Those are Fathers and Sons from the Brooks Brothers Father’s Day ad. But don’t you see? Don’t you?
I can only assume that the proposed return of the Eisenhower-era TV-fold is because of Mad Men. But what a strange way to shape fashion! Although it never would have occurred to Don Draper, it occurs to the ad-men for Brooks Brothers that maybe Americans want to look like the most alienated version of themselves.
The Edge of the American West 
24 comments
June 8, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Ben Alpers
I can honestly say I’ve never even worn a pocket square in my life, much less the dreaded TV-fold.
June 8, 2009 at 1:11 pm
eric
I do not wear pocket squares. But I’m not proud of it.
June 8, 2009 at 1:18 pm
JPool
Do you mean that you’re actively ashamed of it or just that it’s not a badge of honor for you?
Do people actually wear pocket squares outside of the pages of Esquire and the real-world equivalent to the WASPania that Brooks Brothers ads simulacrate?
June 8, 2009 at 1:23 pm
LizardBreath
I carry pocket handkerchiefs — it’s surprisingly often useful to have a clean piece of cloth that you don’t mind getting dirty. Rained-on subway seats that need to be dried before you can sit down, a kid getting a bloody nose at Little League, the kind of cold where you don’t need to blow your nose all that often but do need to dab at it.
But no pocket squares. (I had a high school friend who wore bizarrely foppish clothes, occasionally including a coordinated pocket-square/socks ensemble. But you kind of had to be him to carry it off.)
June 8, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Kieran
Rained-on subway seats that need to be dried before you can sit down, a kid getting a bloody nose at Little League, the kind of cold where you don’t need to blow your nose all that often but do need to dab at it.
That’s what those guys in the photos use theirs for, too, in their world of lemon argyle, chukkas, wet plastic seats, blood, and snot.
June 8, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Matt
Rained-on subway seats that need to be dried before you can sit down, a kid getting a bloody nose at Little League, the kind of cold where you don’t need to blow your nose all that often but do need to dab at it.
That’s why I almost always have a bunch of napkins in my coat pocket, or a little tissue package in my bag. (I got in the habit of having this stuff while living in Russia, but there it was due to the fact that toilets, even in places like the university where I worked, never had toilet paper.) It works as well as a handkerchief for most reasons and I can throw it away rather than have a dirty, bloody, snotty rag I need to wash out.
June 8, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Doctor Science
That “valet” piece tells me that:
Traditionalists argue that menswear is a game of inches
My spam filter agrees.
June 8, 2009 at 1:45 pm
ben
Why is this fold “dreaded”, and given that we’re talking about people who might be shopping at Brooks Brothers in the first place, is this really the “most alienated”?
June 8, 2009 at 1:50 pm
eric
The “most alienated” was meant to apply to the characters in Mad Men. As for “dreaded”, well, ask Ben A.
June 8, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Malaclypse
Wow, Brooks Brothers doesn’t even have a token non-WASP.
June 8, 2009 at 3:35 pm
TF Smith
Given that Brooks Brothers’ pocket squares probably go for $30 a pop, anyway, can a front-page NYT piece on the impact of the recession on pocket square buyers be far behind?
They had one today on how tough it is to be a trustafarian…
June 8, 2009 at 5:30 pm
dana
I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse that there are no little girls in their ads. Men have Sons. Daughters asexually bud from their Mothers?
June 8, 2009 at 5:40 pm
TF Smith
That is fairly creepy…
So is the “for sons who want to be just like their fathers” line…
June 8, 2009 at 5:42 pm
kid bitzer
somehow it reminds me of john roberts with his boy in short-pants.
i.e. deeply creepy.
June 8, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Ben Alpers
“Dreaded” just because of the deep creepiness of the whole Brooks Brothers’ aesthetic (and also ’cause it just sounded right).
…but I may have been wrong to express special scorn for the TV-fold. It appears that Jesse Thorn of Sound of Young America and Jordan, Jesse, Go! fame (well not fame, exactly, but he is one of my favorite radio/podcast hosts), who often speaks of his pocket squares on the air/internets, favors the TV-fold.
June 8, 2009 at 7:28 pm
silbey
Churchill: I have nothing to give but blood, tears, toil, and sweat.
LizardBreath: Handkerchief?
June 8, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Mark Kucinic
Later they became plastic pockets and you put pens in them.
June 9, 2009 at 4:43 am
AWC
Mad Men’s had a major influence, but Obama’s helped bring back early 1960s style. Though Barry doesn’t wear the square, his sartorial role model, JFK, did.
While it’s certainly true that intellectuals saw male alienation in that period, I’m not sure there’s ever been a decade when masculinity wasn’t in crisis.
June 9, 2009 at 5:06 am
sdh
The pocket square is the privileged non-combatant’s row of ribbons. I think white is most commonly used for alienation. Blue for being better and than anyone else in the room. Gold for compulsive gambling with other people’s money.
In the world of pocket squares, each pattern and color has a particular meaning.
June 9, 2009 at 6:34 am
Fats Durston
I’m still trying to fathom why the valet. needs to instruct adults on how to fold a piece of cloth into a square. Then again, I’ve never had to get by with servants.
June 9, 2009 at 9:27 am
kid bitzer
“Brooks Brothers doesn’t even have a token non-WASP.”
yeah, i’m still trying to locate an on-line source for lemon argyle tzit-tzits.
June 9, 2009 at 11:37 am
JPool
And thus is revealed the hidden double meaning of the “bee-hives” in the title.
June 10, 2009 at 2:01 am
ajay
Brooks Brothers is for Americans who are too afraid of travelling to get a proper suit made somewhere where they make proper suits. The sort of person who puts his tiny son in what appears to be a Guards Brigade tie.
June 10, 2009 at 5:02 am
Duvall
Cheap, ajay. Too cheap to travel, not too afraid.