauren the way that when I was young a lot of guys were attracted to. So I often think of like what is that like entry point you know because I don't think that there is that entry point. Yeah it's very true um you know it it just becomes it becomes something that that normal people can't can't process I think in a weird way but all of the things that that you know internet nerds love are
00:23:44
Speaker
cool like if you like that I'm not not gonna knock you but you know there's a there's a like you said a lack of like entry point and I feel like it's only gotten worse in the past few years even though you know even though there's there's so many more places to go now
00:24:00
Speaker
you know, and J. Crew is everywhere. There are these different companies that we may not personally love, but they're everywhere, but also how do you get a person to start caring about that when you're like,
00:24:16
Speaker
i don't know i feel like there's no middle ground anymore it's just either weird capital stuff or it's mall yeah yeah they're super basic it's the it's the the problem between uh i guess production costs and like what people will pay right you say you more or less you want cool stuff you have to pay for it and of course there are ways to make things inexpensively and that is not the solution
00:24:44
Speaker
Right. I mean, if we're talking about an entry point for people, it would have to be below a certain threshold. And then as you go lower and lower and lower for complicating things more. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I mean, even the remaining small tier of middle priced goods, I don't think Gitman Brothers shirts have changed much from the early 2000s in terms of price
00:25:10
Speaker
Um, but you know, it's very difficult to get guys to buy even in shirt. Yeah. And you know, again, the great thing about Ralph Lauren is just, it was just a, it was a way to get a lot of guys to clothing. Um, it gave them.
00:25:22
Speaker
a kind of like easy entry point and then from there some stayed with a very kind of like you know like a basic kind of prepier classic look and some guys moved to very conceptual lines and I think that's kind of the wonderful thing of having multiple you get people into something they can eventually develop their own taste and then they sort of become like uh representatives for the brand right like the
00:25:46
Speaker
the better their styling is, people are like, oh my God, what is this person wearing? Oh, it's Ralph, of course. Yeah. Yeah. There was a moment where Ralph did that collab with Palace that I thought was really cool and it may have been, and they started doing, you know, they started doing a bunch of re-releases.
00:26:02
Speaker
I can't remember the kind of famous 90s collections that they re-released. Oh yeah, they did the Snow Beach and some other similar polo sports stuff. Yeah, and they've done a few polo country re-releases. I bought their polo sportsman sweater. Oh, the fishing one?
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That is one of my all time favorite Ralph pieces. And I don't really wear sweaters, so I don't need to own it. But it's one of those things that I've always just wanted to come across at a yard sale. You know, like, oh, this is five dollars. Great. I will never wear this, but I just want it.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, I love that sort of. We could do a whole fucking episode on polo country and polo sports. Yeah.
The 'Rig Rooms' Design Approach
00:26:49
Speaker
I thought that them releasing that I can't remember what years they were doing that, but it was like maybe like four or five years.
00:26:56
Speaker
And I thought that May could have stirred the kind of discourse, but it didn't really make that big of a wave among the broader. But I thought a lot of those re-releases were super cool. Last season they did a bunch of other really cool sweaters. Have you guys heard of the rig rooms that they do?
00:27:18
Speaker
I don't know that I have. So Ralph Lauren is somewhat unique in that, you know, if you work at another brand and you're designing a collection, it's very common to do a mood board. And, you know, I'm sure your listeners are all very familiar mood board is just like you put a bunch of like photos together and say, like, this is, you know, like the inspiration for our collection. Ralph Lauren does what they call rig room, which is a room that they rig with like, it's not just like a mood board, it's a whole room full of like,
00:27:46
Speaker
items from the era, the mannequins with the vintage garments. So they do the whole room and all the designers go into the room and they immerse themselves in the idea of what the coming collection should be. So it's like a full 3D kind of environment. Like a method acting.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, yeah. And I just think those are so neat. Antonio, over 18 East, used to design for Round One. He was telling me about those regroup. Yeah. And I mean, I assume those things are top secret, but it'd be awesome to see one of those ones. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it may be possible.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, one of my favorite things once. Oh, no, go ahead. Go ahead. No, I'll follow it up with that. But I tweeted once that Ralph Warren has like an archive collection and I thought the archive was they have an archive library. They have a library full of vintage garments.
00:28:45
Speaker
And I thought the archive library is like off limits. I think it used to be located in New Jersey. I heard it's been recently moved to New York City. I thought it was like a total secret top secret like you can't go in there kind of thing. But apparently designers can like check out garments like
00:29:01
Speaker
like a library would from that library. And I've always thought of like trying to see if I can write a story for somebody and then just get an excuse to tour that library because I just assume it'd be amazing.
00:29:15
Speaker
Oh, that would be incredible. If anyone can do it, yeah. I think that your work cut out for you, really. Yeah. And I was going to say, one of my favorite moments of selling vintage clothing was selling something to, I'm going to butcher his last name, but John Moreidge.
00:29:33
Speaker
uh the oh yeah yeah yeah i sold a vietnam erdl jungle set to him a few years ago and like when i saw i came through uh it was on ebay of course and when i saw it come through i was just like geeking the fuck out i think i called like four different people and it's like guess who just bought something for me so
00:29:55
Speaker
John Moore Edge, if you somehow find this fucking dumb podcast that we have, come on, please. I would love to talk to you and geek the fuck out.
00:30:05
Speaker
That's one of the great things, when I stumble upon vintage sellers, so many of them have stories of coming across someone who works for Ralph Ford, and these people are going around the world collecting items, and something in that design element will then make its way into a collection. Absolutely. I think it was Antonio over 18 East who had told me that when he was designing there, I think it was at his time at Ralph Lauren, he said that he was sketching out this design,
00:30:35
Speaker
you know, he presented it to his supervisor, a boss at the time. And the guy said, you just can't like, you can't paste random elements from
00:30:46
Speaker
Garments that you like and just create a new garment like it has to like make sense And he showed him the idea of shaping a garment changing in just very subtle ways That's still retaining the kind of cultural message of that garment and that I think that's what's so powerful about Ralph Lauren is that the clothes still retain the cultural messages of classic Americana and all the things that these are
00:31:10
Speaker
garments have gone through in terms of cultural history and social history. And then he puts them together in a way that also tells the different stories of America from like the southwest is a southwestern kind of like double RL collections. He has, you know, kind of like
00:31:27
Speaker
Northeastern workwear collections like the kind almost stuff that you imagine like a like a steel mill worker wearing Then he has like the preppy, you know, it's definitely the the Northeastern preppy kind of looks and he combines all these things into a store and walking through a store is like walking through a
Storytelling Through Clothing
00:31:47
Speaker
like Epcot Center for American History. You have all of these different stories of how America has created and shaped different identities. And all of it just feels very movie-like. I think it was Ralph who said himself that he thinks of himself when he designs collections as a movie director. He doesn't think of these things as just as clothes, which to me, again, part of his success is understanding that clothing is ultimately about storytelling. I know that sounds incredibly corny, but, you know. But it's true!
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that is the whole point is good. Yeah, that that is the whole point of this fucking podcast is like the stories behind the clothing that we all love. And yeah, once you know, once because it's insignificant, right. The piece of clothing is insignificant for the most part. Right. You have attached a lot of meaning to it. And that's what is. I mean, that's what I know. That's what I care about anyway.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean David Marks and I were chatting once and he put it really, really well. He said the Oxford cloth button down at this point is basically a shirt that like everybody. So if you're not necessarily into clothing, your first association with like an Oxford cloth button down might be like middle management or it might be just someone that you don't necessarily want to associate with. Like you don't aspire to be like that middle manager guy that works at your job or whatever.
00:33:15
Speaker
but he said the the most powerful thing the reason why the oxford cloth button down exists is because the overriding story if it's not overriding at the moment it's easy to like stoke and just kind of like ignite again is that it's still associated with guys like miles davis
00:33:33
Speaker
you know, Paul Newman. And once you kind of link it to those things, the narrative becomes different. The Oxford cloth button down suddenly becomes cool, suddenly becomes something that you want to own and wear, even though essentially everybody wears it. And that's one of the great things about Ralph one is that he understands the cultural markers that make something aspirational and give something a story and to say that these are like, you know, parts, these are associated with this and this is associated with that and allows you to create
00:34:01
Speaker
create a wardrobe based on these stories, but also, you know, make it your own. It doesn't have to be cosplay. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the most powerful things. And also another remarkable thing is when you look at how they create their garments, my best field jacket ever has been from Polo Ralph Lauren. And it's been better than the stuff that I bought from, I know people are giving me shit about this, but it's better than the stuff that I bought from all of the Japanese brands, from like engineered garments,
00:34:30
Speaker
all of these companies and part of it is because Ralph Lauren does this kind of like incredibly meticulous the fabrics are so unique and then they do these details you don't often see in other companies because those companies doing such small batch runs
00:34:48
Speaker
So if you're only making, I don't know what they're gonna be, let's say a thousand jacket, you may not be afford to do like these really tiny details because it's gonna skyrocket your costs. For example, my Ralph Lauren Yosemite backpack, it's from their Yosemite collection a few years ago, maybe like eight or nine years ago.
00:35:05
Speaker
They chose these like metal rivets that they had patina, so they turned green. The straps are backed with this kind of like really thick felt. It basically feels like the original hiking backpacks that you would have taken with you in somewhere between like 1940s and 1960s.
00:35:32
Speaker
really rugged just like the coolest thing that you could have dug out of like a vintage shop but you know it's it's something that you easily get without having and they're able to do that because the company is so good at sourcing material getting the details right they have this archive of vintage garments get through um defined design inspiration and they
00:35:49
Speaker
put the design elements together so that you look at it and even if you don't know all of these stories of like mountain climbers you've you've just seen a film of something and it just strikes that memory you think oh yeah that's like that is the kind of like heroic backpack um right right because I assign a lot of
00:36:10
Speaker
data to stuff that is not necessarily there, you know? Like, I'm creating a narrative a lot of the time. And I think you're right that that is a great strength of Ralph and the whole brand.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing is that the amazing thing with Ralph is that they'll make you want all of the stuff, even though they make like really down market, you know, yeah, yeah, like the, the, yeah, like the outlet store polos and the, you know, like they have a lot of like,
00:36:47
Speaker
just ugly things but you know like it doesn't affect purple label like they go all the way from outlet you know crappy outlet item to purple label and the purple label thing is incredible i mean the the double rl shawl color cardigan i have in my opinion there's just no i haven't seen anyone do anything
00:37:06
Speaker
anywhere close to the yarns that they use for the Double RL, Shaw Club cardigans, for the hand knit ones. The machine knit ones are, I think, still nice. But the hand knit ones, they're just amazing. And nobody gets close for whatever reason. Ralph is just able to source the right yarns and textiles, and they work at a scale and have that kind of control over the design process. Right. I mean, even the most budget Ralph things that I've ever had, like their basic Oxford shirt,
00:37:35
Speaker
Um, you know, I, I've owned, I would own them for years on end and wear the crap out of them. And they were still, you know, I've never literally never had a problem with any like quality of a Ralph thing. I'm sure that's not always the case, but you know, there's just a certain aspect to it that they, they nail basically better than anyone else. It's reliable.
00:37:57
Speaker
If you see it at the thrift store, you should buy it, right? That's that's the amazing thing about Ralph is that if you go to a thrift store, there's going to be a ton of Ralph Lauren Garment. And so much of it has the look has remained the same over the decade. It's just the fit has somewhat changed. So the 90s Oxford is going to be baggy or early 2000s Oxford is going to be slimmer. But the look is essentially the same. And if you find stuff that fits you, gets the silhouette that you want, it's something that you can wear for a really long time. And they're often pieces that
00:38:26
Speaker
You can easily mix with other lines, like, you know, you can easily mix a Ralph Lauren Chambre with engineered garments or Capitol, these other like Japanese work. It allows you to kind of keep something for a long time and
00:38:42
Speaker
explore your tastes and find whatever you happen to like, but still Ralph P. Yeah. There's so many guys that I know that got into clothing. Like I just came to mind that Jason Jules, when I interviewed him years ago, told me that, you know, he found his love for clothing because thrifting and he just really loved Ralph Lauren and through thrifting Ralph Lauren, he discovered all these other things. And yeah, that's like, I mean, what a great thing that you can still find.
00:39:08
Speaker
you know like Ralph Lauren pieces inside a thrift shop are really cheap. I bought a Ralph Lauren, in tailoring you'd call it a guards coat, but descriptively it's a navy double-breasted overcoat made with turned back cuffs, peak lapels, and a half belted back.
00:39:27
Speaker
and yeah the classic me yeah that cost me i think 80 bucks at a thrift store um no no moth holes um completely intact and you know it's it's just because there's a lot of ralph loan out there so totally i mean even even like early very early double rl um the fits are a little weird i i will say but there's a plethora of it available for not very expensive compared with
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Subcultures and Ralph Lauren's Influence
00:39:55
Speaker
Do you think that the low head community has had, I mean, personally, I think they've had some impact. But do you think they've had an actual impact on like, what, like what the polo brand has decided to do over the years? Did you watch the horsepower documentary? I have not. I keep meaning to but I'm terrible at watching new things.
00:40:20
Speaker
I mean, you know, take it, there is a part of me that takes it with a grain of salt, but I'm just saying in the Horsepower documentary, there is someone who worked as an executive, can't remember his position, but he was reasonably high up in the Ralph Lauren Corporation. And he said, again, I'm just repeating what he said. He said that they used to look at the records of what got stolen as a metric to figure out what was cool on the street.
00:40:49
Speaker
Oh my god. I heard that I was like, I don't know. But, you know, I mean, that's that's a diabolical type. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, I don't know if this is common knowledge, but a lot of the coolest stuff that they did, like Snow Beach, like Stadium, etc. is fucking bombed at retail.
00:41:11
Speaker
Like no one wanted it, which is why so many pieces that you see secondhand from the original ship have that little gold dot on the tag because that dot represented what was going to the outlets.
00:41:25
Speaker
I mean, my friends were stealing from like TJ Maxx. Yeah. Oh, totally. There were, there were warehouses where, um, like somebody would have bought a bunch of like clearance items and they're planning to move, move the shipments. Right. And yeah, guys would just, the guys would raid those warehouses. They raided, um, you know, they weren't, sometimes they would raid, uh, uh, Ralph one store, but a lot of times it was like department stores.
00:41:50
Speaker
Right. And the department stores were not like caring. I mean, that's that to me is like kind of the crazy thing is that when people are boosting the stuff, everyone I knew they were into blue line polo, even though like they were not thinking of like the super high end suits or purple label stuff. They knew they knew exactly what they wanted. And
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah, those releases that created a certain look on the street. Yeah, a lot of that stuff was not the hot selling items at the time. They were just the stuff that kids want on the street. That's it. Right, right. Yeah, according to the executive, I mean, when I heard it, I was sort of thinking like, that kind of like the look of what people are boosting, like the really large prints, still, you know, the majority of Apollo is not that.
00:42:38
Speaker
Right. So I wasn't sure if it was true, but that comes from, if people look up that documentary, it was done by complex, really fun document. And yeah, one of the execs says that. I'll have to check it out. And I've also long thought that like when they started reproving these pieces, that's not a very rough thing to do.
00:42:58
Speaker
Like they make similar shit at most seasons, but it, you know, a snow beach jacket is very iconic. And so like, I kind of think that the, that that subculture had, you know, and the, just the, I guess the, the story behind it and the history of it at this point, like had something to do with that decision.
00:43:17
Speaker
I think that when they were doing that repo in the palace, that was just a year or two after they closed a bunch of stores and there's all this stuff, whether or not Ralph Lauren was on the decline. I haven't looked at their financial numbers or public, like you could look them up, but I don't know if it has a really real impact on the company sales, but I don't read those stories anymore. Although, you know, they still don't have a flagship in San Francisco, which to me, I mean, they closed the doors.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, they closed the Atlanta one five or six years ago, which had been open, I think, since the early 80s and had a Double RL store in the back of it, too. And now that store has reopened in the mall and the Double RL has reopened elsewhere. So, I don't know. I hope that they continue their dominance well into the future.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah.
Fashion and White Supremacist Image Shifts
00:44:12
Speaker
So do we want to talk about the politics aspect of this? I mean, I guess we have been for a while here. We're talking about the Oxford shirt in particular as a kind of symbol. And so when the white supremacists were marching Charlottesville, they were talking openly about the way that they were dressing, right? Like if you remember, everyone was wearing like a polo and khakis, basically.
00:44:42
Speaker
So it's a huge shift in the way that they look right like in the past white supremacists were kind of like biker gang looking they were kind of like punk. But the proud boys are like frat dogs, you know, they're just like wearing polos and.
00:45:00
Speaker
and khakis and i don't even know what kind of shoes they would be wearing um well so we were wondering like we were wondering i guess what what you think that means i guess what you think that shift means well they're like they're basically two generations of those groups when i as you know when i was growing up um white nationalists and supremacists were
00:45:22
Speaker
You know, they're like skinheads wearing black bombers and skinny jeans and military boots. And the young generation, I think, of these groups, many of them have a kind of side interest in clothing. I would, I've never, except for, no, I mean, it can kind of all complicate. I know this is going to be controversial, but you know, depends on how you code like Michael Anton. Michael Anton's the only guy I know that would be described, that could be described as
00:45:51
Speaker
uh let's say at least trumpian um who has a real interest in clothing and i guess roger stone um well so roger stone is an interesting character isn't he yeah he followed me on twitter it's crazy oh my god that's fucking insane
00:46:07
Speaker
Dude, because you know he's so vain, he wants you to talk about his clothing. Yeah, yeah. He wants you to rag on him, dude. You know he wants you to rag on him. I thought that was so crazy. I saw him follow me and then I sent a screenshot of that to a buddy of mine. Sometimes I'll come across someone who's like doing, not like, I mean, Roger Stone is just almost like, I mean, I guess he's somewhat apart because he had Trump's hair. Sometimes I'll come across someone that's like doing genuinely
00:46:36
Speaker
important work like they're like a leading scientist in climate change and I'll see them follow me and they have like under a thousand followers so it's not like one of those counts with like hundred thousand you know they're not like following a hundred thousand accounts but I think that's so crazy like sir you are doing like serious work
00:46:55
Speaker
There are people that are going to die. There's something fucking wrong with you. Like, like, please, like, get back to whatever you're doing. But anyway. That is the antithesis of you having somehow the attention of both Roger Stone and Jordan Peterson. Because you make fucking stupid clothing jokes.
00:47:25
Speaker
Yeah. They're not stupid though. It's like the point is that they say so much, right? I mean, am I explaining the joke? I have no idea why certain people follow me. Because many of them, I don't think they're like clothing nerds. So I have no idea. I'm thankful that some people find my Twitter account interesting, but it's bizarre.
00:47:51
Speaker
But anyway, so the younger generation, I think many of them have a side interest in clothing, but except for a few notable figures, I never, outside of those figures, I, most of them are just not clothing guys. Like they're not, they're not like thinking about the difference between a 1960s Brooks Brothers, Oxford versus the 1940s. So I think they have a side interest in clothing in that they pine for
00:48:20
Speaker
they romanticize and pined for this kind of like certain age of America, where they feel that there was more, let's say order or where things did not become so quote unquote woke and clothing is scary for white people. clothing plays a part of that because in the way that we discuss clothing in this in this podcast, these clothes
00:48:48
Speaker
Now, even though they were not always seen so, but now they have taken on connotations of respectability. And if you dress like the neo-Nazis that I knew when I was growing up, though that's not a very respectable look. Whereas if you wear a polo and chinos, that is a respectable look. And these people both, I think, as Richard Spencer had noted and many times in different articles, said that
00:49:10
Speaker
this movement needs to clean up its image in order to red pill the normie as he puts it. But also I think it's not just a strategic kind of like let's red pill the normie. I think these people wear these clothes genuinely because they think that's like a respectable look even though they're not they're not clothing guys. So you know
00:49:31
Speaker
Well, we've seen that. Right. Yeah. So the look is never quite right. Right. Like the cuts never quite. It's always something. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The details off because they're not they're just not they're not clothing. So so that's the kind of the odd thing. And this this this coating of respectability, I think, really came out in the postwar era where the man in the gray flannel suit and then all of its kind of satellite kind of looks, including anything that was sold at Brooks Brothers and J. Press.
00:50:01
Speaker
which were admittedly dressing the establishment. I mean that's it's not like this narrative was made up, but let's dress the elites in coastal cities. Usually people who went to elite schools and of course J-press and the Andover Shop were satellite clothiers to Ivy League colleges.
00:50:17
Speaker
And many people after the Second World War, like if you look at street photography from that era, you'll notice it's actually not true that everyone was wearing tail clothing in like 19, a lot of people were not wearing tail clothing. There were more people wearing tail clothing back then on the street than now. But a lot of people back then, young people were in bomber jackets and work wear.
00:50:41
Speaker
You know, people were in biker gear. There was actually a lot of diversity in clothing styles. A lot of surplus also. Yeah, a lot of surplus. And a lot of those people did not want to look like the establishment. So this look really in terms of the Brooks Brothers dominance of the look in American culture was really pre-war.
00:51:03
Speaker
And as I've said many times on my site and Twitter, you know, at the turn of the 20th century, the suit was not even considered respectable. It was considered something that lowly clerks would and the respectable garment with the frock. But by the post-war period, the suit became this symbol of respectability. And now, you know, even if you're a white nationalist and you have this view of clothing,
00:51:25
Speaker
You're probably not going to wear a suit because it's expensive and you probably realize that getting the good stuff takes a lot of money and it might require dry cleaning and all that stuff. So you stick to the damn market version, which is just a polo shirt and chinos, which is reasonably affordable and still allows you to cling on to some vague notion of respectability. Can you imagine if they were wearing suits?
00:51:51
Speaker
It's so fucking funny to me that like the man in the gray flannel suit, that like mid-century, I guess, what's the word I'm looking for here? That like rose tinted lenses view of that period.
00:52:07
Speaker
And fast forward to Ralph, like all of this shit was made by Jewish people, which these assholes hate. Yeah. And it's I don't know, it's just such a such an interesting, interesting chain of events and maybe only could happen now where I'm not unconvinced. We're only being in the simulation. Yeah, just, you know, we were talking in the run up to this about like, I had the thought that it's
00:52:34
Speaker
It's interesting that Ralph, a Jewish kid from the Bronx, carried the torch of Americana because it was founded by Jewish people in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, Ivy Style, as has been said many times before, was shaped by Jewish clothes, shaped by the hands of Jewish clothes and given meaning, spread westward by black jazz musicians who took a look that was mainly northeast and brought it all the way to California.
00:53:00
Speaker
When I talked to Paul Winston, whose father ran Winston Clothiers, they were the bespoke to JFK. He used to do trunk shows at West and people were ordering Brooks Brothers styles, you know, in like places like Arizona.
00:53:15
Speaker
simply because they associated it with Brooks Brothers. But that was, you know, that kind of Brooksea look was spread westward largely by black jazz music who made something culturally cool for somebody as far out as California. So the story is the same as with Ralph Lauren. The story when you when you dig deeper into it is this
00:53:37
Speaker
involves many different types of people, cultures, economic classes. It's a much more rich and diverse story. I will grant that, you know, I don't think all of the alt-right is white supremacist. I think it's like a hodgepodge of different beliefs. But certainly there are people in there who I don't think fully appreciate that they are, I think they only think of it as a waspy look when it's actually much more than that.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like Paul Ryan saying that he used to leverage against the machine. Like it's the same kind of thought process behind it. It's a total mess. Yeah. Yeah. Like I do not understand this thing at all. And I... But I love it. Yeah, but I love it and I love to act like I understand it. Right. So a little bit ago, you retweeted a picture of Matt Walsh.
00:54:28
Speaker
Um, wearing skinny jeans on a fishing trip, he says.
Style Over Practicality in Fashion Trends
00:54:32
Speaker
Uh, and then you added that it reminded you of all of the times in the early 2000s when you wore clothes that were way too tight and your normal healthy guy friends invited you.
00:54:43
Speaker
dry stuff and you didn't know how, which is resonant for me, loafers on the beach, tie in the mosh pit, you know. So what do you think drives people into clothing that is uncomfortable? I mean, you do it to get a fit off to- Yeah. To look cool for a bunch of dorks on the internet, man. To look cool for a bunch of dorks on the net, because you're, yeah, I mean, what can you say? I mean, it's-
00:55:11
Speaker
because you know you learned all these like ideas online or you want to impress online friends and um yeah you wear a lot of uncomfortable clothing i mean i know a guy that wears a suit to like barbecues i mean when i was um a buddy of mine is like a real sportsman he's he's like he goes out and like
00:55:31
Speaker
fishing and boating and he's a genuine sportsman. So he's the guy that I was thinking of when I wrote that tweet. He used to and still invites me to things. I dress better for such occasions now. But yeah, in the early 2000s, I didn't wear jeans as tight as Matt Walsh, but I wore slim jeans. And just because, you know, like,
00:55:52
Speaker
you were not supposed to wear baggy jeans. Like you were just supposed to wear slim jeans. So I wore slim jeans. But if you're out doing like actual activities, like you can't wear slim jeans. It doesn't make any sense. Um, yeah, but you do it because that's what you're supposed to wear.
00:56:09
Speaker
I know for me personally in the very early 2000s, like in the hardcore and punk scene, you know, nobody made slim jeans for dudes for the most part. So like we all resulted to like gap girl jeans. Those were like the hot ticket item. And, you know,
00:56:27
Speaker
I mean, I guess you can still get an Amash pit with those, but yeah, doing anything else vaguely normal and athletic or active, basically impossible. That's what's crazy to me about Matt Walsh's genes, is that they are essentially, if you look at the cut, they're essentially the same as Levi's ex-girlfriend genes, which were released in 2011.
00:56:50
Speaker
And Levi's ex-girlfriend Jean, as I'm sure anyone who lived in the early 2000s that was in the clothing at the time remembers, is because guys who could not find jeans slim enough to their liking would wear women's jeans. So they would buy from the women's aisle.
00:57:08
Speaker
And even in 2011, when Levi's released the ex-girlfriend cut, it was roundly like sneered at online. The product description said these are like your ex-girlfriend's favorite jeans and this is the slimmest you can possibly get. And even liberal institutions like the New York Times wrote really snide comments of like, can you imagine dating a guy wearing not only your jeans, but your ex-girlfriend's jeans or his ex-girlfriend's jeans.
00:57:39
Speaker
And now that cut has become so normalized that Matt Walsh wears it. And there's like, no, it's weird to me sometimes when I post those things and people push back on it, because I'm thinking like, I don't think 20 years ago was that long ago. Like, you must, like anyone who's replying to me, unless you are 20 years old, like you must have remembered that period.
00:58:00
Speaker
Um, it's just, it's crazy me how normalized, um, slim jeans are and stretch jeans, because I'm pretty sure that Matt Walsh's jeans are stretched. Oh, certainly unthinkable 10 years ago. I don't think he can get his legs into them if they weren't stretched.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think Wayne, didn't Wayne have a tremendous amount to do with that? Wayne? Yeah. Who's Wayne? Yeah. Lil Wayne. A little Wayne. Yeah. Yeah, you might be right. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it was like not at all, I don't know, it was like not a thing at all. And then he was doing it, you know?
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, in the early 2000s, I don't think, I mean, everyone just wore really baggy jeans, and then all of a sudden, a few rappers wore skinny jeans, and it was considered, let's say, let's say, non gender conformed. It was something that men would do. And now that's just like,
00:58:59
Speaker
the conversation is just so weird because when I tweet about it, people will say, well, that's how genes are supposed to fit in this kind of correct way. And I just think you might think it's correct in terms of some weird abstract, you know, tailoring sense. But in the early 2000s, I was considered non gender control for men. Yeah,
Mainstream and Underground Fashion Dynamics
00:59:17
Speaker
totally. And now you masculine thing.
00:59:19
Speaker
Yeah, now you go to Target and you can get jeans just as tight as the ones that that asshole is wearing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, or Walmart. Skinny jeans are made from cotton and spandex and polyester. It's a cotton, spandex, poly blend. I mean, it's such an interesting flip because you've written about how queer style has influenced the mainstream in this kind of context.
00:59:48
Speaker
You know, I would say that like queer, weirdo, whatever, like underground
00:59:53
Speaker
kind of shit all fit is kind of all lumped together. But like, the mainstream is now the tightest fucking pants on the planet, or the tightest jacket that you can get. And then the weirdos are now like, they're embracing like the, you know, a Vietnam fatigue pair, or a pair of like carpenter jeans, you know, just like, yeah, it's such a such a funny thing that like, it this has taken 20 years for this flip to happen.
01:00:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they're wearing the stuff that you'd associate with like the Midwestern kind of, you know, farm worker, mechanic worker in the early 2000s. Like the least fashionable guy in early 2000s. That's like the coolest thing you can wear in the trucker hats. I mean, I have two capital trucker hats, but you know, like you could wear a normal trucker hat. And that was, you know, that's like a, that's like a, that's kind of, I mean, forgive me for using the term, but was considered like a redneck style.
01:00:49
Speaker
in the early 2000s and now it's just considered the cool thing. Oh yeah, for sure. Some friends and I were talking recently about how, I don't remember where the source came from, but it was like, it was some, you know, some fashion oriented article or whatever, but basically how, you know, the
01:01:08
Speaker
the early 2000s, quote unquote, metrosexual thing is very much like the straight side of men at this point. And it was talking about how like real tree and like tree bark camo and shit have been dubbed by like the gay community, the quote unquote, gay camo.
01:01:27
Speaker
and so they're they're dressing in the like lumberjack kind of way uh and wearing like these these you know hunter redneck whatever the fuck camos i don't know it was just so funny to hear it described that way yeah i mean that happened in the early uh in the 1970s i wrote about that for put this on of of uh the castroids which were gay men in the castro to san francisco
01:01:51
Speaker
appropriated these symbols of traditional masculinity, but they wore them in these like skin-tight ways to essentially, you know, it was to make it to be about their own idea. But as soon as that kind of look got popularized through like Magnum PI, these kind of like tight-fitting biscuit shirts, these tight-fitting jeans,
01:02:10
Speaker
You know, gay men moved on because the meaning of the clothes change was no longer a way to signal something about your identity. It just became the straight look. And I think that's happening again. It's just when something gets popularized and the signal is no longer signaling you want, people move on.
01:02:27
Speaker
That's a dynamic that George Simmel wrote in the 1904 essay on fashion, the German sociologist. He at the time, fashion was a little bit more trickle down. So people dressed like the rich. And he was noting that, you know, kind of as people adopt the styles of the rich, the rich then move on because they don't want to look like, you know, the common. Right.
01:02:52
Speaker
But now, fashion is no longer just about trying to look like the rich. You might want to look like a rock star or an artist or, you know, there are all sorts of different kind of cultural groups. And that's what David Marx does so well. And David Marx is not the only first person to say it. But he distills these ideas really well in his new book. See the culture and standards for styles and culture. I always get the
01:03:14
Speaker
But he distills it really well in that we now use clothing to identify as different groups, but as the style becomes popularized, if it's adopted by a group that you do not see yourself part of, then you move on to something else because the signal has, and it's the same with slang, right? Like you can think of it, I always think of clothing as the same as language. So you can think of, I'm trying to think of like 90s slang. Tubular. Tubular.
01:03:44
Speaker
I should say rad. But it's ironic. It's ironic. I talk like a fucking skater surfer kid from the 90s for some fucking reason. Young kids are not going to talk like that because that's not, you're going to identify yourself as like, I don't know, like a Gen X millennial or whatever.
01:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, that's how slang changes over time. I've seen David Marx had used one of my tweets in his book. And I'm trying to remember, I think it was, I think he had quoted the time I retweeted Donald Trump Jr. and Donald Trump Jr. had said something like, I know he used some slang word. I know he didn't use the word Johns, but he used something similar to him. And I retweeted I said RIP to the word John.
01:04:35
Speaker
Same with slang. Imagine if Donald Trump Jr. just constantly used the word Johns. I would just stop using the word Johns. You would think. It's the same with all of these other cultural groups. I'm not just saying it as my snobbiness.
01:04:53
Speaker
I sit, you know, on the side of some, of some group that, you know, someone else doesn't want to be associated. And if I did something, so yeah, I think that's happening with the kind of like super slim fit styles. And then as you noted, like, I see a bunch of people wearing like woodland camo that are clearly like, you know, like, they're not going hunting. Yeah, they're not going hunting. They, they are like a, probably like an urban progressive, maybe even like a Bernie voter, like just, yeah, they're wearing something that in the early 2000s, if I saw that person, I would have thought they were a Bush voter.
01:05:24
Speaker
Well, I've got one more for you and then we can be done. I have always wondered why Ralph's Oxfords have no breast pocket.
01:05:38
Speaker
right? I know some of them do, but I think the preference is none. Is it an informality thing? If you want to get into like really like anal kind of like, you
Iconic Oxford Shirt and Traditional Designs
01:05:54
Speaker
know, kind of
01:05:54
Speaker
nerdy clothing detail. Brooks Brothers originally made their Oxford button downs without a breast pocket and they added a breast pocket in the 1960s. If you are of a certain age and you grew up authentically wearing Oxford button downs as part of like your school uniform, there are some guys that I know that are like real old drags who think that an Oxford cloth button down shouldn't have a shirt pocket because they grew up wearing the ones without a shirt pocket.
01:06:24
Speaker
For me, I think the Oxford class button down should have a shirt pocket because in my head, even though I wasn't around at the time in my head, the iconic like Ivy look for me is like the 1960s. And that's when that's when Brooks put on a shirt pocket.
01:06:40
Speaker
why Ralph Lauren puts it on some shirts and not others I have no idea I don't know what like goes through their design decision but if you're like a super clothing nerd to me that's how you distinguish the differences whether or not you think the iconic you know I was talking to Michael Bastian who's now the creative director for men's at Brooks Brothers maybe he also does women's definitely does men's
01:07:04
Speaker
And we were talking about what the new Brooks Brothers Oxford button-down should look like. And he put it really well that he said that everyone has an opinion on what is the iconic Brooks Oxford. And it's true that just like Levi's 501s has changed over the years.
01:07:27
Speaker
What you consider to be the iconic Levi's 501? Is it the 1947 version? Is it the 1980s version? Is it, you know, even pre-war? Like, what do you think? What do you think of when Levi's 501? For me, I think of the 1947 version. I know Brian at Wooden Sleepers. He loves the 90s version. And to me, the Oxford cloth button down, given that, in my view, it's a Brooks design. So it's really about what version of the Brooks design you think is the most iconic. Is pre-war?
01:07:57
Speaker
Is it 1960s? Is it the 1980s? I don't know anyone who does, but some people might think of the Mark and Spencer late 90s version when they start putting lining in the collar. No, absolutely not. People have very strong views about these things. It just depends on what you think is the most iconic. What resonates with you, what you grew up with, or what's embedded in your mind is the Golden Age version of you.
01:08:24
Speaker
I like to be able to put my phone in my breast pocket. Yeah, to me it's functional. You know what I mean? It's a pocket, which is good. To me it's functional. Yeah. I carry it every single day of my life. Karen Dash, like the basic $25 one, I've had four or five over the years.
01:08:43
Speaker
A pocket is crucial. You have to have a pocket. I need a place to put my fucking pen. Yeah, no. To me, even if I'm wearing a coat, sometimes I use my shirt pocket. I can total it. To me, it's... Because you can feel the vibration.
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really understand why people who like pocket lists, but I will tell you there are people who I think have really great taste, and that's their preference. They have their own view. They think the pocket is wrong, just depends on what you grew up with, I guess. All right, so final palate concert question. What is your idea of Brooks Brothers Oxford?
01:09:22
Speaker
uh you don't have to get too nerdy with it but yeah i mean for me it's barrel cuffs single button uh on the on the cuff um and it's a slightly shorter cuff because the original i i can't i can't get very nerdy with it so the original the ones that i think are the ideal um uh brooks brothers so i i now have my my shirts made by a company called ascot chang in hong kong and so for me
01:09:49
Speaker
I took all of the design elements from the 1960s, which is online collar, full roll, and the cuff is, the shirt cuff is a little bit smaller than normal dress shirt, and it's this barrel cuff, one button, chest pocket, box plate at the back, no darts. I'm sorry, but I don't know why people put the back darts on Oxford. Darted shirts suck. Yeah, I'm sorry.
01:10:18
Speaker
I've never judged someone on their clothing choices, but to me, Oxford, no darts. I think it looks good when it's like blouse at the back. I don't know why guys want it to just like suck in their back. It looks good blouse. So, no darts and yeah, I mean obviously, oh and a placket.
01:10:41
Speaker
um not a french blanket but a piece of cloth for the bucket gotta have the bucket um yeah that's how many buttons uh i have to count i can't remember if i did six or seven i i haven't ordered one in a while um and i can't remember if the 1960s version of six or seven so i can't remember all that detail but at some point they changed it i remember that yeah i i think the originals had six and then the uh i think they changed it to seven in the early 80s
01:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I prefer the seven because it yeah six like I don't know sometimes if you're wearing it If you're wearing it untucked like on a shirt, I don't know It can just give you this weird like kind of skirted feeling because there's not enough buttons to hold it
01:11:25
Speaker
Anyway, Carl over at Sego, he's a custom shirt maker over in New York City. He recently got a stash of fabrics that are supposedly made just like the original like 1960s Brooks Oxford fabrics. But it's hard to tell because when people say this kind of stuff, you know, they're basing it off of a vintage shirt that you don't know how it's been worn or washed and you don't know what the real reason. But it's supposed to be made just like the Dan River fabrics.
01:11:55
Speaker
and it uses, I believe it uses Supima cotton. It's not made, I don't believe it's made by Dan River, it's made by I believe a Japanese company that's spec'd it just like the original Dan River fabrics and then now Carl, this shop is called Seigo, S-E-O. Now he has a ton of the fabric and shirts from the
01:12:18
Speaker
It looked really good. If people look up Sego shirt makers, New York City, Instagram, they can look at the photo on Carl's. I think he's a shirt maker. Yeah, I'll have to check that out. Well, yeah. Shout out Ascot chain. Their shirts are fantastic. Do you use them? I do not, but I have, I've thrifted a couple for friends over the years and like the quality is insane.
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, I like them. They're consistent. Yeah, they're consistent. The price is good. It's a super high quality make. Well, Derek, dude, thank you for joining us. We usually give the guests a chance to shout out whatever they want to, so here's your shot.
01:13:01
Speaker
I wish I had something to shout out to my mom and who's listening to this. You could check out my work at my mom and dad. I don't want to forget dad. Shout out to my mom and dad. And if anyone's listening to this, you can check out my writing and put this on and I work with. I also do freelance writing, which I post links to on my Twitter.
01:13:24
Speaker
Um, the Twitter is under the name die work where no spaces or underscores, right? That's just die work. Yeah. And if you don't follow Derek on Twitter, uh, you should, because it's a treat and a half, both the post and the insane replies. Yeah. I think my mom follows you now.
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah. My best friend's husband is also a great friend. But I was talking to her about doing the interview. And she was like, oh, I think Jeremiah follows him. I was like, oh, that's hilarious. Just random people that I know follow you, man. That's very funny. Yeah. Anyway, everyone, thanks for listening. If you have questions, comments, concerns, apocalypseduds.com.
01:14:08
Speaker
at Apocalypse Studs on Instagram. I'm Matt Smith at Rebels Rogues. And I'm Connor Fowler at Connor Fowler. All right, take care. Thanks for listening.
01:14:20
Speaker
and follow us on Spotify. Sorry, sorry. Follow us on Spotify. Please rate the show or follow us on whatever platform you use and rate the show. And yeah, so send us emails, like even dumb fuck memes. We don't care, just. We've gotten like two emails. So that's gonna continue to be a joke. Anyway. Thanks for having me on.