This is in reference to men’s belts, but both men and women are free to weigh in.
I love braided belts, because they can be fastened at any size. I find this useful because I can get the perfect fit for whatever pair of pants I happen to be wearing. But they just don’t seem to sold anymore, or at least I don’t find them in the places where I look. It would seem that they were a passing fad.
My question is, why would such a practical article of apparel not be more popular? Or is it just another one of those things I’m clueless about? You know, things that everyone else seems to revile, but I don’t see what’s wrong with? Like pleated slacks, socks and sandles with long pants, underwear over the trousers (Just kidding on that last one! :D)
I had one once that I liked, but after a while it got kind of stretched out of shape, and I discovered that the strips had sticky stuff between them. Maybe it was just a cheap belt?
Sweatpants are also adjustable. There are a lot of “practical” things out there that we don’t wear in public. Elastic waistbands, banana clips, etc…But you stick to wearing them around the house.
I beg to differ. My braided belts are completely presentable, but my favorite one, which had a more polished look, unravelled after one of the tiny leathe strands somehow got torn.
Me, I wear them with my casual clothes all the time. Then again I’m a very relaxed dresser.
Maybe that’s the reason – like canvas belts, they tend towards the casual, relaxed side. At the far upper dressy end of the “couture” scale, you don’t worry about what’s the fit of whatever pair of pants you have on at the time, because of course your suit and slacks will have been tailored to fit. And then, the expectation of what it is to be well-dressed is to imitate the high couture.
My guess is that it’s just because plain belts are dressier and look better. Louis Vuitton had a couple of braided belts this season for men, one in white and one in a light rose colour, but the ends of the belt were monogrammed LV leather with holes, rather than haing the buckle go through the braids of the belt. IMHO, the belt buckle through the braids ain’t that great a look, and if you’re looking for functionality a rope will suffice (it can be adjusted to any length, even better than a braided belt!). Why not just loosen your belt a notch with a classier looking belt? Also, if you’re doing the belt up through the braids it seems likely to me that you’re damaging the belt and that it will start looking tatty very quickly, as happened to Helena.
On a related note, (related to the OP at least), what on earth is everyone’s problem with pleated slacks these days?
Another khaki slacks/hunter green polo shirt/ Bass oxford shoe/braided belt wearer here.
I love my braided belt, though. Of course, I picked up a bad habit in prep school that i have kept to this day. My belt is a bit too long, but not long enough to wrap around to the loop on my side, so the difference sort of hangs down, just to the left of my crotch, to my inseam. The belt has a tapered head, and so looks nothing more than a big brown penis (which is fitting, since I am brown myself). I will often use it to intimidate white folks a work. It swishes along quite merrily as I stalk down the halls of the Student Union.
Nah, the next big thing in belts is 3/8 inch Samson yacht braid rope with a Harken cam-cleat on one end. The free end will be a spot for fashion statements. The plain hot-melt cut can be either uncool or a punkrock fyou thing. Fancy wrappings will range from neat nylon cord to gold wire, with a little chain leading to the piercing in your…whatever.
Well, the thing is that my trousers, which are usually jeans, don’t need the belt as such to stay up. My belt is only a cosmetic accessory that is needed only to look “completely dressed”, as it were. So, if I loosen a drilled belt to the next size up, it tends to flop around in the loops, which are typically much longer than actually needed. Whereas, if I tighten it one size down, it’s too tight, and it makes the trouser waist bunch up, which also doesn’t look good. Only a continuous (as opposed to a discrete) belt allows me to adjust exactly to the size of my pants.
I also want to ask what’s wrong with pleated slacks? I think they look good on men and women. (Of course, I never pay any attention to fashion at all, I just wear what I like and what looks nice on me.)
I always thought that pleated pants make most people look heavier than they are. There is this pouch of extra fabric around the stomach/crotch area that most people don’t need, and it can accentuate a small belly to make it look like a large belly. It’s been years since I’ve worn a pair, but I remember when I sat down while wearing a pair, the pleated front part would bunch up and stick out, making me look like a had male genitalia on an otherwise female body…not exactly what I wanted.
I suppose they could be flattering on some people, but usually when I see someone wearing them, I think to myself “that person would probably look 10 pounds thinner if they just got rid of those pleats”
Belts or suspenders are mechanically necessary for us fat people. When downward slippage would be arrested by an obstructive widening (i.e., the ass), such reinforcements may be considered cosmetic. When one’s pants are, to oversimplify, more, say, funnel shaped–widest at the top–then gravity will hold sway over friction. Being capable of blocking a busload of schoochildren’s view of the Grizzly Bear habitat at the zoo, my life is an ongoing skirmish between gravity and modesty.
Now, bearing all this in mind, the only way that a belt can be useful in my own personal situation is to effect al alteration of my basic pants geometry: funnel-shaped, gravity’s bitch; cinched in a bit at the upper perimeter, like an expensive red-wine glass, and gravity can kiss my ass, if it could get to it, but it can’t. Unfortunately, *cinching * don’t rhyme with *pinching * for its health. So there is a direct correlation, in my situation, between a belt’s effectiveness and its discomfort factor.
So I prefer suspenders, like many fat people. It’s my opinion, however, as a fashion visionary and a trendsetter, not a trendfollower, that suspenders make me look like an entire dork. A *fat * dork. Plus? Unless you get the expensive kind, with button holes? and sew buttons ontol all your pants to accomodate them? the alligator-clip types are anything by alligator-like in their distinctively unviselike grip, and are often given to retreat and surrender in the neverending battle against gravity.
So it’s belts. (Which is largely why I mostly dress like a slob at when I’m at home.)
I too like the braided thing, but don’t want to pay real money for something like that. So I macrame my own belts.
