{"id":4255,"date":"2011-08-07T17:35:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-07T14:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.keikari.com\/blogi\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2011-08-07T17:35:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-07T14:35:27","slug":"tyylifoorumeista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keikari.com\/blogi\/tyylifoorumeista\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyylifoorumeista"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\u00e4m\u00e4n p\u00e4iv\u00e4n Vieraskyn\u00e4ss\u00e4 Christian M. Chensvold kirjoittaa<\/a> verkon tyylifoorumeista. Yksi haastatelluista on sijoittanut p\u00e4\u00e4lle 300 000 dollaria vaatekaappiinsa, toinen taas viett\u00e4\u00e4 p\u00e4ivitt\u00e4in kaksi ja puoli tuntia kirjoitellen vaatteista lukuisille foorumeille. Vaimon nyrpistelless\u00e4 oudolle p\u00e4\u00e4h\u00e4npinttym\u00e4lle mies puolustautuu: “enp\u00e4 nyt sent\u00e4\u00e4n ole mill\u00e4\u00e4n pornosivulla” – ja vaimo vastaa “seh\u00e4n olisikin normaalia.” Teksti on vuodelta 2006, mutta yh\u00e4 ajankohtainen erityisesti kun Suomikin on sittemmin saanut oman tyylifooruminsa. Fiksoitunutta lukijaa kenties lohduttaa tieto siit\u00e4, kuinka h\u00e4n ei ole intonsa kanssa yksin eik\u00e4 suinkaan pahimmasta p\u00e4\u00e4st\u00e4.<\/p>\n

Christian \u00a0M. Chensvold<\/p>\n

Fop Culture<\/p>\n

“Jan Libourel\u2019s wife doesn\u2019t like his clothes. She doesn\u2019t like his two-tone Allen Edmonds shoes, she rolls her eyes over his silk pocket squares, and if he wears an ascot she\u2019s afraid to be seen with him.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one thing she really hates: The fact that Libourel \u2014 a former professor of ancient history and noted gun authority \u2014 spends up to 2 1\/2 hours a day discussing men\u2019s clothing on the Internet. \u201cShe regards it as highly eccentric and time-wasting,\u201d says the 64-year-old Long Beach resident. \u201cI say, \u2018It\u2019s not as if I\u2019m on some porn site,\u2019 and she says, \u2018That would be normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some men go online to discuss cars, sports and electronics, a small but growing number are logging on to debate shirt collar styles, the virtues of a Neapolitan shoulder, and whether or not it\u2019s gauche to leave the last button on a custom suit sleeve undone.<\/p>\n

This is the often sophisticated and occasionally pathetic world of men\u2019s clothing forums, where guys who are clothes obsessed find sanctuary from a society they say regards them as effeminate poppinjays. Combined, the four best-known men\u2019s clothing forums boast over 10,000 members, plus countless more regular visitors eager to debate whether Brioni suits are superior to Kiton, and whether socks should match shoes or pants.<\/p>\n

The forums serve as their information resource, support group and jury of peers. \u201cA lot of people feel they belong here,\u201d says Jeremy Jackson, a 27-year-old Seattle resident who manages his family\u2019s construction business and founded Style Forum in 2002. \u201cIf clothes are your major interest, it\u2019s very unlikely you\u2019re going to find a place in the real world to hang out and talk about clothing with other men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Style Forum (styleforum.net) caters to fashion-conscious guys in their twenties and thirties. Ask Andy About Clothes (askandyaboutclothes.com\/forum), which has the largest number of members, is focused mostly on business attire. The London Lounge (thelondonlounge.net) centers around custom tailoring, and newly launched Film Noir Buff (filmnoirbuff.com\/forum) \u2014 sometimes called \u201cdevil\u2019s island\u201d \u2014 has become a refuge for members who\u2019ve been banned from the other sites.<\/p>\n

Libourel, who used to post on dog and gun sites before discovering the fashion forums, is a member of all of four. \u201cThere\u2019s fairly high level of general knowledge, erudition and certainly civility compared to other Internet fora,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Film Noir Buff, who prefers to remain anonymous for fear his career would suffer if people knew of his clothing obsession, says discovering fashion forums was therapeutic. \u201cI can\u2019t sit down to lunch with bankers and lawyers and talk about buttons on my sleeve,\u201d says the New York financier, who launched his forum last March. \u201cThey\u2019d think I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forum members are typically educated and successful \u2014 they\u2019re also desk jockeys able to shirk work by surfing the Web. \u201cThere seems to be a disproportionate number of lawyers and investment bankers and people who are shut in their office and are dreading whatever it is they\u2019re supposed to be doing,\u201d says Jackson. \u201cI\u2019m sure there are a remarkable number of billable hours that are actually on Style Forum,\u201d adds Fok-Yan Leung, one of the site\u2019s moderators.<\/p>\n

For the clothes-obsessed man, no sartorial matter is too obscure \u2014 or inane \u2014 to bring up. Mutant_Hairs, a Style Forum member who lists his location as Southern California, posts the question, \u201cWhat\u2019s appropriate jury duty attire? I really don\u2019t want to be selected, but I don\u2019t want to look inappropriate either.\u201d One member says a t-shirt and track pants, while another suggests a seersucker suit and bow tie.<\/p>\n

Manhattan Beach resident Andy Gilchrist, author of \u201cThe Encyclopedia of Men\u2019s Clothes,\u201d launched his wardrobe advice website Ask Andy About Clothes in 2001. A year later he added a forum that today boasts over 7,000 members, countless more regular readers, \u201cand the occasional psychotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to create a friendly ground where we could discuss men\u2019s clothing and not feel strange about it,\u201d says Gilchrist, the proud owner of 300 neckties. \u201cIt goes back to if you\u2019re a woman in our society you\u2019re expected to look nice and be interested in clothes, but if you\u2019re a guy you\u2019re supposed to be just rugged, and if you\u2019re interested in clothing at all you might be a girly-man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whereas in previous generations fathers would teach their sons how to dress for the business world, Gilchrist says this tradition has all but disappeared, replaced by the surrogate fatherly advice of the clothing forums.<\/p>\n

FASHION DICTATORS<\/p>\n

Clothing forums have not only made today\u2019s consumer more educated than ever before, thanks to the wealth of opinions available, they have also created a new breed of arbiter elegantiarium whose opinions are solicited by novices and contested by other self-styled savants.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best known forum expert is Michael Anton (\u201cmanton\u201d on the various forums), author of the recently released book \u201cThe Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men\u2019s Style\u201d (written under the pseudonym Nicholas Antongiavanni).<\/p>\n

Anton says forums are replacing traditional media \u2014 namely men\u2019s fashion magazines \u2014 since erudite clothing aficionados can now easily share their knowledge with their peers and build a reputation as an authority. Moreover, men\u2019s magazines like\u00a0GQ<\/em> are focused on fleeting looks of the season and are not aimed at a discriminating consumer, says Anton. \u201cWhen you compare clothing to other products that guys have a connoisseur relationship to \u2014 cars, cigars, stereo equipment \u2014 there are sources of information that are pretty good. But for high-end clothes you can\u2019t count on\u00a0GQ<\/em> and\u00a0Esquire<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while no one person knows everything about clothing history, construction and quality, the totality of information available on the forums is virtually comprehensive. \u201cEverybody has gaps in their knowledge,\u201d says Anton, \u201cbut for the forums as a whole there are very few gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

But where there\u2019s information there is opinion, and where there\u2019s opinion there\u2019s contention. Because forums often appear like a microcosm of male behavior, aggression frequently rears its head, however well coifed. The anonymity of the Internet allows people to say things they would never say at a cocktail party. So while you might think that a fellow guest\u2019s pink seersucker jacket is of questionable taste, you would presumably bite your tongue. But on men\u2019s fashion forums, many cannot resist the temptation to type \u201cidiot.\u201d Ill-mannered members and troublemaking \u201ctrolls\u201d are banned by forum moderators.<\/p>\n

And despite the success, education and maturity of most members, clothing forums also produce their own style tribes that bear a striking similarity to the goths, skaters, punks and preppies we all remember from adolescence. Though membership crossover is common, so is antipathy to competing forums. \u201cIt\u2019s very rare you come across a subject where people have no opinion about the people on another forum,\u201d says Jackson.<\/p>\n

ANATOMY OF AN ADDICT<\/p>\n

When Marc Grayson brought his new girlfriend to his apartment, all she could say was \u201cOh, my\u201d: Inside Grayson\u2019s two-bedroom New York City pad were two walk-in closets overflowing with clothes, and the extra bedroom was full of commercial garment racks loaded with suits, sportcoats and slacks.<\/p>\n

Grayson (his online username, not his real name) is an admittedly extreme example of the kind of clothes-obsessed coxcomb who frequents the men\u2019s fashion forums. A 35-year-old businessman whose father also had a taste for finery, Grayson estimates that over the past 15 years he\u2019s spent over $300,000 on 50 custom-made suits (some running $4,000 each), 50 more custom sportcoats, 40 pairs of high-end shoes, 100 neckties and 15 leather jackets he \u201cbought on sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not even rich: Some small investments provide him with the discretionary income necessary to indulge his love of bespoke apparel, Grayson says.<\/p>\n

Grayson is a regular contributor at Film Noir Buff, having been banned from Style Forum and Ask Andy for what he says was criticizing the work of some well-known New York tailors. \u201cI couldn\u2019t dare talk about clothes with the outside world because I would be looked upon as being way too self-conscious and self-absorbed,\u201d says Grayson, who often stops by his tailor just to touch the fabric swatches and imagine the possibilities.<\/p>\n

But indulging his vice is increasingly giving Grayson pause for reflection. \u201cIt does bother me,\u201d he says of the expense. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been thinking about it with greater intensity, if it\u2019s money that could have been better spent. It is almost an addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that is the final function of online men\u2019s clothing forums. For if they are information resources, support groups, surrogate fathers and debating clubs, they are also enablers of addiction. \u201cIf you stay on the forums, you stay focused on indulging in clothing,\u201d says Grayson. \u201cIt\u2019s like being a gambler and going into chat rooms talking about how you love to gamble. There\u2019s very little discussion about the unattractiveness of being so self-centered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat wistfully, Grayson admits that the conventional view of fastidiously dressed men as vain and superficial may be entirely justified: \u201cIt is a completely self-absorbed state of mind we\u2019re in on these forums.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T\u00e4m\u00e4n p\u00e4iv\u00e4n Vieraskyn\u00e4ss\u00e4 Christian M. Chensvold kirjoittaa verkon tyylifoorumeista. Yksi haastatelluista on sijoittanut p\u00e4\u00e4lle 300 000 dollaria vaatekaappiinsa, toinen taas …
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