Clothes Make the Man - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Seven oh six. Here figure about canosy do you talk station?
It being a Wednesday, which is also a listener lunch
Wednesday and medicine pub and girl hope to see you there.
It is that time of week when we are blessed
with the brilliance of Jack Avidan with the big pictures.
What would like to call this segment Welcome back Jack Avidan.
It's just always a thrill to heavy on my show.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thanks so much, friend. Uh. Most of the guys listening
are not the biggest fans of chick flicks, but inspired
by one of the most stylish and fun movies Amesley
and I have seen in a long time, The Devil
Wears Prada too. Let's talk Brian about fashion and society.

(00:54):
I don't mean high society, and forgive the bad pun,
we're gonna skirt the question of women's fashion. I haven't
managed to stay married forty three years by critiquing women's fashion,
although as you know, both our wives always look mafulous.
My outfit of choice and retirement is a T shirt

(01:15):
and jim shorts, not because I'm a bodybuilder, as you know,
just following the trend of guys today looking casual.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Do you have a lot you tube socks? Are you wearing?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Kids always looked jack kids?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Hey, Jack can't wear me? Oh I just had to
interject and inquire whether that T shirt and short comba
was also including tube socks and sandals at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, no, I managed to get in a pair of sninkers,
old fashioned sneakers. You know me? Okay, now, kids, Kids
have always looked like kids, whether they were ductailed greasers
in the nineteen fifties or hippies who grew their hair
longer than rapunzels, right down to the grunge kids of
today who make homeless guys looked like Beau Brummel. Does

(02:03):
anybody remember Beau Brummel. He invented what came to be
proper clothing for husbands, fathers, office workers what used to
be called grown ups. He also invented democracy when it
came to modern clothing. Because fashion history, Brian reflects political history.

(02:24):
You knew we'd get there. When society was run by aristocrats,
the nobility unfurled its feathers like peacocks. In Shakespeare's time,
courtiers sported bejeweled doublets. They displayed their legs in silk coths,
Louis the fourteenth of France went a mincing step further
decreeing that only noblemen were permitted to wear get this

(02:48):
ruby red high heels, and King Louis wore wigs that
made shares look like a buzz cut. Through the first
decades of American independence, dandies in France and Britain replaced
bathing with perfume and makeup. Beau Brummel changed all that.
He didn't have the money for jewels and embroidered gold vests,

(03:12):
so the Beau convinces society, including the Prince of Wales,
that ornate clothes are vulgar. Instead, this new arbiter of
fashion insisted that a gentleman be clean and simply elegant,
never join attention to himself. The bow invented modern suits.
Think of the way mister Darcy dresses in pride and prejudice.

(03:35):
Contrast our founding fathers, who were tough guys, but still
they had powdered wigs, and they wore silken doublets and
things like that. And think of President Lincoln just a
few decades later, with his simple black suit and stove
pipe hat. Speaking of presidents, how about Ronald Reagan, who,
like President Trump, never entered the Oval Office without a

(03:58):
suit and tie out of respect for the office. Counterculture
Marxists protested all of that, and not just presidents. They
mocked anyone who dressed like a capitalist tool inspired by
Beau Brumble. Hippies really were rebelling against their buttoned down fathers.

(04:18):
They were attacking the greatest generation that won World War Two.
We built the free world and spoiled their kids. We're
still living with that, with socialists down for the struggle.
Forget is that the beau Brummel business suit gave every
man a chance to improve his lot in life. It
let the growing middle class dress like the upper class.

(04:41):
Of course, the rich could order suits from Italy Savile Row.
Carrie Grant had the suits he wore in movies tailored
for him in London. A Hollywood film crew Brian as
a practical joke, ordered an identical suit as the one
he got from Savile Row, and they gave it to
a monkey cart. It was not amused. But even if

(05:02):
you couldn't afford a London tailor, dressing in a suit
in time meant you were a proud member of America's
fluid upwardly mobile, free market economy, a breadwinner, a man
with a family and civic responsibilities. Now, don't get me wrong, friends,

(05:22):
somebody gave me Fred Hauser. Thank you for this an
autographed photo of Elon Musk, who is no less a
visionary entrepreneur because he prefers T shirts and sneakers. But
many other guys today who post COVID work from home,
if they work at all. The number of people not
looking for work is another thing we can talk about.

(05:43):
Sometime they dress like arrested adolescents, and too often they
vote like arrested adolescents. They're taught by leftist media and
social media that America is and always has been unjust.
They dress pro hamas protesters at Columbia and Harvard. Americans

(06:05):
used to say, clothes make demand, and back when we
had men who dressed for the next job they wanted,
they did so once in a while for a business meeting.
We're just for a date night with your wife, why
not dress in your Sunday best now, Brian, I can
hear my wife saying, stop talking and get your good

(06:25):
suit back from the dry cleaners. But one last thing,
and I know you will agree with me. My friend,
there's no more honorable suit of clothes than a military
or police uniform or the ordinary work clothes worn on
the job by the men and women who make our
country run. So what do you say?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I agree with you absolutely in that last point. I
guess the interesting question is, isn't it sort of a societal
creation what constitutes appropriate dress at any given moment in history?
How is it that red high heeled shoes were once
the approved sophisticated You know who in the hell came
up with that rule that was widely accepted? I mean,

(07:05):
come on, who whose idea was that? And how did
it become the norm to have the respectability meant wearing
a suit? I don't any problem with the concept, but
you know, if if I'm wearing a suit and tied
to a Reds game when it's ninety degrees out, I
think that's a stupid choice. But that's what people did.
Part of the reason why is because you could only
afford one suit, and many people wore that suit day

(07:28):
in and day out. And I'm sure it got kind
of gaming back in the nineteen twenties when you had
your same suit over and over again, probably made of
wool but that was the society accepted and expected clothing wear.
I'm sure a lot of guys would rather have been
in T shirts and shorts or whatever the modern version
of it was back then. I know I would. I
remember casual Fridays. I wore a suit every single day
of the week suit and time when I was practicing

(07:49):
lawn Chicago, along came casual Fridays. To the delight of
all the you know, sophisticated, well healed lawyers who were
representing multi millionaire clients. We couldn't wait for Fridays. And
then it became the well you can dress casually business.
Casual was always a business in front of it, so
you couldn't wear you tube tops or whatever, but casual
unless you were going to court. Court, there was an

(08:11):
expectation you show up in a suit. I know that's
gone by the wayside, and I know that seems disrespectful
to the court and quite often proceed to be so
when people show up in shorts and T shirts. But
not everybody can afford a suit and the laundry bill
that goes along with it, And I think that's the
reason we kind of gravitated over toward this more relaxed
approach to business wear. People who can't afford the laundry
bill and the suits and the shirts that go along

(08:33):
with it. I remember having shirts starched and dry clean
a buck fifty a pop back in the nineties, and
that was rather expensive, but it was something that we
all took care of and paid for. My wife had
to wear suits to work every single day. So there
seems to be a real weird balance here, But it's
whatever society perceives to be appropriate is what is acceptable.

(08:53):
And I think we have gone a little bit more
way over the over the line when it comes to
wearing yoga pants literally everywhere. I roll my eyes at that,
but you know, I'm not the one making society's rules.
Jack your retort to those observations, I have no retort.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's a free country. You can join a nudist colony
if you like. I'm just certain the way that we
dress is a reflection of the kind of society we have,
And of course I'm not suggesting that big government ought
to mandate the way.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
People don't know.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
The leftists after the Communist Revolution, Malse Tung ordered men
to wear his signature mausuit if they weren't in a
military uniform. That order was relaxed only after Joan Lai
and Dungshaping opened China up to some measure of capitalism
and American multinationals move their factories and jobs to China,

(09:45):
which Trump is trying to reverse. Today, Jijungping is less
interested in building up a red Chinese middle class. So
who knows. Maybe those common uniforms are going to come back.
But yes, people can do what they like, they can
speak the way they like. A segment on profanity coming
up soon. Of course, we've talked about music and the

(10:05):
quality of movies today. Yeah, free society, but not necessarily
the society that it works best.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
For us, Right, and I listen dictates from government, of
course I'm going to reject, and most notably if it
comes to something as individual as clothing choices. But again,
what is accepted broadly by any given society really is
ultimately what dictates what is appropriate and inappropriate. And I
look over the globe and see different societies with different
garb and wear, and I scratch my head over their choices.

(10:32):
But then again, I don't live in their particular culture.
I'm not advocating running around looking like a slob Jack.
It's just that, you know, over time, things dramatically change,
and I sure as hell don't want to go back
to a time when society has an expectation that we
all wear wigs and high heeled shoes, because if we
go in that direction, then I'm going to be the
one people are looking at, going that guy doesn't know
how to dress it appropriately, and I'll be going, Yep,

(10:54):
I guess I'm the modern day of a modern day
hippie because I'm walking around in my old business casual attire,
which at one point in time used to be societally acceptable.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah. Well, the whole point of my talk was that
the way we dressed used to reflect the fact that
you had to be an aristocrat to be respected. When
we got to the point where men dressed in what
was considered a respectable fashion and one that allowed them
to move up the social ladder, America was doing quite well.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yep. And then you can always think of Fetterman, who
I don't think did the senator service by walking around
in sweatpants and T shirts. So there's always that kind
of guy. Oh, and I got to make a quick
comment on hats Jack. His hats always drive me crazy.
If it's a functional hat, fine, it keeps the rain
off you, it keeps the sun from beaten down. But
stupid hats have always been a problem for me, you know,
like the bobbies that stand outside and guard the London

(11:45):
with those giant fur hats. I mean, what point do
those things serve other than some sort of connection with history?
And when did it become a functional hat? When did
that type of hat? Why was it designated for the
military wear under that circumstances, when I think some other
form of hat would be far more functional and a
lot more comfortable and of course less expensive.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Britain is making a lot of money off tourists, and
then a lot of tourists take pictures of themselves next
to those guys. Yeah, speaking of hats, you know, it's
interesting how fashion does change. Clark Gable is the one
who got a lot of men stopping wearing undershirts, right,
and the movie had happened one night. Yeah, he took
off your shirt and he was just Clark Gable JFK.

(12:29):
At his inauguration didn't want to wear a hat. And
the hat business really went downhill after that because people said,
look at that guy with his full head of hair.
I don't need a hat.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
So what we need is modern social media influencers who
will bring brack a, bring back a higher expectation of
clothing wear so we all do look at least a
little more respectable, not like we're off to a gym.
Jack evident, always fun, always brilliant. Appreciate our banter back
and forth. And I appreciate you and your being on
the programs always. I wish you and you better have

(13:01):
Amsley a wonderful week. Much health and love to both
of you. And we'll do this again. Actually not next Wednesday.
I'm off from my cancer recovery week, but we'll do
it again in two weeks.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, and take care of yourself well.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Thanks. I appreciate that very much. Love you brother, have
a great week, seven nineteen If you five