I vaguely remember seeing The Great Gatsby the first time around. I thought the characters were pretty despicable, and the movie was boring, but I was younger then...
I’ve actually never seen suits like that on anyone outside of a GQ or some other magazine. If anyone wore that to a club or restaurant in a city in this part of Texas, they would be knocked to the floor by the scornful laughter alone. When I was in college, a few guys from the city took to wearing white loafers-I would not be/have been seen with a guy wearing those, but I’m ranch raised-to my eyes, they look as silly as leisure suits, and spell “lounge lizard”......
Remember, I said they were popular in the 60s and 70s. My husband even bought a pale blue suit at Marshall Field’s in 1987 to wear in Milwaukee in the heat of the summer. That suit expired, however, without being replaced — even though he’d owned identical versions since 1969. Think Matlock. He would switch it off with a kakhi cotton version.
I remember my husband’s cousin (a doctor) coming to my mother in law’s funeral in Illinois from Alabama in June 1959 in a suit and in shoes like that. I couldn’t take my eyes off the shoes, wondering where else in the world he wore those. Fifteen years later, I saw them all over Houston, TX. A lot of men even wore similar styles as Golf shoes at the country club.
As I said, I think that casual dress has usurped the “summer” suit in a lot of places. And universal AC too.
The striped jacket is definitely a 1910 fashion, or Babershop Quartet. It looks like it came right off stage from a resurrection of The Music Man. Or from a flashy booth at a trade show.