In today’s pod, Spencer and Ethan discuss the lifestyle of menswear enthusiasts, it’s perceived elitism, and how we stack up to it!

Podcast Outline

• :25 WAYWT
• 2:00 Rug Talk
• 5:25 Lifestyle within menswear 
• 5:50 “Identity is something we all struggle with.”
• 9:45 Luxury 
• 10:15 “Most brands now are lifestyle brands.”
• 12:05 “It’s expensive to be into (menswear), when you’re able to afford it you tend to have a certain nature.”
• 12:40 “If you’re into it, you have friends that are into it, and it becomes a thing to do.”
• 13:05 “If you have the money, you’re probably going to get into (the lifestyle). You come from wealth, meet some people in menswear, share interests…it’s self perpetuating.”
• 15:50 “Not all of the big guys in menswear are necessarily elitist…I can understand how that can be perceived from the outside.”
• 17:35 “Maybe I’m just a simple guy from the heartland even though I’m a west coast liberal elite.”
• 22:00 Artsy 
• 23:45 “The younger, artsy version of (menswear) is regular 20-somethings into similar indie scenes.”
• 24:00 “When you’re younger and you wear (menswear), it becomes ‘ironic,’ like ‘I’m hip but also dressed as a 70’s English professor.’”
• 26:35 “I’m more of a nerd who happens to dress up.”
• 28:20 “There’s a big ‘in the know’ quality to menswear. If you’re not in the know you’re not in the club.”
• 30:15 Vintage
• 30:55 “No matter what your hobby is, there are people that will intimidate you because they know more than you.” 
• 31:15 “There’s a lot of signaling going on, to identify others.”
• 32:30 “If you didn’t put the work into vintage, you don’t deserve it.”
• 33:40 “When it just becomes people selling to each other, then what’s the point? There isn’t the sense of how others can be introduced to (menswear).”
• 35:35 “Menswear can be harder to get into than vintage because it’s a higher cost of entry. Intimidation can be a larger factor.”
• 38:05 How we stack up
• 40:10 “They might not want to present a brand but people do it regardless; your instagram is your brand.”
• 40:30 “Their life becomes all you decide to show me.”
• 42:10 “Menswear lifestyle is the wet dream of every male yuppy that was educated in the north-east.” 
• 43:30 “Eating a burger on the hood of your car wearing a neapolitan suit: that would get hella engagement baby.”
• 45:00 “A little bit of shame from where you’ve grown from.”
• 48:10 “Do you think one’s ideal lifestyle attributes to what you wear?”
• 54:40 “Means, age, career dictate lifestyle.”
• 56:35 Storytime 
• 1:02:10 “We’ve been around and seen some stuff, and we want other people to get into it.”

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Q&A

From Tom Cheung:  Half a decade ago when I first stepped into a professional environment, one would be frowned upon by the firm’s senior management if seen sans tie, or asked to go home and get changed if seen in a checkered suit. I was the most junior guy in the office, albeit wearing a 3-piece suit with peak lapels in loud-and-wide peak lapels (Immediately learnt not to do so later that morning) – I have probably watched a bit too much Mad Men / Suits.

After a few tides of casualisation of the firm’s dress code policy, now i’ve read and seen a bit more, and had the pleasure to become a slightly more mature social livestock who is known to keep his tie on (mostly solid ones in Shantung or knit, with striped and foulards ones just as much, occasionally seasons checks in summer madras or winter tartan) occasionally on and who wears sports coats (mostly navy, sometimes Farquharson tartan, milk-and-sugar seersucker or brown knit).

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Buh-bye!

Style & Direction| Ethan and Spencer.

Podcast is produced by MJ and Matthew