Before Pleasant Ridge was a village, and before it was a city in 1927, it was around ten families who met in one another’s houses to work out what to do about the roads. That was 1912. The city has grown, but its characteristic occasion has not changed: it is still an evening in somebody’s front room, and that is the hardest invitation in menswear to answer.
Why it’s hard
Because a house has no dress code and no host willing to state one. Turn up in a suit and tie and you have made the evening formal for everybody else. Turn up in what you wore to mow the lawn and you have told your neighbor their invitation was not worth changing for. There is a correct answer and it sits in between.
The answer
A jacket, no tie, a shirt with a collar that stands up on its own. It reads as effort without reading as ceremony, and it is the single most useful thing a man can own in a town built around private houses.
Buying it
Select suits on our floor sell as separates, which is the route to a jacket that stands alone. Signature Wool, $259 to $299, and a consultant who is not on commission to tell you whether the one you like actually works without its trousers.
Also for Pleasant Ridge: A Whole City on the Register, and What It Obliges. More on style consulting, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
