Strolling down the street of any metropolitan American street, and you will undoubtedly see men in suits. Some will look dapper, others, desperate. Most of these men will be wearing them because it is required of them. A few will be the gentlemen who take pride in their dress and will inspire your mind, giving you a desire to sharpen yourself up a bit. They are wearing the uniform of the day, the uniform of men since the Milias of old. But there is one man on this street that is different. He’s not so much a man as he is a beacon, a lighthouse in a foggy harbor of black and blue; of brown and olive and grey. He is the magnificent bastard wearing plaid.
“Where is he from?” you may ask yourself. London? New York? Milan? Does he have an accent? Unbeknownst to you, you’re almost neighbors. You are one click on “People You May Know” away, from friending him. Imagine now, as interested you are in his story at this moment, how intrigued the women on the street are with this hero of sartorial swagger. Society has taught us over and over again, the only way to make your statement is to stand out. From Lennon’s hair and the scarves of Jimmy Hendrix to Jay-Z’s mink and Thom Browne’s short trousers, rebellion and contrarianism are the weapons of the new movement. In a never-ending stream of flat, empty canvases of today’s “well-dressed”, plaid is the rebellion of the modern gentleman.
The man in plaid knows what most don’t. He knows that plaid was created by the Scots in defiance of the English rule. They created tartans to disnguish their clans from the pasty Brits with their tea and cucumber finger sandwiches. The “Feck Ye!” scream of their tartan kilts stuck in the craw of the English Royalty enough that it was banned aer the Scosh Rebellion. That’s right, gents; plaid was NWA, Public Enemy and the Sex Pistols before the world even knew what a record was. This man geng the aenon of every eye in the street knows that Eddie Vedder and his plaid buon downs started the Grunge Revoluon that saved us from the 80’s. He knows this fully well, and is proud to carry on the tradion.
Great men in plaid are storied men, even legends. The Countess of Seafield created Glen Plaid as the uniform for her Gamekeepers, who patrolled her land to keep poachers at bay, and those men wore it so well that the paern became known world-wide by tailors and has been draped over the shoulders of such men as Churchill and Kennedy. The Duke of Windsor, when he was just the Prince of Wales, decided the Royal garb was much too dreary. He ordered his tailor to add one stripe of blue in each check of the glen plaid, and strode into sartorial history as the creator of Prince of Wales Plaid. These men held many different beliefs, but had at least one in common, that plaid is not to be feared, but cherished and honored.
Whether a simple windowpane, with large squares of subdued stripes, a gingham paern of small white and colored checks or the plaids and tartans discussed here, embrace it, gentlemen. Slide on a blue and white gingham buon down under a glen plaid suit, knowing that as long as the check paers are of a different scale, you’re safe from being mistaken for Pee-Wee Herman and Rodney Dangerfield. Instead, you’ll be compared to the greats like Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire. Pair a glen plaid suit, light blue socks, a stark white buon down and a navy blue e, and you’ll be the mysterious man on the street. Strut the streets like a peacock, and noce the wonder in everyone’s eyes as you pass. Can you hear it in the minds of your new admirers? “Is he from Paris? Geneva? No one from around here dresses that well.”
You are wearing clothing with a proud heritage of rebellion and royalty now. You are now the beacon; warning the others of the dangers they face as they stray dangerously close to the cliffs of despair known as olive and khaki. You now own the street, and the gaze of everyone inhabing it. You are the magnificent gentleman in plaid now, and as you stride past one of the less fortunate, you glance over, and with a smirk on your face, say “That sure is a nice brown suit.”