Clarity

For the sake of clarity with regard to yesterday's post please allow me elaborate. There is no question that Mr. Flusser is correct conceptually that when one pattern jockeys for position with another pattern the potential for compromise as opposed to victory exists.  What I mean by that is that instead of a shirt or a suit creating a background for the tie to be noticed the possibility of the two blending together is strong.  There are however a few ways for the patterns to get noticed.  One of course is to change the sizes of the patterns so that they are distinct in and of their own right and dont blend into each other.  This is what Flusser recommends and its correct.  So of course, this:



Looks better than this small patterned tie (which IMO looks OK, even if not as sharp as the larger patterned tie):



And this with its contrast against the cream shirt of course is easiest as it doesnt involve mixing of patterns.



Which is comprised of this:



My main complaint was the fact that while the concept may have been true, the picture that Mr. Flusser used to elucidate that point was exaggerated, almost as if to show that the eye cannot ever tolerate similarly sized patterns without glazing over.  Assuming that would be correct then the lesson is better taught with a clear picture rather than a blurry one.  Mr. Flusser uses a blurry picture to complete a thought while attempting to bolster his position I personally feel he weakens it.

But thats just my opinion and I haven't yet sold any books ;-)

Weekend Edition (My Beef with Flusser)

Friday I posted a picture of an Attolini teal blue small patterned unlined tie paired with a small striped Hickey Freeman Shirt and a green jacket.  This was the picture:



Flusserian pundits will recall that on Page 70 of Dressing the man, (a very excellent book,) Alan Flusser maintains that small prints or patterns demand larger patterns to correctly complement them, otherwise the small against the small forces the eye to work overtime to distinguish between where the tie ends and the shirt or second patterned item begins.  He then accompanies that theory with the following picture to be found on page 71:



Indeed at first glance, this does seem to bolster the thought that smaller patterns might force the eye into a tizzy and almost create a blur between the two competing patterns trying to figure out where each ends and begins.

But if you take a closer look at the picture here and better yet in the book itself, (If you have the book flip it open to page 71, if you don't have the book you can rely on my picture posted here) you might want to question the following:

There is no doubt in my mind that the top picture on page 71 was for whatever reason BLURRY to begin with, and the bottom ensemble is quite clear. So while the concept might sometimes be true the visual proof that is utilized to hammer home that point is somewhat suspect. Does it mean that Flusser as a whole is off the mark? Certainly not, and as I mentioned the book is great. However it does tell you (or at least me) that this Flusserian principal must be taken with a grain of salt. To that end I offer up my grain of salt in the form of my picture from Friday.

A very good weekend/workweek to all.

Tie By Tie 16 (Almost Weekend Edition)

This feller is gonna have to be edited later to provide links, and reasoning.   I meanwhile wanted to get the pics up and running. Feel Free to comment before I do! Have a great weekend all!

EDITED FOR LINKS AND COMMENT:

Here is the same jacket from yesterday in Olive/Green with a blue pin stripe shirt (also a Hickey Freeman His First) shown together with a Navy Polka Dot tie, and accompanied by a Navy and Red floral Square:  The idea here was that the navy would work with the green jacket especially when the jacket was broken up by the shirt.



Here is your closeup of the colors of the square.



To add a little diversity in the color  and to bring the shirt closer to the red in the square I swapped the blue stripped HF for a Red Striped with this look:



Back to the Blue striped shirt with an unlined Attolini print.  The tie is almost a teal like blue which works nicely into the jacket, as it blends the colors of the jacket and the shirt together.