Clothes Make the Man

Mark Twain once quipped, "Clothes make the man. Naked people get very little respect." And he' was spot on with that one. The way we dress changes the way that other people respond to us. It also changes the way we feel about ourselves. Slip into a nice suit and tie, and you hold yourself a little bit straighter, walk a little bit taller, feel a little bit wealthier. Blue jeans and tee-shirts may be comfortable, they may be great for lounging around and working in the ward and what not, but a suit and tie make you feel like a different person. And people treat you differently too. You start hearing the word "sir" as people address you. Nothing wrong with that. Take Bogart for example. Think he'd have been great if he'd walked aroundf in Jeans and a tee-shirt all of the time? I doubt it. As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a clothes horse. I like suits. I grieve over the loss of elegance that has come with our overly casual society. I long for the 1930s and 40s, when suits and hats were de rigueur. Back then, almost all men wore jackets, vests and ties all of the time. Even farmers wore jackets and vests while they worked. Gentlemen wore suits even when they went out hunting and fishing. In fact, the "sport coat" was invented for just that purpose, a more casual suit that you wore for to the lake of the mountains. And hats. Men wore hats. Women did too. Hats were wonderful. They lend everyone an air of style and class, maybe even mystery. Today, the only hats people wear are the ubiquitous baseball caps and - in some places - cowboy hats. But hats were once so much a part of society that they even became a part of our vocabulary. Still are. Maybe we wear many hats at work. Sometimes we throw our hats in the ring. We talk through our hats. We take our hats off to someone. We tell people to keep their hats on. We go around hat in hand. We pass the hat around. But all of that is gone now. And with it went all of the grace of those days. All that remains are neck ties and cheap-looking business suits that managers wear for important meetings. But I love watching old movies, in part, because I can soak in the era of suits and hats, of evening wear, of a time when there was still a little bit of grace left in the world. I love the paintings of Jack Vettriano for the same reason. Check out these guys. Men in suits and hats. Women in dresses. Daily life on a different level than it is now. Even thugs look classy in a double-breasted suit and a slouch fedora.