Of Icons and Institutions

The presence of icons and institutions might is as prevalent in the world of clothes as anywhere else.  And maybe more so.  Whether you’re into classic high-end tailoring or the most avant-garde street wear, you’ve got your icons.  We all do.  So let’s take a look at what these institutions mean to us and why we love them in the first place.

First a little free association.  Bespoke tailoring – Savile Row.  Americana – Ralph Lauren.  The perfect shirt – Charvet.  These things stick in our minds.  You might have different answers from mine, but you had answers.  And I’ll bet they snapped into your head pretty quickly too.  This is what I mean by icons and institutions.  Places or people that represent to us something much bigger than what they are and feel like they do it naturally.  And that’s why we love them – they feel authentic and they exude confidence.

They feel authentic to us because whatever they do they “get it.”  It doesn’t feel like Ralph Lauren tries to be “America,” precisely because the brand has such a fantastic understanding of what that means that they can accomplish it seamlessly.  No wavering, no timidity, and rarely do they get it wrong.  We wouldn’t buy it if they did.  People have a surprising ability to spot a fake.  There’s an apparent ease and a naturalness to what icons do.  That’s why they become icons.

Honestly, their sense of ease is something that few of us achieve.  We try to, and a lot of us get to a place where we feel comfortable, but it’s a whole different scale.   A brand, which is more image than individual, doesn’t have to be self-conscious the way a person does; an iconic person, whose style is constantly lauded and generally agreed to be great, doesn’t have to be self-conscious the way most people do.  We admire them, we aspire to them, and in turn they make us feel like we’re standing on solid style ground.

Whether it’s the well-dressed guy who has thousands of tumblr followers, a classic film star, or that tailor your grandfather used, we all have our points of reference.  When I say our, I mean it.  The places we patronize, the ideas we hold dear, and the standards we hold up for ourselves to achieve are a far cry from blind brand-worship and empty idolatry.  In fact, they’re the opposite.

Each of us has a unique combination of influences.  The icons we strive to emulate and the institutions we participate in help us define who we are until it becomes so obvious that they melt into the background.  What you’re left with isn’t the man who favors draped coats like Astaire and buys his watches from a certain Parisian jeweler.  It’s a man who does things his way.  And that’s real style.