—G. Bruce Boyer

Oh, and for the record, I’d rather be a fox.

(Via Put This On.)

Previously: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

—Glenn O’Brien

—79-year-old Italian-American writer Gay Talese

—Andy Warhol, From A to B & Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Over at Clothes on Film, Matt Spaiser analyzes Sean Connery’s clothing in Dr. No:

Throughout Dr. No, Sean Connery wears five unique tailored ensembles. Each outfit is simple, classic and worthy of imitation. The idea was to put Bond in suits that were distinctly British, but keep things simple because a secret agent should never stand out. Yet because of this simplicity, the clothes still look fresh today.

Now I want to read Spaiser, who runs the blog The Suits of James Bond, on Connery’s clothing in From Russia With Love, my favorite, and arguably the best, Bond film.

Related post: “Cary Grant’s Suit.”

EveryGuyed:

“A series of posters featuring Iconic Outfits from 20 Male Musicians. Designed by Glenn Michael of Moxy Creative House, and illustrated by James Alexander the prints are available here.”

(Via.)

Previously: Parts I, II, III. IV, and V.

—Tommy V.

No kidding.

(Via.)

You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me it’s a full-time job. Now behave yourself.

—Jack Carter (Michael Caine), Get Carter

John Gavin as a small-town college professor in Tammy Tell Me True (1961).

I repeat: If academics in real life dressed anything like academics in the movies, they’d be one of the best-dressed occupational groups in America.

See also Parts I, II, and III.

(Via.)

Such gestures embarrassed me a little, but they also made me feel more confident and capable. I began to think I could exert some pressure on my institution to raise the bar of formality a little by raising it a lot for myself.

In the process, I probably irritated some of my colleagues, a few of whom are aggressively informal on principle: denim, work boots, sandals – anything goes but formality. The situation is not unique to my home institution. Professors (in the humanities, at least) don’t make much money relative to other professionals, so we press our sour grapes into the sweeter wine of smugness: “We are too important to pay attention to such trivial, privileged matters as clothing.”

—Thomas H. Benton, aka William Pannapacker

“I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.”

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

—Walker Lamond

(Via.)

—Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

(Via.)

“Mr. Gwathmey was part of a generation of architects who put their own aesthetic stamp on the ‘high Modernist’ style developed in the early 20th century by Le Corbusier and others. Many of Mr. Gwathmey’s best buildings were houses.”

*

“Mr. Gwathmey (pronounced GWAHTH-mee) himself was a dashing figure, given to Savile Row suits and shoes from the London boot maker John Lobb. He drove black sports cars from which he stripped details he considered extraneous and lived in refined style, in an apartment of his own design.”

Charles Gwathmey, Modernist Architect, Dies at 71 (New York Times)

One thing is for sure: college students used to dress better.

—William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

On a recent trip to Seattle, I stopped by C.C. Filson Co.’s flagship store (1555 4th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98134) and snapped some photos. In addition to having perhaps the most badass corporate motto ever — “Might as well have the best” — Filson makes some of the highest-quality, handsomest-looking outdoor clothing and gear in the world. Some of it is still even made in the USA.

I especially love their bags, but my favorite thing they make might be the Mackinaw Cruiser (pictured below), an item that’s gotten a few high-profile endorsements recently.

More photos after the jump.

Cary Grant as Dr. Praetorius, a medical professor at a small midwestern college, in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s People Will Talk (1951).

(Via.)

At the beginning of the film, Newman’s character is en route to an academic conference, of all things.

The “college professor look” glamorized in movies such as Indiana Jones, moreover, is a classic Anglo-American look that’s considered the height of style in some circles. If academics in real life dressed anything like academics in the movies, they’d probably be thought of as one of the best-dressed occupational groups in America.

Related Posts: “Academics Who Dress Well.”

Prior to watching the show, I thought of the women’s struggle in the workforce as a problem perpetuated by male bosses. But Mad Men demonstrates just as much tension comes from the other women, who, either jealous or comfortable with the status quo, don’t want to see Peggy get ahead. Secretaries wield an enormous amount of power in office politics.

Thematically, Mad Men keeps getting richer and richer.

(Via The Moment.)

A: Cary Grant; and I knew him too. The first time I went into his office he said, “Is that a Brooks Brothers jacket?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Right off the rack, right? They’re great.”

—Peter Bogdanovich

(Via Izzy.)

I also have a lifelong appreciation for designs that respect a product’s utilitarian roots. Classic style has always done that because modern versions of traditional products are often based on functional roots. This is one reason that preppy styles are so long lived. The hallmark of true preppyness is the re-purposing of utilitarian items for everyday life: foul weather gear as fashion statement, prep school ties and jackets appearing in the office and that old steamer trunk great uncle Dan used at Yale is now a snazzy coffee table at the beach house. You get the idea.

It follows, then, that true preppyness is also environmentally friendly, as it is fundamentally about re-using things. Interesting.

(Via A Continuous Lean.)

Gary Cooper as Professor Bertram Potts in Ball of Fire (1941)

Loved this aside from Russell Jacoby’s recent profile of Paul Piccone:

Another leftist Italian-American of working-class origins coincidentally chaired my department at Rochester. Eugene Genovese, the historian of American slavery, also dressed to the nines. He once addressed us motley graduate students, mainly from New York City and its suburbs, as we clomped about in work boots, blue jeans, and work shirts: “You think the workers like what you are wearing?” he sneered. “They despise it and you.” He fingered his own fine threads. “This is what they like. This is what they would wear if they could.”

The point is that academics need not dress in a slovenly manner; indeed, many academics dress very well, or at least they used to. This is something of a hobbyhorse of mine.

The chap in the picture, by the way, is Ernest Hemingway.

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