Oww… I foolishly assumed a Wikipedia link was pretty mainstream, but I can appreciate Rico’s concern. Sorry.
Belted/pleated/shirred backs on sport jackets.
The whole idea of a sport suit.
Long point shirt collars.
Palm Beach Cloth, the mohair-cored cotton weave that was cool and wrinkle-resistant.
Women look refined in them, plus you get to save yourself the embarrassment of very-bad-hair days.
Long sweater vests are very trendy right now. Available for reasonable prices at Ann Taylor LOFT and elsewhere, or in an insanely expensive designer version ($1,475.00 for a vest?!) at Neimann Marcus.
Those are cool! Not quite as long as Maude’s – I think hers went past her knees, maybe almost to her ankles. The one I had reached mid-thigh.
Anyone else regretting not hanging on to old clothes? Seems like everything comes back, eventually.
Fedoras may not be gone, but they certainly aren’t the required as part of the suit like they were prior to 1960 or so. How did we lose that one? Fedoras are so classy.
Definitely capes. I love capes… especially long dramatic swirly ones with oversized hoods.
I like the idea of a corset as an optional garment and have worn more than my fair share over the years (courtesy of a brief flirtation with the SCA, followed by a full-blown affair with goth culture). However, I definitely don’t like the idea of corsets as they were through most of the 17th-19th centuries… sorry, no way I’d agree to put on a corset every morning and cinch myself up into a reasonable facsimile of an overstuffed sausage. Sure, it looks great and does wonders for my posture, but I’d run the risk of fainting if I tried anything more strenuous than climbing a flight of stairs. Just for that, corsets should stay in the dark ages, thankyouverymuch.
I really, really like the whole matching dress-and-coat-and-hat-and-gloves look that went out of style in the 1970s, but that was de rigeur for the first half of the 20th C. The only person who gets away with that nowadays is Queen Elizabeth.
Another vote for cloaks. I love wearing cloaks.
Another vote for women’s hats. And lady’s fans. I always wanted to carry a fan.
I wear a brown oilskin duster all the time. It’s great for certain kinds of weather (wet, not too cold), others, not so much (windy, really really cold)
And I get a lot of crap for wearing what is normally western wear downtown. I’m not otherwise into the whole cowboy thing, but I like the jacket and it does what it does well.
Conventional wisdom blames JFK, but at least one writer argues it’s just that the world got more informal.
I lament that one, too.
Oh, and I’m slowly trying to build up a few vests (the easier-to-find ones around Target, etc., are casually cut hipster fashion accessories, not a serious suit component), and bowties (which you cannot find at any but true men’s clothing stores).
How about, in the broader sense, just men wearing suits? Sure, just about every guy has one or two for the few socially necessary functions (weddings, funerals, possibly job interviews). A few (like myself) wear them daily for work. But nobody considers it a standard about-town look, and as I’ve seen it, even people in Professional jobs are more likely to wear a polo shirt or button-up sans tie than a proper suit.
Hey, I think those snood things are cool, too! (I didn’t know they were called ‘snoods’).
I would like to have one. I often wear my 'fro pushed back in a knit cap on the back of my head. I guess it is kind of like a snood. I know women with dread locks that wear the knit caps at the napes of their necks…looks a lot more snoody.
I would like to also cast my vote for corsets. And those paper parasols that keep the sun off. I use those, too.
And also, stockings with the seam down the back are hot. And men in hats. The brothers in Philly are wearing them. Nothing says ‘yum’ like a young man in a full beard and brimmed hat.
It’s not particularly archaic, but button fly trousers. Wo de eiren bought me some by mistake and I fell in love with them.
I call them “testicle-friendly” and cite “There’s Something about Mary”
Button-up gloves. The elastic-free are always too loose and the 2% Spandex’s fingers are too long.
Hats. Wide-brimmed hats and pillbox hats. Trilbys and fedoras. Although cocktail hats seem to be coming back in style.
I was so happy when vests came back in style. They just make any outfit look more put-together. Although I am partial to the ones cut in an hourglass figure so as to make me look 10 pounds lighter and a cup size bigger.
Cufflinks on men. A small thing that really pulls a nice suit together.
(this may be stretching the definition of archaic, but…) Flattering jeans without Spandex.
One more vote for a corset, fans, and some hats with feathers
To add…jams have REALLY wild prints …I remember wearing them in the late 80’s.
Already bookmarked =) Like I said, I love a good zoot. It would go nice with the half joking idea we had for a ‘lowgatti’. mrAru had found an auction online for a partially parted out mid 30s bugatti for $5K … since it would have been too expensive to do an actual return to factory restoration [too many parts removed to fix another car] but it could have been repaired with modern aftermarket parts to functional leaving the outside and interior able to be low ridered with impunity as the collectors value would have been shot to hell.
Chiton and peplos.