14 May 2009

Ersatz Trad


"It is the manufacturer who has the bad taste, it is he who believes that this bad taste is what other people want. Tradition is destroyed and replaced with nothing. What is culture but a sense of the past continually revivified in their present act. " Cecil Beaton in The Glass of Fashion

11 comments:

Charles said...

My wife hates, hates my pants. Legs too short. I show her pictures like this to convince her what a with it guy I am. She doesn't buy it but at least I've got something.

tintin said...

Longwing- This guy doesn't have a wife. Nor does he have a CFO or CEO anymore.

M.Lane said...

Perfect text for this photo. This "look" is just amazingly bad. Like Pee Wee Herman on the loose again.

Sort of reminds me of a Don Henley lyric...."they put up a bunch of ugly boxes and Jesus people bought em".

You are right on it again.

ML
mlanesepic.blogspot.com

tintin said...

ML- I don't know a lot about the retail biz but I will say this. 20 years ago - - Hell, 10 years ago--had you shown me this picture and told me this was a men's designer who would win awards and sell his line at Brooks Brothers - - I would've told you, "Yeah and GW Bush will be elected president, a five time draft dodger will be VP and people called neo-cons will lie us into wars with two middle eastern countries resulting in a depression like economy not seen since the 30's."

ADG said...

Tintin....was just about to post on this guy. I was blown away when Vanity Fair included him in the group shot of Gotham movers/shakers at the 50th anniversary of the Grill Room @ Four Seasons.

The Cordial Churchman said...

I think TB is cool. I wouldn't ever wear him, but I still think he's cool...the look as well. He's also the kind of guy who is self-consciously militating against the jeans-and-t-shirt establishment. So he snips his trousers off a bit short. At least he's not wearing cut-off jeans.

Giselle said...

Yeah I think the fact that he is anti-slubby at least counts for something. He's on our side! He makes clothes that are good quality and can be hemmed to any way you like. I don't understand half the vitriolic comments about him regarding that.

tintin said...

This man is not on my side and do not forget his price points. Here's the Spring '09 collection- 'Farce' isn't strong enough of a word. At north of $5,000 for a off the rack suit - - 'sucker' may be the better word. Make that rich sucker.

http://www.thombrowne.com/SS09_Show.html

tintin said...

http://www.gilt.com/s/thom/product/12183456

I do hope this link works. TB's grey wool skirt suit has been marked down.

Giselle said...

I'm saying he's on our side in regards to making suits cool again. I entered nothing about price into my argument. You can buy or not, but the fact is that he's helped suits come back into mainstream more than any other designer.

Surely that's worthy of some respect.

Anonymous said...

i like thom browne. tradition is fine but boring. tb doesn't particularly care what we think and i'm glad for it. go f yourselves.