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In her 1941 short story “The Standard of Living,” Dorothy Parker explores the all-too-familiar themes of escapism, materialism, and innocence. Two young “18-dollars-a-week” stenographers, Annabel and Midge, saunter down Fifth Avenue one Saturday afternoon while playing the game, “what would you do if you had a million dollars?” Through a chaste and elegant shop window, they spy a double rope, pearl necklace at one of Manhattan’s most exclusive jewelry stores. Yes, the first thing they’d do is buy this exquisite necklace, but how much do they imagine it costs? The girls assign a probable value of $1,000 — $10,000 at the most, they reason — before they summon the courage to go inside and inquire. But when the white-gloved salesman tells them it’s a quarter of a million, they stumble back onto the street. “He’s got his nerve!” Annabel exclaims.

The story goes on with Annabel and Midge dreaming of getting more money, supposing what they could purchase if the owner of that pearl necklace bequeathed them ten million dollars. What even more valuable thing they could buy that’s not so common? Of course, nothing is enough. They never imagined a stringed-up bauble could cost so much money, but upon learning its value, they start to wonder what’s around the corner.

“The Standard of Living” will sound uncomfortably familiar to anyone building a better wardrobe. The first pair of Allen Edmonds seems staggering until, at some point, you find yourself purchasing Crockett & Jones and looking around the corner at Edward Green. But plenty of things on the lower end of the price spectrum are, in fact, quite good. Parker’s story is about the elusiveness of contentment and escapism of glamour.

You’ve heard the phrase a million times: “You can have any color as long as it’s black.” In his autobiography My Life & Work, Henry Ford claimed he told his management team in 1909 that, going forward, his best-selling Model T would only be available in one color. But for the first few years of its production, from 1908 to 1913, it wasn’t available in black at all, but rather bullet gray, dark green, midnight blue, and fire engine red. The all-black change didn’t happen until 1914, with the outbreak of World War One. Ford switched to black because of the paint’s low cost, durability, and faster drying time. Paint choices were determined by the chemical industry, which at the time was affected by dye shortages and new nitrocellulose lacquer technologies. The decision had more to do with economics than style.

Cars back then were painted using a process called japanning, which today would be known as baked enamel. “It was first used in the mid-1800s for decorative items imported into America,” says Model T restorer Guy Zaninovich. “A piano has a shiny black surface that almost looks like plastic rather than paint because it’s done with the japanning process. It leaves a tough and durable surface.” Japanning also dries quickly, which was important to the efficiency-obsessed Ford. His plants produced as many as 300,000 cars per year, at a time when competing automakers had a combined production of about 280,000 cars, so shaving minutes off each car’s production time was critical. The catch? Japanning was only available in black. “If japanning worked in hot pink, all Model T’s would have been hot pink,” Zaninovich joked. 

The history of the Model T is just one of the many strange stories of why certain things come in specific colors. Suits, for example, mainly come in navy and gray because, back in the Regency period, men wore navy coats with cream-colored breeches. Regency blue eventually gave way to Victorian black by the mid-19th century, but the norm for wearing contrasting trousers remained. The suit, as defined by a coat worn with matching trousers, wasn’t typical in London until the end of the 19th century. Until then, the suit was only worn for sport and leisure, mostly in the countrysides. No proper gentleman would ever wear it to town.

A few months ago, L Brands, formerly known as The Limited, shuttered all 23 of their Henri Bendel stores, including their Fifth Avenue flagship in New York City. Founded in 1895, the luxury womenswear retailer was the first in many categories — the first retailer to hold a fashion show, the first retailer to hold semi-annual sales, and the first retailer to carry Coco Chanel’s line in the United States. On their website, they also took credit for discovering Andy Warhol, who they hired early on as an in-house illustrator.

Henri Bendel’s profits, however, have been dipping for years as the upscale retailer struggled to find footing against online behemoths such as Net-a-Porter and FarFetch. Last September, when they finally announced that they would close all their locations by the end of January, The New York Times contacted Mark Cho of The Armoury to see how his brick-and-mortars have been able to thrive in this economy. Mark said it came down to people — having personal relationships with customers and hiring sales associates who know The Armoury’s products. “For some luxury brands, the customer comes in and knows exactly what he wants, and the salesperson is just a vending machine,” Mark said. “The Armoury has no aspiration to be a big brand.”

Some of their success can also be chalked up to how they make classic men’s style feel relevant, especially to a new generation of men who didn’t grow up wearing a coat-and-tie. Their clothes are traditional and sophisticated, but they don’t reach for the same tired tropes about luxury clothing and class pedigree. They’ve also done an impressive job of pulling together small makers, such as Ring Jacket, Carmina, and Liverano & Liverano, before these names became common reference points for menswear enthusiasts. I can’t tell you how many bespoke tailors have told me about clients who ask for curvy, Florentine quarters – no doubt because of The Armoury’s influence. 

In a firm-wide email sent Tuesday, the top-brass at Goldman Sachs told employees they’re loosening the company’s fashion standard. Historically known as a white-shoe investment bank, Goldman Sachs will be joining the Silicon Valley crowd by allowing its 36,000 employees to shed their coat-and-tie uniform and put on more casual attire. This shift would have been inconceivable thirty years ago when bankers relied on sober suits to earn their clients’ confidence. But as Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon wrote in the memo, workplaces today are more casual and he wants to accommodate a younger workforce. One Goldman Sachs employee told GQ yesterday the firm’s dress code has actually been loosening for years. Still, the person noted, “all the men are psyched." 

So if bankers no longer wear banker stripes, what should they wear? The email didn’t specify. The management only said they want employees to dress in a manner that accords with the company’s and clients’ expectations (whatever that means). "We trust you will consistently exercise good judgment in this regard,” they wrote ominously. “All of us know what is and is not appropriate for the workplace." 

This is the problem with modern dress codes. Hard-written rules have been replaced by softly coded norms, which leaves many confused on how they’re supposed to dress. Are grey flannel trousers too dressy? Are sneakers too sloppy? What should I wear for the meeting or office party? When the accounting firm Crowe Horwath gave up on the coat-and-tie a few years ago, they had to film a video explaining what was not acceptable. 

If you were on social media in 2016, you probably remember the Great Cargo Pocket War. It all started with an innocent article in The Wall Street Journal about how bulky cargo shorts were driving a wedge between people in their relationships. One of the men in the story said that, in the course of his 11-year marriage, he’s noticed as many as fifteen pairs of cargo shorts go missing. On the occasions he’s asked his wife about them, she admits to throwing them out or deflects to another subject. He’s now down to just one pair, which he guards closely (they’re hidden in a small nook somewhere). “I don’t let her get her hands on them,” he said. “I wish I had caught on sooner.”

Tom Lommel, an actor in Los Angeles, said he loves cargo shorts because they’re like wearing “socially acceptable sweatpants.” He reserves them for when his wife is away from home, however, because wearing them feels like he’s breaking a marriage vow. “I wish that were the truth,” his wife disputes. “If he was only wearing them when I could not look at him, that would be perfect.”

The article sparked a fierce internet debate. Fans of the style say cargo shorts are hard wearing, easier to move in, and practical in terms of storage space. Detractors say no one human being needs that many pockets. Cargo shorts and their related pants have become the symbol of aging frat-bros, uncool dads, and the sort of people who carry vape pens, tactical knives, and Soundgarden CDs on their body. Cargo pocket defender and International Relations professor Dan Drezner went a step further when he wrote in The Washington Post: “Cargo shorts are great and anyone who opposes them should just acknowledge their misandry and be done with it. […] Any article of clothing that helped defeat Hitler is an article of clothing that should never go out of style.”

For the truly fashion-obsessed, the shuttering of Gallagher’s Paper Collectibles ten years ago marked the end-of-an-era. The dingy, subterranean shop in the East Village was one of New York City’s greatest institutions. Inside was a veritable treasure trove of vintage fashion magazines, books, and photo prints. Stacked in corners and along shelves, you could find Vogue in all its editions, dusty issues of Harper’s Bazaar, 100-year-old copies of Town & Country, the now-defunct Mademoiselle, and more arcane titles, some of which were published in the 1860s. 

If you think this is just a local hangout for art students and the occupationally hip, you’d be wrong. In between preparing for their seasonal collections, award-winning designers used to come here to rifle through yellowed pages and plunder archives. Michael Gallagher, the store’s proprietor, once told The New York Times: “We get them all, Hedi Slimane, Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs big time, John Varvatos, Narciso Rodriguez, the Calvin assistants, the Gucci assistants, Dolce & Gabbana, Anna Sui – you name it. They all come here for inspiration. At least that’s what we call it.”

It’s no secret that designers copy. Menswear is full of work, sport, and military references, some of which have carried through into a professional dress. Penny and tassel loafers entered the canon because they were so thoroughly imitated. In the designer world, Tom Ford has been known to lift from Halston; Alexander McQueen stole from Vivienne Westwood. Helmut Lang once moved his operation from NYC to Paris to thwart copycats, but he himself replicated a disco bag from the indie design collective Three As Four. Diet Prada tries to publicly shame designers for copying, but with notable exceptions, they have little effect. Everyone knows how fashion works. When Oprah asked Ralph Lauren in 2011 how he’s been able to keep designing for so many years, he answered: “You copy. Forty-five years of copying; that’s why I’m here.”

For much of the 20th century, men’s media was about general interest publications giving readers the information they needed for “right living.” They told men how to dress for the office, grill meat on weekends, and mix delicious cocktails for after-dinner parties. As Cathy Horyn once wrote, “almost no one cares about this sort of thing anymore.” Online, audiences can easily find communities that share their specific interests and advertisers can target people more closely than ever before. It’s no longer enough for a publication to just say it’s “for men.”

This is Will Welch’s challenge at GQ. Welch was recently promoted to Editor-in-Chief at the magazine, replacing Jim Nelson, and while GQ isn’t losing money, it’s lost some cultural relevancy. To get readers to return, Welch promises to make GQ to be about more than just telling men how to match pocket squares with ties. This month’s music-themed issue, for example, covers Frank Ocean and dives into John Mayer’s Visvim-heavy wardrobe. And when Welch headed Conde Nast’s smaller, but edgier, GQ Style title, he featured the romantically styled designer Haider Ackermann, cult-favorite streetwear label Noah, and Gauthier Borsarello’s private Paris showroom, which is full of vintage inspiration. With Welch now at the top of GQ’s masthead, we can expect something similar between the main magazine’s covers. 

“Instead of dictating what’s good and what’s bad from some sort of imaginary mountaintop, if we can be meaningfully participating in a community of people – helping to elevate and tell the stories of the people who we think are doing really exciting things – to me that is a higher calling than, ‘don’t wear those pants, wear these pants,’” Welch told Business of Fashion. “If you try to be everything to everyone, you end up not being much of anything to anyone. So we’re making GQ less a big tent and more the only place to go when you want a rich, intelligent, and transportive plunge into all the stylishness the world has to offer.”