Go Big or Go Home

Sometimes, you just gotta do it to the hilt

S/S 2014

It's finally time to pack up the tweed and corduroy, and I've been hard at work preparing the Spring/Summer collection for the shop.  Available tomorrow in the physical store and appearing online  next week.

An Affordable Wardrobe

249 Elm Street, 2nd Floor

Davis Square, Somerville, MA

open Saturday 10am-2pm

Rules of Thrifting : Get It While You Can

I'm not one to complain about the weather, but it sure as hell has been one long, cold Winter. Dare I say it, I'm getting tired of all my Shetland, flannel, and tweed. So to lighten the mood, I thought I'd offer a little preview of the upcoming Summer wardrobe.

Pictured left to right: a Brooks Brothers tan poplin suit, inexplicably tailored with a darted jacket and forward pleated trousers; a no name, made in USA seersucker suit in classic blue and white; a knockout vintage cotton blend navy and white gingham check jacket from the Andover Shop; a vintage 1980s real Madras jacket from J. Press; and an unusual jacket in grey and blue seersucker tattersall check, also from J.Press

Also, a pair of grey and white forward pleat seersucker trousers from Bill's Khakis and a pair of pale yellow silk and linen forward pleated trousers made in Italy for Polo. These items ought to supplement my usual warm weather uniform of navy jackets and tan trousers quite nicely.

All of these items were picked up at thrift stores over the course of the last four months or so,  with the exception of the Andover Shop jacket which was acquired through buddy Zach. Outside, Mother Nature continued to batter us with cold winds and piles of snow relentlessly, leaving everyone in a search for all the sweaters and blankets they could gather. But thrift stores are wonderfully chaotic and random places, and the most successfully thrifters know that you have to get what you find when you find it. If you wait for summer to look for thing alike this, there may not be much left.

Get it while you can.

What's In A Name? (guess)

Silk knit ties in solid colors are a useful component of a man's wardrobe, especially in Summertime. Good one's have some weight and heft to them, but also a lightness inherent in the weave. They strike a great balance between dress and casual, which is often just the ticket for looking nice on sweaty hot days when more sensible people just wear shorts, or at least eschew ties altogether. I have quite a few in my arsenal these days, and they have become warm weather favorites. Pictured above are two of mine in different shades of green. Both work well with a navy blazer and tan trousers. The darker one keeps things a bit more subdued, while the kelly green is the more GTH  ( that's "go to hell" for those who don't know). Both help keep other Summer items like bold striped shirts and madras jackets in check with an anchor of solid color.

They are the same width, and the construction is of perfectly equal quality. Look closely.

Both are made in Italy. Both were purchased at thrift stores for less than $5.00 each.

I've often spoken of the pros and cons of brand consciousness when thrift shopping, so forgive me if I seem like I'm beating a dead horse. While a knowledge of brand names and their respective design and quality is of course helpful in thrift shopping, it is no match for the ability to directly recognize quality in clothing, regardless of brand name or provenance. Simply put, good stuff is good stuff, no matter where it came form. Similarly, junk is junk. With that, I offer this little guessing game. No prizes, just for fun.

One of these ties is from a popular mail order/mall brand. The other is from a venerated American men's shop. Can you tell which is which? Based solely on these photos, what makes you think so? I'll reveal the answer in a few days.

p.s. even more new items in the Shop. With 92 of a possible 100 items now available, we're operating at high capacity. Vintage 1960s repp ties, suits from the Andover Shop, Paul Stuart,and others, and a couple of cheap novelties. Have a look.

The Present

I've been switching out my Winter wardrobe for Spring stuff lately. As I said before, in 20 years little has changed, or rather things have come full circle. I still wear a version of that same outfit from the Summer when I was 16, only now its a bit more refined. Vintage Hathaway shirt, Italian silk ascot, Brooks Brothers khakis and ribbon belt, leather and mesh spectator loafers, and a USA made Polo blazer, all of it from thrift stores. The hat was a treat for myself bought new at the Andover Shop, though I did get for half price in the end of Summer sale.

I bet I still have something like this in the closet when I'm 80....unless even if we've all switched to silver space suits by then.

The Other Navy Blue Jacket

No doubt about it, dressing well, and fully, in the high heat of Summer poses the biggest challenges to the most well dressed men out there. It's true that the colors and patterns of Summer dress are nothing but fun for the confident dresser, but keeping it in check is the real challenge. This year, I find myself drawn more and more to simple pallette of navy, white and tan for dress clothes. Even when rendered in rumpled fabircs, and even when wilted with sweat, such combinations posess a clean elegance. As much as I love my gossamer jacket and my double breasted, I can only wear them so much. Enter the other essential navy jacket:

Navy and white all around, with yellow socks, clean and simple. This jacket is a comfortably constructed linen blazer by Polo, made in Italy, found at a thrift shop for $7.99. Seen here with Polo white drill trousers with top pockets ($3.99), a J. Mac Laughlin shirt found new in package ($4.99) and a Bert Pulitzer striped tie ($1.99).

The linen fabric here really is top notch. Affectation comes in the form of an undone button down collar.

Brown horn buttons, as opposed to the brass of my other coats, make this one a quiet stand-out.

Worn fairly frequently, it's wrinkling wonderfully.It's fully lined, which is a bummer. But I plan to give it the strip down alterations treatment ala HTJ soon.

A jacket like this is really thrift shop gold. Summer fabrics, being thin and delicate, simply don't hold up forever like big old tweed and the like. I found this one in new, likely unworn condition.I know I was lucky, but I would say that linen is best bought new anyway. Like good denim, it will take your shape in its own way, the wrinkles being unique to the wearer the same way whiskering is on jeans. Clean it as little as possible.

Can't wait to see this thing five Summers from now.

The Business of No Business

On a really hot day, when only the most die hard among us would be wearing a suit in the first place, I like a yellow tie. A grey striped suit and white shirt, a business dress combination second in staidness only to navy blue with white, gets placed firmly in July with the simple addition of a yellow tie in a small neat pattern.

I've said it before, so forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse. Yellow ties are a tough nut, but they're great when you hit it right. Grey suits and navy blazers work perfectly, but keep them away from navy suits at all costs. An inexplicable but deep rooted unreasonable bias leads to me to find the navy suit/yellow tie combination unforgivably amateur. We've discussed this before.

True, a yellow tie, even more so a yellow bow tie, is not appropriate for many situations in which a grey striped suit is de riguer. Keep it out of the boardroom, unless you own the company. Keep it out of lower jobs, unless your father owns the company.

But if you're wearing the suit for your own pleasure, and not from requirement, go for it. I wore this simply to visit the city for lunch with a friend before working a night shift at the wine shop. The fact that my job, or any other part of my life, requires merely  that I be clothed in anything at all means I did it for my own pleasure. The fact that it was over 90 degrees with near 100% humidity proves that I am clearly disturbed, and you'd do well not to take my advice anyway.

Getting High on My Own Supply

Sorting through the unsold goods from the Top Shelf Flea, I ran across this somehow forgotten gem:

A nice looking tan jacket, featuring the perfect hybrid of Anglo and Northeast Traditional elements: natural shoulders and a high lapel gorge with a two button darted front; precise tailoring with just the right amount of laid back, East Coast American slouch...

All of it rendered in beautiful silk shantung herringbone. It's a little dingy, but nothing a good dry cleaning can't freshen up...

From the venerable old Chipp of New York and New Haven. It may seem at times that being up in Boston the thrift shops are awash in J. Press, Brooks Brothers and Andover Shop goods, but a fine piece from Chipp is always a rare and special treat. Fits like a glove...don't know why I ever tried to sell it,good thing nobody bought it from me.

p.s. the Shop has been fully revamped with new items for warm weather. Check it out. I promise that the next post will contain absolutely no shameless commercialism ...I hope.

Controlled Chaos

With Summer comes a big fat does of color in a mans wardrobe, most noticeably perhaps in the form of extreme plaid madras trousers. Outrageous though they may be, they are in a way a form of controlled chaos. Their natural counterparts being almost invariably the very staid combo of white tennis shirt and navy blazer, they come in varying degrees of outrage...but there is a method to the madness.

At the "introductory" level, we have a pair like this. For many men, this may be far over the top...not just a little, but climbed-the-ladder-and-jumped level. I say kids stuff. In only one plaid, albeit a large one, a pair of trousers like this can be the stepping stone to that which lies beyond...the dreaded, and much revered, patchwork plaid.

 Level two sees us in these, a patchwork pair from J.Press. Patchwork can seem rather crazy, but there is almost always a clear pattern to the assemblage of patterns. In my humble opinion, these are barely more than lightweight. Comprised of merely three different plaids in what is clearly a checkerboard repeating pattern, they're hardly a jump from the single plaid. The overall feel is one of dark colors, too, the pants being viewed generally as olive green or navy.

 Level three continues the thread, but adds more separate plaids to the mix, this time eight. The crazy factor gets a further tweak by the bright primary color scheme. Yet, as before, the pattern repeats clearly. This pair is old, but this particular grouping of plaids has been fairly ubiquitous in the last few Summers of our "preppy-Americana-heritage-revival" trendiness.

The pinnacle is reached in a pair like this. We'll call this Level Four Patchwork Go To Hell. A real old pair from the early 1960s, made of real vegetable dyed "bleeding" Indian madras, and cut nearly stovepipe straight. Look closely at the repeat, if you can find it. Each column down repeats five different plaids, but no column repeats across. And yet, there is a consistency of color and scale that keeps them in check, maybe even better than the pair in level three, almost certainly better than level two. The higher the level of chaos, the steadier the control of the wearer. It's almost as though the more daring you're willing to get with this stuff, the better you'll pull it off. Keeping your mouth shut and behaving as though there is nothing unusual about those crazy pants you're wearing makes all the difference.

In a largely conservative and old fashioned wardrobe, the best place for a man to indulge in a pinch of controlled chaos is in his pants.

p.s. #s 1 & 3 are available for sale in The Shop, along with some old seersucker and other things. 2 & 4 are mine...eat your heart out.

A Double (Breasted) Shot of Sunshine, Please

Boy has it been grey and dreary around here these past few day. That hasn't stopped me from changing  over the closet though. As I look forward to the full blast warmer months, I picked up this new find at the cleaners today:

Lately, uncharacteristically, I'm really digging on the idea of the "just right" double breasted jacket. This one here is the perfect conglomerate, taking elements I don't usually care for and combining them with those I do...kinda seamlessly.  The trouble I often have with double breasted jackets is the built up shoulder, but this piece has natural shoulders, even if it is darted.

Swelled edges, a very Traditional touch, yet the lapels are fairly wide. That's all well and good, if you ask me. Narrow lapels on a double breasted jacket are an aberration, anyway, the proportions never seem to work. All those buttons require a bit more heft up top for balance. The cloth is likely a cotton/linen/synthetic blend, tres 1960s, with little flecks of white to play up the "linen"ness of it. Of course, wrinkles would play that up even better, but I'll give this one a pass for quality of construction, cut and a perfect shade of khaki.

The two button cuff, so quintessential on our beloved 3/2 undarted jacket is a pinch unexpected here, but I'll take it. It's even got a center vent, and being from the 1960s, is cut a hair on the shorter side, which surprisingly gives it a fresher, more modern feel.

A "Madisonaire" by Varsity Town...sounds pretty fancy.I'm supposing that the "Madisonaire" label and the double breasted cut would suggest that this coat was meant for the city, a bit more urbane, as opposed to something like a tweed sack, which would be strictly campus casual. I couldn't find much on the Varsity Town brand, shy of this old ad, but they do seem like my kind of manufacturer. The Ivy League nuts must love that label. Incidentally, with "Ivy" clothes being something of a rage right now, I think someone should release a line called "College", and sell nothing but blazers and striped ties. There's a gold mine there. The kids love that stuff.

This jacket will be the kill with tropical worsted flat fronts in charcoal grey, white shirt,maybe even with (gasp!) a button down collar, black knit tie and brown suede shoes, light colored socks and a straw hat for good measure. Mark my words, kinda like this guy:

photo: the Sartorialist

True, this guy is in Milan, an his jacket more than likely does not consist of partly synthetic cloth, and that open patch ticket pocket is hard to beat, and his jacket probably cost more than most of my clothes combined,(mine was $4.99) but the concept is largely the same. (Minus a few points for the old watch-over-shirt-cuff-trick. I thought that was silly, even on the great Agnelli. Leave it to the Italians to always be at least one step overdone, myself included)

I think it's about time for a well cut double breasted jacket to make an occasional comeback. Like forward pleats, the fashion industry has been vilifying them for long enough now that they're bound to start speaking the opposite anytime now. I might be ahead of the pack with this one, not that I tend to care much for the pack and what they think. My fear is that creased jeans are the next big thing too, maybe this Fall. I won't be jumping on that one, even if I did call it.

In any case, think about giving a double breasted jacket a try. One or two in the closet is just enough to provide a shot of interest that ups your whole wardrobe.