According to the Wall Street Journal, men’s loafers are making a comeback. “Bergdorf Goodman’s men’s store, called Goodman’s, is making a big push with loafers this year,” writes the Journal‘s Ray A. Smith. “A factor behind the loafer proliferation is the move to more smart-casual dress codes at work…. And the big fashion influence is the runaway success of Gucci’s fur-lined loafers, launched last year.” Fur-lined? I think I’ll pass, lest I be accused of being a fancy boy.
Smith traces the history of the loafers back to 1936, when G.H. Bass & Co. introduced Bass Weejuns:
As you can imagine, there were lots of opportunities for ridicule. (I did once have pennies in my penny loafers. Once.) “They are … an easy style to mock,” Smith says. “Their long association with blue bloods and the Ivy League provides good fodder for social media ribbing of men who wear loafers, especially those who, like TV anchorman Matt Lauer, do so without socks.” Again, guilty as charged.
But in my memory, there was a specific moment when loafers began to go out of fashion. It was during a speech given by President George H. W. Bush at the Republican National Convention in 1992:
Boom. President Bush dropped the mic and walked off the stage. Or at least that’s how I remember it. (I was in college so my memory is a bit foggy.) In any event, the quip got a lot of play at the time. “Bush Making ‘The Tasseled Loafer’ a Symbol of Nation’s Woes” was the headline from the Associated Press. The London Evening Standard asked, “Is Loafer Man a threat to life as we know it? George Bush has identified a new enemy in society: men who wear tasseled loafers. Could he possibly be right?” Even a year later, Neil A. Lewis wrote a column in the New York Times entitled “The Politicization of Tasseled Loafers.” In short, loafers went through a Sideways Merlot moment.
I never bought tasseled loafers because that remark by President Bush had always lingered with me. (The tassels, incidentally, have been attributed to the actor Paul Lukas. “He asked shoemakers in the U.S. to make something similar,” writes Smith, “and ultimately Alden produced a prototype in a slip-on style and added it to its production line in 1952.”) But I’ve always owned a pair of loafers, both the formal and casual kind. Smith also mentions John F. Kennedy wearing loafers while boating and Michael Jackson sporting black loafers (with white socks!) in the “Thriller” video. It’s also been debated whether it’s appropriate to wear loafers with a suit. This, however, surprises me since I see nothing wrong with that, provided they’re dress loafers and not, say, the driving kind with those rubber-grommet soles.
It’s strange how things come around. Loafers are back and so is George H.W. Bush, who linked those shoes to trial lawyers supporting his then-opponent Bill Clinton, whose wife Bush is now supposedly voting for. And trial lawyers, well, they never left.
