Corduroy and Civilization
November 14, 2011
THE MENSWEAR website Put This On is full of interesting, engaging articles on the subject of fashion for men who want to look like grownups, not oversized boys. Here is a wonderful piece on the virtues of corduroy, an address by Jesse Thorn to the Corduroy Appreciation Club. He writes:
This is not some fabric reserved for oily diplomats, or gentrymen of questionable morality. Corduroy is not weak! It is not effete or innefectual or elitist. Corduroy is a fabric built to take on the world. Tuck your corduroy trousers into your boots and feed the pigs. Roll up your corduroy sleeves and bring in the harvest. Put on a corduroy field jacket and go outside to build something.
What’s truly special about our fabric is that it [is] a fabric for being and for doing. For relaxed enjoyment and for taking care of business. For reading ancient tomes and for building great societies. Corduroy is the fabric of living.
…
There’s an Italian word: chiarroscuro. It translates roughly as “the light and the dark.” It means that the brightest light exists in concert with the darkest darkness.
The sun shines incandescent against the blackness of space. Knowledge wields its greatest power in the presence of ignorance. A baby’s skin is softest against its father’s rough beard.
For a thousand years, corduroy has been our light against the darkness. It has served as bulwark; held the inky darkness back, kept the forces of evil at bay. For a thousand years, corduroy has battled on our behalfs, but tonight, we join together as one to cry to heavens that we stand behind our fabric.
— Comments —
Lydia Sherman writes:
When I attended sewing classes, we had to study fabrics and their origin. One version of the origin of corduroy is that it was made for royalty, called “royal cord” and eventually shortened to “cord-o’-the-roy” and then, “cordoroy.”
Hannon writes:
