7 Sartorial Myths Debunked

[Music] welcome to this new episode of our sartorial talks today we're gonna try together to debunk a few subtle myths because if you are inside this community or if you are a beginner or even if you are most seasoned Sartorialist you know that we have to deal with a lot of myths with a lot of do's and don'ts and with a lot of preconceived ideas on how to wear things or what to wear and when to wear it so I'm gonna try to debunk a few myths starting with one of the most common myths that is current in the general public is very very usual to hear that specifically for people who are not inside our community I've heard so many time people saying all I'm gonna buy my first suit and my first shoot is gonna be a black suit it's funny that I'm talking about this today because I actually bought my first black suit the first black suit of my life three weeks ago I asked my tailor or enzo chi finale in paris to craft me a black suit I can tell you it almost swallowed his tongue because it was so strange for him that you go jicama was asking him to buy a black suit I consider that a black suit is not necessary in a man's wardrobe but let's put this into perspective I think I've been reaching a level of sartorial maturity this black suit is probably my suit number I don't know exactly 25 or maybe 30 I don't know exactly I have a massive wardrobe as you can imagine so now I feel I reach this maturity to be able to pull off a black suit because it's difficult suit to pull off but if you are at the beginning of your sartorial drama at the beginning of you sartorial education please don't buy a black suit because a black suit it's very specific the black suit should be worn at funerals or if you really want to pull it off properly you'll have to be very trained on how to pull it with a white shirt or with a different kind of and which style is kind of tricky it's a color which is not a color and it's one of the most difficult suit to really pull off in an elegant way so please don't buy a black suit as a first suit that's a myth second myth that is extremely frequent in the general public but also this time in the sort of your world is that we're only I remember my own mother saying to wear only black or gray socks and make sure that your socks are matching the color of your pants well between you and me if this was the truth I think I will not be part of this movement and I will dress I will not put so much thought into the way I dress because wearing only black and gray socks is the most boring thing in life I don't mean that socks are the most important accessory in your sartorial arsenal but since I would say ten years and specifically since five years of socks had been becoming a fantastic accessory in the arsenal of a gentleman this fantastic company like me so said push for example who are in France who are distributing fantastic Italian garlic bread gianni for example which is one of my favorite Brown in socks and you will discover that you can play with colors with pattern and add a little bit of creativity of course this is not the first accessory you show you're not gonna enter a room and you know take your pant and and say okay look at my socks how creative they are but you will be very surprised how at the fact with the fact that so many people with notice will not issue so that it means that your socks are visible of course if you were a black pants sometime it's better to be a little bit turned on but this is an area of the body that has been totally underused and you can be very creative on how you pair your shoes your socks with your pants I will dedicate maybe later in the season a specific episode of sartorial talks on that because there's many things to do on that but please unleash your creativity and today the market of socks it is very dynamic and we have fantastic socks that will make you very happy and very joyful the third myth I would like to debunk once for all is that the double-breasted suit make you look older than you are this is absolutely not true of course many people have in mind the image of this old businessman from the 80s with a little bit of a beer belly trying to button his double-breasted suit after a big and civ lunch for business but this era is over the double-breasted suit is everywhere the only thing with a double-breasted suit I've been covering this subject many time is that it has to be well cut a badly cut double-breasted suit is a immediate sartorial catastrophe and it's just so easy to see you look in the mirror you put it on if it's--if and ready-to-wear you immediately see but when it hits a double-breasted suit is a statistic statement and it has nothing to do with looking old or looking like you from the past no no no this is an absolute myth now we're going to dip dive a little bit more in some more precise detail that people even in the sartorial crowd believed in and that our total life and one of my favorite is when people speak about their working buttonhole on their sleeves so many people now say that oh you have to have working buttonholes on your sleeve this is the sign of a custom-made suit this is the sign of a very high-level suit well the problem is that it's not true the problem now is that so many people want to here like they know things they are in the know they're know how to dress and they maybe have access to bespoke they they normally buy the suit of the rack with unfunctional but on how they go to an iteration tailor and they asked the tailor to just open the buttons on the sleeve and they make sure then when they wear their jackets they're very proud to unbutton one or two button to show others that precisely it is a custom-made suit because look my buttons on my sleeve are open well I can tell you first of all that in the bespoke arena and the people who are really dressing bespoke and made-to-measure they usually don't use their working buttonhole because it goes without saying that the big box use as working buttonholes secondly when you show too much of your working buttonhole it means that you want to show and this is the exact reverse of an elegance attitude normally in this kind of community you try not to show it and the third thing I would like you to to know is that a working buttonhole is not a sign of a handmade suit is a sign of a handmade buttonhole the history behind functioning sleeve button is very simple to understand back in the years when the gentleman wanted to wash their hand I didn't want to remove their coat they would unbutton their sleeve and roll up their sleeve in order to wash their hand without putting water on that jacket is very simple to understand and the second use is more an aesthetic use is that when you are wearing French cuff with cufflinks sometimes it's easier to have one button unbuttoned in order if you want to show your beautiful cufflinks or to have them being worn with ease the next myth i want to debunk one small one more time it's more from the general public because in this tutorial crowd everybody knows that you should not do that but please please please promise me if you look at this pro that you will never match the pocket square with your tie I know that Sonia has covered or will cover this subject in a beginner episode of sartorial talk but please don't make this basic mistake and I've seen so many people who would them look so great that was so arrogant and they make this small mistake having a kind of a red tie with a red pocket square this is a catastrophe so please don't this is a myth never never much and basically if I step back and take this subject from a broader perspective matching is one of the most dangerous things in the sartorial approach the more you match the more people will notice you put effort and the less you're going to be naturally elegance so try not to match everything with everything I think it's a universal law symmetry is sometime when it's pushed too far is boring and this is where the human touch the the Flair your creativity can express yourself if you do everything symmetrical and even if you try to match everything with everything you will become something you will end up with something not interesting from a subtle standpoint the next point I want to cover now may be highly controversial and if you want to have a discussion about that please don't hesitate as you know to contribute on the debate in the suit or toed comments just under me as you know that we receive a lot of comment and we do our best with Sonia to answer to most of them hundreds of them it's common knowledge it's almost I would say becoming snob to use the quotes of Coco Chanel or if Sonora and all these people that have said once in their life that fashion was something transitory the fashion fails where tile is eternal or style remain I'm sure you've been you've heard this quote many many time we've been hearing this quote so many times that we don't even remember exactly who said if somebody says is if some of on some other people said is crucial that is probably both I've been among the writers and the commentators of classy style to be in full agreement with that and even to advocate to that to explain that fashion is something you know like Oscar Wilde was saying fashion is something so ugly that you have to change it every six month and I've been explaining that style was something eternal and there is something timeless in a classic style but today I must admit that after 15 years of work in this field and 15 years of observing commenting researching trying and really deep diving in this world I can say even if it shocks you that style is not eternal and style is not timeless first of all just look at the history when ballast baldassare castiglione the inventor of the spirit Latura has been writing his book the book of the courtier in 1528 the style of the era was a little bit different don't you think people wearing high colors people were wearing high heels I mean men were wearing high heels and this kind of baby diapers in silk and there were even wearing wigs and there were I have makeup like a woman do you think that we still have a little bit of that no sir no we don't so it means that style is naughty - no of course I take something excessive something that even look at something more close to us do you think imagine a party in 1974 in the house of Tommy not aware Ringo Starr will be here with it massive lapels and extravagant patterns and Tommy nurture this designer on Savile Row Ben the the the closure of the Beatles and The Rolling Stone all these people imagine that Fred Astaire or Gary Cooper enter a party here where everybody had massive lapels and very fancy color do you think that the sobriety of Gary Cooper or Cary Grant of Fred Astaire will be looked upon his timeless no sir it would be looked upon as oh this guy is dressing like my grandfather the difference between fashion and style is not that one fades and the other is eternal the difference is that the span of time of fashion is the season every six months the fashion is changing the span of time of style is in my opinion the decade that is to say if you look 10 years behind you will notice that nothing is eternal and then the style has changed and yes we also have trends inside let me give you a few examples between 2000 and 2010 there's to say hmm it's can you believe that 2010 is already almost a decade ago it's unbelievable but between 2000 and 2010 the tendency even on classic style was to put for example the nudge on a normal jacket very high which was by the way a very good solution for shorter man and I've been among the people to encourage people to put the notch of the lapel very high the problem is that this rule this thing has been going a little bit too much and then we ended up in 2010 with some nuts that were so high that I were almost on the shoulder it's too much look now since 2 or 3 years all the bespoke tailors in the world all the Soria in the world the notches are going a little bit lower and lower and lower Lag there were in the 1940s and 1950s so you understand it's like a cycle nothing is eternal and style has the same thing as fashion it's not eternal it's phase it's change and it's normal and thank God otherwise it would be boring if we would all dress like our grandfather constantly all our lives today I believe I reach a sutrayana chura t to be able to have this stand in front of you and to say that style is eternal is not true permanent style is a lie on the same subject I've been among the people who were shouting screaming out loud to somebody fashion is a collective thing and style is a personal thing yes that's true but not always once again I want to challenge this idea it doesn't mean that I became a fashionista all of a sudden and I'm totally in awe with the work of some fashion designers no no no no my style it took me 15 years to build it progressively step by step and building a wardrobe which I'm happy with nevertheless the idea that style is something totally personal it's not true I can testify for myself I've been taking inspiration I have been influenced by many people of course by the fashion icon that we all love by the style icon sorry that we all love like Cooper Grant Astor and some more recent people the people of from pity woman we are part of this community some people are some of these people have highly influenced the whole generation of young gentlemen entering the sartorial world so it means that somehow of course in fashion is direct the designer design the Braun is crafting they put it on the market and people buy and if this designer decided that this year we have to wear shorts with a suit in pink more or less with the marketing firepower that they have a lot of people will follow this as the flock but if you look at it from a style perspective honestly what Lin oh yeah look she was wearing two pities ago what Lucca Rubina she was wearing one PT ago where when what a few PT people like that were wearing three BTW can see it now in the street so it mean is the same mechanism except that the span of time is different but you are influenced by what you see and the social media today have a strong influence on your choice your taste and the way you are dressing let's be honest with each other I know that we all love the idea that style is personal that we invent everything that we build our personal style it's probably to 90% but there's a little 10% and we have to be honest with each other that we are influenced by others unlike designers we'd never invent something somehow we mimic the people we admire and that's what I wanted to share with you today Cheers [Music] you

Channel: SARTORIAL TALKS

Views: 162,489

Keywords: Bespoke, RTW, myths, sartorial, mythbuster, elegance, style, urban legends, Pocket square, matching, style vs fashion, fashion, style is eternal, socks, black socks, grey socks, MCR, mes chaussettes rouges, breciani, Mazarin, double breasted, men's style, PG, ST, sartorial talks, parisian gentleman, hugo jacomet, Lino, Pitti, Pitti Uomo, black suit, first suit, which suit

Id: A98IXj3JiOM

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/rickowensismydaddy]

Myths that he talks about

1. Buying your first suit? Buy a black suit

2. Only wear black or grey socks

3. Active sleeve button holes are a sign of a bespoke suit

4. Double-breasted suits are for old people

5. You should match your pocket square with your tie

6. Style is eternal

7. Sartorialists are impermeable to trends

[u/Tyrant_Flycatcher]

"Fashion lasts a season, style lasts a decade"

Agreed. I love listening to Hugo's analysis and opinions, it's so nice to see a menswear blogger that's not regurgitating the "timeless" obsession so many other channels have.

[u/[deleted]]

Black suits are not the be all and end all but are perfectly appropriate and versatile suits in most countries. Seems like the US and maybe Canada/UK are exceptions here but a black suit is not exclusively reserved for funerals in the rest of the world.

[u/chicohot]

I followed many style you tubers and he(and wife) is the best. It's the only fashionista that admits style is not eternal. I'm very surprised he is into men style only 15 years, I will think he grew up with this.

[u/charitytowin]

Thank you! I just found a new best friend.