Written Sep 9, 2020
Fashion has long dictated that no one should wear white after Labor Day.
The tradition began in the Gilded Age and many modernists of mode deem that the ban was instituted to separate the elite from the hoi polloi or lower classes, however the real reason was probably that at the end of summer people returned to the city and the smog of coal smoke, an enemy to white.
That be said, the author Tom Wolfe has worn white throughout the year. His first suit was to emulate southern gentlemen i.e. plantation slave owners, but the material was too heavy to wear during the summer, so the novelist waited till winter, completely freaking out the gentry class. According to Wikipedia Wolfe has said that the outfit disarms the people he observes, making him, in their eyes, “a man from Mars, the man who didn’t know anything and was eager to know.”
Not everyone agreed and Norman Mailer said, “There is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York.”
Of course Norman Mailer was never known as a man of sartorial splendor and his bias was rejected by Coco Chanel, the czarina of style.
“Women think of all colors, except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.”
She was right and few people sported white better than the ‘droogs’ of CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
No matter what the age.
Got Milk.