| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:35 pm Post subject: I feel the need... for tweed. |
 |
|
How 'bout dat. A nice Harris tweed beautifully tailored by Stark & Sons of Paris - 40 quid on ebay 
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
John-Boy
Guru
Joined: 23 Jun 2004
Posts: 436
Location: Desperately seeking Moksha in all the wrong places
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Just the thing to wear after a busy morning grouse shooting, followed by
an afternoon of flogging the peasants.
_________________
When you break rules, break 'em good and hard |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Tweed does have that image but it's also an authentic, hard-wearing, working man's fabric a bit like denim in a way. It's worn by the ghillie as much as the laird, or a Harris fisherman on a Sunday hoe-down at church. I love the fact that Harris Tweed is produced by a cottage industry of local craftsmen who produce something really special in a tough environment where there's not much going on except crofting and fishing. You can go smart with tweed or dress down with jeans and a T-shirt and it'll still look good. It's very versatile. A really interesting fabric with endless variations of pattern and hue.
Oh and Bill Clinton used to buy from Stark & Sons. How could I resist?
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Old School
Apprentice
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 231
Location: The Covered Bridge Capital of Oregon
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:34 pm Post subject: Re: I feel the need... for tweed. |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | How 'bout dat. A nice Harris tweed beautifully tailored by Stark & Sons of Paris - 40 quid on ebay |
I am sure you would look very dapper in tweed. 
_________________
I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BoneKracker
Veteran
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Harris Tweeds are excellent and last forever. They give a foul odor if they get damp, though (like if you get caught in the rain a bit), but that's because it's natural.
Tweed is a great casual sportcoat fabric. It goes with almost anything, from dress slacks to jeans. It's tough and extremely durable; I have a London Fog tweed overcoat that belonged to my grandfather and father. It's great for travel because it doesn't wrinkle at all, and it hides stains and dirt. It's practical and functional in all seasons and circumstances, because it's warm but it also breathes better than anything.
Everybody should have a nice tweed jacket. It's one of the most useful pieces of clothing one can have. Harris is about the best brand of tweed fabric you can get.
_________________
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Last edited by BoneKracker on Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Old School
Apprentice
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 231
Location: The Covered Bridge Capital of Oregon
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I noticed the jacket that was linked did not have elbow patches. I thought elbow patches were a basic requirement for a tweed jacket.
_________________
I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
tylerwylie
Guru
Joined: 19 Sep 2004
Posts: 455
Location: /US/Illinois/Champaign
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Muso
l33t
Joined: 22 Oct 2002
Posts: 655
Location: The Holy city of Honolulu
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| John-Boy wrote: | Just the thing to wear after a busy morning grouse shooting, followed by
an afternoon of flogging the peasants. |
Sir Talbot Buxomly approves of this.
_________________
If I had a dollar for every time capitalism was blamed for the problems caused by government, I'd be a fat filmmaker with a baseball cap |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Old School
Apprentice
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 231
Location: The Covered Bridge Capital of Oregon
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
hippie
_________________
I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Old School wrote: | | I noticed the jacket that was linked did not have elbow patches. I thought elbow patches were a basic requirement for a tweed jacket. |
The one above is more of a blazer or sports jacket which sometimes do have patches although purely for style. A hacking jacket like this is more of an authentic outdoors garment, something that was originally designed for rough wear and the odd mud spatter. The hacking jacket style is three buttons, thin collar, and an extra "ticket pocket" on the right hip. They button up higher than a blazer because they're meant to keep you warm, not show off. In an original design the collar will also roll up and fasten across the neck to keep the weather out. Everest was first climbed by mountaineers in tweed jackets - in a way the goretex of its day. Patches would serve a real function on a jacket like that.
Tweed really covers a huge range though. Some of it is rough and heavy, some lighter and finer. You get dull browns, greys and greens but also louder check patterns of which Bertie Wooster would be proud. It gets used in some very posh and finely-tailored clothing but also in simple, rugged jackets which can stand a bit of wear and tear.
It's a fabric with soul. Harris itself is a beautiful, peaceful place and the people have their own unique, gaellic culture. The cloth is not made by machine: the looms are set up and worked by hand using traditional methods. The socialist in me likes the idea of highly-skilled workers enjoying the fruits of their labours without some capitalist boss creaming off all the profits. Conservatives would probably start wittering on about enterprise and small business but what do they know. It's almost like there's a story woven into every piece of Harris tweed. Sometimes jackets are even handed down from father to son
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
PS: here's another gaellic psalm. It's a unique kind of half-improvised music which sometimes makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up - and I'm a hardened atheist. This would have crossed the Atlantic with early Scots settlers and played a part in the origins of American folk music - possibly gospel too with its challenge-response style.
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BoneKracker
Veteran
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | PS: here's another gaellic psalm. It's a unique kind of half-improvised music which sometimes makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up - and I'm a hardened atheist. This would have crossed the Atlantic with early Scots settlers and played a part in the origins of American folk music - possibly gospel too with its challenge-response style. |
Gaelic culture was the forbear of our Appalachian sub-culture (which you might know as "hillbillies"). They are the people of our Southeastern "red states". The folk music that originated from that region has a definite Scottish / Irish sound to it. It blended into other sounds: bluegrass, blues, what was once correctly called "rhythm and blues" (not the crap that people refer to as "R&B" today), "country", "country & western", "rock & roll", "southern rock", pop ballads, rock ballads, etc.. You can hear a hint of it in a lot of American music. Modern "folk" ballads still very much sound that way (listen to Nickle Creek, for example).
I have a theory that the multi-tonal sound of the bag-pipes was replicated by poor Scottish immigrants using multi-stringed dulcimers, along with "fiddles" and banjos. This blended with the one-stringed fretless "diddly bo" of African-American culture and their singular and striking melodic traditions, and together, those sounds became a new style of guitar music: what we would now call "folk music" and "blues". These overlapped, ultimately thrived and further evolved on the electric guitar, giving rise to rhythm & blues, and rock & roll, which became trans-Atlantic.
You might find this interesting. It's a brief documentary about Appalachian folk music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVMi3MH0uRU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmAt22J-pbc
If you don't want to watch that all, go to 3:30 or so in the first one, and see if you hear the Gaelic / Celtic tonal quality of what she's singing.
_________________
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
That was interesting. I had no idea there was a big black input into Appalachian folk music.
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
notageek
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 05 Jun 2008
Posts: 78
Location: Bangalore, India
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
I had a tweed jacket. I gave it to my father. I never once wore it.
_________________
What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and plays like a monkey? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BoneKracker
Veteran
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
I don't think there was much, early on. So you wouldn't hear it in "pure" Appalachian folk music, and it would have been limited mostly to the slave states. Later (post-slavery) there was more blurring, cross-pollination, or fusion, as you will.
I saw some other, longer documentary once that described some woman's efforts long ago (early 1900s I think) to record this music. Back then, that meant writing it down. She had documented hundreds of songs, and then the place she was working out of burned. Others have made recordings, mostly of old people way up in the boondocks who still remember the old music, handed down generation to generation. Some of it's in youtube.
There was also a Twilight Zone episode about a young "rock-a-billy" star who was cruising the mountains trying to pick up a new melody to commercialize. He hears this young woman in the woods singing a beautiful and tragic ballad. He tries to get her to teach it to him, but she won't. He seduces her, and tells her he loves her and that they'll always be together, and she eventually reluctantly teaches him the song. Then he dumps her to leave, and the Ancestors come and cause him a painful death or insanity or something.
I think there's some truth in that tale, and that a lot of poor mountain folk and poor black folk were exploited in similar ways.
_________________
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BoneKracker
Veteran
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
| notageek wrote: | | I had a tweed jacket. I gave it to my father. I never once wore it. |
I wouldn't think it would be a good choice for most parts of India.
_________________
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
notageek
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 05 Jun 2008
Posts: 78
Location: Bangalore, India
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
I used to live in Delhi, which got cold (in the ranges of 3C to 4C and once touched 0C).
But I'm a biker, so I needed a bike jacket.
_________________
What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and plays like a monkey? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Muso
l33t
Joined: 22 Oct 2002
Posts: 655
Location: The Holy city of Honolulu
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | It's a fabric with soul. |
Soulman!
_________________
If I had a dollar for every time capitalism was blamed for the problems caused by government, I'd be a fat filmmaker with a baseball cap |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sikpuppy
n00b
Joined: 12 Jun 2012
Posts: 23
Location: Central Coast, NSW
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Also has been used by Inuit women as a shampoo because it gives the hair a beautiful shine.
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sikpuppy
n00b
Joined: 12 Jun 2012
Posts: 23
Location: Central Coast, NSW
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | Also has been used by Inuit women as a shampoo because it gives the hair a beautiful shine. |
Really? Beer does too, only downside is it makes your hair smell like beer. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
And this is a problem because...?
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
John-Boy
Guru
Joined: 23 Jun 2004
Posts: 436
Location: Desperately seeking Moksha in all the wrong places
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | Also has been used by Inuit women as a shampoo because it gives the hair a beautiful shine. |
Tweed ? Doesn't the twine get all knotted up ?
_________________
When you break rules, break 'em good and hard |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mcgruff
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 137
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Don't try to pretend you didn't just try it to see if it works.
_________________
the underlay overlay |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BoneKracker
Veteran
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mcgruff wrote: | | Also has been used by Inuit women as a shampoo because it gives the hair a beautiful shine. |
Kanye West Approved!
_________________
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Off the Wall
