The Eric Metaxas Show - O. W. Root

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

O. W. Root aka @NecktieSalvage gives a masterclass on 'Why Style Matters'

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Ladies and gentlemen, looking for something new and original, something unique and without equal. Look no further. Here comes the one and only Eric Mattaxas. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've listened to me over the years or if you followed me on any level over the years, you know that I believe that everything means something. Everything is connected.

And that includes how we dress. If you dress like a slob, no offense to the slabs who are listening. But if you dress like a slob, it says something. It's not just that that's how you dress. everything matters. And I came to understand this through my friend Tim Raglan. I've talked about him on this program before. He is one of my dearest, oldest friends.

He wrote, well, he and I did many books together. He's an illustrator, genius illustrator. And Tim Raglan, if you're familiar with my Uncle Mugsy books, Mugsy and the Terrible Twins of Christmas, Uncle Mugsy, a Yankee Doodle Mugsy, the birthday ABC. These are three children's books that I have written, which you can find at where.

You can find them at my store.com. If you go to my store.com. But Tim Raglan's illustrations are brilliant and gorgeous and amazing. But it was Tim who really helped me, this is like probably in the late 80s, begin to understand why what you wear matters, why men's fashion matters, why getting dressed up in this way or that way matters.

And it's something that I've been interested in over the years. And so I'm really thrilled today to have someone as my guest to discuss this. He goes by OW root. Those are two initials. O.W. Root. I follow him on Twitter at necktie salvage, necktie salvage. But I'm just excited to talk to him about things that matter to me and I hope will matter to you. O.W. Root, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me.

You are wearing a searsucker jacket and a white shirt, necktie, looking snappy. I feel every time I'm talking to you or to Roger Stone on the program, I suddenly feel ashamed because I'm not wearing a tie. I think a tie can look a little ridiculous when I'm in this kind of informal setting behind me, but we'll put that to the side. You're looking great. So as far as my audience goes, who are you? And how did you come to be interested in men's fashion as something more than simply what we wear? What I focus on is the idea of civilization and aesthetics.

What do aesthetics mean? What do they reveal about our culture, our values? And we obviously think about aesthetics when it comes to architecture, decor, everything, but also our clothing. Our clothing are aesthetics as well. And our clothing reveals our values what we believe, who we are, both personally and as a group as well. And when we look around, what does the clothing of man today reveal about the state of civilization and his civilization? What is it that he believes? It's nothing good. And what I focus on is an ascendant approach to aesthetics, trying to dig into and discuss and explore this idea of man, higher man, man, man in assent rather than man

degraded, and how clothes can build man up and reveal something deep and meaningful about his culture, his values, his beliefs, and who he is. And I do all of that within an Ivy style, prep style, Ivy Prep framework, classic American style. Well, it's interesting. I think about these issues all the time. The other day, I went for a run, so I'm dressed the way you would be dressed to go for a run. And I ended up in Central Park. I sat on a bench in Central Park. I think I was making a phone call or something. And I saw two young women walk past me, dressed beautifully, really beautifully. And this is in the middle of a summer day. And one of them was wearing like an empire dress, Empire waist dress or something.

But the point is that they were dressed like you just looked up and you thought, wow, how beautiful, how elegant. It wasn't overly elegant. And then it dawned on me that the way they were addressed was actually only appropriately. In other words, it's not like they had to be going to a wedding or something. I thought they may have been going to a wedding or something. But the point is they looked like two young women dressed elegantly walking through the park. But it was startling to me because it's.

stood in such dramatic contrast to everyone else. And when you look at old photos, everyone used to sort of dress up. You wouldn't go out in public. You wouldn't go into the park. You wouldn't go anywhere, really, unless you were sort of wearing the uniform of what young men and young women or men and women would wear. A man would wear a jacket. It had nothing to do with how much money you had.

So I was really struck in a way by that, that I thought to myself, and yet they're only dressed appropriately, but appropriately means beautifully, elegantly. They didn't need to go to some dramatic effort, but they just looked like they had made some effort. They just looked decent. They looked appropriate. They had a sense of dignity about them. Tremendous dignity. And it was, but it was so beautiful to see that and so startling. I'm sorry to say it was startling. But we do live in an era where this stuff has gone downhill. Somebody said, I think it was Alan Flusser wrote that in the 60s, this is where this all began, and we can talk about the larger issue, but in the 60s was the first time where kind of adolescent culture took over. And it used to be that boys would

look to their dads in terms of how to dress or girls would look to their mothers how to dress. Something happened in the 60s was all turned around where older people looked to kids in terms of how do I want to dress. So something really fundamentally upside down. was came into the culture and it's this false egalitarian view. But anyway, this is something that you're clearly up on. But what was it that brought you into this? What was it that got you interested in this? When did this happen for you, so to speak?

You know, I was always more into style than lots of other American men. Not necessarily this style. When I was really young, I got into Neo-Prep, you know, the really bold preppy style in the early 2000s. Then you weave here and there. But then it was when I got older and I started to, it wasn't until I had kids, actually, that my idea about this really clicked fully.

And you spoke about kids. This is a perfect example. We teach our children, our sons, in aesthetic language. What we wear, they learn. This is how a man looks. This is how my dad looks. I have a memory. I've talked about this multiple times.

I remember seeing my dad. My dad would always wear Navy Blazer. She knows. O-C-B-D, Oxford Clough, buttoned down. He could always wear this is what he wore. I remember seeing my dad as a kid and thinking, oh, this is how a dad looks. This is how I look when I'm a dad.

And that's a learning. That's a learning. This is how you learn. That's what you said, boys learn from their father's how to dress. Girls learn from their mothers how to dress. And that 60s was an inversion. And so I remember when I was as a child learning that,

internalizing that. And I started to think more about this as I got older and older. As I said, I was always into style, but more just this is enjoyable. I didn't start to get into the deeper ideas of what it means culturally, civilizationally, for the form of man versus the form of woman

until I was older. And I didn't start to really take that seriously until I had children. Well, it's interesting, you know, that what we're talking, I was saying before that one of my favorite books in the world is called Chance or the Dance by Thomas Howard. And he talks about how everything means everything. the secular view, that there's no meaning in the universe, that nothing means anything.

The opposite view is that everything means everything. Everything points to something else. Everything points to truth and points to other things. And so how we dress does say something, whether we wanted to or don't, how a building looks. A building can make you feel small or it can make you, it can ennoble you. It can make you feel wonderful. And there's the great line from the, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, the Yale architecture professor.

Now, I can't remember his name. Now, it'll come to me. But talking about the old Penn Station, which was this glorious building. And he says, one strode into the old Penn Station like a god. One scuttles into the new Penn Station like a rat. And you think, what is it about aesthetics, about a building that can make you feel beautiful and dignified and noble? Or can make you feel small and crushed? What is it about brutalist architecture?

All of these things matter. We're talking to OW root about these things as pertains to particularly what men wear. And we'll be right back. We're doing a campaign for food for the poor. Actually, I take that back. It begins today. Monday, July 31st. People who listen to this program know that we partner with food for the poor.

they are total heroes. Food for the poor steps up because there is always, there are always hurricanes flooding other natural disasters at this time of year. So because of poverty or collapse infrastructure in a lot of these countries, by the way, in case you didn't know, America's an amazing country, these other countries do not have a lot of infrastructure. So we need to step up, those of us who have the ability to step up. I want to encourage you to go to MetaxusTalk.com and give what you can. let's get a good start. Go to metaxis talk.com. Do what you can or just text Eric to 911-999.

Please do this. Text Eric to 911-999 or phone [phone], Hope, 844-863 Hope. Legacy precious metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few easy steps, you can open an account online, select your medals of choice, and choose to have them stored in a vault or ship to your door. You'll have access to a dashboard where you can track your portfolio growth in real time anytime. You'll see transparent pricing on each coin and bar. This puts you in complete control of your money. The platform is free to sign up for. Visit legacy pminvestments.com and open your account and see this new investing platform for yourself.

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That's a great question. So I was buying ties. You know, you can buy great old vintage ties on eBay. Beautiful stuff that you can barely find anymore. I was noticing a lot of the width, very wide. You know, you'll find these incredible Brooks brothers. Might be four inches, 3.75. So I thought to myself, what if I can tailor these down, 3.25?

Something more right. in the center. I figured out how to do it. You open up the back. You tailor it down. And then I started offering it to friends of mine. And I was like, hey, do you have some ties that are fatter? And you want to bring them down into a more conservative middle road.

I started doing that. And then I offer it to all sorts of guys. Guys send me their ties and I help bring these ties back to life. I salvage these ties. And sometimes guys send me their father's old ties, the grandfather's old ties that are beautiful, but a little too wide for their taste, 3.7. 754.4.0 and bring them down. And it's a great thing to salvage them. That is, that's just so funny. I'm glad I asked. Well, all right. So we're talking about, you know, the meaning of what men wear. And you mentioned it earlier. A lot of it has to do with the concept of dignity. When you see somebody, when you watch old films, I watch a lot of Turner Classic movies, and you see men routinely wearing double-breasted jackets and beautiful suits. And, It communicates something without words.

It's an extraordinary thing because a boy wouldn't be wearing that, but a man is wearing that. And he looks somehow fully dressed and it's beautiful. What is it about clothes today? I mean, a lot of people simply don't know how to dress. They've lost the vocabulary. So they're so confused that you can't blame them for not knowing what to wear because they don't even know where to turn. When did that happen? What do you see that meaning for civilization?

You know, clothing reflects, as you said, these turn-classing movies. You look at these old images. We see man with dignity, a strong image of man. And man inhibited or inhabited, not inhibited, inhabited, a place of strength in the society and in the culture and the civilization. And where he was was he was ascendant. And he was strong. He was confident of himself. And it wasn't a monetary thing.

This was across the board, all across the different. glasses, men dressed with a sense of dignity and decency, and it reaffirmed them in their strength in men. So we look at where this changed. We have to think about where did our civilization start to turn in on itself and go to the 60s in a way. You know, we can start in the 60s and it sort of accelerates. And there's a whole bunch of other, there's a hundred other factors that has contributed to men not caring about how they look or pretending not to care, being afraid to care, or thinking that men are not supposed to care. And there are all these stupid ideas that would have been foreign to our great-grandfathers or grandfathers.

But I would say that a deep turning in in a doubting of the civilization and of man, in the 60s pushed things off that we could probably locate it there. And then as I said, there's a hundred other things that have contributed to men thinking, oh, I shouldn't care about how I look. And I don't have to care. It really is, I mean, on some simple level, it's just a rejection of formality as evil. right? And you see it, I've often talked about the idea that doctors and nurses used to dress in the uniform of doctors and nurses. It conferred a certain authority and a dignity to them.

When a doctor dressed as a doctor, you know, walks into a room. Now doctors and nurses dress in scrubs. They look horrible. They look absolutely horrible. And they also, but, but But what it all seems to tie into is this idea of egalitarianism. Like I don't want to dress like I'm better than. I want to dress just like a schlub, I guess. Like it makes me like I'm solid. You know, I'm in solidarity with the people, you know, wearing their, you know, their paper gowns who are going to be operated on or whatever.

I don't know what is happening there. But this embrace of informality, which has become a fatigued cliche, that everywhere we go, you know, it's the cliche that like everybody's wearing blue jeans. So now it's the uniform. You know, it's not anti-anything. It's like now if you don't conform to the non-conformist uniform, you're out of step. So I often dress up in a way as an act of rebellion, ironically, to the culture around me. That's right.

That's right. Because as you said, this egalitarianism. And it's this low-speople. There's this lowering spirit because it brings everyone down. It's really a destruction of forms. If you really want to get into it, we can talk about how what is the suit or what is the sport coat? What is the tie? It is a representation of man, men wear this.

And of course, there were women's suits. We look at those Turner Classic movies, but they're feminine. They're women. They're not wearing men's suits, you know? So the idea of a sport coat, of a suit, of a tie, and we know how men look. We know how men are supposed to look. This is a representation of the eternal form of man within our culture. All different cultures have had representations of man and woman.

These eternal forms, and they represent them differently. Our culture has specific ways of representing man and woman in strength. We have a boiling down of forms. It's bubbling down into this endogenous slop, as I call it. Sometimes they refer to a leisure as just this. If you think about how synthetic, sleek, cultureless, formless, a fleaure is.

It's just slop. It's just synthetic nothingness. It's no, it's not the natural linen. It's not cotton. There's no wrinkle that shows life in organic living. There's no ornamentation. It's just sleek, nothing, inhuman, formless, nothingness, culturalist, slop.

I mean, again, it sounds dramatic to some, I'm sure. hear you say these things, but I just want to say, folks, you know, I travel a lot and I am astonished at how poorly people dress who are getting on planes. And I think to myself, look, you don't have to like get really dressed up, but people have lost the ability even to know how to dress. They are, they have sweatpants. Maybe they put on weight and they just sweatpants is, is what works, you know, T-shirts. But there's a standard uniform for how we might dress that used to exist. And again, it didn't matter whether you had money.

If you look at old photographs, people who had no money, they had a jacket. If they went out on a Sunday or if they went out someplace, they had a jacket. They would wear a hat, a collared shirt. it's interesting to me how people have really lost the ability even to know where to look. And that's one of the reasons that I think it's important to talk to folks like you, OW route, because people need to begin to educate themselves. I've spoken also to Roger Stone on this program. He puts out an annual best dressed list and worst dressed list.

And he's an expert on this subject. But it's important, I think that, you know, men, particularly young, young men begin to understand that this is important. This matters. You don't have to do it the way I do it or the way OW does it or the way O.W. does it or the way Roger Stone does it. But having some sense of the importance of this is important to you as a man, just as how a woman dresses is important to her as a woman. It's not unrelated. Absolutely. There's so much that you said that I want to address. You mentioned it's not about rich or poor. Every guy would have. this sport coat, have a jacket. This jacket, the sport coat that I'm wearing right now,

most of the guys who are into the style that I'm into, Ivy style, prep style, we find incredible finds on eBay because a lot of times they don't make it anymore. It's hard to find this stuff. You're either going to spend 700 bucks to get it bespoke or you're going to spend 40 to get it on eBay. It's going to be actually better. It's going to be from 60 years old and amazing condition. This is Brooks Brothers three-roll two. It's probably 60 years old. I got it for $10 at Goodwill. This is a $10 searsucker. It is probably 60 years old.

It had a few, just not stains, but I was able to get them out because it also says washable. You can wash it in the washer, which is, again, it shows real utilitarianism. This isn't about mannequinism. I talk about not being a mannequin. When we live in our clothes, it's about being in our clothes. It's not, we're not a mannequin. We're not a doll behind glass.

We're supposed to live and move and act in our clothes. And so I talk a lot about. living naturally. And a lot of the guys who follow me, they don't dress the same as me. Not every day is a day of formality. Not everybody has the same job. But you can dress with dignity

in whatever job, whatever station in life you find yourself. When we come back, we're going to talk about how Brooks Brothers has gone to hell in a handbasket. Don't go away. We're doing a campaign for food for the poor. Actually, I take that back.

It begins today. Monday, July 31st. people who listen to this program know that we partner with food for the poor. They are total heroes. Food for the poor steps up because there is always, there are always hurricanes flooding other natural disasters at this time of year. So because of poverty or collapse infrastructure in a lot of these countries, by the way, in case you didn't know, America's an amazing country,

these other countries do not have a lot of infrastructure. So we need to step up, those of us who have the ability to step up. I want to encourage you to go to Metaxistock.com and give what you can. Let's get a good start. Go to Metaxistalk.com. Do what you can. Or just text Eric to 911-999. Please do this.

Text Eric to 911-999 or phone [phone] Hope. 844-863 hope. Every day we hear about another familiar brand selling out their customers and going woke. Americans are sick and tired of having leftist propaganda. jammed into every product they consume. Woke mobile companies are no different. For years, they've been dumping millions into liberal causes, and we've had to take it because you need a cell phone and probably thought there was no alternative.

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Brooks Brothers, they do some stuff okay, but they are far from where they once were. They kind of adopted. I got really depressed when I saw that they had all these non-iron shirts, that it was harder and harder to get a normal shirt. All their shirts were non-iron shirts. It's kind of like they were bought by somebody who decided to turn them into the gap, you know, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the prepier set, but not that much preppier. That's right. That's right.

Brooks Brothers, you can see the decline of Brooks Brothers. They went through a bunch of bad management, some selling back and forth. And now Brooks Brothers is really a barely a shadow of its former glory. Because if you go back and you really get back into the Brooks Brothers history, one of the things that, as you said, the Oxford Clawth Button Down was one of their big things. That was something that Brooks Brothers. that was one of their iconic staples. If you go back as well, one of the things that was a distinguishing element of Brooks Brothers

was they started offering shirts and clothing off the rack, essentially. You didn't have to get it custom made. You essentially could go in and buy a shirt. This was a crazy thing at the time. This wasn't how most clothes were acquired at the time. And Brooks Brothers, think about what that means, about the meaning of modern man and American man. this came to represent, Brooks Brothers came to represent at one point in time, a certain ascendant modern man, an American modern man.

In Brooks Brothers, the uniform, often we refer to the uniform, you know, as Chino's, noce, B, D, Navy Blazer. And this uniform that Brooks Brothers helped popularize and helped usher in really did represent modern American man in an assent. And what does? And that off the rack means something as well. any man can go and they're getting there to get that and that serves as a way to bring you up and move you toward an ascendant modernity and dignity. Now what does it mean if we look at really the esoteric meaning of the decline of Brooks Brothers today?

What does that say about civilization or civilization and man or civilization? It's a deep thing. Well, it's it is interesting how they still have some good stuff. But it's interesting that whatever they once were. they've ceased to be. They're kind of like, you know, a cross between Jay Crew and the gap. They're just no longer what they were.

Jay Press is out there. But for you, it sounds like a lot of your stuff is vintage, that you get a lot of your stuff either in thrift stores or off of eBay. Or are there, I guess, Roger Stone was telling me about Kamakura. That's a Japanese company. That's pretty good.

Kamakura shirts, affordable. It was nice to see them kind of picking up where Brooks Brothers, you know, drop things. Absolutely. Yeah, Kamakura is great. What I buy, a lot of my sport coats are vintage. A lot of my ties are vintage. My shirts, not really, my pants, not really. Shirts, J. Press is great.

This is actually J. Press tie. This is a bulldog motif, purple motif. Ty, J. Press. J. Press is great. I have a lot of J-Press shirts, a lot of ties. Some other great makers are, you know, Speer and McKay. Speer & McKay is also very good. They offer some real hardcore classics for affordable prices.

You can get high-rise, 100% cotton, no stretch chinos. Spear and McKay for 70 bucks, 80 bucks. It's a pretty solid deal, considering how hard it has been to find high-rise chinos in recent years. And Spear also offers custom shirts and custom sports. coat as well. They'll do three roll two. The proper cloth also makes great shirts. You can get totally custom.

A lot of my favorite shirts are from ratio clothing. They actually are a not so well-known company. Racial? Racial clothing. They will make a complete, they're like proper cloth, complete custom bicep with everything. You can get out of there for about 100 bucks. Beautiful collar roll, 3.5, 3.75 for both of those, proper cloth. and ratio.

That's the color point. You get a beautiful collar roll. Because, you know, that's a difficult thing. Finding a good color roll, now all the collars are tiny little sticks compared to it. Actually, I was just going to say, there's nothing more horrifying. And I saw it on your, I guess it's on your blog. But these hideous little collars, I don't know whose idea that was, but they're just hideous. You don't have to have any bigger idea than it's ugly and it's unflattering.

But it's kind of amazing to me to see that people have that you can get a button down shirt and suddenly go, I don't want that. It's kind of creepy. No, the button down that is just a flat, there's no S, you know, there's no curve, there's no swoop. It makes your face look worse. We don't have to go deep and go shallow. It doesn't frame your face well. Right. A nice full collar.

it builds up to your face and your face is your personality. I mean, if we really think about this, say, the uniform, and it's a sort of uniform general, not the same colors, but then our face emerges from our neck. And that is our personality. And so this beautiful color frames that as we come up, as our personality comes and we see our, and we see people.

And I'd say the color makes such a big difference because people are looking at your face all the time. People aren't looking at your knees or your feet all the time. They're looking right at you. Your color, they're constantly seeing it. So that really makes a big impact for guys and how they look. I was going to ask you, are you writing a book? Have you written a book?

It seems like you ought to. I'm working on a book right now. I'm working on a, there's a couple of things I'm working on two levels. I'm working on a deeper sort of esoteric philosophical side of this. But I'm also working for a basic starter handbook. For the guy who says, a lot of the guys who follow me are guys who are new fathers or they are getting older and they say, you know, I want to. I don't want to dress like a fool anymore.

I want to dress like a man. You don't know where to start. So I'm trying to give them some brass tax, affordable, practical, no bespoke $10,000 suits, you know, just real practical brass tax stuff. We'll be right back. We're talking to OW Route. Hey there, folks. My friend Mike Lindell has a passion to help you get the best sleep of your life.

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MyPillow.com. Use the promo code, Eric. Folks, I'm talking to OWRoute. You can follow him on Twitter. Twitter at necktie salvage. Okay, OWU, we were just talking, trash talking, Brooks Brothers, a little bit. One of the brighter spots in what we're talking about is Ralph Lauren Polo. I have to say, in an extraordinary way, Ralph Lauren has elevated menswear in particular,

women's wear as well. But he seems to appreciate everything we're talking about. He doesn't talk about it. In other words, he doesn't get into the meta, to the meaning of it. Almost, that's probably wise because then people will, you know, pin you ideologically as some kind of pro-American conservative or something like that. He just, he avoids that. But he has really created an aesthetic, which I think is generally very, very admirable. It's almost become my uniform to wear a double-breasted Ralph Lauren blue blazer. But there's something about Ralph Lauren that we should touch on, that he really has over the decades been a champion of some of the things we're talking about here.

Absolutely. Absolutely. When you think about, you know, many people talk about how Ralph Lauren essentially kept preppy style alive. And he threw the 70s and really ushered it in to the 80s and to the 90s. And when we look back at those 90s images from Polar Ralph Lauren, they are absolutely stunning, the 90s in particular. I post 90s Ralph Lauren advertisements often because they really represent such a confident,

strong, dignified and culturally resonant, resonating, aesthetic. And as you said, he doesn't talk about this, but the aesthetics say everything. Sometimes I say a fit post is worth a thousand words. And so with Paul Roth, Lauren, one of his photos, one of those photos is worth a thousand words. It is bright. It is brilliant. It is confident. It is sure.

It is resonating and vibrating something that is ascendant and strong. It's a very pro-American aesthetic. It's extraordinary to me that he has been someone who's been a champion of American style, you know, particularly from the 30s and the 40s. But it's interesting to me that he's sort of discovered that. I don't think he started there. But, you know, this was already happening in the 80s. Now, the 80s, of course, was, you know, Reagan era.

You can see how you would kind of, you know, catch away. there if you were into that stuff. But he carried this through the decades and has been, you know, quietly and yet boldly pro-American. That to me is itself interesting. Absolutely. Absolutely. His style is American, as you mentioned. The style I focus on is right in that Ralph Lauren style. It is this Ivy Prep. I put Ivy Style and Preppy style in one corner because they are. They're obviously in the same corner. And this is an authentic American style. And that's why I talk about it because it's an authentic American style for every man, for every day of your life. There are formal days.

They're informal days. There's working in an office. There's working inside. There's working outside. And Ralph Lauren, if you look at his catalog, he does that as well. He has released over the years something for every single day of your life in an American style. And that is an incredible thing. Yeah, he has a number of brands within the brand, obviously.

And I don't love everything he's done, but generally speaking, it's beautiful. And it is interesting to me also that how evocative it is, that it's evoking a lot of the classic films that I love to look at. You know, we're talking, we've been talking and you've been talking about this kind of Ivy League look. but obviously because I watched Turner Classic movies, a lot of times it's hard not to admire the, I guess it's a little bit, it's a British look. It's a more fitted European clothing. You know, you saw it, I guess,

Carrie Grant is one good example of that. But that was normative at one point in America. And as we were talking about in the 60s, it began to go away. And we've really never recovered. It's interesting to me that men, and again, it gets to the larger meaning that today, you can ask the question,

you say, what is a woman? We don't know. What is a man? We don't know. Now, of course, we do know, but we're no longer at a place where people can confidently say, what I say, you know,

we're men and women created in God's image. And there's tremendous, unfathomable dignity in manhood, in womanhood. These are beautiful things. These are iconic images of God. He created us in his image. And that has gone away. And so we have this kind of fake confusion that who's to say what a man is or how a man's

to dress. And so that's part of it. And so the aesthetic of how we dress has to do, as we've been saying from the beginning, with what we say about ourselves. Do I have dignity? Or am I trying to project an image of such. insouciance that it really becomes sloppiness. I mean, I mean, the religious aspect of this is crucial, is absolutely crucial.

We're talking about man created in the image of God. We're talking about man and woman as two distinct forms created in creation, not just coming out of slop. We're talking about these created forms. And when we wear clothing, we are reaffirming those eternal forms in our culture, in the way that our culture understands that with our dress. This represents, you look at me, I'm representing a strong image of man,

that eternal form within the culture that I am American. The same thing for women. And so we need to. It is very important. People think that this is about materialism. It's not. It's about dignity, and there is a deep religious strain to this.

It is about dignity, decency, man and woman created these distinct forms in man creating the image of God. I do think that part of what we've seen since the 60s is really a spiritual attack on human beings. The idea that we don't want men to have dignity, we don't want women to have dignity. We want everyone to be sort of equal in the gray sludge and mush, which is really this communist atheistic idea, that you're nothing, you're nobody, you're just an aggregation of cells, your life. has no meaning, you're not immortal, you just consume food and then you die,

and there's no meaning. That's as bleak as it gets. And I wanted to end this segment on a very bleak note I have. We'll be right back for a few more minutes. Less bleak, I promise you don't go away talking to OW Root. Folks talking to OW Root, you can follow him on Twitter at Necktie Salvage. Is it even still called Twitter or is it just X? I'm going to call it Twitter for a short season.

But you were talking about something about being natural. I mean, I think I want to say real quick, when you say natural, you said it on the break. You know, I think of natural fabrics, wool and cotton, silk. Why are they important? Is it just because they're breathable? What is it about, you know, when do you say natural? What do you mean by that? We talk about fabrics, natural.

natural fabrics. Let's think about linen. Linen is an ancient fabric. Linen is an ancient fabric. And when we talk about organic fabrics, not this synthetic made in a lab. We're talking about fabrics from the earth fabrics that are organic and true and natural. And if we really get back to the religious aspect, how does God make Adam? He takes the soil and he makes Adam. We are, there's a natural beingness there. It's this connection to the earth and to nature as in God's creation. And when we think about the natural fabrics that wrinkle, think of the beauty of wrinkles. What are wrinkles?

Rinkles are a sign of life. It's a sign of actual life. Life lived. Not life as a mannequin, not life in a museum behind glass case, but life in action, life in motion. And man is supposed to be in motion. Man is supposed to act. He's not just there to look at. He's there to act and to live.

And when we wear clothes that are made of, linen and of cotton and we wear these clothes of dignity and strength. It's not about just standing there and looking perfect. It's about taking action in the world. And it's about moving and not being afraid. You're going to get stains. You'll get them out. That's a part of life.

You're going to get wrinkles. You'll iron it the next day. That's a part of life. Yeah, pick up an iron. Why don't you? Actually, it's kind of funny because it reminds me, I was saying before that there's something about non-iron shirt. It sounds like, hey, what a great idea.

And you think, no. They're treated with something. They feel, they don't feel like they're breathing. They kind of make you sweat or whatever it is that you're getting. The downside is gigantic. But they don't have that natural look to them. And I just, anytime, you know, we were talking about Books Brothers, they seem to have everywhere you look, these non-iron shirts.

And I thought, they're just pathetic. It's not like wrinkles are such a big problem. oh, what am I going to do? I better get a non-iron shirt. Every single hotel in America has an iron and an ironing board in the closet. Like so, you know, if that's your big issue, the problem is off. If you go to Europe, they don't have that. I don't know what, I don't know where they're coming from. But in America, like, it's the easiest thing if something's really, really wrinkled. But again, you're talking about living life, being willing to get a little, a little wrinkled. You know, these are my pet peeves, so it's kind of funny to sound off on this. This is fantastic. I love talking about this because this gets to, it's a real crucial issue of our age. And I have seen how men taking control of their aesthetic, how it benefits their lives,

how it benefits not only their lives, but also their children's lives, their son's life, they're teaching their son how to dress. And if you're a dad, you can dress with decency. oh, your kids got your shirt dirty. Who cares? You're going to wear it. You're going to wash it. Big deal.

That is, this is really, it's actually philosophical. It's not talking about how you look in your clothes, but how you are in your clothes. And what I've said sometimes is that you, what you want to do is you want to take care to iron your clothes in the morning, get everything set. And then you put them on, you forget about them. And then you want to live like a toddler. Watch a toddler walk around. He doesn't care how he's looking. He's moving and stuff like this.

But that's what you want. when you're wearing your clothes because it shows you're natural. And when you look at those old videos, that's how guys are living because it is natural. I can't believe we're at a time. This has been fun for me. OW Root, thanks for what you do. Folks, you can follow OW Root at Necktie Salvage. Are you on Instagram?

No. Yep. Yes. You are on Instagram. Okay. Anyway, we will continue our conversation with you another time. This has been a joy. God bless you.

It's been my pleasure. Thank you.