Ordinary Glory

stylepoints:

I’m not one of those people who prays at the alter of the free-market. I respect hard work and success, but our world is too complicated to believe The Invisible Hand always knows best. This brings me to the issue of keeping Abercrombie & Fitch off Saville Row.

As a connoisseur of tailored menswear, Saville Row will always occupy a special place in my heart and imagination. I hope to one day make use of one of its storied or not-so-storied (shouts to Boateng) tailoring houses. I have the utmost confidence that those shops will still be around when that time comes. The market for $5000 custom suits is not big enough to fill Saville Row anymore. A&F is not displacing Anderson & Sheppard, they’re trying to move into a huge empty space.  Were some tailor or consortium of tailors vying for that same space, I would most certainly champion their cause over A&F, but that simply isn’t the case. The location of the future Saville Row Abercrombie and Fitch is prime London real estate, and it would be foolish to try to reserve it for a quaint family operation that produces 200 suits a year for the world’s wealthiest people.

Part of me can’t help but think that this movement is born out of pure classism. A man of proper standing should be able to commission an odd jacket without having to rub shoulders with the rabble. If you want to protest A&F, protest A&F on its own merits. The company’s recent history is one of rampant racism, sexism and exploitation…and then there’s the shitty clothes. There’s plenty to hate, but this isn’t one of the reasons. Gentrification happens every day, but I don’t see too many calls to protest Williamsburg boutiques spilling into Bushwick on the style blogs. A&F moving onto Saville Row is a sign of the times. People voted with their wallets. The demand for fast fashion far outstrips that for custom suiting, and we’re just going to have to live with that.

The demand for fast fashion does exceed the demand for custom menswear, in small part because tailor houses in recent years haven’t made enough of a case in the construction, quality, and necessity of their product. Ask any casual consumer who doesn’t intensely follow the blogs and forums, what the difference is between a shirt from Chester Barrie and one from Express, Topman or the like, and they’re hard pressed to give a coherent, semi-enlightened response. The product they offer in many ways is niche and luxury. In my opinion, you have to have a devout interest in #menswear education these days in order to know what to look for… I know I did.

Blogs play such a big part of actually building the demand for the products that Saville Row tailors offer, but the role economics plays shouldn’t be overlooked as we’re witnessing changes that make the sartorial in nature among us believe that the weeping and gnashing of teeth is right around the bend.  

A custom suit from Saville Row is the very definition of luxury good. And what we know about luxury goods is that they have high income elasticity of demand.  So when people become wealthier, they’ll consume more and more of these products in comparison to other goods. So it only stands to reason that when incomes fall, or when economic uncertainty is afoot, the demand for luxury goods falls faster than all other goods.  

Not to say that this is a bad thing, because evolutions in both consumer taste and economic climates have always played a key role in the next innovation of goods. Demand doesn’t disappear, it shifts, and sometimes not all that far.  I just pray that Saville Row isn’t so launched in its traditions that it forgets that, because I can assure you, A&F won’t.

(via stylepoints)

girouxmcisaak:

This jacket is another one of my special projects. I found this beautiful Kenneth Cole coat; it fit great and I loved that it was a single-button, single-breasted peak lapel jacket. The problem, though, was it was black.

If you’re a long time reader, you’ll remember my first bleaching…

WOOWWW!! That is amazing how well that turned out.