Despite my strong misgivings, I went to a holiday party last month where the invitation asked for “Festive & Creative & Upscale” attire.
Those were the exact words on the Paperless Post invitation, including the alarming use of capital letters and ampersands, so believe me, I tried my best to wiggle out of it. But I had promised to attend, and backing out would be rude. And in any case, I had no idea how to frame my regrets. What could I have said? “So sorry, I can’t be there! I’m allergic to appearing in public dressed like someone at the Daytime Emmy Awards! Let’s catch up in the New Year!”
My plan was to wait until the day of the party before I opened up my closets and cobbled together a festive and creative and upscale uniform from a wardrobe that has remained basically unchanged since 1983.
What I discovered that day was this: My wardrobe is large enough that I can manage hitting one or two of those requirements at a time, but three is out of the question. A sharply creased pair of gray flannels that break perfectly over a pair of suede George Cleverley Oxfords took care of the “upscale” demand, I thought, and a colorfully striped Budd shirt was “festive” enough. But checking the “creative” box was a hurdle I couldn’t jump. A piece of clothing that says “I am a creative person” when seen in the closet mirror ends up saying “I am a carnival person” when it arrives at the party, so I gave up trying and put on an old tweed jacket.
“I love that jacket,” a woman at the party said to me. “Is it vintage?”
It took me a moment to realize that the true answer to that question was “yes.” I have owned the article of clothing for 25 years, but it was new when I bought it. It became vintage in the same way that I became vintage, by slowly and inexorably creeping closer and closer to the grave.
I didn’t say that, of course. But my face must have been frozen in thought because the woman smiled and made one of those circular gestures with her hand, making a ring in the air with her index finger, and said, “I just love this whole classic trad look,” before moving on to where festive and creative and upscale guests were gathered around a ham.
“Trad,” I now know, is the hip, menswear geek way to say “traditional,” just as “classic” is a creative and upscale way to say “old.” Since that moment at the party, I have discovered that the “trad” look in men’s clothing, roughly intersecting with what is sometimes called “Ivy” or “preppy,” has come roaring back. There are menswear blogs and Instagram accounts dedicated to everything from flat-front khakis and button-down Oxfords to the allure of beaten-up loafers and soft-shoulder blazers. Menswear retailers like Sid Mashburn and Drake’s have put just enough contemporary polish on old man styles to make them appealing to men who like a vintage look but who are not vintage themselves. Lucky for me, I have a closet full of these kinds of clothes in a range of sizes that can accommodate my low-carb phases and my high-carb phases (currently: very high-carb) and all the miniphases in between.
In other words, it’s a good time to be vintage.
Once, not too long ago, a young friend and I were talking about car-chase movies.
“You know that movie where the two women end up driving off a cliff together?” he asked. “What was that movie called? Was that Laverne & Shirley?”
I sputtered with rage. “No!” I shouted. It was inconceivable to me that anyone on Earth could be young enough to mix up Laverne & Shirley with Thelma & Louise, but my friend just shrugged.
“Sorry,” he said. “Not everybody’s old like you.”
At the time, I had no answer to that. Now, I’d have stood up in my Alden loafers and thrown my shoulders back in my J. Press blazer and huffed, “I am not old. I am vintage.”
Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.
