10 Ways Tech Revolutionized Fashion Amazing Advances In Style Technology
[0:00:00] Gents, I'm excited about today's video.
I love science I love history.
And, in today's video ten technological advances which have transformed the style industry.
Are you ready?
Let's get into it.
[Music] Number one on my list, gentlemen modern manufacturing
practices.
And I know there's a lot of improvement that could be made sweatshops, we want to get rid
of that stuff.
But, when you look at the transformation that's happened over the last 300 years, go back
300 years 30% of a family's time and resources were spent making clothing by hand.
Nowadays, how many -- none of us very few of us makes clothing by hand and we're talking
3% of our resources basically of our budget goes into our wardrobe.
Some people even less, some people quite a bit more.
But at the end of the day, you're not spending 30% of your -- the money that you make the
average family.
That is a huge transformation and something that has afforded us most of the world to
actually dress a lot better.
Yeah, yeah, maybe it's harder if you don't have much money, you're going to have to go
to thrift stores you're going to have to look around for things on sales, but you can actually
do that.
There was a time period when people were divided by classes because certain classes could afford
to have other people make the clothing, to make it with certain materials.
Now, anyone can look the part of the successful person, so that you can become -- you can
get that job as a banker, you can get that job as a consultant.
It's just amazing and that's why that's number one on my list.
Number two on my list, polyester fabrics and variants of it.
Now, I understand 50 years ago, the suits, the shirts, the trousers, the jackets manufactured
from polyester were not very breathable they felt like plastic and they got a bad rap for
good reason.
But, nowadays, it is very difficult when you look at the polyester fabrics coming out of
good mills it is amazing especially when they put together blends.
We're talking suits made from 50/50 basically or with maybe 30% wool 70% polyester or sometimes
vice versa, but these suits are actually of good quality.
I'm not going to say that they're going to replace 100% wool or that, you know, polyester
cotton mixes are going to replace 100% cotton shirts.
I still love 100% cotton 100% wool.
But, the problem with those is they are a limited resources especially wool is going
to drive the price up simply because of the material.
Polyester is cheap and when they can mimic the actual fibers and they can actually even
transform some of them.
Actually, I have found some of the blends have special properties.
We're talking non-iron, we're talking wicking moisture.
I mean it is really cool what they're doing and what they've been able to do.
But, the number one advantage to you is it has driven the price down.
It has made it so that you can go in and actually afford a suit that fits and looks good on
you and, yeah, maybe it's a 50/50 blend, but you will eventually upgrade to 100% wool.
And that's why polyester is number two on my list.
Ding.
Ding, bonus technological advancement.
Let's talk about the belt specifically the buckle.
Now, the buckles has been around for about five hundred years, has definitely been useful,
but you could say in belts it's kind of outlived its use because there are certain issues.
If you wear a belt consistently, it will actually with a buckle start to wear on the leather.
This one actually is starting to get cracks in on the leather and it will also deform.
Now, the other thing with the buckle, you've got to actually put a hole right in the leather.
The issue with this is you only need on average belt, you're going to see about five.
They are an inch apart, so you can't adjust more than an inch.
I don't know about you guys, but I would like to adjust more than an inch.
That’s where the micro adjust system comes in.
So, basically it use -- uses a track system right on here and it can adjust by the quarter
inch.
There are no holes on the belt as it goes through.
It's going to hold securely.
It’s no holes, very nice look right here.
And, again, it's got that quarter inch adjust, it is just smooth.
Now, this one is made by Anson Belt and Buckle, one of my favorite companies.
I'm linking to them down in the description.
They’re the paid sponsor of this video.
And for over five years I've been working with these guys for I think over eight years.
I've known the founders and I love their belts.
Now, it's cool they've got this technology thing, but here is my favorite part about
the Anson Belt and Buckle system, it’s interchangeable.
Basically you can take the buckles off and you can match them with any of their belts.
So, let's say you want to match it with -- you want something that's got a little bit of
a pebble on it with a lighter color or maybe you want to go with something that doesn't
have that pebble design.
You want to have fun with red belts, I've got green belts.
I’ve got -- I have, you know, American -- actually I'm heading to France, so I guess I could
say this is my French belt, but you guys know this is my American belt.
And you can get these gift sets.
They've got all these different buckles that you can check out.
Guys, they are a great deal.
And another thing, father-son, it's a family-run business they have excellent customer service.
And they actually send you things like 50 -- over 50 inches, the length of the belt
and you just cut it yourself with a pair of scissors and then you go in there.
But, I had one guy tell me, hey, I cut it a little bit too short, I sent them an e-mail
and Frank just sent me an extra belt.
I mean you're not going to get that from a lot of other companies.
[0:05:06] I've met them in person.
I -- they're my friends and that's why I'm proud to recommend them because they have
an amazing product, it's an amazing company.
And, guys use the link down in the description.
Go check them out there are so many amazing products there.
Go check it out.
Technological advancement number three, rubber soles.
So, we go back to about 1875, we did see rubber soles starting to pop up on certain shoes.
That was when vulcanized rubber and other types of rubber became more common, but we
didn't see it till the early part of the 20th century that we started seeing rubber soles
pop up.
Before that, it was almost all leather soles.
Leather soles are beautiful.
I love leather soles, but they have no traction, rubber soles have traction.
And by the way, you can take leather soles you can actually have a strip of rubber going
across maybe over a back the heel, that's going to be perfectly fine.
But rubber soles have just simply prevented so many men from falling on their backsides
and they're less expensive.
So, again we've seen the price driven down in men's manufacturing because of these new
materials brought in.
Most of the time, I'm going to go leather on my dress shoes, but on my boots I love
a good rubber sole.
Next up, we've got the quartz watch and I know a lot of you automatic watch guys are
like, oh, what an abomination.
Well, not really because the quartz watch accurately tells time and it's incredibly
inexpensive.
Those two things in of them self make it revolutionary and make it why it's so high on my list.
Yes, I love automatic watches, but you look at how painful and how expensive it was to
actually get to that point.
And I mean we're talking John Harrison, what was it like in 1761, he invented the marine
chronometer after like 25 years of testing and getting it exactly right because it was
incredibly difficult.
If they would have had a quartz watch just a couple hundred years ago, it would have
transformed everything.
They're just reliable.
And when it comes down to it, inexpensive.
So, again, you notice how price is pretty important to me because I feel that to be
able to get style and clothing out to the masses is important and that's what the quartz
watch has done.
Next up, we've got the safety razor and as the name implies it was safer than the alternative.
At the time, all men used straight razors and straight razors give you an excellent
shave, but there are some disadvantages.
One, there's a learning curve.
Two, it's unprotected big blade that's going across your skin and can -- if you know just
something happens, you can really cut and hurt yourself.
This was a big deal a couple hundred years ago, when they didn't understand bacteria
and infection could actually lead to death.
So, understand when the safety razor came in, this was a big deal because you didn't
have to have the learning curve, you could more, you know, nonchalantly shave your face
maybe even a little bit quicker.
You could get a very good shave and it was a lot safer.
So, because of all the lives the safety razor has probably saved, that's why it's up on
this list.
Number six on my list, I've got sunglasses.
So, we go back to the 12th century, the Chinese actually used smoky quartz lenses kind of
as an early sunglasses.
But, even before then we look at natives that lived up north, you know, just where there's
a lot of snow, they would use glasses that had just very little slits open and those
who would work fine.
But, it was about a hundred years ago that all of a sudden they started taking glasses
and they started putting something with layers on it that could protect you from the UV rays.
This started out of aviation.
What they found is that pilots going above certain altitudes all of a sudden they started
having eye problems, they started really serious eye issues.
So, the military said, okay, let's go ahead and develop lenses which will better protect
them from the basically the harmful rays of the sun at that higher altitude.
From that, we actually saw this go into the fashion and style industry because we saw
these guys in the 1950s, 1960s, these pilots just looking amazing with these sunglasses
on and so it became much more common.
Nowadays, it's hard to imagine somebody looking cool without sunglasses.
Next up, I've got compression clothing.
Now, compression has been used in medicine since about 400 BC.
But in clothing, we saw it started to be adopted in 1990.
That's when we first started to see compression clothing hitting the market.
And the big thing here was actually in shaping.
That was where, you know, Spanx and other companies like that coming out of women's
wear.
But, what athletes started to notice is that actually it would reduce recovery times and
this was a big deal.
If you wanted to be able to perform at a higher level quicker, then you would start using
compression clothing.
I simply like compression clothing at times because it's going to layer better, it's going
to be fit very close to the body.
I don't like it super tight, but I do like it on socks, it feels really comfortable.
And for some people that have really constricted blood flow, compression clothing can be a
lifesaver.
Next up, I've got elastic and stretch fabrics.
And this is different than compression clothing because this is simply for comfort.
So, we go back to about 1958 and we saw basically spandex and elastane starting to actually
be experimented with in clothing.
And, for the big guy for the guy that basically lifts a lot of weight I can tell you that
if you buy jeans you buy shirts that have just a four-way stretch or even a two-way
stretch, you know what I'm talking about.
[0:10:07] Because for a lot of these guys, it has been
something that they have ripped 100% cotton clothing which isn't going to have much grit,
but with elastic with something that has maybe 5% spandex and all of a sudden it has a bit
of stretch it feels more comfortable.
They're going to reduce hot spots.
So, for comfort, I have to give elastic spandex and some of these other just elastic fabrics
the thumbs-up.
Next on my list, gentlemen, we've got the zipper.
So, before the zipper, pretty much it was all buttons.
And I know some of you guys love your button-fly jeans and that's cool, but zippers have made
it a lot easier in clothing.
What's interesting though, you go back to 1850, that was actually when the zipper was
about first invented, then we get -- took another 40 years to perfect it.
But, zippers were initially actually in shoes.
It wasn’t until about the 1940s 1950s, you started seeing them in various types of clothing.
Nowadays, you know, it's hard to find a pair of trousers that pretty much don't have a
zipper.
I even like it whenever I got a sweater on that it's got a zipper with buttons over top.
It’s just is a bit more secure, it's very easy to go up and down.
I find if you, you know, for older guys or for anyone that has arthritis or has issues
with being able to basically button things or maybe you've got really large hands, a
zipper can be a lifesaver.
So, for all those reasons, gents, that's why zippers are on this list.
Next up, we've got recycled fabrics and I know a lot of you guys are thinking, oh, that's
a modern thing, right?
Save the planet go green.
Not exactly.
Let's go back to the Napoleonic Wars and what we saw was a shortage of wool garments.
They needed clothing and they needed it fast, they didn't have enough wool, so they took
all this old clothing and they basically started chopping it up and they respun it.
And it's kind of a modern thing actually that we are now recycling because, hey, we want
to save the planet and save ourselves.
But, when you think about it it is something that makes a lot of sense.
The issue with recycled clothing when you look at recycled wool you look at recycled
cotton, usually with a recycled fiber it's much smaller and therefore isn't going to
give you -- it's not going to be as higher quality.
So, if it says virgin wool, understand that's not recycled.
If it says recycled, obviously it's been reused.
And for certain things it could work out perfectly fine, but if you're looking for -- you're
paying good – a lot of money for something, you probably want to go with the virgin wool.
High-density thread for stitching, I know that one doesn't sound super exciting, but
understand that your clothing is held together by thread.
And there was a time maybe just about 50 years ago when a lot of this thread would simply
fall apart.
But some of this thread is so tough that you start to pull on it, you know what I'm talking
about and all of a sudden like your -- it gives like your garment gives way before the
thread does.
When you think about it, how is it they get something so thin so strong?
Well, a lot of threads they're using just really -- the way that it's woven together
some of them use Kevlar.
It is amazing what they're doing with threads.
And because of that, a small little thing I wanted to put it though on this list.
All right, gents, that's it.
Let me know in the comments what did I miss, what would you have added to this list.
And go check out the support article, I'm linking to it down in the description.
Actually, I add a few more other things to that support article.
And go check out Anson Belt and Buckle.
So, I wear their belts all the time.
If anyone was at my New York meet-up, you’re at my London meet-up, you've met up with me
maybe in Chicago or LA where I've had events you've been to Menfluential, you have seen
I wear and I love these belts.
It’s a great company, amazing customer service, superior products.
I'm linking to them down in the description.
Go support those guys just a great family-run business that I'm proud to be associated with.
That's it guys.
Take care.
I’ll see you in the next video.
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