The Better Part of Valor
The runways--and the stores--are awash in them: camel overcoats, navy pea jackets, plain-front, traditional-rise pants in wool, pleated pants in wool, tweed sports jackets, trench coats, neckties and, most importantly, lots and lots of dress shirts--long sleeved and preferably French cuffed.
Pack up all your tricky denim and your low-rise, beltless boot flares for another day, say the sages. Same goes for those body-hugging silks or synthetics. Super-baggy, logos, trademarks--it’s over.
The classics are back, say those whose business it is to dress you. But before you go digging through your father’s hand-me-downs or looking for those dusty boxes your domestic partner finally shipped off to the Salvation Army a few months back, know this: Nothing in Fashion Ever Comes Back Exactly As It Was.
That’s because you wouldn’t have any reason to buy the new stuff, now, would you?
The bad news is that you’re expected to look pulled together all the time. The good news is that you no longer have to have a body like a Calvin Klein model to look pulled together. Classic clothes, beautifully designed and cut, are more forgiving of an imperfect physique.
That’s not to say the trend was easily accomplished; hip-hop especially was a force to be reckoned with. “We had this huge return to prestige and luxury a while back, and then hip-hop really blew it out the door,” says DeeDee Gordon, co-president of the L.A.-based information and marketing company Look-Look. But Gordon, who divides her time between L.A. and New York and counts Calvin Klein and Nike among her clients, is always ahead of the pack. It’s sophistication, not flash, that’s de rigueur. In today’s economy, the trend is to put your best foot forward, even on Fridays. Take a look at Wall Street and you’ll see that the ubiquitous “casual Friday” garb of chinos and denim is slowly, but surely, making its exit.
One store where they’ve been hooked on classics for 53 years is Carroll & Co. in Beverly Hills, where tradition has always been, well, a tradition. John Carroll, now head of the business his father founded, characterizes the new approach to dressing as a “return to classic checks, bolder plaids, more gray and more camels, more basic stripes in suits, two button, center vent, a shorter center vent. We’re seeing a lot of plain-front trousers again. Not so much of the tight short-rise [styles].”
The days of a man’s turning heads at an event--for any reason other than his accomplishments--are over, says Carroll. “I’m a big believer in a man and woman going out--whether it’s black tie or dinner--and the woman being the one who turns heads. The man needs to be dressed with style, elegance and grace. You shouldn’t notice how beautifully dressed the man is unless you’re talking to the couple.”
The new style, says Carroll, is reminiscent of Old Hollywood in the ‘30s and ‘40s, which was a stylistic translation in itself--an idealized version of tailored English style, made snazzier (and roomier) for the movies and the bigger, bulkier American male. The new classic look may be a two-button jacket in a smart wool pinstripe or solid, but it won’t be a sack or overly tight, it won’t be in a heavy English tweed and it will accommodate the shoulders as well as the waistline. Think natural fabrics, discreet tailoring and elegant and understated accessories.
The classic twist isn’t limited to clothes.
Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum, says that automotive trends are following suit. In automotive and high-tech style, he’s seeing a return to classic colors such as reds, maroons, subtle greens and grays, but with a metallic sheen--a modern take on the original. Again, the twist.
“Everything is getting more stylized,” Messer says, “but in a less flashy way. You see more chrome trim and chrome wheels, which is an eye-catcher, but it’s not as gaudy as it used to be.”
One thing’s for sure, says Messer. “We won’t be going back to the bland.”
There is, of course, a difference between classic and boring. Get the classic suit or cardigan. Spice it up with a brilliant tie or a colorful shirt or a beautiful watch. But think beyond fall, to next fall and the fall after that, and ask yourself if this garment (item, consumer product, whatever) is something you’ll still find useful then.
If it’s well made, and not too tricky, chances are the answer is yes.
Leonard Leib, the West Coast representative for Hickey-Freeman, sounds very much like a dog having his day.
“I’ve been in this business almost 50 years, and for the last 10, almost 15 years, this market has been dominated by what the Italians have done, starting with Armani, big shoulder, notched lapel,” Leib says. But even Armani and his fellow Italians have bowed to the trends. This season’s Armani is pared down. “The tide started turning a few years ago. Part of it has to do with the cyclical wheel of fashion.”
Leib is also happy to close the book (at least for a time) on the dressed-down trend. “The dressed-down syndrome went to the point where men looked terrible when they got out of a suit. [But] with this economy, well, you can’t look for a job in cutoffs and a T-shirt. You have to look good.”
Carroll believes the bursting of the dot-com bubble has fueled much of the new interest in traditional style. And the guy who went to work in sneakers and jeans, Carroll contends, isn’t jumping into anything too edgy or out-there now that he has to dress up. “It’s a back-to-basics mentality. We’re coming off a dot-com boom where guys were looking the same on the golf course as in the boardroom. [Today] that guy is not going to move right into a low double-breasted, side-vent, baggy pants suit. He’s going to buy a solid navy, a solid gray, one stripe and one check--stuff he can rotate.”
Jim Moore, creative director of GQ magazine, says he hasn’t seen so many classic clothes in several years. “When you have someone like Tom Ford doing a homage to matinee idols--Bogart trenches, Gene Kelly looks--now everyone is doing the classic thing--and not apologizing for it. As far as the economy goes, I think designers want men to embrace something they feel comfortable with. Men can really grasp a season like this; they can find something familiar. I don’t think a twentysomething is going to relate to Gary Cooper necessarily, but he is going to like dressing up. Even Lenny Kravitz is looking more glamorous than he did a year ago.”
But extroverts like Lenny will still be able to have fun, Moore says, thanks to this fall’s hottest item--the dress shirt. “Everyone’s wearing these bright Paul Smith shirts with jeans or under suits. There’s more to play with.”
Colby McWilliams, vice president of men’s fashion and merchandise development for Neiman Marcus, agrees with Moore that the hot, fun item is definitely the shirt. “Shirts are getting better and better,” says McWilliams. “French cuffs, striped shirts from Paul Smith, all of them. Club ties, foulards, things that were popular 20 years ago are back.”
McWilliams is also high on cardigans, leather trench coats, classic suits in chalk or pinstripes and the traditional double-breasted suit.
Deborah Lloyd, who assumed the title of senior vice president of design and product development with Banana Republic 10 months ago, says her company’s shelves are also staying pretty classic. Though Banana Republic made its name selling basics, in seasons past the merchandise has drifted in and out of trendy.
“We brought back suiting in a big way,” Lloyd says. “People want to get dressed up. We’re also doing great topcoats in pressed wools and rain mackintoshes in Italian cloths and gabardines. They’re core classics--things a guy can have for a long time. Fashion has been so crazy. Now it’s about establishing your wardrobe in a back-to-work kind of way. It’s a bit more grown-up.”
But this is L.A., the most ethnically, culturally and socially diverse city in the nation, and the city we are today isn’t rooted in an Anglo-Saxon milieu. It’s rooted in a cultural convergence that includes (but is hardly limited to) Mexican Catholic, Midwestern Protestant, Eastern European Jewish and Asian. Add Hollywood, Kar Kulture, Surf Culture, the Hippie Aesthetic, and it’s easy to see that L.A. classic . Our classics draw from sources far beyond the English manor.
One place where you can find indigenous L.A. style is at Ron Herman (one of the collection of stores at the Fred Segal complex at Melrose Avenue and Crescent Heights Boulevard). Buying as they do, from local talent as well as Europeans, Ron Herman is the place to go when you’re ready to lighten up. Menswear buyer Nina Garduno says the Ron Herman classic seems dressed down, but it is seldom cheap.
“You never know whether people here have money or not,” says Garduno. In keeping with this, she says, “I’ve got a 100% cashmere pea coat or topcoat from Helmut Lang. Who would know it was really cashmere? But it is. Whether we carry YSL or Maharishi, it’s all sportswear.”
More to the point is a line of ponchos from Lucien Pellat-Finet. “They look like ponchos you’d buy on the beach in Baja. But the poncho is in cashmere and it’s $2,300.”
In other words, surf’s up, cognoscenti, and the L.A. dude is still kicking it, but if you buy anything beyond the Anglo-Saxon pale, it should be so good and so exquisite that you’ll want to keep it around for a long time--and, like it or not--ponchos, thongs and Western shirts are as much a part of our classic culture as the black watch plaid is a part of Scotland’s. It’s just that there’s a time and a place for everything, and right now neither your boss--nor your blind date--is likely to appreciate any flights of fancy.
“People are pickier and they’re taking more time finding out about what they buy and what they put in their home,” Gordon says. “I think people are really more interested in ‘curating’ their style. A lot of luxury products have been so mass marketed or knocked off, and now it’s about finding things of which you can really take possession.”
