The Double-Breasted Suit Expertease

The backless pants or fronts, as we call them, really are popular. You're trying to keep a man cool when he's at the office all day. Yeah, these were pretty much based on chaps from the cowboy era. Oh, which chaps? The cowboy chaps. You don't want to name them? The cowboy chaps who wore chaps? Right. The chaps who wore chaps. And believe me, if you're wearing backless pants, you're going to have chaps. Introducing themselves to you all the time. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly.

Expert comedy writer, Clare Sera, and expert comedy writer, Danno Sullivan, bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Danno, our podcast today is all about the double-breasted suit. So we thought we'd probe your area of expertise. Spelled wrong? Naturally. Danno, I know that you are an expert on the double-breasted suit. Clare, I used to hate couture, but now I haute couture. That's on my business card. Oh, very nice. My business cards are available for a penny a piece. That's one of the sidelines that I have, in addition to my haberdashers. Now, a haberdasher, I always thought that was just for hats.

A haberdasher is a seller either of men's clothing or corned beef and potatoes cut up together. Well, now we're already on the learning train. Woo woo. Um, I know that our listeners get dressed up to listen to this podcast. That's one of the things that brought me onto your podcast. I listen to a lot of podcasts in my pajamas, and I know most of my friends do too. We have podcast listening parties where folks put on a set of jammies, a nightie, you know, a slinky little something, or just a bathrobe. Sure, sure. But that's for your run-of-the-mill podcast.

There's something about expertise that really makes the folks want to dress up. Put on a suit, pull out the pipe, sit it on down by the fire. I tell you, Claire, there are a couple of other podcasts where I'll put on a nice suit and a tie, but this is the only one that I wear spats for. Tell us how the double-breasted suit came to be, because obviously, clearly in the evolution of clothing, we started off with a single-breasted suit. Well, Claire, matching that in the evolution of mankind, we started off with a single-breasted person. I see. It wasn't until the 1840s, 1850s, we were starting to see kind of early versions of the double-breasted suit.

There were great tailors of the time. I'm sure you've heard of the great fashion idol, Bill Bixby. Was he the Incredible Hulk? Yes. That's not who I meant to say at all. Okay. There was the great fashion idol, Boo Radley, who was famous for his... I think you might be talking about Beau Brummel. Beau Brummel is exactly who I'm thinking of. Thank you. Beau Brummel was one of the first wearers of the double-breasted suit. Now, he did not think to do the overlap. He had his two breasts flapping in the wind. It wasn't until 1875, the place was Cleveland, Ohio, the St.

Louis World's Fair, where they not only invented the ice cream cone, the French fry, the Ferris wheel, the Arc de Triomphe, and waffles were all invented at that World's Fair. What a time. What a time for mankind. It's hard to believe there was so much going on. So much going on. Including, finally, the overlapping double-breasted jacket that is similar to what we know today. I've always wondered, you know, men love to, they love to have a pocket in their breasts. We ladies do not go for that. I feel somewhat responsible for that. Cause I sure know a lot of ladies who would like one.

What do you ladies want to carry anyway? Oh gosh, Dano. I mean, the load. Yes. The weight of the world. Yeah. I could use it. Could use a good breast pocket for that. But it always seemed to me that it was a little bit of a waste of space in the flap over area. That's the thing with so much fashion, Claire, is that it's not really about practicality. It's about, almost about impracticality in many cases. Think of the top hat, all that wasted space in there. Over time, men started using that space for various things. Abraham Lincoln was known to invert his top hat and build a little fire in there.

Keep children warm, roast chestnuts. Oh my goodness. Those, those were simpler times when a hat fire was illegal. It was not only legal, Claire. It was considered a good citizenship to build a fire in your hat and welcome the crowd in for warmth. You came into a bit of a controversy because of your double sided, double breasted suit for the conjoined twins. Yeah. So this was kind of a three in one. We were excited beyond belief to get the call to do some special tailoring for these conjoined twins. It was a quick change sort of thing because they were featured in a performance at that world's fair.

The suit needed to be reversed. It needed to be reversed. It needed to be reversed. So when they made their surprise reappearance, the suit itself would have changed colors and the two brothers, Larry and Doyle would actually turn up on the opposite sides. Oh my gosh. Larry was left and Doyle was right. But after the quick change, Doyle was left and Larry was right. How much did you charge people to watch this? My work was done for a flat fee, but they were so excited about it. They were so excited about it. My work was done for a flat fee, but the cost to get in to see Larry and Doyle, the fabulous changing conjoined twins was 25 cents, which at the time of this world's fair, that was a pretty penny.

You could also get in for a pretty penny. And those are hard to come by. It's a shame how that, how that ended. Do you mean the act or the whole fire that brought down the world's fair? The fire that brought down the world's fair is what I was referring to. Although you did seem to, I don't want to say you prospered from that tragedy, but you did seem to prosper. Yeah. We had provided the firemen's suits. We wanted the firemen to look good and we weren't concerned with their safety because most of the time they were shooting water out of hoses, yards, yards away from the fire.

Weren't you in some trouble for insisting that the firemen wore double-breasted uniforms? Yes. Which can be clumsy under certain circumstances. Extra flammable fabric. Extra flammable fabric at the time was considered desirable. Oh. This was the era of just fires everywhere all the time. Things were always catching on fire and it sort of became almost a fashion. There were theater fires, there were hospital fires, skyscraper fires. And so in society, people were almost expected to be able to go up in flame in a moment. I had not realized that that had become a fashion aplomb to be able to burst in.

But now that you're saying it, it makes complete sense for the time. So many of New York's famous 500 gone tragically before their time in fires that could have been avoided, but were desired at that time because just because it was a fad. Well, and like, and like so many fads, it's like, oh, get us on fire. Get us on fire quickly. We need the fame. We're not thinking about somebody looking towards putting us out. Yeah. And that is not the job of a haberdasher, Claire. The job of the haberdasher is to provide what the client is asking for. And, you know, we've seen other fads come and go.

There was the crenellated headgear, the turtleneck made from actual turtles. And you had that Flintrock pants, that just the very friction of walking. Claire, the Flintrock pants, one, the friction of walking, as you say, stirring up those sparks with every single stride. Two, the Flintrock itself is completely uncreaseable. You can't bend your legs as you're moving. You also can't inhale or exhale. There's no give in the waistline. So if your pants did go up in flame, you're not going to be able to blow them out because you're, you can't take in that big gust of air that you need because your damn pants are so tight.

So this was just a horrible mix. It was a perfect storm. You had men in their spark causing pants. You had men and women in their flammable fabrics, which they've asked for as part of their fashion craze. You get these all together at a ball, let's say, at a party. And the conversation is happening. I mean, literally the sparks start flying. This puts a whole new spin on the fires of the time for me. And also I'm guessing it's what put the dash in haberdasher. Yes, because the firemen were wearing flammable outfits as well. Somebody had to dash in and put out those fires.

And the only people who really understood what was going on were the haberdashers, the habers as they were called at the time, but they'd come dashing in and they were the ones who had the sense not to wear flammable clothes. They were the ones who had the sense not to wear Flint rock pants. Right. You know, the tailor's child is poorly dressed. The cobbler's child wears no shoes. The bus driver's child has a car. Is that how the expression goes? And the pastor's child just killed your mother. Yeah. So out of everyone, the habers were the ones who weren't worried about fitting in with fashion.

And we were, we, our people were able to get in there and finally do some good for the people that they had harmed. So. So that world's fair 1875, that was in Chicago. And of course we know about the great Chicago fire. Started by a cow. Well, what are cows made of Claire? Leather. Leather. Leather is right. What are clothes made of? Leather. Exactly. Where did the flammable clothes come from, Claire? Cows. Yeah. Boy, we know that they're inflaming our environment. It's a double danger. You've got men in sparking pants and you've got methane emitting cows all in one place.

Are you telling me the city is not going up? It's almost like, like that's what they wanted. It was quite a tragedy. That was the fire of 1875. The invention of French fries was not coincidental. It was a potato stand before the fire started. Dano, I think it's really interesting for our listeners to also note how entrenched fashion is in the history of America. We have fashion icons here. You come from a fashion icon family. Yes. We have Junto. We have Javier. Yes. We have Jacques Tati. Yes. And Montrose. Those are the four sisters of the family who are famous for their dressmaking dashery.

And I would point out that none of the fabrics that they use are flammable. Not any longer. There's a spray you can buy, Claire, that any flammable clothing can be sprayed with this. I think it's called water that you spray on the fabric and it makes it not flammable anymore. This is safe for almost any fabric except for wool, which is not naturally flammable anyway. And really smells bad when it's sprayed with that. But you don't see sheep going up in flame. I have not. I have not. Although now I'm thinking about the runways next year in France. The Expertise Spelldrome podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome.

Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are. Thank you, Claire. It's great to be an expert here with you. Thanks. Thanks, Dana. We have, we have now, we have ended. We're not recording anymore. So thank you. Thank you. That was a really great recording. And, um, I hope you don't mind if we get a fact checker. Uh, I actually kind of do mind a little bit. A lot of this material was copyrighted. Well, I mean, history, I mean, the historical parts, the knowledgeable, the facts are.

Right. But the order I put the words in, that's all mine. And I would feel a little self-conscious being fact checked on that. Are you afraid of being fact shamed? I'm afraid of coming on your podcast with no payment and having my words, my wisdom, and my knowledge used in ways against my will. I think you misunderstand what fact checking means. This is a podcast on experts from experts by experts. What you're saying is I'm the expert. So why, why belittle me? Why try to disprove what I'm saying? I rather look at it like we would be big in you by saying, yeah, this is everything he said checks out.

These are facts. These are true facts. Well, as long as you're going to say that everything checks out and they're true facts. That sounds great. You should have just said so. That's what we do. We, I have, we have a stamp actually. I wish you had said that you're going to stamp check me. We're going to stamp check your face. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I got a little uffish. No, it's okay. I understand. I mean, it's a tough world right now. People are, oh, this fact, this, and this fact that. What are some other experts that you've had to fact check? Well, we did have a little bit of problem with a flat earther.

Oh, cause that's rubbish. Yeah. So is that what your fact checking says that, do you agree with what he says automatically? Does he get the stamp? Oh, our fact checking doesn't agree or disagree with our experts. Oh, it just ascertains that he said what he said. Yes. Yeah. Got it. It was, it came from this person's mouth. That's a fact. It would simplify things. I think immensely. I'm, you know, I don't want to tread on your territory here, but what if you just had me repeat what I say twice? And how does that help? Well, rather than have a third party come in and verify that I've said what I said, I could just say what I said again, thus verifying myself in the process.

You could self verify. Yes. I could self verify. I could self verify. See, see, I would have to identify myself beyond a doubt before I could verify myself. Right. We'd have to know it's you for a fact. Got it. All right. Well, I feel like I ran roughshod over you there and I apologize. I didn't understand what you were trying to accomplish. I could just show you my driver's license here. And, uh, could you put that in the show notes? We just asked for a driver's license and a credit card front and back. Okay. Okay. Is there any fee attached to this? I know a lot of podcasts are charging their guests.