Taking Inspiration From the Joker

The Joker's trademark colors are green and purple. These colors look well together yet many ignore there potential. Whenever I mention it to a friend they laugh or bring up the Joker. I take it in kind and just prove them wrong. Instead of looking like a cartoon character, I channel a dandy of exquisite taste.

Take a gander and analyze why this works:

Dressing to Live.

Life is composed of many stages. These stages bring many different aspects of culture, knowledge, responsibility, and costume. The last of these is what we shall concern ourselves with and explore further. We shall seek to understand it and apply .

To avoid argument, let us assume that life begins from conception and ends at death. Here are the stages: conception to birth, infancy to school age, school age to young adulthood, and full adulthood to middle age, eldership, and finally death. At conception to birth you wear nothing and from infancy to school age your parents dress you according to the fashions of your age, sometimes their whim takes over. During young adulthood you begin to develop your own ideas and dress according to them; most will follow what the media, their peers, or affiliate groups wear. The next stage full adulthood, by now you are firmly stuck in your way of dressing. If you are a man you have to own at minimum a 1 suit and you have completely become absorbed in your profession's attire. Eldership is a free-for-all. You can say and wear anything you desire. Many now have the privilege of dressing with all the exclusive items of their culture. In my culture, you can now wear tribal dress with a cane and highly decorated head dress even before the Chiefs. Then finally, at death, you once again wear nothing at all.

Mr. E living to dress at Christmas.

The sartorial blogosphere sometimes waxes poetry and philosophizes about dressing to the point of making it seem like that is the expression of ultimate masculinity. Dressing to them is intrinsically important to their life; they live to dress. This is advisable only in some circumstances. The most appropriate time for this is during eldership. It is in this stage of life that one has no responsibilities, theoretically and maybe only in the best case scenarios, and society has freed one to the point of allowing them to pursue and develop the intrinsic things in life. Some examples of this in Western culture are the senior citizen golfers, continuing education or life long learning programs at universities, and the Flavio Briatore like playboy billionaires.

Manton, M.D. dressing to live for his medical practice.

Well what of the majority of us that are sartorialists. It is estimated by menswear retailers that we are of the 18 - 34 age range, the so called video-game demographic. This is the adulthood to middle age category. In the full adulthood stage of life we are seeking things that are instrumental. On the young side one is occupied with education on the older end one is completely engorged with wealth building in their career. These things are all to build a life for themselves and their families; the foundation for the lifestyle they will hopefully live during eldership is being created. This stage of life requires instrumentality in the choice of dress. For, to succeed in one's career one must dress according to the profession and peers in one's place of employment. One is said to be 'dressing to live'. To dress to unique or outdress the superiors will bring ill will towards you and hamper your success; Antongiovanni, the author of TheLondonLounge.Net fame, writes something similar in his book, "The Suit."

While it is admirable to seek the intrinsic values of dandyism it is much more useful for the majority of sartoralists to dress with what they can get away with. One should copy their peers and superiors but not to a tee. Copy the form but play with the particulars. Choose to be a dandy with the items one does not expose very much. Socks and pocket squares lend themselves to this quite well. Items that are front and center like ties should follow the norm to ensure one's livelihood. Remember this advise, dress to live in your youth and live to dress during eldership.

An Interesting Fair Isle Sweater Vest

From time to time one comes across anomalies in the menswear world. These are items that existed for a short period of time, are not traditional, completely bizarre, or just plain archaic; yet they are desirable, even if controversial.

The Houndstooth Kid, an internet friend of the Eccentric Orange Gent, recently posted about the mess jacket. This got my wheels turning and inspired me to post about my sweater vest. Sometimes you gain inspiration from your peers and I thank him for that.

Here is the interesting Fair Isle sweater vest:

The most interesting thing about this sweater vest is closure system. It creates a very large opening in the chest and opens up so many possibilities for tie and shirt combinations. The deep opening makes it unsuitable for wear without jackets and with bow ties. Sorry! This is a straight tie and jacket affair. The pattern and closure make it highly informal. You should only wear this with a casual or country suit. The more daring of dandies will choose to take it with an odd jacket and odd pants. Sadly the buttons stop short of allowing you to wear a pocket watch although, one could jerry rig one for extra style points.

While this seems to be novel; it actually is a style of sweater that fell out of favor after the sixties. I've come across a few and even asked a seasoned Atlanta financial executive who happened to be wearing one at an alumni mixer down town about them. The banker told me that they were all the rage when he was a student at Emory in the '60s. They also can be found on ebay from time to time. I personally think they should still be around and only add interest to the sweater combinations that dandies can piece together.

Ebay Image

Next time your thrifting consider this option. I overlooked mine but after three months of passing it by I finally came to my senses and picked it up. Please, let us remind ourselves every once in a while of forgotten words in the sartorial dictionary.

Money Never Sleeps!!!

As a child, I watched Wall Street immediately I wanted to be Gordon Gecko with a conscious. His wealth and lifestyle were something for me to dream about. My ultimate dream is to have a penthouse one day and live the life of a Chief. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps is coming out and guess who is going to watch it? Do I still want to be Gecko, no, I want to be Warren Buffett. Both are the reason I studied finance. Okay! Not exactly but roll with it.

In the long run, I want to enter Private Equity and chase my financial goal, for now, I'm quite happy being Bud Fox's dad and working hard for a living. After all, the skills I'm sharpening now will serve me well as a banker or financier.

Let's get down to business: I picked up a pair of cuff links made from silver, my favorite. They are chain linked and have buy on 1 side and sell on the other. This is exactly what I could picture Gordon Gekko wearing in Money Never Sleeps. I may not have his wealth but I've got this handsome pair of links. I can't wait to wear these. They are worth all $12 I spent on them. Check out the un-boxing.

Waist Coats of Envy.

I just bought this from a thrift store. For some reason, I'm starting to wear green. I still don't think olive green goes well with my skin tone so I avoid it. These other shades seem to work well with me. The mustard waistcoat seems to work well with me. It brings out the brown undertones in my flesh. It almost imitates the effect orange and red have against my face. The darker greens work too. As long as they aren't too close to olive green, they work. The fact that green is a very versatile color works for me as well. Expect to see them in an ensemble soon. I'll try and give you an idea of what these hues of green can be worn with.

Side Note: These buttons look really bad and I plan on changing them to an orangey brown horn ones. Hell! I might even go with a metal button type because this is an odd vest I can do that. We'll have to see.