Once upon a time, people – including men – took pride in their appearance. Before Protestant simplicity took hold of culture, European men’s wear was spectacularly colorful and ornately decorated with embroidery and passmenterie. Of course, Asian men’s wear was often highly elegant and South Asia was over-the-top accessorized with precious metals and jewels.
Even in America, menswear was a significant business. The well-dressed man wore a suit and hat, not sweatpants and a hoodie. Men did want to be well-dressed. My grandfather wore a suit with a starched collar and necktie on a fishing trip on his Harley Davidson motorcycle in 1925. (Yes, we have a photo.)
Unfortunately, the Baby Boomer generation slid into schlumpiness. But prior generations of men had style.
The Black community had a special flair for men’s style all their own. It’s enjoyable to see the creativity and pride of the Black Superfine Dandy.
The Metropolitan Museum’s costume institute’s 2025 spring exhibition is titled, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”
The annual Met gala was today. These are my 6 favorite Dandy looks. I hope they copy into this post.
I wonder if this special exhibit will be the seed of a renaissance of men’s fashion.
We sure did! I wear the same thing every day - cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. When I go to the gym, I wear gym shorts, an A-shirt, socks, and sneakers. When I go to synagogue on Friday/Saturday, I wear nice pants, a white short sleeve shirt, and real shoes. No tie, no jacket, too hot for all that (both my sons-in-law do wear a jacket though, and one wears a tie). Yesterday we went to one of my kid’s graduation ceremony (from graduate school) so I wore my nicer cargo pants, a polo shirt, and sandals. Again, too hot to wear more than that. Plus it was a 285 mile drive.
You begrudge me for being comfortable? I had to wear a coat and tie for over 30 years. Give me a break. Have you ever tried tying a tie in the dark at 5:00 in the morning?
Now-a-days it’s basically shorts, golf shirts and Skecher’s slip-ons.
A man has a hard time tying a bow tie. He asks for help. The helper tells him to lie down and ties the tie perfectly. The fellow asks, “Thanks but why did you ask me to lie down?” “I’m an undertaker and that’s the only way know how to tie it.”
I was very happy the day I no longer had to use coat and tie.
I like to dress in style and my style is comfort. Jeans (trust me, you don’t want to see my legs), T-shirt, white socks, and Sketchers (unless I’m exercising, then it’s real sneakers). Even boxer briefs because my boys like comfort AND security. I know, TMI.
I have 2 suits, winter and summer, for emergencies; weddings, funerals, etc. Even then, if I think I can get away with a sports jacket, I will.
One of the benefits of getting older is I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I’m comfortable with who I am and life is too short for not being comfortable.
The problem with “Dressing Well” is that the vast majority of this type of clothing is not at all comfortable (I know, it’s not meant to be). Dressing Well in cool climates is unpleasant enough, but when you add in a lot of 90+ degree weather and accompanying humidity, it becomes actually painful.
For 30 years my “suit” was a pair of scrubs. Went to work in jeans and t-shirt,. Jacket if it was cold. No need for anything more when the first thing I did was change into scrubs. Now, when DW & I go out, I dress up according to the occasion. So I enjoy wearing a jacket and tie if appropriate. At minimum, nice button down and slacks.
I like to dress up from time to time, when I have to…
I once had a boss tell me that I needed to tuck in my button-up shirt because I was a “leader” in the company. Seemed silly to me that tucking in shirts was supposed to be some kind of leadership trait.
I’m an untucked kind of guy. I don’t trust unnecessary shirt tuckers.
At least men can wear comfortable shoes at all levels of in/formality. Women’s dress clothing “requires” high heels – especially pointy-toed styles which are pure agony.
This poses a dilemma for me because I happen to like to dress well from time to time. Comfortable shoes simply don’t “go” with dresses and sometimes I like to wear a dress. I solved this problem at the congregation’s Seder by wearing a dress with Hike ankle booties in a matching dark blue color.
Unconventional…but after all, I’m an old lady so I can do what I like, right?
I guess the women in my family didn’t get the memo. We made two weddings (completely formal weddings with all the trimmings) recently and none of the women related to me wore high heels, they either wore flats or low heels. This includes both brides, all the bridesmaids (4 at the first wedding, 6 at the second wedding), the mothers of the brides, the mothers of the grooms, and all the sisters of the brides and groom (one of the grooms only has brothers). None of the aunts or great-aunts either. The venue where we made the second wedding required us to rent a dance floor (a few thousand bucks including delivery, install, and dismantling) because they were worried about high heels damaging their new carpet during the dancing. But there were very few high heels in actuality. The kind of dancing done at Jewish weddings cannot be done in high heels, heck, most of the younger women removed their shoes entirely for portions of the very active dancing.
The reporting on TV has shown some incredible dress.
My grandfather’s family in London were women’s tailors. I follow some of this.
Mark and Wendy,
I have a story for you. Each family wedding on my Irish Catholic side of the family has had a particular uncle of mine get up and do an acapella hava nagila. He was excellent at this and built it wonderfully in the pace.
But his brother is a snob. He would not allow it at the last wedding of his son in NYC. The bride was a New York American Irish woman trained as a lawyer.
The groom’s Annapolis classmates were used to Hava Nagila. These huge guys put the bride and groom in chairs at this Irish Catholic wedding and hoisted the chairs in the air. The bride’s face. LOL But she is such a great person it was cool.
