Well hello there! It’s been nearly a year and a half since I updated this blog, and much has changed in my life since January 21, 2012. One of the most significant changes is that I’m now living in the west end of Toronto, rather than in one of its exurbs. And, just like the streetscape itself, the people are dramatically different from what I’d grown used to in my old surroundings. One of the most startling differences is the fact that my new neighbourhood is infested... with hipsters. So, as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reintroduction to this blog, I present: The Five Essential Ingredients of the Queen West Hipster.

1. Skinny Jeans

The sine qua non of hipsterism, skinny jeans are ubiquitous in my neighbourhood. And the skinnier the better: if you can’t read the dates on the coins in your pockets, go back to Urban Outfitters and try again! They’re ideal for showing off the perfectly-toned ass, thighs and calves you’ve acquired from constantly walking or cycling around the city because the TTC is "too corporate". Or, for showing off the fact that you barely have an ass, thighs or calves, since a hipster who isn't skinny is like a mafioso who isn't fat—sure, they exist, but it's not exactly what you picture when somebody mentions one, is it?

2. Thick Plastic Glasses

They may be black, they may be tortoiseshell—they may even be brightly-coloured or transparent—but whatever their colorway, chunky frames are a sure-fire way to say “look at me, I’m so effing countercultural”. Score one bonus hipster point if they’re made by Ray-Ban; score two bonus points if you bought them from an independent eyewear merchant; score three bonus points if you don’t actually need glasses at all.

Honourable Mention: Browline frames, à la early-season Mad Men's Harry Crane.

3. Herschel Bags

Founded in 2009 and based in Vancouver, Herschel Supply Co. has been taking the world by storm. Ever wished your plain canvas bag had a brand that could suitably convey your particular chosen social niche? With Herschel, it can. They may be roomy, and they may be comfortable to wear, but with Herschel bags, there's only one thing that really matters: they say "Herschel" on them.

Honourable Mention: Plain canvas messenger bags. Score a bonus hipster point if covered with pinback buttons.

4. Beards

I don't know when it became a thing to ensure that one's face is constantly swathed in a gross, sweaty mane of hair, but unfortunately, this trend doesn't show any signs of going away. It is, thankfully, largely confined to the hipster community, but within those confines, it is rampant. Can you imagine being a woman (or gay man) and having this face looming over you during sex? I shudder at the thought.

Honourable Mention: Period facial hair. Score a bonus hipster point if achieving it requires the use of moustache wax.

5. Dr. Martens

This last one is debatable, since it’s a component of many different aesthetics. But, when worn in combination with two or more of the aforementioned items, Docs become the ne plus ultra. It’s pretty simple: you wear them, you win at hipster.

Honourable Mention: Blundstones, the boot for the slightly less in-your-face hipster. Not just for winter anymore!

When it comes to men's fashion on the hit Fox TV series Glee, there are really only two contenders for the style crown: Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer, left) and Blaine Anderson (Darren Criss, right). (I'm not including Matthew Morrison's teacher character, Will Schuester, because he pretty much looks as though he's bought every vest, cardigan, button-down shirt, and knit tie that J.Crew has ever produced, and has nothing else whatsoever in his closet. He's a great example of the dangers of dressing like you just stepped out of somebody's catalog: it might look good once, but if that's all you ever wear, it becomes incredibly tedious.) Kurt and Blaine also happen to be the two primary gay male characters on the show. Coincidence? I think not. For while the most exciting thing that football-playing Finn ever puts on his back is a Ralph Lauren rugby shirt, Kurt and Blaine regularly dress like a stylist's wet dream—especially Kurt, who often looks as if he's stepped directly out of the pages of a European fashion magazine, or, as his father puts it, "like you own a magic chocolate factory." Kurt perfectly sums up his own style philosophy in the third episode of the first season: "Every moment of your life is an opportunity for fashion."

“Acafellas,” season 1, episode 3

As the only openly gay student at the fictional William McKinley high school in the non-fictional city of Lima, Ohio (two hours northwest of Columbus, population 38,771), Kurt is the victim of constant harassment; his outlandish clothes, effeminate mannerisms, countertenor voice, and porcelain-doll looks make him an obvious target. Up until the middle of the second season of the show, while he is unable to outwardly express his sexuality in the sense of having a relationship with another man, he finds an outlet for it in another way: his clothes. Kurt has a penchant for tight pants, scarves, "form-fitting sweaters that stop at the knee," and just about any other style of clothing at the bleeding edge of fashion, often those that blur gender boundaries. But Kurt's philosophy on that? "Fashion has no gender."

They're keys! “Born This Way,” season 2, episode 18

Blaine, introduced in the sixth episode of the second season, is a member of the Dalton Academy Warblers, a rival choir to McKinley's New Directions. For most of the second season we only see Blaine in his school uniform, though there's a handful of times when we see him in regular clothes. But then in the third season, he transfers to McKinley, and starts wearing regular clothes all the time—though his clothes are anything but "regular." Blaine has a predilection for clothes that hark back to the Mod era of early 1960s London. Drainpipe trousers that end inches above the ankle, skinny suspenders, brothel creepers, labels like Ben Sherman and Merc... his wardrobe is a virtual stroll down Carnaby Street. And the bow ties! He wears them with polo shirts, for God's sake! I really don't know what to make of it. And I cannot for the life of me figure out why Glee's costume designer decided to make Blaine so modish. I really would have expected him to be more traditionally prep in a Ralph Lauren sort of way, but I guess they were going for something a little more... flamboyant. Perhaps they decided that conventional, straight-up prep would be a little too boring for the outgoing showman that Blaine is?

“The Purple Piano Project,” season 3, episode 1

Now, when I was originally planning this post, I thought it would be neat to go through Blaine's outfits, episode by episode, and try to track down where each piece could be found in real life. Then I discovered that there already exists an entire site devoted to this: Fashion of Glee. And once you've seen that site, you really have to work even harder than you otherwise would have to suspend your disbelief that Kurt, the 17-year-old son of an auto mechanic, could somehow be wearing a $660 Comme des Garçons shirt, $675 Paul Smith boots, or a €1,470 Vivienne Westwood suit, among any number of other ridiculously expensive designer clothes.

Also, I was disappointed that my idea, which I'd thought was so original, turned out not to be; such is the curse of the Internet. But then I realized I had a couple of items they didn't! So, here they are:

From "Prom Queen," season 2, episode 20: Ben Sherman Shawl-Neck Polo, $79



 



From "I Am Unicorn," season 3, episode 2 (also seen in "Prom Queen," season 2, episode 20): Ben Sherman Tipped Button-Down Collar Polo, £32

I've seen this shirt available online in two versions, one with the logo tag on the chest pocket and one without; for the show, they either had the latter, or removed the label from the former.

Kurt's outfits are always fascinating to look at, even though there's very few of them that I'd be likely to wear myself (much like a European men's fashion magazine). And, while I'm not really a fan of Blaine's modish skinny-suspender/bowtie looks, I'm really digging the preppy elements in his wardrobe from last week's episode, "Pot O' Gold", and this week's upcoming episode, "The First Time." Costume designer Lou Eyrich has been heavily favouring sweaters from Thom Browne, both from his eponymous line and, more predominantly, from the Brooks Brothers Black Fleece collection. And I gotta say, it seems a lot more plausible to have private-school-attending Blaine wearing $500+ pieces than it does Kurt. So, without further ado...

From "Asian F," season 3, episode 3: Unknown Thom Browne tipped sweater-vest

Blaine's vest is similar to this Black Fleece vest ($150), but the tipping pattern matches the white version instead of the grey. But it's almost certainly Thom Browne: note the signature "locker loop" at the back neck.


From "Pot O' Gold," season 3, episode 4: Black Fleece Zig-Zag Tipped V-Neck Sweater, $350

Worn while performing Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night." Note that the red tipping around the V-neck is almost invisible against the red polo shirt that Blaine has chosen to wear under the sweater.


From "The First Time," season 3, episode 5: Thom Browne Shawl Collar Cardigan, $580

From "The First Time," season 3, episode 5: Black Fleece Argyle Button-Front Cashmere Vest, $750

From "The First Time," season 3, episode 5: Black Fleece Striped V-Neck Cardigan, $350

In this promotional photo we can see quite clearly the pants that Blaine wears with the cardigan, in a grey Prince of Wales check shot through with pink. They're actually very similar to this pair by Brooks Brothers Black Fleece ($450), except those are shot with blue. Perhaps Blaine's are from a past season's collection?

Anyway, that about wraps things up for today. In the near future, I'll tell you how to make your very own replica Dalton Academy Warblers uniform, just like the one that I made for my Hallowe'en costume!

I’ve often been known to overdress. I went to a party a couple of weeks ago, and one of the hosts made fun of me for wearing a cardigan and a button-down shirt to such a casual event. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and a Carhartt T-shirt. Evidently, here was a guy who didn’t give much thought to the meaning of his clothes—even though, to the interested listener, they had plenty to say. That’s the thing about clothes: they speak for you, even if you're not paying attention. (To my mind, the way of dressing that carries the least expressive information about a person is the one that is most predicated on quantitative rather than qualitative concerns: buying the cheapest, most practical, most durable clothing one can find at mass-market or discount retailers, and wearing everything until it falls apart, regardless of changes in fashion.) But his comment got me thinking about why I wore what I wore to that party, and just generally about why I dress the way that I do. And I realized that it was, in part, a response to the way that other people dress.

As I’ve mentioned before, I believe that when people put effort into their appearance, it demonstrates respect for the people around them. But some people put effort into cultivating an appearance that is calculated to shock or affront others. Then they’re sending a different message altogether. The message that I personally get is, “Not only do I not care what you think of me, but I’ve taken the trouble to make sure you can tell that I don’t. In fact, I reject you, your values, and everything you stand for.” In other words, if no effort is a shrug, this kind of effort is a middle finger. I’m actually insulted by it.

Now, much as I’m socially liberal and unconventional in some ways, in other ways, I’m quite conservative. One of those ways is in matters of etiquette and protocol. I don’t value tradition for tradition’s sake, but in a lot of cases, I’ve made as reasoned and objective an evaluation as I can, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the traditional way is the preferable way—primarily because, at least as far as social conduct is concerned, the traditional way is the one that shows the most respect for other people and is most likely to preserve civility and courtesy in the public sphere.

So this is a significant part of why I dress the way I do: as a reaction against counterculture. Just look at me: I’m an upper-middle-class heterosexual white male, university-educated, a lawyer. I might be too young to be “The Man,” but I probably qualify as “The Man: The Next Generation.” And when I see people dressing in a way that I interpret as a rejection of tradition, I take it as a rejection of the values of civility and courtesy in general. So I dress conservatively, neatly, “properly,” in order to communicate my rejection of their rebellion. They wear their pants halfway down their ass? I put on a tie. They get another tattoo? I get another pair of penny loafers. They rip their jeans? I press my khakis. Each salvo of theirs provokes a retaliatory volley of my own, a war of values fought vicariously through personal appearance. On the one side, order; on the other, chaos.

By this time, some of you might be thinking that I’m a hypocrite. Isn’t it one of the central premises of this blog that clothing ought to be used as a mode of self-expression? Doesn’t that preclude judging people’s clothing choices, and saying that one way of dressing is “better” than another? Why are different styles spoken of as being opposed to one another? Shouldn’t they be allowed to coexist?

But what I’m talking about here is how I conceive of my identity as being bound up with certain social mores, and how I perceive others’ identities (as expressed through their clothing) as being in opposition to (and therefore threatening towards) those mores—and by extension, my own identity. In other words, I’m not saying that these people shouldn’t be free to communicate through what they wear; I just disagree with what they’re saying. The right to express is not debatable, but the merit of the content of that expression certainly is.

Yes, I am making a judgment. Do you disagree? Leave a comment, and let the debate begin.

I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Birnbach, author of True Prep, in Toronto this past Tuesday, October 12th. It was an intimate little event at the Cole Haan store on Bloor Street West. Among other things, I was able to chat with Lisa about preppy fragrances (she posited Aramis as a possible successor to Eau Sauvage) and her appearance on The Colbert Report (he cautioned her to remember that "Stephen Colbert" attended Dartmouth, not Hampden-Sydney). I was thrilled when she complimented me on my watch (vintage, by Vantage, a Hamilton second line), and when the conversation turned to the disadvantages of Canadian autumn weather—which sadly all but necessitates the wearing of socks—I even earned a hug for proudly revealing my bare ankles in defiance of the 13°C (55°F) temperature. And as if that didn't make the event memorable enough, notice that the "To Do" list on the book's back jacket is dated October 12! (And yes, that's her handwriting in the picture at left.) I had a truly fantastic time.

And I can also report on the actual substance of the book, since I've finally finished reading it. First of all, if you were a fan of the original 1980 Official Preppy Handbook, True Prep certainly will not disappoint. It contains updated information on essential topics like schools, clubs, vacation destinations, and domestic employees, as well as new coverage of touchy subjects such as adoption, divorce, diversity, death, and scandal. However, if you're new to the whole "preppy" thing, in some ways I don't think True Prep makes quite as good an entrée as did the original OPH. I've heard at least one other person say that there's less explaining being done this time around, and I'm inclined to agree.

Unfortunately, nowhere is this more true than in the section on fashion and style. The original Handbook was invaluable for the excruciating detail with which it catalogued the necessary elements of the prep wardrobe, right down to the fiber content of shirts and the widths of ties and pant cuffs. The sequel, by contrast, paints the wardrobe section in rather broad strokes, with one notable (and welcome) exception being the section on polo shirt logos. I also found it helpful that the authors took the time to give their seal of approval to several brands not featured in the original, both expected (J.Crew, Vineyard Vines) and not (Hermès, Verdura). As for Ralph Lauren: they gave him an entire page to himself (pictured at right), and even apologized for not including the brand in the original!

One thing I found odd about the book is that, much as I've been given to understand that the original OPH was intended to be satirical and tongue-in-cheek, the promotional angle that's being taken for True Prep makes it seem as though it takes itself much more seriously. Sure, there are knowing winks here and there, but I really don't get any sense that the authors view their subject-matter with particular irreverence, or as anything approaching a joke. This makes the book more valuable as a social chronicle, but perhaps less valuable as a work of satire.

Now let's talk about the book's title. True Prep. The closest thing to an explanation within the book's pages is the introductory Manifesto (pictured at left). But this is really not what I imagined when I first heard the phrase "True Prep." To me, true prep would have to be more specific, more pedigreed, and more circumscribed than anything that this book espouses. As I mentioned in a previous entry, one has to question how "true" the prep is if anyone can be preppy. Like Mark Oppenheimer in Slate, I wondered what the difference was between truly being prep, and merely performing prep. To me, true prep would almost have to be inherited, "bred-in" if you will, and would definitely require immersion from birth. I feel like you almost certainly wouldn't qualify if you had ever tried to be preppy, if you were ever conscious of the question of whether or not something was preppy (of which I'm undoubtedly guilty).

The closest analog would be, I suppose, an accent. You can't just start speaking with an English accent halfway through your life. It's only authentic if you develop it naturally when you're young. You either have it or you don't. To cultivate it later in life—how can that be anything other than phony?

I don't know the answer to that question, but then, it's probably impossible to reconcile my conception of "true" prep with the authors'. They seem to posit two categories of prep identifiers: tangible (clothes, houses, vacations, schooling, leisure activities) and intangible (attitude, demeanour, discretion, manners). Neither is sufficient, and both are necessary. And it seems that the intangibles are probably the most important; you can't be preppy if you're a boor, no matter how picturesque your beach house or how salt-stained your Top-Siders. I think that to really live up to its name, the book should have spent more time on the intangibles. It does have an etiquette chapter, but that's only one out of twelve, and it's hardly the beefiest of them all.  But fortunately, you can do something to make up the difference: contact the bookstore of Hampden-Sydney College and order yourself a copy of To Manner Born, To Manners Bred: A Hip-Pocket Guide to Etiquette for the Hampden-Sydney Man. It costs only $4.95 plus shipping.

In the end, though, that's all just a lot of nitpicking. True Prep is a cracking fun read, and a truly enjoyable book. I'm very glad to have my own (autographed!!!) copy.

I posted the following as my Facebook status earlier today:

Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers: Would it kill you to put on a pair of freaking khakis? You look like shit. Seriously.

My brother-in-law's girlfriend left the first comment. I decided to use it as the title of this post. It got me thinking about why I said what I said, what I was really trying to say, and how the message may have gotten skewed by the way I chose to say it.

First off, I'm not asking for people to “dress up” when they go to Wal-Mart. I recognize there's an appropriate time and place for dressing up. I don't expect the average Wal-Mart shopper to look as nice as the average Michelin-starred restaurant-goer. (As one of my other friends archly observed, “Extensive socioeconomic research has actually revealed that many lower income families are unable to afford tuxedos for everyday wear.”) But the issue isn't “dressing up.” It's really just “dressing nicely.” Just a modicum of effort to not look terrible.

Image from http://www.peopleofwalmart.com

I like to think of it as analogous to proper spelling and grammar use on the Internet. The fact that it does require some effort to present yourself well, coupled with the comforting shield of anonymity (“I'm not going to see anybody I know”), may tempt you to let your standards slip, just because it's easier. It's not like it's a job interview, right? It's not your resume! It's just the Internet! It's just Wal-Mart, for God's sake! It's not like people are judging you based on what you're wearing!

And that, in fact, is the crucial assumption: people are judging you, no matter where you go. You might think that they're too busy trying to get everything they need so they can get home and cook dinner, and maybe some of them are... but probably, some of them aren't. But hey—that's okay! You don't give a damn what they think, do you? What right do they have to judge you? They don't even know you. Maybe you're dressed this way because you've got the flu, or your grandmother just died, and it was all you could do to drag your carcass out of bed to Wal-Mart to get more chicken soup and tissues.

Okay, that's fine. I suppose I can't say with certainty whether such an excuse applies to any one particular shopper, so I can't soundly make a judgment about any particular person I see based on what they're wearing on any particular day. But I think I can safely presume that it doesn't apply to everyone at Wal-Mart all the time, which means that I can soundly make a judgment about people and their appearances on a more general level.

I really think it's a shame that the common discourse (both appearance-wise and language-wise) has degenerated as far as it has. When you dress up for a job interview, and when you take the trouble to compose a typo-free resume, the effort you expend is a sign of respect for your audience. Your effort demonstrates that you do care about what they think, because you value their opinion enough to put in the effort to make sure that it's a positive one. If you don't care what people think, you don't put in the effort. So, when people put in little or no effort to make themselves presentable, I essentially see it as a sign of general disdain for the opinions of everyone who's going to see them that day. And this is why I think it's much worse to look shabby at Wal-Mart than to look shabby at the corner store: so many more people are going to see you! I just think it's unfortunate that so many people are giving this big sartorial "fuck you" to the rest of the world on such a regular basis.

All I ask is a little effort. I don't think that's unreasonable. And besides—you never know who you're going to run into.

Less than two weeks left! I'm not going to add too much of my own commentary, but it was really interesting to hear Ellen Mirojnick's thoughts about her costume designs for Wall Street and its upcoming sequel. The fascinating thing is thinking about who the characters are, what place and time they're in, and then thinking about how you reflect that in their clothes—how does that translate into wardrobe design. The contrast that I noted earlier, for example, between Gekko's casual clothes and his suits, is actually an evolution of his character over the course of the film. The casual clothes are at the beginning, when we first meet him and when he first meets Jacob Moore. He's lost his way a little bit. And so when he gets out of the off-the-rack stuff (Canali, e.g.) and back into the custom-made suits, it's a stylistic homecoming, but also a renaissance: he has to evolve. As Mirojnick says,

I didn't want to put him in contrast collar, I didn't want to put him back to exactly what he was. He was a groundbreaker at that time — he was outshining everyone around him — so why would he go back to that? Naturally, as a person of strong personality, such forceful instinct would progress. Sharks need to move forward. If they're not moving forward they're dying.

Author Lisa Birnbach with Chip Kidd

With the release of True Prep only four days away, here's a quick update for those who haven't been following the latest buzz on the book's Facebook page:

• Amazon.com: 15-minute audio interview with author Lisa Birnbach.
• The New York Times: "Preppily Perplexed? A New Guidebook"
• Slate: "Muffy Adores Synchilla"
• USA Today: "Cool Fall Authors"

And finally, an item that's three months old, but obviously not very well-publicized, since I just stumbled across it the other day: publisher Knopf has posted an 11-page sample from the book on Slideshare. (Download the PDF version here.)

I found the piece in Slate to be the most interesting and insightful of the bunch. Like many, when I first heard about the book, I wondered about the significance of the title "True Prep." (What exactly is "true prep"? Presumably the book is going to tell us. But how do the authors know, anyway?) So I was intrigued when reviewer Mark Oppenheimer said:

It's clear that, at least as far as Birnbach and Kidd see it, the leavening earnestness is gone: It's all irony now. There are no true preps, to be both admired and needled—instead, we're all just performing prep.

This Obama-era preppiness (he is preppy, too, according to our authors, as is Michelle) is a problem, because the appeal of preppiness, indeed its very inclusivity, depends on an outward exclusivity. The club should require a little effort to join. If everyone who has ever gone to a private school is preppy, then ultimately prepdom is just about money, which actually places preppiness out of reach for most people.

The authors are far too careful to [not] make preppiness identical with money; they don't present McMansions as preppy, or cruise-ship vacations. But in trying to make prepdom accessible, Kidd and Birnbach have made it less desirable. It's noteworthy that the great prep designers, from J. Press to Louis Pearlstein to Ralph Lauren to André 3000, have been non-WASPs trying to master the code of the WASP; in mastering it, minorities continue to define it. (It is entirely unsurprising that this book is by a Jewish woman and a gay man.) But if they define prep too broadly, they diminish their own success.

This time around, I do not think that Birnbach and Kidd are being prescriptive so much as descriptive. That is, they may not be leading prep fashion so much as responding to it. After all, is there a cohesive prepdom any more?

True Prep is an enjoyable but maddening wake-up call that we are watching a culture unravel, one lambswool thread at a time. If we don't snap to attention, throw on our duckboots, thread the duck's-head insignia belt, leash up the English setter, have a Pimm's Cup, and figure out what this culture is, it will be gone.

I would have said that the concept of "true prep" did require some sense of exclusivity; that's what makes it desirable to be preppy. But to hear Oppenheimer tell it, the book seems to democratize prep to nearly the point of meaninglessness. Birnbach herself said, in a different interview with Amazon from the one linked above: "Everyone can be a preppy. There’s no barrier to it. You want it? We’ll let you in."

From what I can tell, there seem to be two elements to Birnbach's "true prep": the clothes, and the lifestyle (which includes important things like discretion and manners). I gather that the point is that both of these can be acquired at any time if one doesn't already possess them. And apparently you needn't have actually attended a prep school or "one of your corduroy-jacket elbow-patch colleges" (to borrow from Stephen Colbert) to be "truly" preppy. You can see this in an interview that Birnbach did for Ivy Style back in April:

IS: One of the things that’s changed since 1980 is the commodification and parody of preppy — as in the Smirnoff “Tea Partay” commercial. In the OPH you’re describing a certain Northeastern upper middle class tribe or caste that was largely hidden from the general public. But in the last 30 years preppy has become so mainstream as a fashion style. Is there such a thing as authentic preppy anymore? And what is the significance of the new book’s title “True Prep”?

LB: The first book was a big giant reveal of a private tribe. There was a little bit of discomfort with the code being shared. I totally get that, but so be it. There wasn’t a lock and key on it. In every city I visited, I heard, “Oh, I had the idea to do this book.” It was a tempting Baedecker to create. And even when I was first working with Workman Publishing, they wanted to call it the “Preppy Catalogue,” and to be just about stuff and clothes. But there was no good way of explaining stuff and clothes without explaining context and worldview.

Is there a difference between someone wearing a polo shirt, khakis and a belt, and a preppy who went to St. Paul’s who’s wearing the same clothes? Sure there is, but it doesn’t fit the 21st century to keep people out. I can understand why someone from a certain restricted population might not want to share, but that’s really passé.

Personally, I feel the tension. On the one hand, "preppy" is valuable to me because it connotes a certain exclusive, upper-class, privileged way of life that's highly desirable. But on the other hand, I have to recognize that I myself would not qualify if the strictures of "true prep" required education at certain institutions, or a certain family pedigree. And if you want to be preppy because you like these upper-class/exclusive connotations, it diminishes the value of being preppy if anybody can do it. It's a genuine case of "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."

I'll reserve judgment till I've read the whole book. But for now, colour me concerned, and a bit confused.

UPDATE: Read my review of True Prep.

With only 4 weeks left until the release of the five-months-delayed movie starring Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf (pronounced "shy-uh la-buff," by the way), it's time for a peek at what the film's stars will be wearing once it hits screens on September 24th.

But first, I'd like to suggest that you take a look at this excellent post at Clothes On Film for a refresher on the style of the original Wall Street. Remember the eighties: contrast collars, big suspenders, big pleats. And more importantly, remember the difference between Gordon Gekko and Bud Fox. As the linked post points out, Fox starts the movie as a very plain, conservative, Brooks-Brothers-type dresser. As he enters more fully into Gekko's world, he begins to emulate Gekko's flashier manner of dress, particularly with regard to accessories.

So too in the sequel we can see the contrast between Gekko and his new protégé, Jacob Moore. But here, the positions are reversed: Gekko is conservative and dresses like "old money," while Moore is contemporary and dresses like "new money." Just take a closer look at the movie poster up there. Gekko: three-piece suit, bengal stripe shirt, simple dotted tie, pocketwatch. Moore: single-breasted peak-lapel (SBPL) suit, white shirt, Hermès tie.

This nearly seems to be Moore's uniform, at least while he's wearing a suit. Always a SBPL suit, always a white shirt, almost always an Hermès tie. He also favours narrow trouser legs hemmed short with substantial cuffs, and appears to wear nothing but Gucci horsebit loafers with every outfit, including casualwear. And don't forget that white linen pocket square, with its artfully scalloped peaks. Much of Moore's clothing is extremely trendy, particularly the SBPL suits with the narrow legs and the cuffs. His wardrobe selections seem to have been made to reflect the Wall Street trader stereotype, the guy who buys new clothes constantly, ensuring that his wardrobe is both of-the-moment and certain to become dated. I don't want to speculate too much on what Moore's clothes mean for his character's identity without having seen the film. But I think it's worth asking whether he's dressing this way because he feels these clothes really belong to him, or whether he's trying to fit into a world where he doesn't quite feel he belongs. The $38,800 watch he apparently wears has to make you wonder a little bit about insecurity.

Gekko, by contrast, wears many more conservative pieces this time out. You might call it the "rich old white guy" look. In the HD trailer, for example, the sharp-eyed observer will spot a Canali label inside one of Gekko's jackets, a very traditionally-styled (and high-quality) line. And when Gekko walks side-by-side with Moore, the contrast becomes even more apparent: Gekko's jackets have a more conventional, slightly longer, length, with lapels of moderate width (generally notch, not peak), paired with shirts and ties of relatively muted colours and patterns. The pants are plain-hemmed, not cuffed, and fall to a normal length, while the shoes are understated lace-ups.

Gekko's wardrobe still has elements of pizzaz, of course, but they're subtler, and they seem to come out more strongly in his suits than his casual clothes. Photographed for Vanity Fair, he wears a three-piece suit with an unusual double-breasted vest, with even more unusually slanted rows of buttons. In the other photo for Vanity Fair and at right, he wears a chalk-stripe suit (with purple stripes!), purple large-foulard tie, and purple pocket square. The shirt, with its simple striping, anchors everything down and prevents it from becoming totally ludicrous (although I have to wonder whether outfits like this might be regarded in decades to come with just as much bemusement and curiosity as Gekko's eighties trainwrecks originals are today). We even see flashes of flair in suitings: right at the end of the trailer, Gekko is wearing a black suit with a strong but unidentifiable textured fabric. Essentially, Gekko tends to be conservative in the fit and cut of his suits, but brings in more contemporary (and ostentatious) elements in the choices of fabrics and accessories.

Maybe it's just because Gekko's personality is already a known quantity from the first Wall Street, but I think there can't be a doubt in anyone's mind that he absolutely owns his clothes. He takes what's already inside him and projects it outward, making his clothes match his inner self, expressing himself through his clothes. And, though he's saying it in different ways, he's saying the same thing in both movies: "I am in your face and I am bigger than you and I will destroy you if you cross me." But there's also the element of comfort there, the sense of being at home in his clothes.

The question I have about Moore is whether he's doing just the opposite of Gekko: putting clothes on on the outside, and then hoping that they can change what's on the inside. I don't get a sense of personalization from Moore's clothes; it seems like he could be thinking "this is what a trader wears and I need to look like a trader so I need to wear these clothes." It doesn't seem like it could be his personal uniform, so much as it's the uniform of an occupation that he happens to hold at the time. They're someone else's clothes, essentially. I'm interested to see whether this bears out in the plot of the movie itself.

I'd like to close by saying how amused I am that, where the filmmakers decided to ditch Gekko's classic slicked-back hairstyle, they appear to have replaced it with that of another infamous figure in the financial world: Bernie Madoff.

Left, Bernie Madoff; right, Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko.

(Or, at least, what Madoff would have looked like if he had as much hair left as Michael Douglas does.)

Let me explain. For a long time, I thought very poorly of men who wore pink shirts. To me, it just screamed "LOOK AT ME! LOOK HOW SECURE IN MY MASCULINITY I AM, FOR I AM WEARING A SHIRT IN A STEREOTYPICALLY FEMININE COLOUR!" I never even thought pink was a colour that looked particularly good on men; it seemed like a man would only wear it if he had something to prove. Also, it didn't help that the only pink shirts I had ever seen were either (a) dress shirts worn by greasy Gino/Eurotrash types—the types who would also wear iridescent ties and white square-toed loafers—or (b) polo shirts with the collars popped. In other words, only douchebags wore pink shirts. What's more, once I started to become more fashion-conscious, I realized that pink dress shirts were a fad, and I knew that those men would look back in 20 years at pictures of themselves and shake their heads at how ridiculous they looked.

But all those preconceptions changed when I started learning about preppy style. I realized that pink shirts weren't a fad; they had, in fact, been worn for decades by men who were extremely traditional. Actually, I should qualify that: pink dress shirts are, indeed, a fad. But polo shirts and oxford shirts, made by the likes of Lacoste and Brooks Brothers, had been popular in pink since well before 1980, when Lisa Birnbach published The Official Preppy Handbook. As she wrote at page 141:

The classic shirt is the Brooks Brothers button-down all-cotton oxford cloth shirt. Pink is the most famous color, and it is widely supposed that no one except Brooks has ever been able to achieve that perfect pink or that perfect roll to the collar.

Christian Chensvold, of the blog Ivy Style, traced the phenomenon in greater detail in an article for The Rake magazine:

Like the white flannels of the English gentleman, colorful sportswear signals the wearer is at play, not work. Easily soiled, the clothing is thus impractical, making it a symbol of both conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. “Navy blue aside,” notes Paul Fussell in “Class,” his 1983 classic on the American status system, “colors are classier the more pastel or faded.”

“You wouldn’t have someone not from money walking around in clothing that would draw a lot of attention to himself,” explains [author and custom clothier Alan] Flusser. “Up to the ’60s it was always a brahmin, upper-class thing, because they could wear it and not be laughed at.” For Flusser, the postwar starting point of the look is Brooks Brothers’ celebrated pink oxford-cloth buttondown. “Pink symbolizes this whole subject matter,” he says. “Imagine a guy wearing a pink shirt: If people didn’t understand what that was about, you had to be prepared to be laughed at.”

“When my brother was at Harvard,” Flusser continues, “the kids were wearing blazers and red or yellow pants and would always use color in some sort of interesting way. There was a sense of who could wear the most outrageous tattersall vest. But being able to wear that kind of clothing comes from a certain lineage where you felt, ‘This is what we do, and if people don’t understand it, they don’t understand it.’”

So all it took for me to change my attitude completely towards this particular garment was to change my mental association from negative to positive. Pink shirts—polos and oxfords, anyway—were no longer douchey; they were preppy. I didn't want to be douchey; I did want to be preppy (essentially because of the associations recounted above by Chensvold, as well as others on which I'll be expanding in a future post). The conclusion was simple and obvious: pink shirts are good. So when I had the opportunity recently to acquire a Ralph Lauren polo shirt in the staple "Carmel Pink" shade for less than $20, I jumped at it. I wore it today—the first time I had ever worn a pink shirt. I wore it with lime green shorts, and then out to dinner with white linen pants and navy boat shoes. And, though you might say it's bull, I felt like a Brahmin.

In my introductory entry, I suggested that most men should be more aware of the power of their clothes as tools for expressing, and even constructing, their selves. But what if you go too far the other way? What if clothes are all that’s important to you, and you have little or no sense of self outside of the clothes that you own and wear?

To some extent, everyone reflects who they are through the clothes that they wear. It helps you express your individuality and be more in touch with yourself, and it also lets you tell people something about who you are as a person. It only becomes problematic when your sense of self is incomplete. I think this is the position in which teenagers often find themselves. For example, I'll bet just about everybody of my generation knew someone who turned into a goth in high school. Why? Because they were trying to figure out who they were and who they wanted to be, so they were trying on different identities to find one that felt right. The healthy thing to do, I suppose, is to eventually come to a conclusion about who you are, and move forward with your life. But what if you don't?

Suppose you never finished figuring out who you are (or didn't like the person you thought you were becoming), but you had a pretty good idea of who you wanted to be. Well then, you might just fill in the gap with whatever clothes best reflected the ideal person you wished you were. You'd probably also form emotional connections with particular items of clothing, or clothing brands, whose marketing images resonated with the ideal you and your ideal life. If you dreamt of country estates, yachts and trust funds, you might stock your closet with Ralph Lauren and boat shoes; if you wanted to feel sexy and desirable, the centre of attention, maybe you'd splurge at Dolce & Gabbana or quest for the perfect black leather jacket.

Brands, in particular, have a special power, because they can pack a whole array of images and associations and fantasies into one little logo, then conjure them up again instantly whenever you see that logo. That little embroidered polo player, those little embossed initials, are shorthand for every advertisement you've ever seen, every concept and image you've ever known to be associated with that brand. No wonder that fragrances and accessories, the least-expensive products sold by virtually every fashion house, also comprise the majority of their revenue. After all, not everyone can afford $2000 for a Dolce & Gabbana suit, but just about everyone who cares to can afford $60 for a bottle of D&G cologne—to buy into the fantasy.

Everybody does this, of course. Women wear heels and lingerie when they want to feel sexy; for men, maybe it's a flashy new blazer or your favourite (lucky?) clubbing shirt. I know a certain lawyer who always seems to be wearing the same Burberry tie whenever I see him in a photograph. Now, there's a slight element of costume whenever you wear something deliberately to make a particular impression, or to make yourself feel different. It's only a problem if you're wearing that costume all the time, and you get so wrapped up in maintaining your image that you forget—or don't have the headspace—to make time for anything else.

Test yourself, fashionistos: If you were forced to stop shopping and wear a uniform every day, would you still feel like yourself? Or would there suddenly be a gaping hole in your identity? If you really care about clothes, the answer is probably yes... but if you couldn't find something else to care about instead, you may have a problem.

...apart, that is, from the fact that my friends and relatives kept telling me that I should. Because you know, there are already plenty of great blogs out there. Do I really have anything new and valuable to contribute? I mean, I’m not an expert or anything. I don’t work for GQ; I don’t have a standing invitation to Fashion Week; I don’t take pretentious photographs of people posing on cobblestone streets beside vintage bicycles with cigarettes dangling languorously from their fingers and/or lips. And, in spite of the fact that I’m a lawyer, I don’t even have the money to buy all the lovely clothes that I want, because I’m still young and broke. So what have I got to say, really?

I think my answer is the same as a lot of bloggers: I have some things that I feel that I need to say, and I believe that other people might derive some value from hearing them. Despite the fact that my interest is amateur rather than professional, I make it my business to be well-informed; I hate to put forward an opinion about something if I haven’t first taken the trouble to educate myself about it, which hopefully means that people will learn something from me. And—perhaps because of my legal training, but probably because it’s just the kind of person I am—I take a very analytical approach to things, and I always like to know whether there are rules that ought to be followed, and then to help other people learn those rules. The great thing about men’s style is that, although there are rules, they’re not that hard to learn, even though there are a lot of them. And you do need to learn them—learn them well enough to follow them perfectly—before you can even think about bending them.

The other reason I started this blog is because we all have to face one simple truth: Clothes are important, and people judge you by them. I may wear a razor-sharp suit to work every day to impress my clients, while my programmer friend may wear whatever T-shirt happens to be on top of the pile of clean laundry, but every clothing choice that each of us makes tells the world something about us. The people we pass on the street each day don’t know our life stories. Through the things we choose to put on our backs, we influence how those people will perceive us.

As anyone who’s ever taken an English class knows, though, meaning is more often found in the eye of the beholder than in the intention of the creator. One man’s razor-sharp suit is another man’s totem of corporatist hegemony; one woman’s dreadlocks are another woman’s public health nuisance. Hence, the all-important question: Who are you trying to speak to with your clothes, and are they hearing what you want them to hear?

My goal is to make you more aware of the power that your clothes wield—both to express your identity, and indeed, to create it.

Or, to put it simply: Threads count.