For reasons I don't fully understand, the tailoring scene—and really the fashion scene in general—is better in East Asia (and mostly South Korea and Japan) than in the US as a whole. There are more interesting shops, tailors, and shoemakers. Also, there are more hobbyists.
There's also better fashion media. There are tons and tons of really great Japanese fashion magazines that get super nerdy with details. There's literally a magazine purely dedicated to classic leather shoes (called Last). In the US, fashion media is more about celebs.
On tailoring, the suit is also still relevant in places like Tokyo. A guy might be wearing his salaryman suit for a while and then figure "hm, maybe I can get something better" and then visit any number of really great tailoring shops and clothiers who can help him.
For example, if you want a true classic American suit, you should not go to an American shop. You should go to Tokyo and visit Tailor CAID, who knows that style better than any American. Their customers also know how to put that look together better than most Americans.
Outside of NYC, there aren't that many good shops. I also think that dressing well is purely hobbyism, like being into penmanship and fountain pens. This is why I don't think ppl should attach morality to it. For whatever reason, there are a lot of hobbyists in East Asia.
me: i wonder why men in Asia dress better
Americans in my replies every day: clothes are GAY. you are a HOMO. fashion is for MORONS. I'm smarter and more masculine because i dress like CRAP. [a dog in the background slam dunks a basketball while USA fireworks go off]
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We will start with the most formal and work our way down, so that you can adjust things in ways that make sense for you.
The first and most obvious choice is to wear a soft-shouldered suit rendered in a material such as linen or seersucker. Seersucker can even be tonal (pic 4)
However, when it comes to dressing for the heat, it's important to remember that the fabric's weight and weave are more important than fiber. A 10oz tropical wool — known for its open weave — will wear cooler than a densely woven 14 oz linen because it allows air to pass through
Let's first start with some terms. The term oxford refers to a footwear style where the facings have been sewn into the vamp. By contrast, the term derby refers to a style where the facings sit on top of the vamp.
On the left, we see an oxford. On the right, we see a derby.
I believe that men wore tailored clothing best from the 1930s through '80s. If you share this premise, there are certain ideas about how an outfit should be put together, such as how oxfords look best with suits, while derbies go with suits or sport coats
I interviewed a clothing factory once who said he's excited to implement robotics AI. He said this will make US manufacturing more competitive against China. I asked, "And what happens when Chinese factories also implement robotics AI?" He said, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that."
Chinese factories also have these machines. All you've done is deskill the worker, making it harder for their wages to grow. Your land and labor costs are still higher than China, India, or any other place where they can pay someone to do this simple manual operation.
If you want to reshore US manufacturing in apparel, you have to move up the value chain. Look at other successful countries: France, Italy, and Japan. They don't make crappy t-shirts. They make high-end leather goods, suits, and denim. Requires skills that can't be automated
This is a bespoke sport coat made from vintage oatmeal-colored tweed and finished with natural Loro Piana horn buttons. It's from a relatively new South Korean tailoring company called Hameen, run by a woman named Hamin Kim.
Bespoke means the garment was made from scratch specifically for one client. Unlike made-to-measure, which involves a block pattern, this pattern was drafted from scratch using a client's measurements. The garment was then made through a series of three fittings.
Have you ever noticed that people dressed better in the past? Even in the summer, when it was scorching hot?
Why is this? 🧵
I want to first dispel some myths.
Contrary to popular belief, people didn't look better because they were slimmer. We see many corpulent men in the past who dressed better than the average man today. It's not true you can look good in anything if you have an athletic body.
Dressing well was also not limited to the rich and famous. A reader sent me pics of his grandpa, born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to a working-class Chinese family. He immigrated to London and then Canada, where he worked in an auto parts store and by installing light fixtures.
Let's start with an experiment. Here are two men wearing tailored jackets with jeans.
Which do you think looks better?
If you choose the outfit on the right, then we have the same taste. But why does he look better?
The answer stems fro a basic rule of classic tailoring: the jacket needs to have a certain relationship with the trousers so as to form a harmonious whole.