My amazing and brilliant writer friend Sophia Stuart (@teamgloria_) asked me to be a part of a series of sartorial anecdotes on Lyst called "What I Wore When." For my interview, they were curious about my experience on Sex and…
Anyone with money can acquire. What’s more interesting to me is when someone does something fantastic with limited resources. There is a popular school of thinking that equates style and refinement with big spending – a frustrating philosophy backed up by countless magazines, blogs and online influencers pushing the luxury agenda. The new Men’s Style section of The New York Times appears to be yet another one.
As a frugal consumer and creator of content that advocates living well and looking good without being a millionaire, I got called out by a follower on Instagram when I posted a picture of a new pair of Alden Chukka Boots. With a price tag of nearly $700, Alden Chukka boots aren’t cheap, and my follower had a point… to a point.
In this episode, I make the argument for when a splurge is justified. It’s all about value and what a particular item means to you. As my friend Glenn Gissler eloquently put it: value is quality over time.
Non-iron cotton is the death of dress shirts. Any semi-serious sartorialist who appreciates real soft cotton that breathes would have nothing to do with these formaldehyde-soaked (and potentially toxic) Frankenshirts. The wash/dry/wear convenience of non-iron shirts has made them extremely popular and very profitable for shirt makers. These days, it seems you have to go on a black-ops covert mission to find a handsome, affordable and well-made white dress shirt made with real cotton. Even trusted brands like our stalwart Brooks Brothers have gone as far as making regular cotton shirts unavailable entirely, at least for any reasonable cost.
I know… “Florsheim.” But hear me out…
When I hear the name Florsheim, I think of shoes my dad would wear. “Old man-ish,” “conservative,” or “uncool” are some descriptives that come to mind. I wouldn’t consider Florsheim an edgy brand on the “get” list for most hipsters.
But when someone makes a smart and well-crafted long wingtip shoe with a quality leather upper, a leather lining, and a Goodyear Welted double leather sole with nice English “heft” to the thickness and width, I don’t care what the perception of the brand is.
I’m on the email list of a lot of brands and companies. The reasons I subscribe include getting updates on what’s going on with these brands, educating my eye and learning about sales. Most of these emails end up in the trash without any actions or clicks on my part, but depending on the season, on the brand and on the sale – in light of my particular needs at a given time – I’ll do some careful clicking.
Such careful clicking happened in the wake of a recent email I received from J.Crew, advertising a rather substantial sale on winter items. A few days and a few dollars later, some nice new gear arrived at my door. In this episode of the podcast, I talk about how I navigate big sales online.
The men’s sartorial turnout at this year’s Academy Awards was notably better than recent years. Thankfully, there were less pallbearer and chauffeur looks produced by neckties, and there were fewer notch lapels, which is another pet peeve of mine. It was almost as if stars and their stylists started paying attention to what is actually most flattering on a man and not the capricious whimsy of the latest designs. And the overall attention to tailoring was pretty good.
We do a lot of talking about tailoring when it comes to suits, jackets and trousers. But what about tailoring outerwear?
The most common mistake men make with topcoats and overcoats is by going too large in the first place, which does nothing but physically diminish the wearer. My off-the-peg jacket size is 38R, which means I also wear a 38R topcoat, contrary to the more popular practice of “sizing up.” Even if the coat has the right snug fit in the shoulders, there still may be tailoring required to get the coat to look its best.
My last spring mattress was losing its spring, and the time to trade up was imminent. I’ve heard about latex and memory foam mattresses for years, and I’ve reclined on them enough times to develop a keen interest in the idea. For some reason, I always presumed memory foam mattresses were the luxury domain of rich people. Then I discovered Casper.
We all love denim. We lean on it very heavily, and most men – myself included – wear jeans all the time. They’re easy go-to pants for most casual situations, whether paired with a tailored jacket and brogues or a t-shirt and sneakers.
However, I think I’m in a minority as someone who thinks we lean on denim too heavily in an increasingly casualized culture that is now going so far as to jam sweatpants down our throats as a legitimate option outside of a gym or a Barcalounger.
Before I get pelted with unused razors from Brooklyn Brohemians who love their selvage raw denim and dropped-crotch sweatpants, let me reiterate that I love my jeans. I own exactly two pairs of Levi’s and wear them often. I’m just not onboard with handling, wearing and pricing a cheap, durable fabric originally created for laborers like it’s fine cashmere.
That said, I enjoyed seeing a good number of grown-up big boy pants (i.e. not jeans) on the casual looks that were sent down the runway during the men’s shows over the past weeks, from more typically casual brands to those with tailored clothing at the cornerstone of their image. Jeans certainly made an appearance, but they were definitely not front and center on solid casual looks.