My Office

Known as the "dining room" by the rest of family, on a busy week it looks like this:

We do in fact eat at this table...occasionally. But this is a far more common site. I used to work in the basement, but I find the atmosphere in the house proper to be far more cozy.

p.s. a busy week for me is good news for you. All the items pictured, and more, are available in the Shop. Items from Chipp, Polo, Brooks Brothers, and J. Press. A ton of ties, tennis sweater, vintage suits, shoes and more. Check it out.

Torture and Anguish

Warning: if you're the sort of person who is a sartorial nit-picker, trolling the internet looking for evidence of someone having broken some inconsequential minutiae in a  hardbound book of rules of dress that no longer exists just so you can inflate a false sense of superiority by leaving mean spirited and uptight anonymous comments, look away! What follows may cause health problems:

It's not even me this time. This display was spotted while rambling through Harvard Square yesterday in none other than the window of J.Press. Yes, it's true. A tuxedo and pleated formal shirt with a red v-neck sweater, in one of the brick and mortar cathedrals of American traditional style. It's so shocking one almost fails to notice the fact that jacket has flaps on the pockets or the clashing burgundy repp striped tie. Will there be no end to this torture?

I'm not writing this to either praise or malign this unusual combination. Truth be told, I think it's pretty silly looking, but who cares? I don't find any more enjoyment in trashing specific examples of other peoples stylistic chance taking than I do in wallowing in a strict adherence to rules.

The clothing we wear is fraught with meaning. Many people don't realize it, but whether you wear a tux or pyjamas tells things to the world. Dressing well is a sign of respect for those you will deal with in a given day. It should also make you feel and behave better. Above all, it should be fun. If it's all about torture and anguish, what's the point?

The Jams

The Boy and the Girl are being raised on a steady diet of The Jams and Daddy's other incorrigible anachronisms. Mamma's too, though her anachronisms are sometimes different from mine. Recently, this has manifested itself in the purchase of the children's very own record player:

Spotted by Mamma and purchased by Daddy, it's a heavy old "portable" thing in a cute vintage wrapper.

But it's no toy, don't let the monkeys and elephants fool you. Fully equipped with a heavy duty handle, sturdy latch and metal corners, it is as well built as any of the vintage amplifiers my friends have played in my many various bands. The animal print is even in Tolex....the real stuff used to cover amps.

Under the cover we find a killing old self contained mono record player...

Replete with serious big fat heavy duty analog nerdy type details...

It plays records in four speeds. You thought a 78 was rare? When was the last time you saw a 16?

Complete with instructions printed under the lid in full blast design nerdy Helvetica circa 1968...

Even that logo is a design geeks dream. I'm on overload here.

Maybe you remember these, only in black. Hamilton Electronics made this kind of stuff specifically for schools. AV equipment, headsets that plugged into booths in the library, and record players for the teachers to use on Friday afternoon along with a slide show. Remember when your teacher wheeled in a bunch of heavy analog and sent one of the kids to close the shades for a "film strip". I do. That's what this thing is.

So I set it up in the kids' room, and showed the Boy how to use it. It was a real rite of passage for both of us. He could barely believe that he was allowed to touch it, given the fact that contact with the "Big Record Player" in the living room by anyone but Daddy carries the penalty of death. I showed him how to turn it on, change speeds, place the needle gingerly and handle a record properly. It's a big deal, my way of teaching that some things are important and special, and deserve to be treated with reverence and care. Then I told him, and the Girl, that for today they could listen to my records, and we had a dance party in the kids' room.

Today, I took them record shopping. For me, it was like bringing them to a cathedral. I almost cried.

We rode the subway to Harvard Square. Our first stop was Audio Lab, so Daddy could spend $39 on this teeny tiny thing for the "Big Record Player". Worth every penny.

Followed by the world's best pizza at Pinnochio's for lunch...

And then a trip to In Your Ear, a full blast claustrophobic crazy dusty little record store in a basement, packed to a fire code defying level with more musty music than you can imagine. My kind of place, I've been a customer there since high school...

The "down below in a secret cave" aspect of the place did not fail to impress the children.

We poked around and I let them each pick a record to buy, with a smidge of minimal guidance based on what I know they like. They both hit home runs:

"piano jazzy jams" for the Girl...

"robot music" for the Boy.

In told the boy he was probably the only kid in school with his own record player in his room. He said "In my class?". I said "No, in the whole school." I told him a lot of kids don't even have a record player in the house. When he asked me why, with a tone of surprise that anyone could live without one, I thought "because most kids parents live in the present". But I didn't say that. I just smiled.

Perfect.



Another Whiff of Spring

Just warm enough today to leave the Barbour at home. Good thing, too. With this mild Winter we just had, that coat has seen a lot of use, and it's just possible that I might i fact be sick of wearing it just now.

The bright orange stripe in this Ben Silver repp tie ($1.99) may be small, but it goes a long way to lifting this relatively staid combination of blue check shirt and brown tweed jacket out of the doldrums. A whiff of Spring, just a whiff...

Cotton khakis make an early appearance. For many, khakis are a go-to year round trouser, but I find them to be too light in Winter, even when temps are unseasonably warm. Now that they're out of the closet, they'll likely make multiple appearances each week until they go away again.

The scarf and gloves I carried in my tote bag as extra protection against late night chill have been supplanted by a light wool crew neck in crazy orange ($1.00) one of my new favorite items. Another whiff of Spring? Or is this sweater a deep breath? Either way, I love it.

If this ensemble looks familiar, it may be that you've seen something like it before:

Bill (my trusty suit form) wore it to the Drill Hall Flea Market recently. Is it mild schizophrenia to be influenced by oneself in sartorial choices? Or merely unforgivable narcissism?

This outfit combines warm elements with lighter ones, drab colors and bright ones, in a way that pays heed to both the time of year and the weather of the day. I say something like this every year in early Spring (and again in early Autumn): transitional dressing can often be the most difficult to maneuver, but also the most fun.



Tweed Chicken

The Girl celebrated her third birthday this weekend. A house filled with friends, family and running children kept a broad smile on her face. Thank you one and all who were there. She received many thoughtful gifts, thankfully none of the noisy/flashing variety....

Daddy's personal favorite is this small soft toy chicken made of houdstooth check tweed with gold yarn legs. It's as though a fairy went in my closet and turned my clothes into toys.

p.s. the Shop is bursting with new goods, a lot of high quality stuff I've been sitting on for a while, including Barbour, Burberry, Polo, Harris Tweed, Viyella, USA made L.L. Bean and more.

Keep It Simple (Rainy Day Edition)

Despite my love for (and arguable overuse) of the slightly more outrageous trappings at the outer bounds of what may be considered classic menswear, I do in fact find solace in the clean look of simple classics at times.  Opposites, by there very existence, make each other better. What's Summer without Winter? And what good are things like Kelly green cords if you don't tone it down sometimes? Besides, matching four patterns and trying to wield bright hues with apparent aplomb gets to be an exhausting gig. It's nice sometimes to reach for the tried and true:

And what could be more tried and true than a Brooks Brothers Golden Fleece navy blazer ( $6.99), vintage 1980s Brooks Brothers white oxford with the oh-so-coveted unlined collar ($5.49) and burgundy repp stripe tie by Bert Pulitzer for Lord & Taylor ($1.99), finished cleanly with a white cotton square?

Below, charcoal worsted trousers, vintage 1960s, with Allen Edmonds "Mac Neil" brogues in shell cordovan. I know, they could use a bit of a buff, but it had been drizzling all day and they were a bit dirty. As much as my dandy tendencies were leaning toward yellow socks, I managed to suppress them (for once) and opt for simple navy with white dots.

All of it topped off with a mid-calf length tan trench coat, complete with button-in wool lining and leather fittings ($14.99), a Donegal tweed cap ($1.99) and a black umbrella with a wooden shaft (left behind at a shop I worked in years ago). Nothing like a healthy dose of the classics to ground you now and then.

Nothing New Under The Sun

The older I get, the more outright obnoxious I tend to find most men's designer clothing. With women's  clothes, there is an endless variety if exploration of shape, color, proportion and even asymmetry allowed that will keep things at least interesting and at best downright artistic. In men's clothes, however, "design" is frequently little more than stealing, re-packaging and marketing. I like to poke fun at phrases like "well curated authentic heritage Americana" when discussing 19th century poor peoples clothes being sold as high design, but a close second is "classic with a twist", or worse "preppy with a twist" when used to describe proper menswear made disproportionately small or worse, some kind of f*cked up. Alas, there is nothing new under the sun...

Note the penny loafer sandal (?!?!) by  none other than Bass, purveyor of the rule book thumping Weejun itself, in 1967, the very height of the heyday of true Prep/Ivy/Trad style. Even the veritable "with a twist" turns out to be stolen goods.

When we reach the point of there being nothing new under the sun, it may just be that the best new things are in fact old things.