Worth Every Penny: Quoddy Refurbishment Service

I'd be at a loss for footwear in Summer were it not for a good pair of boat shoes.In the past I've had many, mostly Sperry Topsiders. They were a favorite for my mother to buy for both me and my brother as children, I think because the store in Charlestown where we got our kid shoes always had them and for cheap. Just dressy enough to pass muster under the uniform guidelines at Catholic school, but soft enough so that we weren't constantly bemoaning the fact that we were required to wear shoes.

A few Summers back, I got a pair by the fabled Quoddy of Maine, much revered among the artisinal Americana set. They are clearly better made than Sperry Topsiders of better leather, and cut higher, more like a real shoe. I don't know how happy I'd be actually paying $225 for them, but they last well. To be fair, I should tell you that my pair was bought in a thrift store for less than $10, and I wear them pretty much constantly from May until September. The battered pair on the left arrived home today after trip to Maine, and came back as the much refreshed pair on the right, complete with canvas shoe bag.

The white boat soles had worn down to nothing, and even much of the stitching was gone, leaving the soles flopping off the shoes.

Literally peeling away. But the shoes were worth saving, so off to Maine they went. A day later, I was contacted by a friendly lady from customer service inquiring as to exactly what repairs I wanted done. I only wanted them resoled, I told her, with the same white soles they had originally. "I think we can do better then that" she replied. What I got back, a scant two weeks later, were shoes with new soles, new cushioned leather lining, reconditioned leather, and new rawhide laces. Total charge was $34.95, $25 plus shipping. In keeping with my previously stated belief that sometimes the best new things are old things that you already own, I now have an excellent new pair of boat shoes ready to go another three Summers at least,

with just enough cozy wear and tear on them that I don't feel as though I need to knock the "new" off them. Admittedly, I may have gotten these shoes very cheaply, but even if I'd bought them new my opinion of the service wouldn't change. 

The shoes themselves may be a bit dear, but Quoddy refurbishment service is worth every penny.

Two Shirts

This blog, like so many others these days, is still ostensibly about clothing. I would like to get back on the subject. We frequently see writing on the men's blogs centered around some manner of dress clothing, but a post about good honest casual clothing for a rainy spent working around the house and performing other mundane tasks can add a healthy bit of perspective. No one lives in a suit 24/7, after all.

Lately I've been toying around with the old preppy two collar look. Though admittedly something of an affectation, dare I say tres Muffy Aldrich, I find it comes into it's own late Spring/early Summer. I find it handy on warmish days of variable temperature, where the outer shirt can act as more of a light jacket over the tennis shirt. I generally stick to solid, light colored tennis shirts under soft old dress shirts. In this case, a well worn pink tennis shirt from Lands' End (bought new four Summers ago, see here) and an old Brooks Brothers oxford with an unlined collar (thrift shop, $5.49). Remember, this is about dressing comfortably, not like a slob. There is a difference.

I know this may cause a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the hard-liners, but I think it works best with the top shirt untucked, jeans, and a ball cap. Like I said, this way the top shirt is more of a light jacket. Shorts or khakis work as well. (I hope nobody out there is zooming in on this picture and keeping a detailed journal of the books on my shelf, what time the clock reads, and the presumed provenance of my furniture ...snark,snark,snark. Sorry).

It can work dressed up a little too. Here, a white tennis shirt and university striped oxford are worn tucked into khakis with a navy blazer and surcingle belt for a parade on Memorial Day weekend. The flag was given to me by an old lady in the VFW women's auxiliary.

In either case, bare ankles and moccasins are de rigeur. Camp mocs with the jeans, penny loafers with the blazer. Of course boat shoes work as well.

I must admit to having some trepidation not long ago about my, or anyone's, ability to pull off the two shirt thing. It always seemed to smack of some mean spirited spoiled character from some bad movie from the 80s. But I've grown to enjoy it, and I've found that the trick to wearing it is, as with so many other sartorial "moves", confidence. It's kind of like jumping in cold water at the beach: once you just go in and dunk, it gets easier. It helps not to have to much concern what others think of you. 

Of course, to be fair, I do live in a liberal place full of arty college kids of every stripe, so most likely I'm just perceived as a Dad whose becoming more and more of a fuddy duddy the older he gets.

p.s. lots of great new Summer stuff in the Shop.

Square One

When I first became aware of the furor surrounding the "outing" of the man known as "Richard" from the blog "WASP 101" by Christian Chensvold of Ivy Style, my immediate gut reaction was to sit back and keep my mouth shut about it. I found the whole thing to be childish and unseemly on all sides. But I will readily admit to being drawn into all the gossip (because really, that's what this is), and the longer it drew on the more upsetting I found the whole thing, enough so that I now feel compelled to address it here. If you've had enough of all this the last few days, and perish the thought of reading more about it, then simply don't. Before I begin let me remind you that we all have the free will not read anything we find objectionable, silly, stupid, or whatever else.

I'm not going to address WASP 101 directly, or offer my opinion on it. "Richard" has long been the  whipping boy of whatever nerdy menswear "scene" a small handful of us have created via blogs and alter egos these past few years. So many people found him odious and foolish, and yet he persisted, in no small part because people kept reading. I will not tell you what I thought of it, because it simply doesn't matter.

And then there is Ivy Style, a site regarded by many as some kind of quasi-encyclopedia of what a 23 year old rich boy wore and liked in 1963, or something. I'm not going to offer my opinion of that site either. Again, it doesn't matter. Another favorite, but again only among our own goofy little clique.

They say there was some kind of "feud" or "rivalry" between these two for years. What I saw was a somewhat clueless fellow making an easy target of himself, and another fellow willing to step in and bully him about it. Bullies like easy targets. They either run and don't fight back, or worse, fight back ineptly and in doing so only add logs to the fire. While "Richard" could have exercised more tact in leaving well (or bad) enough alone, Chensvold could have done the same. Blame, for what real crime I'm still unsure, can be laid on both sides, but there is a big difference between blissful stupidity and obsessive and vindictive behavior. Chensvold seems happy to hide behind a wall of "journalistic integrity", but that somehow never stopped him from taking periodic potshots at a very, very easy target. Making fun of people for the amusement of others and a boost in traffic doesn't sound like any kind of journalistic integrity or code of ethics I know. It sounds childish and quite low to me.

So much has been said about whether a person who writes a blog has the same rights to privacy as anyone else. I agree that once something hits the big ole internet, it inherently becomes public, and that no one can expect full anonymity while publicly writing and posting photos for the whole world to see. Clearly, anyone seeking full privacy would do well to stay away  from any active role in the internet. I won't speak to the legal issues surrounding this. And then there's this altogether too involved discussion of what effect this will have on the career of a state rep. from a rural district in North Carolina. Not surprisingly, no one seems to care except our little nerdy community....because it simply doesn't matter to most people. Mountains from mole hills, boys.

Maybe you found WASP 101 to be vapid and misguided. That seems to be the popular opinion. In that case, don't read it. Maybe "Richard" could have used his head a little (lot) better in all this, but that's not my problem. What really stinks here is the stalking, obsession and sheer amount of time and effort someone has put into "taking down" a small beans politico who happens to have been the author of a silly blog. Seriously, its out of hand. Had we all stopped reading "Richard" he might have gone away quietly anyway. Now, with all that's happened, the whole "online menswear community" (gross, did I just say that?) looks like a bunch of petty geeks and nerds with little better to do than gawk at their laptops nitpicking the activities of complete strangers.

I've enjoyed clothing my whole life, and spent most of it struggling against negative response from the world at large for it. In the last few years, the few of us who care about this almost managed to be "cool", for a minute anyway. Not that I ever really cared what anyone else had to say about it, but it was nice to be on the other side of the coin for a while. Things like this throw that all out the window, and make us look like resentful nerds, and drives us straight back to square one. I find the ongoing attack far more distasteful and pointless than anything "Richard" ever wrote.

Thanks, Chensvold. Good job. You really made your point.

p.s. Ivy Style has been removed from the blogroll. I will publish all comments that come in for this post, but come Monday the matter is closed. Until then, speak your minds. We need to put this behind us, because it really is a waste of everyone's time. No one cares but us, and continuing to carry on about it makes us all look bad.

p.p.s Also, what he said.

Giving Back The House

Pictured above is a heap of stuff recently posted for sale as the beginnings of the warm weather collection in the Affordable Wardrobe online shop. Somewhere  underneath that pile is the family dining table. Not pictured in the background is a comfortable chair also piled high, and a rack in the back room full of clothing in process, as well as bags of stuff everywhere. By contributing to our ongoing fundraising campaign at Indiegogo, you'll not only help me grow my business and serve my customers better with more new items and quicker shipping,  you'll also be giving Mrs.G., the Boy and the Girl their house back.

Please allow me to say that asking for money in this way isn't easy for me. When I first launched the internet shop, I worried about how I was going to balance doing business and keeping this blog true to its roots. It hasn't been easy, and I probably fall short of the mark sometimes, but I do try to keep the two as separate as possible. I appreciate both your contributions to date and your patience with my having to be so vocal about it while the campaign runs. I remember as a child my parents watching the Channel 2 Auction, our local PBS television fundraiser, and thinking how I couldn't wait for it to be over so my shows would come back on. It's a little how I feel about this. I'll do my best to confine the begging to Facebook and Twitter, but it's bound to turn up here once in a while in the next few weeks. If you would like to contribute, follow the link in the right sidebar.

Again, thank you all.

Upgrades and Improvements

I've often mentioned the importance of a good relationship with a skilled tailor. Fit is everything, and regardless of whether you buy clothing new or thrift, the help of a good alterations tailor will make all the difference in how well you look in your clothes. A good tailor can also help with alterations having nothing to do with fit, customizing stock garments and making them more your own.

This is a linen jacket by Polo, made in Italy. In the warmer months its a favorite, especially with white trousers and driving moccasins. My only problem with it is the full lining. A linen jacket should be light and breathable, and a full lining just doesn't make sense.

I recently had my tailor remove most of the back lining, and the jacket is much better now. This is how it should have been constructed in the first place.

This isn't an easy job, and not one that every corner dry cleaners can perform. It will require a lot of hand work, so if you do this find a skilled tailor. After the lining is cut out, the edge will need hand finishing.Additionally, the exposed seams will need edge treatment. A full lining is usually there to hide unfinished edges in the first place. On a better jacket built with a half lining, the edges will be finished or taped with strips of the same material as the lining. In this case, there was little extra fabric, so he edged have been surged to prevent fraying.

A piece was cut from the extra material to build a lining for the vent. Look closely, this was also done by hand. The exposed edge of the skirt also required hand finishing. 

The jacket originally had brown buttons,

which I had changed for white to give it a more casual feel. 

This isn't a cheap alteration, but considering that I got the jacket for next to nothing in the first place, the overall cost is still a deal. The jacket is now much better than when I got it, and still cost under $75 all told.  One of the many benefits of thrift shopping is that with things being as cheap as they are, you can really spend some money to get your alterations just right, and in the end wind up with better quality clothing that fits better for a fraction of the cost of new, lower quality stuff.  Thrifted clothing, far from being a compromise, cab in fact be an upgrade and an improvement.

p.s. New Indiegogo perk!

For a limited time, contribute $40 and receive a tie of your choice from the group in the new masthead photo. Visit the Facebook page for more photos. Ten available, awarded on a first come, first served basis.

Contribute here.

Thrifting vs. Consumerism

Last Fall, I was contacted by group of students at Tufts University working on a short film exploring the social impact of consumerism on American culture. After a long wait and without further ado, I am proud to present to you "The Receipt of Happiness", in which you get to hear me pontificate aloud in full accent on the merits of second hand shopping. Thank you Jacob, Robert, Grace, and Doug and congratulations on a job well done.

Let It Come To You

Thrift shopping is, at its best, an exercise in optimism and open-mindedness. Far from being limiting, when done well it can offer a wealth of options you weren't even aware existed. It takes some vision and confidence, but it can tech to not only look for the things you know are good, but also to see good where you didn't look for it. At the very least, it offers an opportunity to experiment with very little financial risk involved. My most newly acquired shirt, a royal oxford in lavender from the Andover Shop, $5.49, helps me explain.

To put it bluntly, this is a purple shirt, and I don't care for purple. In the now iconic book "Class", Paul Fussell berates all clothing purple as the mark of a prole. "If navy is the upper middle class color, purple is the prole equivalent."-Class, p. 52.  Funny, and true. But let's not forget that books like Fussell's "Class" or, God help us, the infamous "Official Preppy Handbook" were never meant to be the hard and fast instruction manuals they seem to be regarded s today. They were meant to point out the foibles of both rich and poor in a way that was instructive in it's tongue in  cheek humor. Still, I'm not a purple kind of guy.

Then I find this shirt for next to nothing at a thrift shop. It's my size, it's made of a really nice piece of cloth, and it's from the Andover Shop. I try not to be blinded by brand name, but this is one hell of a shirt...and its not really "purple" so much as its "lavender"....and even our man Paul said "colors are classier the more pastel or faded" ibid. So, even purple is acceptable if its pale, I guess.

So I buy it, take it home, wash it, and iron it. I see it in my closet, and don't know quite how I'll wear it. Then today it's really warm and sunny, and I need away to throw some new life into the Spring uniform that is navy jacket and tan pants. How about that purple shirt?

Immediately, I see that this shirt is a lot more workable than I might have thought at first. Yes, its some kind of purple, but it's very pale, and its very well made. I quickly realize that this shirt will work like a blue shirt, but with a whiff more style. Today, in an outfit that otherwise consisted of navy/white/khaki, it added just the right bit of dandy, and it was something I would never ave considered had I not found it by chance, and cheap.

I often advise that if you want to be successful at thrift shopping, it helps to throw out your expectations. You just can't walk into such a place looking for something as specific as "charcoal flat front flannels size 34". You can start by walking in to see what they have, that day. Then keep coming back. Then learn not to be blinded by brands, then develop a discerning eye, then lastly look at everything and keep an open mind. I would never walk into a retail store looking for a lavender shirt, and I certainly would not pay upwards of $100 for one. But in the end, I'm glad to have one. Certainly, personal style is something that comes from within,but it gets better when you step back a bit and let it come to you.