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I was getting ready for my weekly Wednesday 6:30 AM men’s group while my wife was still sleeping. So as I grabbed 501 Levi’s I wore yesterday and in my dark closet put together my OOTD by iPhone flashlight, I was contemplating my personal style. Over the past couple of day’s I’ve blathered on about the terms old money and preppy and how each is fraught with the danger reducing Classic Timeless Menswear to merely another fashion category. Antonio’s recent video I spoke about yesterday did a brilliant job of describing why “ old money” style is so much more than just a fashion term: https://www.skool.com/rmrs/mia-culpa-antonio?p=9d9bbd8d Rather than create a name for my personal style myself, I choose to borrow from Harold Powell for whom I worked in my 20’s. He private labeled his casual wear Old School and I remember him telling me why that best described what he was doing and how that differed from other stores in the South Central USA. Harold was a product of The University of Oklahoma -Established Dec. 19, 1890 -17 years before statehood. https://journals.shareok.org/soonermagazine/article/download/11147/11146 https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=HA028 Like many other state universities, the school song and school colors were “borrowed” from east coast colleges. (Boomer Sooner is the Yale Boola Boola song for the Bulldogs and OU’s Crimson and Cream are Harvard’s colors). Harold worked for the McCalls brothers ( a firm I worked for before Harold’s ) but his mother owned the building they were in and when they moved he opened his own shop in their old location in 1948 across Boyd Street from the OU campus. He chose to go a different direction in styling than most west coast clothing oriented stores in Oklahoma and focused on the East Coast, a bold and risky move at that time. His philosophy was to adopt styles that were more perpetual and rather than have a vast array of colors and designs (wide and shallow), he would provide an extremely limited design and limited colors with a lot of minute details (narrow and deep) Explained further - all his coats had a 3/2 roll and all his trousers had deep double forward pleates. Beyond the tweeds in fall or shantung silks or seersuckers for summer, every brand was offered in Navy, multiple shades of Grey, tans, and olives. Ties were classic stripes and foulards primarily and shirtings were mainly oxfords with some stripes and tattersalls. Footwear was of very high quality but clearly defined traditional styles.

In the 1970’s the great Gatsby Movie with Robert Redford (clothing designer was none other than Ralph Lauren) had a big impact. It reminded gentlemen that there was a deep level of elegance in menswear from a bygone era (that movie was set in Long Island in the 1920’s). This reminder was desperately needed during the 1970’s, or as I like to call it. The style dark ages. As I said several times perhaps the present time is even darker ages. I’ve seen a lot of posts about the influences of the Peaky Blinder Series. Set in roughly the same era the recent Motorsport ads by Ralph Lauren kind of capture that same feel. Dressed up casual. A tie and tweed outfit set to be worn during an activity. On that last note I am all for it. When I lived in Virginia we used to attend Steeple Chases where most of the guys were in sport coats and functional hats (not a baseball cap) for hanging out in the sun all day. Our favorite was at the birthplace of James Madison called Montpelier. It was held on the first weekend in November so it might be in the 70’s or perhaps in the upper 40’s so the dress varied (plus the alcohol tended to cool the body down by the end of the all day race.😎 ) To me that is what the peaky blinder influence represents, a wool cap (flat or fedora) an overcoat of tweed, a sweater, and perhaps a dress shirt and tie. While I am not into costuming, there are elements of this look of which I am very fond. The Ben Affleck Batman wardrobe designer kind of caught this tweedy functional dressed up work attire in those films as well https://vmagazine.com/article/polo-originals-launches-motorsport-inspired-fw23-campaign-by-richard-phibbs/ If peaky blinders -or Ralph or even The Bat-Man (spoken in my best Cillian Murphy Scarecrow voice) can save us again from the mess of the past 15 years, I’ll get commissioner Gordon to fire up the Bat signal

My Environmental Scientist son and Environmental Scientist daughter-in-law presented at our church today. Each has a MS and Bs in that field. They were reviewing a book by Dr Sara Richter called Stewards of Eden This Harvard phD had a book so mesmerizing I would wake up at 2:00 just to read it. I could not have been more proud of the kids. Wore my charcoal brown MTM suit windowpane CT shirt, Woven silk Robert Talbott Green Tie, AE shell cordovan wingtips Orvis field watch. My wife and my kids went out behind the church 20 acres to dig up Milk weed (the favorite plant for Monarch butterfly’s). The 100th Eagle Scout from our troop built a butterfly garden back in 2019 and the milk weed that spreads beyond the garden into the lawn gets mowed. So we are relocating those plants that escaped the garden to sunny spots in our own respective yards. Naturally we did it in my suit and the wife’s dress. We only get one planet.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH STOP JUST STOP!!!!!!!!!