Let's talk about this because you may get invited to a party this holiday season that calls for "cocktail attire." What is cocktail attire? And how can you do it well? 🧵
The term "cocktail attire" comes from a time when people went out and mingled at cocktail bars. In these physical spaces, there were two groups:
1) People just getting off of work 2) People on their way to another evening event, such as seeing a show
As such, cocktail attire refers to the things that people naturally wore during this period, given where they had just come from or where they were heading.
Office workers wore suits.
People on their way to an evening show, such as the opera, wore black tie.
We don't really live in that world anymore, but if the invite says "cocktail attire," you will never be wrong showing up in a dark business suit or black tie.
However, in doing so, you should aim to dress elegantly. That means wearing dress shoes instead of sneakers, black calfskin instead of brown suede, dark worsteds instead of rustic materials like brown corduroy. Maybe a bit of velvet. Think: fancy evening attire.
Many in these situations will feel tempted to ditch the tie, fearing that they'll look overdressed. If you are wearing a dark business suit, I encourage you to not do this. A dark business suit without a tie is like the night sky without stars. It looks sad and defeated.
If you're not going to wear a tie, I encourage you to put more thought into the rest of your outfit. Don't just ditch the tie and assume you look like George Clooney. One solution is to wear a thin merino turtleneck. This looks more thoughtful and stylish.
Another easy solution is to wear a long-sleeve polo, but not like the ones you see at Lacoste or Fred Perry. You want a polo with a collar band, so that the collar stands up better. This will make it behave more like a dress shirt. @ProperCloth sells some nice MTM ones
If a suit feels too formal, then try a sport coat. To me, sport coats lack the elegance of a suit, but they're still a great option for evening events. They are also easier to wear without a tie, as the whole ensemble now looks more casual.
Since this is an evening affair, consider how to make this look elegant. Something like this black/ white houndstooth from Besnard will look better at night than a brown sporting tweed (which, while wonderful, is better for the afternoon).
If you have room in your wardrobe, you can also get a wool-mohair suit (60/40 blend is my preference). Mohair is a stiff, slippery fiber that has a slight sheen. I think it looks amazing under artificial light (dim bars and restaurants). Outfit can be conservative or wild
An easy way to make an outfit look more chic in the evening is to rely on the same color and get your contrast from fiber, texture, or sheen. For example, a navy merino turtleneck can look amazing with a navy suit in hopsack or twill. Again, black shoes in the evening.
If you have the personality for it, you can also pull off something a little more colorful. My friend @toneloki73 here is wearing tartan trousers with a velvet jacket and red turtleneck. The whole outfit feels very celebratory, perfect for drinking cocktails.
The point here is to use history as a guide. Once you know the origins of cocktail attire, you can get a sense of how you should dress. Then use the parameters to express yourself. Aim to create an elegant party outfit. Make the night feel special.
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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: