The distinction between tailoring and designer clothes in this thread is fundamentally important culturally,…

The distinction between tailoring and designer clothes in this thread is fundamentally important culturally, going well beyond fashion. Tailoring is expertise-based style. Designer clothes are about status. Our entire modern world is in that distinction. /1 https://t.co/EvQ1wlfDaE

We’re in a period of history that history has seen many times before. Where previously dominant centralised status hierarchies in our societies have been damaged or destroyed. This has unleashed an avalanche of status games, at every level of society. /2

I’ve Tweeted how humanity has before tried to solve the problem of eternal status gaming, of imitative rivalry. That rivalry is inescapable for social animals, but it can be tamed. By creating centralised status hierarchies which all other status games are embedded in. /3

That’s what churches and monarchies are, the historical solution to that seeming puzzle. They’re instruments to manage status games. It’s why they and their Kings and Pope-equivalents dominate history. There would be no history without them. Just violence. /4

This is the terrible danger of the idea of ‘the people’, that I also Tweet about a lot. Letting entire populations do nothing but compete for status creates only violence and blood and death. The desire for status is unquenchable, without centralised status hierarchies. /5

To go back to tailoring vs designer fashion, tailoring is expertise, targeted at precise material need. Design can be that too, but generally it’s about status alone. We live in a world now where every mundane object and behaviour is loaded up with status/identity games. /6

A world of ‘branding’. Read Derek’s thread, Harry for example is much more a brand now, than a Royal. Watches, cars, clothes, phones, likes/followers etc. The world is awash with status games, which are identity games (status = identity, for social animals). /7

We need status to be attached to expertise again, and for that expertise to be focused on collective need. As Victorian England did. And Rome, the foundational society even today. We need a lot more tailors, in every sphere of life. /8

Compare these two cars, for example. Clearly the Ferrari will be the higher status car, but I would argue the Tesla is the much more *tailored* vehicle. Designed very precisely, to meet a large list of practical needs. /9 https://t.co/XDFDvFgktD

Functionality is not the opposite of style. As we see with tailoring, the greatest style can come from the greatest functionality. If the expertise is channelled towards that end. It’s not a surprise that tailoring declined as the monarchy did. /10

As in Victorian England, expertise harnessed to collective need requires a centralised status hierarchy that in turn provides a niche for collective-focused expertise. Engineers and scientists were the celebrities of the Victorian age. /11

Today ‘influencers’ couldn’t boil an egg, and vacuum up social status for no other purpose than to have it. The collective good is actually synonymous with style. Provided status is attached to ‘tailoring’ (expertise), focused on functional need. /end