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

I’m curious how others plan their clothing expenditure. Is it an annual percentage of your house hold income? A monthly amount? A seasonal amount? A spur of the moment thing (when I see what I like- I just buy it)? A wad of cash to the thrift store or mall (when it’s gone I’m done buying)? What’s your approach? I would like to tell you that as a financial advisor I have a well documented system but that simply isn’t true. Fortunately I worked in quality mens stores when I was 15-24 so I developed a sense of buying long lasting quality both in style and material yet my method is less systematic. Since joining this community I have attacked the economics of my wardrobe and thought I might share my journey to trigger discussions about your own: A year ago I went through my closet with a pen and pad and estimated that if I replaced everything of mine in there at today’s prices it would cost $40k. Some items are 30 yrs old. I even have a few 40 yr old items. So if I were to average 40k by say 25 years average life of each garment, thats $1600 per year or $133 per month. Full disclosure, I didn’t spend that much. I look for sales, some are gifts, and for the really old items I got the store discount. Furthermore all these numbers are extrapolated up to today’s price for example the shoes I wore yesterday are over 42 yrs old- today they would cost $850. They were $200 in the early 80s when I got a 40% discount so about $140: still a lot of money for a poor college student but clearly I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Also my career over 40 plus years has had big swings in income. It has been a long road of big feast followed by shallow famine. So I buy when I’m flush. Lastly I like to travel and buying things on trips helps me remember the trip every time I wear them. Recently I’ve been “blessing others” with poor fitting items. The most expensive clothes are those I won’t wear. So thats my journey. Basically when spending -what to me are bigger amounts (custom suits, quality shoes) I try to be ruthlessly timeless to exacerbate their value. My goal is to keep my outfit below a $6.00 per day average wearing costs by buying quality timeless style. The pics are the 1982 shoes and 1982 green tie I wore yesterday and the silver tie I wore in my wedding in 1985 that has been in one of my OOTDs