 | | Timothée Chalamet on the red carpet in 2022. Scott Garfitt/Invision, via Associated Press |
|
Hello, Open Thread. To all of the veterans out there, thank you for your service. |
Speaking of thanks, most of Hollywood, and probably the whole entertainment fashion industrial complex, is probably thankful that the SAG-AFTRA strike has finally come to a resolution — just in time for the holidays with all the related big movie premieres and equally big red carpets. |
Have you missed the show? Or has the Travis-Taylor blitz machine simply stepped into the gap, with all of its … shall we say … creative outfit choices? |
(In case you were wondering, Travis Kelce does have a stylist — Danielle Salzedo — but his often eyebrow-raising choices are still about him rather than a contract with a luxury brand. Though who knows what could happen in the future. Ditto Ms. Swift's choices.) |
After this summer's "Barbie" juggernaut, in its many shades of pink, I wondered if perhaps the R.C. (let's call it that, even if it sounds like a cola) had reached its apogee, and there was nowhere to go but down. The red carpet was simply the ultimate expression of film and fashion brands scratching each other's backs in public. Which, after all, is what the R.C. has become: an unabashed marketing moment, rather than an expression of a celebrity's personal taste. |
In that context, the forced hiatus of the past few months has been, in some ways, a palate cleanser, which makes me wonder what happens next. Do we go running, full-throttle, back to where we were before, the way fashion did after the Covid-19 shutdown, ignoring all of its own existential questioning about systemic change? Or will that pent-up dressing up finally find an outlet and lead to more individual choices? |
Could this be an opportunity for stars to take back control of their own wardrobes, or has the strike made them even more dependent on their relationships with luxury brands? |
Time — and premieres like "Wonka," starring Timothée Chalamet, and very heavy on the purple — will tell. But given the grim state of the world, the fantasy of the R.C. may provide a much needed bit of escapism for us all. That has always been part of the point of Hollywood, after all. |
Then have a good, safe weekend. |
| THE POLITICS OF FASHION AND THE FASHION OF POLITICS | | | | | |
Make someone's day and forward this email.
Did you get this from a friend? Sign up here. |
Share your feedback on Open Thread by email. |
Your Style Questions, Answered |
Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader's fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed. |
 | | Finance bros, sans ties, in their native habitat. Casey Steffens for The New York Times |
|
Are men's neckties gone for good, or will they ever make a comeback? — Burton, Charleston, S.C. |
As my colleague Guy Trebay, our men's wear critic, said when I asked him about ties, "It never pays to sound the death knell in fashion since even the most seemingly defunct articles of clothing have a way of rising from the dead, and this is particularly so in men's wear, where the repertoire is limited and largely based on centuries-old customs." |
Every generation, it seems, has a way of "discovering" items of dress that previous generations dismissed in triumph, recontextualizing them and claiming them for its own, like anthropologists unearthing buried treasures. Wide ties? Bell bottoms? So ironically cool! Corsets? Neato! Waistcoats? Funky. Spats? Erm … maybe for a costume party. |
Indeed, there is a difference between a garment becoming a novelty item and a garment being a standard part of a wardrobe, and that, I think, is what we are talking about here. The tie as a de facto part of everyday dressing, like underwear, is probably a thing of the past. It has been quietly losing ground for years, between the advent of casual Fridays, the general blurring of lines between our personal and professional lives and the working-from-home days of the pandemic. The Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the industry body that represented the tie-makers of America, closed its doors in 2008. |
Derek Guy, a.k.a., @dieworkwear, told me that the owner of one high-end men's clothing store told him that he "considers his necktie displays now to be part of the shop's décor, like bars that display antique liquor ads or paper currencies now defunct." |
That doesn't mean the tie is necessarily the vestigial tail of men's wear (at least not yet). As one door closes, another opens. It is possible that the demise of the tie as a standard part of dress could mean the rise of the tie as an optional accessory to signify individuality (for any gender), not to mention it would make it even more effective in underscoring the formality of an occasion. |
The Senate, in its recent dress code hoo-ha, is a good case in point. After everyone got over the ridiculous idea that the sky would fall if John Fetterman was officially allowed to wear hoodies and shorts on the Senate floor, the senators (including Mr. Fetterman) agreed that they, or at least the men, would wear jackets and ties when in the chamber, in acknowledgment of the seriousness of the occasion. The rest of the time they can wear what they want. That makes the tie a symbol of political ritual, and tradition, rather than just an item of clothing (and Washington into one of its last bastions). |
To that end, I expect the tie will probably experience blips in popularity according to fashion. Alexandra Van Houtte of the fashion search engine Tagwalk noted that 4 percent of the looks in the spring 2024 men's shows included a tie, which sounds low, except that figure is 3 percent more than the spring shows the year before. Mr. Trebay pointed out that sales of neckties at Hermès and Charvet in Paris, two of the best known high-end purveyors of ties, "have experienced double-digit percentage upticks over the past year." |
All of which means what? That everyone will probably still need a tie, but not a lot of ties. Mr. Guy also said, "I suspect that in another 10 or 20 years, the tie will be like a woman's wedding dress." Which is to say, a special event-only garment, a relic of tradition and redolent with historical meaning, but not relevancy. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment