Crème de la Crème
Embracing Entropy in Lighter Trousers, Essential Updates on the Late Summer Mood and Indie Sleaze
Mid-August often has menswear types already salivating over the idea of fall and its many opportunities for getting dressed (knitwear, heavier outerwear, tweed, rugby shirts, etc.). If you’re into clothing, fall can be best time of year apparel-wise. That’s if your climate permits, of course.
In Los Angeles, summer tends to continue on with unabated heat and intensity through Halloween. September (Libra Season) is probably our best summer month.
So no better time to highlight my habit of wearing cream colored trousers as my year-round default, much as one might reach for a pair of denim.
I. Enlightenment
In the picture above, I am wearing white trousers just a few days before Christmas. When I was childless I would opt for varying shades of white on a year round basis (putting away white pants after Labor Day is for those who haven’t discovered the intoxicating power of a good, warm winter white). Four years later, I’ve settled into varying shades of cream, stone, ivory and ecru as my default (collectively, we can refer to these cream colored trousers as CCTs).
In parenting, I’ve learned the hard way that some clothing will get in the way of what a given moment requires. Yes, many of your outfits will become napkins for messy hands and unkempt faces (small humans are terrible at eating, even if you get them trained up on cutlery early a napkin is just a novelty prop for them). But we needn’t despair and this is no reason to abandon lighter colored trousers. You must either become accustomed to changing out of work/event clothes before rolling up your sleeves and parenting, or find an acceptable level of destruction/ongoing maintenance for the clothes that you love the most. For me, I just switched from truer whites to the CCTs. There’s still spot cleaning and dry cleaning involved, but in the words of Kennedy:
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
There’s no point in postponing CCTs, as you can really only be sure of right now. And how hard is it really? Wearing white or CCTs is all a mindset. As Carl Wilkinson wrote in last week’s weekend Financial Times, upon seeing white pants being worn at Wimbledon:
“[m]y God man! But what about the strawberries and cream? That’s gonna stain.” But that’s the essence of the white trouser. They offer an air of quiet luxury, a stylish nonchalance that embodies what a carefree summer ought to be, untroubled by the workaday concerns of laundry and stain remover.
In spite of the challenges, the sheer impracticality, I’ve remained staunchly dedicated to CCTs in fatherdom. You can find me holed up in my ivory tower, year round.
II. Restoring the “Sports” to Sportswear
In “The Pink Heap: Summer Inspiration from Nantucket 1957,” Simon Crompton recently highlighted the work of photographer Toni Frissell, who donated her work to the public domain.
It’s a nice time capsule view into the way people on holiday have turned to sportswear to convey a certain sense of ease and play. Here’s one of my favorites, for both the lawn chairs and the poses (you can create sitting circle anywhere).
A comment below the Permanent Style article resonated with me enough to include it here. There’s some hazy nostalgia at play sure, but the observation might be useful for some. I haven’t really stopped thinking about it, especially as I try to set aside time for the Peloton.
I’m sure this will anger someone, but I’m fairly sure one of the reason[s] people of the past looked so effortlessly cool in their clothes is that they felt more comfortable in their bodies.
Looking at the people in the pictures, they range from slim to heafty (in the last picture, ,where you have many older people). Noone is under-weight, noone is super-buff (few of the bros seem to even lift), and noone is extremely obese. There are more bikes than cars in most of the pictures, despite these people mostly being quite well-off. People are biking, fishing, walking, boating, carrying things (and children); they have the bodies, and the confidence in their bodies, that you get from actually LIVING in and USING your body all the time. And you do that living and using wearing the clothes that you have, over time, gotten so comfortable in.
Compare that to how we live today: most of us, myself included, spend so much time sitting in front of screens that we may as well not have bodies except for those times our aching backs, stiff shoulders, carpals tunnel wrists and doomscrolling thumbs start aching. If we use our bodies at all, it’s mostly in neurotic, highly controlled ways: enduring your 45 minutes of spinning, keeping perfect form for the 12th rep of your third set of bench press, then “rewarding yourself” with a protein bar (38% modified corn starch), take a selfie and getting back to googling how to get the right amoung of #collarroll on your #OCBD to meet acceptable #menswear standards. And for our minimum physical activity, we wear “technical” clothing, making sure our #stylish clothes remain fresh, neat and completely un-lived in.
One of the appeals of ivy style is the sporty, casual elegance of the look, and that’s aquired partly through a sporty, casually elegant life. These “lifestyle looks” are just as much about how you live as how you dress.
I’m equally bad at all this, but I’m thankful that playing with small children puts some “sport” back into my sportswear.
III. Internet Bycatch
The same comments section of the Permanent Style article above gave me another gift. It led me to this great concert film/mood board, Jazz on a Summer’s Day. Filmed in 1958, in color, with the America’s Cup happening in the background (21 knots of wind according to race officials on the radio in the film). Come for the music, stay for the people, especially the guy with absurdly small binoculars (he can be seen at 12:42).
From a commentator introducing Thelonious Monk: “we can’t describe his music as ‘daring,’ because I think he is totally unconcerned with any opposition to his music…’
Carrera Marble is back (it never left, but you get the idea. From Elle Decor.
NYT scooped me on writing about the trees of Los Angeles. I’d been working on a sort of best/worst of Los Angeles trees for a bit. Might be time to finish it.
I don’t want any Hayeks getting mad at me, but the update on the serviceability of the Blancpain X Swatch Sistem 51 movement (made from only 51 parts and held together with a central screw and laser welding) does not seem like good news.
The Blancpain X Swatch Sistem 51 movement, photo courtesy of Swatch. After the Blancpain X Swatch line was announced, there was an open question as to whether the movements in these watches can be repaired. The answer of Swatch’s CEO Nick Hayek, Jr. in a recent interview with Hodinkee bewilders:
"We believe SISTEM51 is one of the most eco-friendly movements in the Swiss made watches," Hayek said as he got on to the edge of his chair. "Using fewer parts and automated production process contribute to reducing the energy consumption significantly, and smaller parts count means minimizing resource consumption and reduction of manufacturing waste."
[…]
Mr. Hayek talked about the negative impact on the environment that overhauling a watch may bring. "To overhaul, you'll have to stock up repair parts for a long term," he said. "This means keeping a large number of parts at each regional customer service center, resulting in using more energy and resource for both production and storage. On top of that, there is no certainty all produced parts are going to be used, which may lead to creating more waste down the line."
None of this addresses why you would spin up a production line with tons of watches that are ultimately designed to be thrown away (and then co-brand them with the badges of watches that are made by artisans and capable of running for decades when properly maintained).
If Swatch’s current repair policy would somehow cover the failure/replacement of any of the Sistem 51’s components, they’ve certainly missed an opportunity to say so. Given the opportunity, they’ve instead gestured vaguely at the idea that repairing/maintaining high end watches is somehow the more wasteful concept.
On the upside, the automatic assembly line that makes these newer watches is a triumph of human ingenuity (and those artisans should indeed be proud), even if it stands in stark opposition to the inherent humanism and craftsmanship that makes higher end watches desirable to begin with.
Detailed shot of bioceramic cases being molded (made from castor oil and Zirconium Oxide Ceramic Powder). Photo courtesy ETA, a factory group owned by Swatch. French Architectural Digest is an Instagram follow I’ve never regretted. I’d like someone intelligent to tell me what this style is called, because I don’t think it’s the “Tulum Beach House” that you tend to see everywhere.
This last one is not for everyone, but I’m finally onboard the Indie Sleaze train. Not so much the clothes (although I loved a good American Apparel deep V in my time), but the partying and the attitude. I got drawn in after I noticed there’s a guy in a suit and tie standing next to Charli XCX in her recent Boiler Room set from Ibiza. I’ve never seen anyone in tailoring at these DJ sets so I wanted to know if this guy was lost or if there was more to his story.
This is the artist and producer who goes by the moniker “The Dare.” He is name dropped in one of Charli XCX’s songs and also DJs later in the set (he destroys the place). His overall deal and placement at this Boiler Room set and in the wider Indie Sleaze landscape is explained thusly by L’Officiel:
The comeback of indie sleaze—the dark, chaotically sensual, enthralling scene that had a tight grip on New York's music scene in the late aughts—was inevitable, but even veterans of the original era didn't anticipate its renaissance to look quite like it has over the past two years or so. At the center of it is The Dare, who caters to the amped-up masses of the New York party scene at a number of bars and clubs across the city.
As for the suit (which is always black with a skinny tie, and is sometimes Gucci, sometimes Heidi Slimane, etc.), he explains in an interview in Dazed:
“I think the suit is an interesting choice adjacent to the music, because the music is in your face and loud and colourful – and I think there’s something cool about the juxtaposition of that music with a really formal, clean look,” he muses.
There’s also a lot of skepticism around whether the movement he’s become a face for is real, or just the product of online culture editors’ echo chamber. The Dare is tempted to agree with that skepticism. From the same interview:
As we survey our forebears, we sip on some pints and reflect on the scene’s apparent ‘comeback’. “It’s strange because I don’t think there’s an [indie] revival musically. I think a lot of people are making electro and pop music,” he explains. “They’re making dance music, but very few bands are actively trying to revive this sound. I would say I’m one of the only ones who is or incorporates those influences in a really direct way.”
[…]
“I do feel like I’m a part of something really meaningful,” he concludes. “I don’t know if it’s a huge movement, like the invention of grunge or something, but I do feel like I am part of a group of somewhat like-minded artists that exist beyond New York. The attitude is unique to the previous generation. But I think people just want to feel like they’re living through a really important time and culture.”
One of the upsides to getting older is that you get to see youth create things that are cool and (sort of) new. He has an album out September 6th.
