International Man of Fashion

Flippist World Haberdashery, September, 2018

The end of summer always meant buying back to school clothes. For me it was a mother/son ritual, until about the 8th grade. The mid 60s men’s fashion scene wasn’t yet the “anything goes” madness of the 70s, but there was a definite shift from the “Andy Hardy Æsthetic” from the 40s that lasted all the way into the early 60s. My mothers taste in clothes was decidedly old school. As for me Miles Davis, so cool in his Gant shirt on the cover of his Milestones album, said it all.

Now that I have attained my seniority I have to shop for myself. My old long sleeve shirts were, for the most part, worn out. My store of choice on Wednesday was Value Village, a cut above Goodwill and other thrift stores. I was lucky, five shirts for about 40 bucks, all were new or like new, all were tasteful without being dowdy. My strategy is to always look at the sizes above and below my usual, there is a wide variation in the concept of extra large. My theory is that the unworn shirts are bought as gifts and when they don’t quite fit right they are donated. Try before you buy.

International trade in clothing is nothing new, but outside of work clothes it is hard to find something that is made in the USA anymore. My shirts (pictured above l-r) were made in Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh and India. When I was 14 I got a “Madras” shirt from India and thought it was really exotic, now it is just another country of origin in a men’s wear rack in second-hand store.