99% Invisible - Suits: Articles of Interest #10

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Menswear can seem boring. If you look at any award show, most of the men are dressed in black pants and black jackets. This uniform design can be traced back to American Revolution, classical statuary, and one particular bloke bopping around downtown London way back in the 1770s. Articles of Interest is a limited-run podcast series about fashion, housed inside the design and architecture podcast 99% Invisible. Launched in 2018 by Avery Trufelman, the show encourages people to rethink the way we look at what we wear and what it says about us.

I think my cousin was getting married. This is almost 10 years ago now. Ray Tittara had to go to a wedding. It was time to dress up. And Ray needed to look good, because their date was incredibly stylish. At the time, I was newly dating my partner, who really experienced joy in getting dressed up for things

in a way that I did not relate to and really wanted to experience. Like, if my partner is putting on a velvet floor-length dress, I'm like, oh, dammit, that's good. Ray normally wears kind of androgynous casual clothes. You know, like jeans, Hawaiian shirts, gray sweaters, but by and large, formal wear is still so starkly gendered. For this wedding, Ray realized they were gonna have to get a suit. I just knew that I probably needed a suit because I didn't feel comfortable

wearing anything else for, you know, when I had to get dressed up. Ray was not excited about wearing a suit. It honestly seemed kind of boring and intimidating when you contrast it with the thrill and excitement of floor-length velvet dresses or jump suits and makeup and heels. Ray watched their partner in awe. I was just like, wow, whatever that is, I was like, whatever that is, I need that. It just seemed like it was gonna be really hard to get that special dress-up feeling from a suit.

Like, sometimes I'm almost underwhelmed when I'm getting dressed. There's just a narrower range of self-expression available to the people who shop in the men's department. We look sort of... Sort of plain and away. Yeah, we're pants every day, and they're the same as the pants that we're yesterday. It's like navy pants. And then I feel like playing on the outside

and then like a complete freak on the inside. And there's a part of me that is tempted to bring the way I feel into how I actually dress myself. As Ray would find out, expression is possible. It's just that menswear doesn't shout. It whispers. And you have to lean in close to hear it. ["Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun It's fantasy. It's always this thing that you have to work extra hard to get. Mmm. And that's so good. No one dresses like a king anymore.

How do you make money? That's how we make money, love. There are lots of things that we take for granted that would once have been considered luxuries. Listen, I love fashion. Made a whole podcast about it. But for a long time, I did not get menswear, specifically suits.

Like, they are neither useful nor interesting. You know what I mean? The jacket doesn't keep you warm. The tie is just kind of a shitty scarf. The pocket square is a hankerchief you don't use. And yet, they all more or less look the same. And that's all men are allowed to wear. You know, during a ward season, fashion journalists

will highlight the best dressed, and it always includes a bunch of men. You got Brad Pitt, Eddie Murphy, Leo de Caprio. And for the most part, they're all just wearing tuxes. I mean, it's nice, it's nice, they look nice. But it's a black jacket and black pants. On the red carpet, in this world of infinite possibilities where a woman can come in wearing a swan,

these famous guys are lauded for wearing a black jacket and black pants. Men's wear is hopelessly boring. Sorry, it is. I don't want to use the word boring either, but it's meant to be that way. This is iconic menswear writer G. Bruce Boyer. It's meant to be a uniform.

You know, uniforms keep people in, keep people out. Because of the uniformity of suits, tiny differences make a big statement. Like, it matters if the threading on the button is a certain color. If you have pleats, suits quietly, secretly contain this infinite, ever-shifting world of tiny details. Some are useful, some are purely decorative, but they're all very subtle. These are handmade trousers.

The pocket is not on the seam, it's slanted forward, because that way it's easier to get your hand in an app. See, most people wouldn't notice that. But that happens to be an important little detail, an important little detail, an important little detail. Another important little detail, the buttons on the sleeve. If you bought a fancy suit, the buttons are actually functional. So you can actually button the sleeve and unbutton it. You can roll up the sleeve and wash your hands without taking your jacket off. Nice. It's just a little detail. It's a little detail. An important little detail. It's a little detail. Nice. But that's the kind of thing. The suit is an Easter egg hunt for tiny details.

And there's no way you could ever find all the eggs because some of them are hidden very well. You see that? That little tab? Yeah. It's a little tab. It basically keeps your collar from curling up in the heat. That's a very important little detail that nobody will notice except you.

Nice. We are not looking at Bruce's closet, although it feels like it. It's kind of my home away from home. We're in a store in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan called the Armory. If I say, you know, well, I'm going to be in Manhattan today. My wife has said, you're going to stop there at the Armory, aren't you? I said, well, maybe I will.

She said, give me your credit cards. The armory is a shop, but it is also basically a clubhouse for menswear nerds, for gentlemen who understand the little clues that make this otherwise plain looking clothing very expensive. What makes these ties special? If you're looking from 10 feet away, nothing. It's when you get up close and you notice that this is a really, these things are very

subtle, I think. Quality is hard to describe. It comes with experience. And in this way, buying a suit is kind of like ordering a fine wine. The act of purchasing it is itself luxurious because it means you have the time and refinement to learn about what makes a wine good and learn what you like. I mean what we're talking about is quality in the product. You know, and that's really to my mind what luxury is. It's the understanding of quality.

In menswear that understanding of quality invites a degree of machismo. A lot of the fashion nerd guys are all sizing each other up over these little details. Is your pocket slanted? How many vents does your jacket have? How's your pocket square folded? Who made your shoes? It's a blood sport with them. It's a kind of one-upmanship. That's the going to size you up right away. Part of me is like, uh, boys, boys, don't make it a competition. It's a blood sport

Although unlike other blood sports like cars or fine wines or whatever dudes can turn into a dick measuring contest menswear has this strange X factor Sprezzatura Sprezzatura Yes, good. Sprezzatura Italian go figure means a studied carelessness Satura, Italian, go figure, means a studied carelessness. It's this concept that you're not supposed to look like you put a lot of effort into

the way you dress, even though you probably did. Because it's not cool for men to care about how they look. That's the... The spiritual shore of life. You know, you see a guy and you say, oh well, the buttons of his shirt aren't buttoned. He knows that. He knows that. He knows that. You're not telling him anything. Real men's wear buffs will say, you don't want to look too crisp and clean and buttoned up. Otherwise, you look too slick, like you're

a butler or something. You got to give it a little spratatura. If his tie is crooked, he put it that way. You know, if he left his sleep buttons undone, he did that on purpose. He knows that. You're not telling him anything, believe me. The idea he wants to get across to you is that he looks fabulous. And if he cared just a little bit more,

if he straightened his tie, if he buttoned his buttons, he would really look terrific. He knows that, he knows that. It shows a strength held in reserve. And so there's this illusion that well-dressed men are the chosen ones who are just effortlessly elegant. Like either you have the right stuff or you don't. So a lot of men don't really try.

Many of them grew up without learning how to shop for clothes, without taking the time to figure out their taste and their bodies. Because again, they weren't supposed to care. And this, all of this, everything about menswear from the uniformity to the world of tiny details to this whole culture of Sprezzatura, a lot of it can be traced back to one man. One man. His name was Bo Brummel. Always a joy to talk about Brummel.

Ian Kelly is a historian, screenwriter, and playwright. He's also, by the way, an accomplished actor. And yes, I do play Hermione's father in the Harry Potter movies. I think you've instantly undermined whatever academic cred I might have had. No, no, no, no, it's so impressive. Ian Kelly is absolutely a guy with academic cred. This muggle wrote the definitive biography of Bob Rommel, who was bopping around London at the turn of the 19th century. Before Bo, men and women at the highest echelons of the European court systems used to dress

in kind of the same way. Everyone had white powdered faces and wigs and big lacy callers and high heels, dripping with rich fabrics and rare gemstones. Everyone, men and women were decking themselves out elaborately and glamourously. And then there was a massive shift. What fashion historians called the great male renunciation.

The great male renunciation. The moment when men's fashion foregoes, pretty much forever, lace and silk and feathers and wigs and makeup and colour and goes for something quite paired down. And this renunciation in many ways started with a bow. At its simplest, I should say, a bow rumble is the bigeta of the suit. The suit, as we know it, did not exist before bow rumble. I know you thought I was being a reductionist history podcaster when I was like, it all began with one man, but it's really true.

Bo Brummel changed everything. I'll keep the most important single figure in the whole history of fashion. What Adam Smith was to economics, what Charles Darwin was to biology, Bo Brummel was to fashion. Although unlike other founders of the modern era, Bo was wildly unqualified.

He wasn't a fashion designer. He wasn't a tailor. He wasn't even a nobleman. He was for one of the better words, a celebrity. He was kind of famous for being famous. Today we would call Bo Brummel an influencer. He was rich, he was funny, he was charming, he was good looking, hence bow.

Chai-bu. Bow was his nickname, but before he grew up to be hot, he was born George Brummel in 1778, and his parents were servants. His parents working for Lord North, who used to go down until very recently as the least successful Prime Minister in British history, now with somewhat stiff competition, but he famously lost the American colonies. Bo's father was Lord North's private secretary, and made an unusually large amount of money in that job. It was what was known in the 18th century as peculation, which I think now we call embezzlement.

And so Bo grew up around wealth. He was accustomed to it. He went to fancy schools. He knew all the right people. And when his parents died when he was a teenager, he inherited the family fortune. Bo mostly spent his days gambling and going to the theater and just being handsome and witty. Famous initially for being the wittiest man in London.

Reading his quotes, I don't know if I would call him witty as much as I would call him mean. To give you an idea, here's a classic bowbrumble zinger. So bow comes up to some Lord on the street and asks him, What are those things on your feet? This Lord, of course, said their shoes, bow reply. He thought they were slippers.

I thought they were slippers. Ooh, burn. Apparently this kind of insult humor went over very well and Bo roamed the streets of London just dispensing clever insults and looking great. Trat, trat, trat, boo. But Bo Brummel's style was shockingly simple. He wore the same thing every single day. A white shirt, a dark jacket, and tan pants. This look was the grandfather of the suit. And as conventional and stuffy as we may think of the suit today, those look was absolutely rebellious and unprecedented. For one thing, pants were pretty wild. That is you a full length cylinder of cloth from crotch to floor was very unusual before

bowbrumble. I per class men used to wear things that kind of look like shorts or maybe petal pushers with socks or stockings, just these bottoms that had multiple layers and parts to them. But bows long, shapely legs were accentuated by one uninterrupted piece of cloth. And Bose pants were really, really tight, really tight. Bose required an assistant to get his pants on. There is this fashion in wake of Bob Romul of wearing punishingly tight, usually rather pale trousers, and indeed in an era when gentlemen

did not wear undergarments of any sort, for fear of what I believe is known as visible pantyline. These early bobe rumble pants made men look nearly naked, like they were Donald ducking it, and this was intentional. It was inspired by this widespread obsession with Greco-Roman Statuary. A fascination with the art of the ancients and in particular with sculpture.

Think of Jane Austen movies, right? Women around Bob Rommel's time curled their hair and pinned it back low and wore simple white gowns that made them look like statues of Greek goddesses. But Greek and Roman male statues were almost invariably nude, or at least the ones that were considered a far-tistic import, and the origins of tailoring is born strangely in emulation of a sort of a nudity. Tailoring was also an emulation of a military look. The suit jacket was derived from a riding outfit, Beau Bramble had served in the cavalry.

The monochrome, the simplicity, has its illusion to military uniform, but also the idea of uniformity. Having a uniform allows people to feel part of some larger cause, or part of a club. And so, when Beau dressed in the same way every single day, he amassed followers. And they proudly called themselves dandies. Dandie didn't mean how we think of it today. Then it meant edgy and minimal and extremely heterosexual, this manly cohort of men who slavishly followed bow and dressed just like him.

He's the central personality cult, really, the dandies of the West End, who began dressing in this strict, pared-down, militaristic monochrome. But bear in mind, Bo wasn't dressing like his own country's military. This is, after all, in the wake of the American Revolution, the Brits had fought and lost, wearing their bright red coats with flashy gold buttons and long tails and fancy hats. The rebels, the victorious underdog colonists, were clad in muted blues and graze. Bo was dressing like the rebels. The dress down issue of, though Bromland, his friends, was sometimes taken as looking in support of or in allusion to American revolutionaries or French revolutionaries, very dressed down, very, you know, man-of-the-people

sort of look. Because the trajectory of what created the suit and what drives fashion forward has always been the need for more democratic, simpler, dressed down, relatable, close. This is Derek Guy, one of my favorite fashion writers and editor for the website put this on. If the Brits didn't take over the world, and if Brumel had never lived, would we still have the suit without Brumel, I think undoubtedly yes. The great male renunciation kicked off with Brumel, for sure. The great male renunciation. But Brumel was channeling forces larger than himself, and sentiments that were brewing long before he was born.

Think about it. For centuries, Western monarchs and upper-crest courtly people looked like goddamn aliens. Elizabeth I dressed in a silhouette that almost made her look like an insect. She had a very, very narrow corset made out of well bones. I mean, her garments were made out of wood, baling, velvet, these kind of like gauzy silks that would float around her head, look like dry ice. And the idea

of that dress at the time was to establish her position on the throne and the institution of mon G itself. This look was otherworldly, intentionally saying, I am not like you. If you had at any point thought that this person was just a human being like you, then what justifies their rule over this entire kingdom? But things started to change after Queen Elizabeth

during the reign of Charles I. Charles I also had a very extravagant wardrobe. The difference at this time is that you had the rise of the printing press. The printing press was a round in Elizabethan times, but it really started to take off under Charles I, which meant royal subjects could, and did, print pamphlets making Charles look absolutely ridiculous in his big lacy callers. Basically, they made political cartoons. Yeah, political cartoons, exactly. So what you think is an extravagant hat, they would show as a silly hat.

And it opened up the doors for other criticisms. When people start criticizing your clothes, and they start criticizing your character and your spending habits. Sure enough, Charles' crazy clothes led Parliament to question all the other ways he had mismanaged his funds, which it turned out were manifold. It has to do with the growing ideas of liberalism at the time. How would these people be walking around wearing gold when the merchant class in that society was rising, gaining power, and started questioning, why are you wearing all that stuff? What are you doing with my money?

And in this way, men of wealth and power slowly realized it was best to keep their cards close to their vests, to not risk looking ridiculous or frivolous. In the rising tide of liberalism, power and wealth became about restraint and distance. And Brumel's suit fulfilled this desire perfectly because it was democratic on its surface, but it quietly oozed wealth.

If you're not going to rely on bling to establish your status then it's to do with perfect detail. And the details were various detail and the details were various. And the details were expensive, the suit required flawless tailoring and you had to hire a valet to help you into your tight pants and both started the trend of wearing a crisp white shirt under your jacket. There's an interesting signaling of wealth and privilege through clean white linen. It was impossible to dry clothes in 18th century London without getting them

covered in suit. To get white shirts and cravats truly clean, Bo had to send his laundry out to the countryside. So the issue of just having clean white linen is a signifier of wealth and just having clean white linen is a signifier of wealth and an attention to detail. Men were fascinated by Bose world of tiny details, and to understand his new way of dressing, actual crowds would gather at Bose house every morning to watch Bose get ready. Such was his celebrity people would come to watch him dress. He possibly had some sort of OCD issue in that he took several hours to dress, an hour or more of it naked in front of his assorted friends, including the Prince of Wales. I cannot emphasize how crazy it was that the Prince of Wales was watching Bo Rommel in order to learn how to dress like a commoner, to learn to dress as though he did not care

about dressing. The audience watched as Bo famously tied and retied his cravat over and over again until it appeared as though he had just tied it briskly and effortlessly. As one of Bo's dandy followers wrote, my neck cloth cost me some hours of flurry to make it appear to be tied in a hurry. Because real men dress down, and real men don't care. Bose Dandyism had a grip on the London scene until 1812 when his insult comedy went step too far.

He publicly insulted the Prince of Wales with the rather fabulous line to a mutual friend of theirs in front of the Prince Regent. Who's your fat friend? Who's your fat friend? The Prince of Wales was sensitive about his weight and this was pretty nasty, even for Beau. He fell out of favor with high society quickly and then Britain went through a serious recession and Beau Brummel was in a lot of debt. And so he fled to France, where he went mad and died of syphilis, which actually heightened the mythology of him as this tragic, glamorous figure. Beau Brummel's influence was profound. As Brummel so concisely said,

To be truly elegant, one should not be noticed. This is more or less the rule of law in menswear now. But the whole shift didn't happen within Bobrommel's lifetime. As you know from living in the world, some people follow trends, some people don't. The great male renunciation didn't fully take hold until nearly a century later, with a figure who, in a lot of ways, was quite similar to Brummel. Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, when it was first published in France, was reviewed and written

of as a parable about Bobrummel or a parable about Cifilis. Oscar Wilde was obsessed with Bobrummel. And like Bobrummel, Oscar Wilde was also a witty man about London, frequenting the theater and vending about clever retorts. But he was emphatically unlike Brommel in the most important way. Oscar Wilde was a really flamboyant dresser.

He wore capes, these huge hats, velvet. I mean, he was dressed very extravagantly and he used at the time clothes as a way to build up his press and characters. So when he would go on tours for plays, for example, he would dress up both on stage and in private life and the press would write about him, which of course helped advertise his plays.

Oscar Wilde was suspected of being gay and then famously was put on trial for it. And he was sent to prison for two years for his sexuality. This threw a bucket of cold water on flamboyant dressing. There were real stakes now. If looking like Oscar Wilde could be taken for a crime, why risk it? Derek Guy argues that it was the trial of Oscar Wilde that, in many ways, sealed the fate of the great male renunciation. Maybe it was best to not be noticed,

to not care about clothes, so that what you wear doesn't call attention to the way you spend your money or who you're having sex with. Perhaps it was smart for men to dress in gray and blue and black, and to express themselves only in small details. This has been the rule in the West for so long this mythology seems impossible to break out of. I mean, there was a time on style form, which is an online form for men who are interested in clothing, where recently it's the late Aughts mid Aughts where people would routinely post,

is it okay for me to wear a pink shirt? Does it make me less manly? That, unfortunately, I think, is part of this long shadow of Oscar Wilde's trial and how men are very worried about what an interesting clothing means for how people perceive their manliness. Of course, throughout the history of men's fashion,

there have been notable exceptions, like the peacock revolution of the 1960s and 70s, when men were in psychedelic patterns and chunky high heels. Not to mention the many varied and exciting versions of menswear that persist beyond Bose Western European model. And now there are these modern trailblazers, like Billy Porter and Harry Styles, who are really trying to have fun with clothes.

Men are slowly learning to get more comfortable with self-expression, but it's delicate, you know? Even at the armory, that store clubhouse for competitive men's winners, the clothes for sale there are all pretty subdued. It's very traditional clothing, but it's... there's something very interesting about it all, don't you think? I do, but of course, you know, part of me thinks, oh, man, we should liberate men from this realm of small details

and let them wear purple suits, you know? Well, uh, yeah, and that may be true. That may be true. I'm not sure I would even want to argue with that. I mean, I could go the other way with you and say, you know, get away from the tyranny of fashion a little bit. I mean, come on, you're going to change your whole silhouette from one season to another. I mean, let's even talk about the environment.

Do she? I guess my answer to the subtlety would be, you get a train your eye a little bit, your little blatant. You don't really have to knock me out with the topless, backless, red thing that you're wearing. I get it. Bruce is speaking hypothetically, I was not wearing a topless, backless red thing. But we could have a little subtlety in the dress too, right? So I mean, I think that kind of thing works both ways, but I wouldn't argue with you about it. No, no, no, that's a really good point.

Bruce is bright. A suit is timeless. You can really invest in one and wear it over and over again, and I love that. But I just cringe because suits have traditionally represented this version of macho boring dressing that I've always presented. And I guess the thing is that so much of the power of the suit lies in who is wearing it, and how well it fits them. On one hand, yeah, of course it's the garment of power. But on the other hand, it's just kind of like

putting a suit on means that I can tap into that power too if I want. That's Ray Teterra, who had to get dressed up for that wedding 10 years ago. And in their hunt for that special dress-up feeling, Ray ended up finding it in a suit. It's kind of like when Dorothy realized she could go home all along after a yellow brick road journey. Ray learned about the world of cut and fit and tiny details and has dedicated their life's work to spreading this knowledge around. Can't suits be fun? Oh, they're so fun!

Ray is now a partner at Bindle and Keep, a bespoke tailor in Brooklyn whose motto is suits for everybody. Hold on, I'm gonna grab a suit. It's beautiful, I'll be right back. Ray is very good at their job and instantly pluck the suit off the rack that fit me perfectly. You think this'll fit? Yeah, what's the bring here? I don't think so.

Yeah, so it'll be fine. I was totally smitten. Ooh. Ooh. It's so good. I don't know, it's wonderful. Why does it fit? Why do I love it somewhere?

What's going on? Okay, first thing is, if it's wonderful. Why does it fit? Why do I love it somewhere? What's going on? Okay, first thing is, if it's your shoulder's pretty well. Of course, a well-fitting suit is a privilege and a luxury. But there's a reason the style has stuck around since Bo Goddamn Brummel. If you get one that fits you, everyone can look great in a suit. You're also liking it because the button is closer to the narrowest point on your torso.

I mean, yeah, it's proportional to you. I think that's why you like it. Yeah, I liked it a lot. I just hope that we can move to a point in society where more people feel truly comfortable expressing themselves as loudly or as subtly as they would like to, which would be a big shift. But, you know, which would be a big shift. But, you know, look at Bob Rommel. It might only take one extremely well-dressed person

to change the entire paradigm again. The pocket, the piece of paper The piece of paper Words from yesterday There's a portrait painted on the things we love. Articles of Interest was written and performed by Avery Truffleman, edited by Chris Baroube, scored by Ray Royal, fact checked by Tom Colligan with additional fact checking by Graham Haysha, mixed in tech production by Sharif Yusef, with additional mixing by Catherine Ray Mondo.

Our opening and closing songs are by Sassami. Insights support and edits from the whole 99PI team, including Joe Rosenberg, Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Leigh, Sean Rial, Abby Maddon, Kurt Colstead, Delaney Hall, and Katie Mingle. Special thanks to Fantasy author and podcaster Alex Rowland, who first told me about Bo Brummel in an amazing Twitter thread. Follow them at underscore Alex Rowland.

And thanks also to menswear designer Bryce Paterson of the Black Tux. Voice talents this episode were Pat Masidi Miller, the great male renunciation, Matilde Bio, and Beau Brummel was played by Felix Trunch. People can find his work in the fiction podcast, wouldn't overcoats and quid pro Euro. And Roman Mars is the dandy cult leader of this whole series. There's a portrait of painting the things we love. Before the great male renunciation, so many things that we now think of as feminine were once masculine, like high heels were first worn by men because the heels were useful for

writing stirrups. Same thing with diamonds. Like many kind of feminine fliers, diamonds were actually worn by men before they were worn by women. An author, Rachelle Bergstein, says that about 40 years ago, the diamond industry tried to get men back into it. They created a series of very hokey ads in the 80s, which are so on the nose, they hired sport stars

to say things like, my diamond makes me feel masculine. I'm just just protesting a little too much. But then, outside of the industry's purview, something happened, which they really didn't anticipate, which was that rappers started wearing diamonds as the symbol of their success. Prominent men of color of their own accord injected new life into the diamond industry.

On a fundamental level, it showed guys that wearing gemstones could be cool, that it actually is something aspirational and something that shows off status, which is of course what we're all told we're trying to do with our gemstones. But you know, not all gemstones necessarily. I'm gonna sound so white when I say this,

but bling meant a specific thing. It didn't mean sapphires or emeralds or opals. Your next articles of interest are diamonds.