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Fashion has fascinated me for 35 years. All that time has resulted in two observations - The first is that nobody knows fashion like the Italians do, so get yo

Fashion has fascinated me for 35 years. All that time has resulted in two observations - The first is that nobody knows fashion like the Italians do, so get your advice there. The second is a result of the first - some basic rules will get you an ageless but very fashionable look for very little money. And so positions you well for a future focused on wealth rather than status. This applies everywhere. Buying a car? Look to the best car manufacturer. Don't buy new, never lease, always go for reliability.

high_5 7y ago
Agreed. Since the advent of SaaS and mobile apps the software industry has become more like fashion industry. That's why I stubbornly try to stick to FOSS in order to avoid all the nonsense of the commercial software.
epiphanitus 7y ago
And what are these 'basic rules' exactly? Asking for a friend...
- coldtea 7y ago
  There are tons of websites to get those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKVxGbZpMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKVxGbZpMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSw9ZdxQIiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSw9ZdxQIiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGibb8iv-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGibb8iv-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEKEdA-tjEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEKEdA-tjEw P.S. Just don't go too deep, after a few videos, it's all just salespeople selling whatever BS sponsors them, even total crap like shirt garters for men (an item meant for military personnel on inspections and official parades, that they market to people who don't even have 2 suits in their wardrobe as some kind of essential item).
  - naasking 7y ago
    "Essential" is too strong, but if you think about how much time and irritation you save by not having to retuck your shirt all day or night, it's not far off.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      As a shirt wearing guy, I'd call it the epitome of contrived solutions in search of a problem... Yeah, I might retuck my shirt 2-3 times a day, in a procedure that takes like 10 seconds each. Still beats buying and wearing garters (and their own adjustments, which cancel out the tucking times).
      - inlined 7y ago
        I’ve used the same pair since high school when “shirt stays” were mandatory for JROTC. Luckily I’ve grown so the longest setting is the right setting. I think it’s the best $10 I’ve ever spent; it doesn’t just keep me from re-tucking shirts, it makes me look sharper by not letting my shirt ever sag as it loosens. Re-tucking a shirt just seems indecent to me since I was raised that to do it properly without shirt stays requires unzipping your pants, reaching through, and pulling the shirt down to remove any lack of trim to the front of your shirt.
        naasking 7y ago
        Yup, 100% on all points. Shirt stay adjustments are minimal. You set it up once and they're good for most shirts in my experience. Everyone has their own acceptable style threshold though, but saying shirt stays don't solve a problem that needed solving is akin to all those C/C++ programmers claiming garbage collection doesn't solve a real problem because you can handle memory manually and debug it using valgrind. Sure, you go ahead and have fun with that, I'll be over here wasting less time and looking more stylish while doing it. ;-)
close04 7y ago
> Look to the best car manufacturer. Given the subjectivity involved and the myriad or factors to consider, being able to decide which one is the best is not a foregone conclusion. Fashion is even more fluid than that, with a lot more subjectivity involved.
detritus 7y ago
I don't disagree with your view on Italians and fashion however I do often find myself amused by the compliant uniformity of fashion in Italy. I vist two or three times a year and as someone old enough to not obsess so much about my own fashion anymore, but not so old as to have given up entirely, I'm invariably impressed by dapper old men holding on to youthful exhibition. However, the flipside is that 'whatever mode is in fashion that season' is draped off everyone - be it the particular type of puff jacket, or particular brand of trainer or hoodie or size and volume of scarf, there it is in consistent multiplicate, over everyone. It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance. Not that I'm not entirely without some envy, especially where my father in law is concerned, he being very much more fash than I!
- thrav 7y ago
  In my opinion, that is doing fashion right. Fashion has the power to create separation and distance between 2 people, or to bring them close together. Some people want to create distance, but most people should want to be closer together. Having similar style makes that much easier, than having to constantly fight an uphill battle against bad first impressions. There’s massive utility in a bit of effort, and these days that level of dress can be achieved without a huge cash outlay.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance. There's no real "individual expression". The "relaxed" trainers/jeans/tshirt in the US is no less a "blinkered social compliance" than wearing a suit. It's just the norms of the country, and of a certain class. Heck, punks in the 70s dressed in safety pins and tons clothes all looking alike (and same for hippies in the 60s, which even made their "own clothes" still all looking alike). That said, the Italians have a lot of ways to personalize their fashion (sprezzatura goes a long way).
- simonebrunozzi 7y ago
  I am Italian (living in San Francisco though), and I pretty much agree with your observations - in general, and also specifically about Italy. On a side note, I find the brand "Uniqlo", which sounds very much like the word "unique", to be the ultimate oxymoron. You can see people wearing "unique" dresses dozens of times a day, everywhere in the US.
coldtea 7y ago
>This applies everywhere. Buying a car? Look to the best car manufacturer. Don't buy new, never lease, always go for reliability. People with tons of wealth often buy new, often lease, and not always go for reliability (but instead for looks, beauty, vintage, etc.), so not sure what this middle class idea of what wealthy people do is supposed to convey...
- AQuantized 7y ago
  I believe he's talking about acquiring wealth, not about how to act once you already have it.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Well, do you think that people who go acquiring wealth don't "buy new" or "don't lease"? Nobody ever acquired wealth by thrift (or very few cases, and with a low cap on that wealth, like those cases occasionally finding out that some guy sleeping on a slum and working as a clerk had saved all his life and had 10 million dollars in the bank when they died and were found half-eaten by their cats).
    - thinkingemote 7y ago
      One aquires wealth by not losing it.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        That's just a basic precondition, not enough to acquire wealth. You could "not lose wealth" all your life, spend the least you can, save money in the bank whenever you can, work your ass off until your 70s, and still be pretty poor. Wealth is created by creating new businesses and spending wisely to invest in opportunities, not by being frugal.
        perl4ever 7y ago
        People I have known who "worked their ass off" all their life and ended up poor, if they weren't handicapped, it was because they could not give up running a struggling business or change it to make more money. It's my impression that because of the sense of pride and ownership, people will end up worse off sometimes when they have their own business than if they were an employee being exploited by someone else. That kind of seems like the foundation of the system of franchising, now that I think of it.
maroonblazer 7y ago
Is it just the Italians? My observation is that it's most Western Europeans. Be they British, Spanish, French, Swedish, what have you, nearly everyone is just markedly more buttoned up than your typical American (btw I'm American). Especially older men, say mid-50's and over.
bane 7y ago
On the axis of best=reliable, the most reliable cars are usually second (or greater) year models of new Hondas or Toyotas.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, that's what everybody believes, which is why late model used Hondas and Toyotas are overpriced. Sometimes I've seen them advertised for more than brand-new. In theory, you should be able to save money by buying a car from an unreliable, unloved brand, because by the time it's a few years old, any fundamental design flaws should be well known and you can avoid them. For instance, Ford has a bad reputation because of certain cars that were flawed from the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't find one that isn't, and it might be half the price. I find Hondas and Toyotas more attractive usually, since I like cars and I don't economize more than I have to. But I know people that have had good luck with domestic brands that have terrible reputations in general. If they sell to rental agencies and taxis, then they can't objectively be that bad as appliances.

high_5 7y ago

Agreed. Since the advent of SaaS and mobile apps the software industry has become more like fashion industry. That's why I stubbornly try to stick to FOSS in order to avoid all the nonsense of the commercial software.

epiphanitus 7y ago

And what are these 'basic rules' exactly? Asking for a friend...

coldtea 7y ago
There are tons of websites to get those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKVxGbZpMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKVxGbZpMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSw9ZdxQIiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSw9ZdxQIiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGibb8iv-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGibb8iv-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEKEdA-tjEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEKEdA-tjEw P.S. Just don't go too deep, after a few videos, it's all just salespeople selling whatever BS sponsors them, even total crap like shirt garters for men (an item meant for military personnel on inspections and official parades, that they market to people who don't even have 2 suits in their wardrobe as some kind of essential item).
- naasking 7y ago
  "Essential" is too strong, but if you think about how much time and irritation you save by not having to retuck your shirt all day or night, it's not far off.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    As a shirt wearing guy, I'd call it the epitome of contrived solutions in search of a problem... Yeah, I might retuck my shirt 2-3 times a day, in a procedure that takes like 10 seconds each. Still beats buying and wearing garters (and their own adjustments, which cancel out the tucking times).
    - inlined 7y ago
      I’ve used the same pair since high school when “shirt stays” were mandatory for JROTC. Luckily I’ve grown so the longest setting is the right setting. I think it’s the best $10 I’ve ever spent; it doesn’t just keep me from re-tucking shirts, it makes me look sharper by not letting my shirt ever sag as it loosens. Re-tucking a shirt just seems indecent to me since I was raised that to do it properly without shirt stays requires unzipping your pants, reaching through, and pulling the shirt down to remove any lack of trim to the front of your shirt.
      - naasking 7y ago
        Yup, 100% on all points. Shirt stay adjustments are minimal. You set it up once and they're good for most shirts in my experience. Everyone has their own acceptable style threshold though, but saying shirt stays don't solve a problem that needed solving is akin to all those C/C++ programmers claiming garbage collection doesn't solve a real problem because you can handle memory manually and debug it using valgrind. Sure, you go ahead and have fun with that, I'll be over here wasting less time and looking more stylish while doing it. ;-)

close04 7y ago

> Look to the best car manufacturer. Given the subjectivity involved and the myriad or factors to consider, being able to decide which one is the best is not a foregone conclusion. Fashion is even more fluid than that, with a lot more subjectivity involved.

detritus 7y ago

I don't disagree with your view on Italians and fashion however I do often find myself amused by the compliant uniformity of fashion in Italy. I vist two or three times a year and as someone old enough to not obsess so much about my own fashion anymore, but not so old as to have given up entirely, I'm invariably impressed by dapper old men holding on to youthful exhibition. However, the flipside is that 'whatever mode is in fashion that season' is draped off everyone - be it the particular type of puff jacket, or particular brand of trainer or hoodie or size and volume of scarf, there it is in consistent multiplicate, over everyone. It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance. Not that I'm not entirely without some envy, especially where my father in law is concerned, he being very much more fash than I!

thrav 7y ago
In my opinion, that is doing fashion right. Fashion has the power to create separation and distance between 2 people, or to bring them close together. Some people want to create distance, but most people should want to be closer together. Having similar style makes that much easier, than having to constantly fight an uphill battle against bad first impressions. There’s massive utility in a bit of effort, and these days that level of dress can be achieved without a huge cash outlay.
coldtea 7y ago
>It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance. There's no real "individual expression". The "relaxed" trainers/jeans/tshirt in the US is no less a "blinkered social compliance" than wearing a suit. It's just the norms of the country, and of a certain class. Heck, punks in the 70s dressed in safety pins and tons clothes all looking alike (and same for hippies in the 60s, which even made their "own clothes" still all looking alike). That said, the Italians have a lot of ways to personalize their fashion (sprezzatura goes a long way).
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
I am Italian (living in San Francisco though), and I pretty much agree with your observations - in general, and also specifically about Italy. On a side note, I find the brand "Uniqlo", which sounds very much like the word "unique", to be the ultimate oxymoron. You can see people wearing "unique" dresses dozens of times a day, everywhere in the US.

coldtea 7y ago

>This applies everywhere. Buying a car? Look to the best car manufacturer. Don't buy new, never lease, always go for reliability. People with tons of wealth often buy new, often lease, and not always go for reliability (but instead for looks, beauty, vintage, etc.), so not sure what this middle class idea of what wealthy people do is supposed to convey...

AQuantized 7y ago
I believe he's talking about acquiring wealth, not about how to act once you already have it.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Well, do you think that people who go acquiring wealth don't "buy new" or "don't lease"? Nobody ever acquired wealth by thrift (or very few cases, and with a low cap on that wealth, like those cases occasionally finding out that some guy sleeping on a slum and working as a clerk had saved all his life and had 10 million dollars in the bank when they died and were found half-eaten by their cats).
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
    One aquires wealth by not losing it.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      That's just a basic precondition, not enough to acquire wealth. You could "not lose wealth" all your life, spend the least you can, save money in the bank whenever you can, work your ass off until your 70s, and still be pretty poor. Wealth is created by creating new businesses and spending wisely to invest in opportunities, not by being frugal.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        People I have known who "worked their ass off" all their life and ended up poor, if they weren't handicapped, it was because they could not give up running a struggling business or change it to make more money. It's my impression that because of the sense of pride and ownership, people will end up worse off sometimes when they have their own business than if they were an employee being exploited by someone else. That kind of seems like the foundation of the system of franchising, now that I think of it.

maroonblazer 7y ago

Is it just the Italians? My observation is that it's most Western Europeans. Be they British, Spanish, French, Swedish, what have you, nearly everyone is just markedly more buttoned up than your typical American (btw I'm American). Especially older men, say mid-50's and over.

bane 7y ago

On the axis of best=reliable, the most reliable cars are usually second (or greater) year models of new Hondas or Toyotas.

perl4ever 7y ago
Well, that's what everybody believes, which is why late model used Hondas and Toyotas are overpriced. Sometimes I've seen them advertised for more than brand-new. In theory, you should be able to save money by buying a car from an unreliable, unloved brand, because by the time it's a few years old, any fundamental design flaws should be well known and you can avoid them. For instance, Ford has a bad reputation because of certain cars that were flawed from the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't find one that isn't, and it might be half the price. I find Hondas and Toyotas more attractive usually, since I like cars and I don't economize more than I have to. But I know people that have had good luck with domestic brands that have terrible reputations in general. If they sell to rental agencies and taxis, then they can't objectively be that bad as appliances.