My proposition to you: gay men, particularly if they identify as leather daddies, know how to age carefully and without surrendering their sexuality better than your average straight man does, and I could learn a thing or two from them.
Not unrelatedly! A dressing tip I’ve gleaned from careful observation of men my age and older in London is that hard-mod/early skinhead is a look you can get away with into your seventies. An outfit of Fred Perrys, Clarks desert boots, the right raincoat, something like that: neat, crisp, composed and clean. It indicates you haven’t given up.
Actually, let’s talk #style for a bit, shall we? I don’t believe in fashion and I don’t care for vanity, but I do believe that dress is an expressive medium and that there’s nothing wrong with conveying a sense of elan through the clothes you wear and how you choose to accessorize. Me myself, while I admire all the usual men’s style icons (Steve McQueen, Miles Davis, Alain Delon, Michael Caine et al.), I have four basic modes, though they sadly and inappropriately tend to blur into one another:
They are ‘90s Minimalist Architect, Monochrome Modernist, Ultralight Hiker (the most technical) and Monastic Post-Metal. You would be forgiven for being able to discern much of a distinction between any of these, and I’m too casual, really, to keep up the rigor associated with the first two of them. So what I’m trying to do is pare these down to one consistent daily mode of showing up, easy-wearing enough for comfort and the way I really live, and crisp enough to convey some verve.
Happily, this mostly means getting rid of things rather than having to buy anything new. In any event I’m always trying to wear things that are consistent with my values: durable, hard-wearing, good value for money, modern but vaguely timeless. I’m curious how you go about approaching the way you dress, especially if you think of it as a medium of expression, and doubly so if you find it difficult to talk about in your communities, circles or friend groups.
@adamgreenfield I go with function and social role first, and try to blend in some style where I can. I’m a white male college prof, so the standards of my “peers” are radically all over the place. A handful in natty suits, a bunch in t-shirts* and jeans, and most somewhere in between on autopilot. I generally aim more towards the former.
I’m always shocked when I see one colleague, whom I’ve worked with for 18 years, in a collared shirt. Happens about once every three years.
@dkompare@adamgreenfield my women colleagues all dress up and look very nice and natty, and many of the men wear short sleeves and sneakers, if not tshirts. i don't really fit in either of these. my colleague with whom i feel the most sartorial kinship wears clogs, painters pants, and turquoise jewelry, and is an 80yo gay man. he also wears fleece vests tho and i draw the line there. an older female colleague who retired wore glittery converse, which i respect but isn't me either
@adamgreenfield This here by the Wu Ming collective (and many things about their "54" novel) strongly affected my thinking on this subject: "Cary Grant: Style as a Martial Art":
@acousticmirror Oh crikey, where has this essay been my whole life? I am going to reread and savor it over coffee in the morning. It’s especially apropos as I was preëmptively framing my response to a challenge I expected to this line of inquiry, and haven’t yet received, i.e. how do I reconcile my formal concerns with my politics? How dare I care about style when/don’t-you-know-about-[insert crisis here]?/isn’t this just a marker of extreme privilege? I think it’s only since ‘68
@adamgreenfield Oh, Wu Ming have you sorted there. They were all in favour of the "dress-up option" (at a time when protest and protest fashion was becoming pigeon-holed, remember: Reclaim the Streets, Seattle'99, Bologna'02...). Revolution in style: boat drinks for all. :)
@acousticmirror that we’ve conflated looking abject with politics that are further to the left than, say, AOC; maybe there’s some Sierra Maestra chic in there too. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I am to demonstrate that even a confirmed degrowthist can look sharp, and can do so without betraying their other commitments.
@adamgreenfield There's a pragmatic side to it, too (deception, camouflage). In a street riot context, you can go places and be places you couldn't if you looked like you were just back from Burning Man or something.
@acousticmirror@adamgreenfield agree wtih this--there are many good reasons, not only practical, to not have one's politics have a pigeon-hole-able uniform, or to not wear it if they do
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