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Spring
Fashion
Index
A
Woman for All Seasons:
This year and every year, women could stand to take a few
style cues from So-fee-ah.
Buh-Bye
Gwyneth, Hello Lita Ford:
You knew they'd be back before too long. WW presents
'80s looks now, in all their trashy glory.
The
Tale of the Taper:
Why guys should show a little love for their own legs.
Five-Minute
Shoe Shakedown:
We interrogated four Portlanders with serious shoe-buying
habits to find out why they worship at the temple of Imelda.
Taking
It to the Streets:
What do your clothes say about you? Quite a bit--but,
as our snapshot of Portland style reveals, the message is
often way off the mark.
The
Summertime Sum:
Legs of leather, a python purse and preppy pieces turned
on their heads will help you stride through summer without
sweating out your wallet.
Use
it or Lose it:
Traditional tennis togs are the least sporty sportswear,
which makes them perfect for off-court duty.
You
Lookin' at Me?
The season's best bets for hiding those lyin' eyes.
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Like most sporting contests, men's fashion is a game of
inches. Over the years, for instance, sport coat lapels
have been worn at various widths. We saw the fat '70s collar
preceded by a '60s dietetic one and followed by a conservatively
wide '80s lapel. All three looks suggest very different
fashion moments, yet all that distinguishes one look from
another is the distance between a long fly-ball out and
a home run: about 4 inches.
At different times, belts, shirt collars and of course
ties have all played the widening game. But perhaps no clothed
region announces a man's fashionistic M.O. more plainly
than the size of his pant cuff. For it is down there, where
no one is expected to look, that a fellow--unwittingly or
passionately--makes his style statement. If he passively
wears his legs loosely, he is complicit in the American
style--straight-legged fecklessness. If, however, he takes
up with needle and thread and closes the cuffed circle in
a tapered leg, well then he has come down on the side of
boldness and taste.
The tapered leg narrows gently, beginning high on the seam
and closing gracefully around the ankle. Europeans, particularly
Italians, who are commonly acknowledged as superior dressers,
have understood the simple grace of tapered trousers for
some time. Buy a pair of pants off the rack abroad, and
chances are great that they will fall gorgeously to the
ankle. Domestically, though, there are only pockets of panted
progressiveness.
"You have to remember, the shoe is really an extension
of the leg," notes Satan's Pilgrims guitarist and longtime
taperer Scott Fox (7 1/4-inch cuffs for Pilgrim pants, 7
1/2-inch for Levi's). He should know. The Pilgrims' age-tested
stage show prominently positions group-wide zip-up Florsheim
half-boots. Fox adds that the narrow legs help "adorn the
Florsheims," in a modish, Beatled way.
Fox discovered the allure of the taper (or peg) soon after
moving out of his parents' house at age 18. He traces his
fondness for the look to a punk-rock adolescence. Now, he
says he is addicted.
Indeed, the taper is often first tried by punks and mods
looking to accentuate bubble-toed Docs or thick-soled Creepers.
For this lot, a home taper job can suffice. But as the
young narrowist is welcomed to the working week, he begins
to desire a professionally altered leg. It is here that
trouble lurks. For if he attempts a suitable self-taper,
the results can often be the dreaded "Cecil B. DeMille,"
wherein the sad wearer appears to be dressed in thigh-billowing
jodhpurs.
Getting a tailor to agree to your desired measurements
can be equally unsettling. Most domestic fabric-fixers remain
leery of the Narrow. With American standards steadfastly
in mind, they will not trim too much, instead pleading that
such an act would disturb the way the pants hang.
"They don't know the look you're going for," Fox says of
most tailors.
Polish-born Margaret Lyszczynska, proud proprietor of East
Burnside's Stitch in a Hurry, is an exception. She says
she can taper any pair of pants you bring her. Fox, a customer
to the tapering industry for more than 10 years, affirms
that she is the best.
"You have to see everything," Lyszczynska (pronounced Luh-shin-shkuh),
says wisely. "Not just the alteration. You have to look
at the body shape, too."
Lyszczynska learned her craft through the Polish schooling
system; after seventh grade, she spent eight years studying
to be a seamstress. "You have to have the knowledge," she
says. "I do. Nobody beats me for knowledge."
In the end, it is this very thing--knowledge--that lies
at the heart of tapering concerns. Most men know only what
they are told: that pants should be wide at the end, swallowing
the top of the shoe in one soft bite. But in a country given
over to largess--bigger cars, bank accounts and lips--increasingly
it will be those with less who stand out.
Stitch in a Hurry, 2009 E Burnside St., 234-2446. Open
9 am-noon and 1-6 pm Monday-Friday. Price for an average
taper is $25; for a hem and taper, $35-$40; and to taper
jeans, $15.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 12,
2000
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