When Hosni Mubarak was ruler of Egypt, he wore custom-tailored suits.
Nothing unusual about that.
His suits were made of dark-colored fabric, with light-colored pinstripes.
Nothing unusual about that.
But . . .
The pinstripes were composed of tiny letters, spelling his name, micro-printed onto the fabric.
That amused me. If you know what to look for, it’s ostentatious as hell. But unless someone told you what to look for, you would probably never notice it.
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Not long ago, I was online, looking at wristwatches.
The jewel-encrusted monsters, with dozens of different dials, are actually the second tier.
The really, really, really expensive watches usually have a simple design, and a spartan appearance.
I presume there are indicators to tell people that you are not wearing a Timex from Kmart, but I don’t know what markers to look for.
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What examples can you give, of extravagant luxuries that are carefully camouflaged?
Beyond a certain point, the tell is that there are no tells- to recognize the item is high-end or exclusive, you have to be one of the cognoscenti, like the scene in “Die Hard” where Hans Gruber recognizes that Takagi’s suit is from John Philips in London because he owns a couple himself.
It’s just another way to be nerdy about something, like trainspotting.
Back when I was still working for the State of Confusion, a group of State Employees made an appointment to talk to a State Senator about the folly of “contracting out” State work.
This State Senator had climbed the political ranks. I think he had started out in City zGovernment, the State Assembly, to finally, State Senator. His original campaign in the beginning of his career was that he was just a regular guy, like the people he proposed to represent. His slogan was “Working Joe Blow.”
Through the years as he climbed the ranks, he kept the same slogan: “Working Joe Bow.”
Our group met with him, offered our experiences, and then we were politely dismissed. He did shake hands with us.
His hands were soft, his nails were manicured.
~VOW
Isn’t there something about how the monogram on one’s bespoke shirts should be in a hidden spot, not out where it can be seen, like the breast pocket? And I always thought that all of the luxury goods like Louis Vuitton bags covered in the logo was really tacky. Even if it is super-expensive.
Less subtle ostentation: on the streets of Great Los Angeles in the early 1970s, a metalflake candy-apple green Hemi-Cuda muscle car with a tall spoiler - inscribed on the driver’s door in elegant gold script was Lawrence Welk. Just an ordinary guy.
This whole thread reminds me of something I once read about Flo Ziegfeld telling the Ziegfeld girls to always wear pretty underwear: even though the audience couldn’t see it, they’d know it was there, and that confidence and sense of sexiness would show.
Well… It’s not the suit. It’s the fabric. High end fabric /is/ expensive, no two ways about that. And having your name woven into the fabric is a way to deter theft and to detect counterfeiting.
Personally, I think that if you can’t identify stolen fabric, or recognise substitution, then maybe you’re just paying for the label – like a licence plate. But if I had the money, paying a lot more for suit fabric would be one of the things I’d splash on.
