Style: Prestige, predilection, provenance.

Apocryphal history has a Japanese connoisseur of kimono commenting on the fact that no more than 50 years ago, one could show him a picture of a woman in kimono, standing in a hotel lobby with her face away from the camera, and he would be able to estimate to an astounding degree her age, social status, family heritage, her husbands profession and the season and time of day the picture was taken. This is a far cry from the European fashionist(a) that can from a picture of a women roughly ascribe her to a certain decade (That’s eighties) but then again, there are experts that can attribute sartorial appropriations to incredibly specific measurements in time (that is so 5 minutes ago). But that said, apart from the intricately elegant closed system of Japanese culture, very few systems of fashion or style can base snobbism on the complexity of their rules.

Once upon a time, in a town far away, a cotton manufacturer stumbled on the fact that when cotton is bathed in a bath of caustic soda, and then bathed again in acid, it becomes long, lustrous and a lot more durable. The birth of mercerized cotton might not interest a great amount of people in our current hustle-and-bustle “I-don’t-care-what-it-is-as-long-as-it’s-stylish” world, but widely available cotton certainly has improved over the years. And not only cotton, materials, patterns and logistical solutions have evolved in quality and availability to an extent that there is no longer anything like different markets in clothing, and everything is, in theory, available anywhere.

Not even very long ago, and certainly for Europeans not very far away, what you wore and how it was worn was for a great deal based on two very simple variables of the human condition: Where are you from, and how much do you make when you are there?
Certain local patterns in weaving, embroidery, fabrics and colour were not copied, or very faintly copied, at any great distance from the town of their origin, and as a result, the standard man or woman in the street could be absolutely identified as being on the right street simply by the cut, colour and quality (I so craved a third “c”, but condition just doesn’t cut it, compunctiously) of their clothes. Only the rich or traveled wore materials or styles markedly different from their local counterparts to an identifiable extent.

A stylish lady in the 1800’s might deck herself out in Antwerp Lace or adopt a penchant for a particular style of bohemian embroidery, but these style-choices would seem crude compared to today’s possibilities of refinement. That said, today’s choices would seems indefinable to her, and to an extent too fiddly for absolute comprehension. And again, the possibility of refinement on offer today does in no way mean that people are more refined, and (regretfully) it certainly doesn’t mean people put more care and attention into their apparel as our ante-generational-friend.

Examples of this one still finds, if so interested, in the names and descriptions of clothing and material. Egyptian cotton, Irish Linen and Belgian lace or French embroidery might no longer hold as much captivating information as they did in days of yore, and certainly not as much information nowadays as Dior, Zegna or Chloe, but they certainly tell us a lot about their origins and ambitions.

Fashion-, or better yet style-, wise, the world has not gotten any bigger than it was in days past. In fact, it has gotten a lot smaller, and a whole lot easier to travel around. International trade agreements on fabrics, the world-wide availability of information and the multi-national identity of designers and stores ensure together that the cotton t-shirt I buy in my local store differs in no material way from the t-shirt my American pals buy in their local emporium, which in itself does not differ immensely from the one bought by my moscowegian counterpart in Russia.
A shame? Yes, in some cases. I certainly lament the fact it is nigh useless to travel to London for the fashion because the fashion in London is the same as it is here in Amsterdam (except for the Thomas Pink stores, off course, which are still a good reason to get on a plane), but at the same time the availability of many styles and materials makes it possible for me to look my best in whatever situation (or markedly less “my best” but I can’t blame the clothes for that).

But when it comes to status, clothing has lost a good deal of it’s impact in the apparent eye of the beholder, and only those detail- and label-minded among us will see on first glance what status and/or position your clothing is supposed to project. Where clothing used to make the man all in its own right, nowadays the perception of clothing by others goes a lot farther in determining the make of a man.

Where in days past a different style or material would set you apart as wealthy, or a fashionist(a), today anybody with enough determination to save up for it can deck him- or herself out in Vuitton-styled atrocities, or Chanel based bad choices, and if one is lacking this determination or funding, one can buy generic look-a-likes in the closest low street store. To a certain extent this is a logical by-product of the circle of faddish live (which really does move us all) where high end avant-garde designs are turned into prêt-a-porter concepts and then through generic easiness into bargain basement grabability. Anything that is worn enough will be watered down and copied, and so on ad infinitum. And ad nauseam, in some cases, off course.

So what is one to do if one wants to set oneself apart from the general population, but without the option of taking a train to Berlin for their spring ideas or sending your tailor to Florence for their needlework? Well, those options are off course still open, only much less useful nowadays. Vintage-clothing is always an option, but then again, it can all of a sudden become tres hip, and then where are you?

That said, it is only bad to be avant-garde if it turns out there is no garde, so a little bit of dare and originality is absolutely not frowned upon by the writer of this little piece. And if the followers never appear, simply discard and try again. Nobody achieved elegance and refinement first of without stumbling headlong in the wall of faux pas at their first tries.

Grtz,
Kevin