A Linen Suit on September 1st?

Here's the top half of today's gear. Very cool and even breezy. But what's with that uncooperative shirt collar?

The Labor Day weekend has yet to commence here in the United States, but the number of days left during which linen and seersucker are acceptable, if we go by traditional sartorial guidelines, are few in number. You can understand, then, my eagerness to try out a Polo Ralph Lauren blue label linen suit that I splurged on last spring.

Following a few minor alterations, it has been hanging in my wardrobe waiting for an inaugural wearing since mid-June. The verdict? Very light, breezy, and comfortable in today's 70-degree, partly sunny, breezy weather. However, my lower back still became a bit moist this morning, despite minimal lining in the jacket, while walking 15 minutes across campus from the building where my office is to another where my Tuesday-Thursday class meets. Anyway, the suit pictured above was worn with a plain brown leather dress belt, brown Allen Edmonds "shortwings," and some fairly subtle brown and white striped socks if you can imagine such a thing.

But it gets much worse, ladies and gentlemen. Since it is supposed to become somewhat warmer and more humid by the time classes resume next Tuesday, after a three-day holiday weekend, I plan to pull out the vintage blue and white seersucker suit (oh, yes) one day next week and maybe also the madras sports jacket with some dress chinos another day. Yes. I know. It's now September 1st. How very gauche of me to wear warm weather attire into the start of the fall season. I'm so ashamed. Clearly, a crass parvenu of the first order here.   But it's not quite time for the heavy wool flannel double-breasted numbers or tweed and corduroy yet either, and one might as well be comfortable. Gosh, with that attitude, can sweatpants and flip-flops worn on a daily basis with a ratty backwards baseball cap be far off?

-- Heinz-Ulrich

The Pleasaures of a Well-trained Dog. . .

A few final photographs from my visit to my sister in Washington, D.C. last week. These include one of 'Mr. Beau,' my sister's meticulously trained and truly wonderful Doberman, another of my sister, second cousin, step-father, and yours truly on the steps of the church outside Lexington, North Carolina just after our late mother's interment service, two of me solo at the National Cathedral, and a final one of my sister and me hamming it up during a long evening walk the day before I returned to Michigan. My sister routinely walks to the cathedral, about three blocks from her place, to enjoy the grounds and gardens. The Bishop's Garden, in particular, is a place she likes to sit for quiet contemplation and internal dialogues with our late maternal grandparents and mother, very much in keeping with the Episcopal side of things. Our grandfather, who was raised Methodist, became an Episcopalian when he married our grandmother. Before you ask, I am not sure tha

Almost Mid-June Sunday Style. . .

A fter two months, Blogger has decided to allow me in the door once again, so I can add a long overdue post documenting my take on classic male style. Since we are almost in the throes of summer, let's go with a warm weather theme this morning. Now, the items above will not be to everyone's taste: Deck shoes without socks, shorts, pleats, skinny pale legs, etc. All invite tisk-tisking and debate in certain online fora, but that's ok. I wouldn't wear attire this to campus Monday through Friday, or to church. But for relaxed, comfortable warm weather-wear around the house during the weekends, with maybe a quick trip down the road for a gallon of milk at the super market, this will do nicely, thank you very much. It's certainly preferable to the wrinkled, torn, stained sloppy alternative we see everywhere in 2022. Neither is it at all far removed from how the various men and boys across three generations of my extended family presented themselves during even

Mark HollingsworthSeptember 2, 2016 at 5:24 AM
Was it Picasso who said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”?

Mark
WSTKS-FM WorldwideSeptember 2, 2016 at 8:39 AM
Artist? Hmmm. . . I don't know. But it is fun trying to present oneself nicely to the rest of the world depending on the weather.

Best Regards,

Heinz-Ulrich von B.

Classic Style

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