i'll never get over how skinny jeans have become so normalized, they're now worn by conservatives lamenting the decline of traditional masculinity.
you don't even have to go as far back as the early 2000s to see how this used to be taboo for men
in 2011, Levi's released their "ex-girlfriend jeans," which caused an uproar. many said the reference to women and skinny fit rendered men feminine/gay. this was part of a long convo about the "decline of masculinity."
Michele White dedicated a chapter on these jeans in her book
now one of the main voices around this political war is wearing jeans so skinny, his leg opening doesn't even cover the opening of his shoes. this would have been unthinkable 15 years ago, let alone around the turn of the 2000s.
should add: it's easier to feel comfy in skinny jeans now bc of synthetics. in 2011, guys wore this fit in pure cotton, and they were unforgiving. but even the use of synthetics was once taboo for men! stretch jeans were for women. now lots of guys wear stretch skinny jeans
the most amazing thing about this thread is that it has now attracted normal, non-fashion dudes and social conservatives who are now defending their skinny jeans. pretty amazing!!
conservatives in skinny jeans coming up to the mic to disagree
trying to be nice and assume that people either have not read this thread and/or perhaps are reading too quickly. nothing in this thread suggests that I'm against skinny jeans. i think they can be stylish if they fit your body type and style
i'm only pointing out the irony. 10 yrs ago, social conservatives hated skinny jeans as a sign of "low t, beta male hipsters" and a decline in traditional masculinity. now they wear the style while still lamenting the supposed decline in traditional masculinity.
Let's talk about how the political positions I support—such as greater freedom for all, multiculturalism, and respect for different ways of living—have, in fact, improved fashion. 🧵
There's a certain kind of mindset, which we'll call "declinism," that asserts things are always getting worse. Remarkably, declinists always point to some period in history they believe was the ideal, but was, in fact, a period of decline for some other declinist.
History is full of declinists: Henry Adams, Oswald Spengler, and Arnold Toynbee among them. In the 19th century, Arthur de Gobineau believed the Aryan race would one day be tragically “contaminated” through its contact with the Latins, the Gauls, and other "lower orders."
Some misinformation in today's US presidential debate about who bears the cost of tariffs. So let's talk about how tariffs affect what you pay for a suit. 🧵
Note, the following model is very stylized since I can't capture all the nuance in a Twitter thread. But the info was given to me by the Senior VP of a major US suit factory, who also happens to serve as the president of a trade organization for clothing designers and executives.
There are three ways to make a suit: fully fused, half canvassed, and fully canvassed (in ascending order of quality). Let's assuming for this model that the suit is designed in the United States and manufactured in China, then imported into the US for sale.
Some style lessons from Gerard Basquiat, a Haitian immigrant whose son helped define the New York art scene and neo-expressionism. 🧵
In tailoring, the term "gorge" refers to the seam that connects a jacket's collar to its lapels. This determines the shape and placement of the lapel's notch. The most classic placement creates a horizontal line running from the notch to the collar points.
As a counter reaction to 1990s Armani, which had excessively low gorges, men's tailoring has seen gorges creep up over the last 20 years. It's not uncommon to see a notch lapel almost sitting on top of the shoulder. Or peak lapels flying off the shoulder.
It's true that fashion once served as a form of class differentiation, and as soon as hoi polloi caught on, the elite moved on. German sociologist wrote about this in this 1902 essay On Fashion. An excerpt:
This largely explains why the Duke of Windsor was the most influential male fashion figure of his day. He popularized belts, zippered flies, cuffed trousers, and a style of tailoring known as the drape cut. For a while, when he wore something, others followed.
I don't believe there's a single "correct" way to dress. Just as there many languages, each with their own unique grammatical rules, there are many aesthetics, each governed by their own ideas about fit, proportion, and styling.
So my only strong belief is that you should think of style first and foremost as social language, not purely as artistic expression. Aesthetics are rooted in culture—punk, skate, prep, workwear, etc. Identify a cultural language that resonates with you.
As a technique, it's believed that the four-in-hand originated with 19th century British carriage drivers who used this method to wear colorful scarves. This includes members of the exclusive Four-in-Hand Club, which is where we likely get the name.
But why was the club called Four-in-Hand? It's because the coach would be pulled by four horses, and the reins of those horses would be carried by one of the driver's hands, leaving the other free to operate the brake. We see a reference to this in a May 1965 issue of the NYT: