Friday, April 30

J. Crew -- leading aspirant shoppers astray since 1983

What's up with this terribly-fitting suit? I scanned this from a new J. Crew catalog I got in the mail. I can't believe they photographed it so badly.

I understand they're trying to find a new look to replace the retro 3-button sack suit look, and they're going for the retro continental cut--a two-button model with a slightly pinched waist. (These were the two competing suit styles of the early sixties) But this fitting has terrible problems.

First of all the model looks too tall and disproportionate. PhotoShop, or just a skinny dude with a small head? Also, I'm sure the jacket is pinned back behind his back to make it look fitted---but they went too far, and it looks uncomfortable.

Secondly, the way the pants don't integrate with the jacket is painful to see. The waist is far too low for the cutaway front of the jacket, so we're seeing a vast swath of shirt and tie just above the belt. He seems to be wearing them with the crotch down too far--is that to compensate for the over-short inseam? Modern men (myself included) have a hard time with higher-waisted pants, since we've spent our lives wearing jeans, but you have to give way a little, so that you don't look like a slob in your suit.

What do you think? Would you drop $600 to look like this?

2 comments:

  1. Even I can't believe how bad it is...and I don't usually notice details of men's fashion that much. But this is just bad!

    Now that I look at him, the model looks a little like Halle Berry's recent ex, Gabriel Aubrey. Maybe he's depressed about the break-up and that's why he looks so bad.

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  2. Wow, wow, wow, that is ugly. Mark and I saw a kind of beefy guy in NYC today wearing a too-tight button-down shirt with too-tight pants, and Mark said the pants reminded me of this blog entry, which I hadn't seen yet. I thought surely it wouldn't look as bad on a thin model-type, but this guy looks even worse! Except the guy we saw today was wearing WHITE FLIP-FLOPS! Which it turns out look really wrong on a man, especially a man in a button-down shirt and really tight trousers on the streets of Manhattan.

    Anyway, this J. Crew dude looks like a hipster doofus. Where's his porkpie hat?

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