Corduroys: The perfect winter trousers



What happened to cords?

I swear, they used to be everywhere. Remember? I know I’m not crazy. I have these distinct memories of my parents buying me wide-wale cords at Kohl’s, or maybe it was JCPenney, or maybe it was Target.

A worn-in pair of corduroys are comfortable like a pair of sweatpants, yet dignified and strong.

Wherever it was, it wasn’t anywhere particularly fancy. Corduroys were standard and easy to find. They were what we wore when the weather got cold. I remember getting them before school every year. Boys wore them, older kids wore them, dads wore them, grandpas wore them. Everyone wore them.

But gradually, something strange happened. Our culture started shifting away from classically influenced clothing and moving toward sport-influenced clothing.

Sweatpants nation

Think back into the foggy recesses of your mind. Tug on those dusty memories. If you think hard, you can probably remember a time when guys wore chinos instead of sweatpants. Or leather shoes instead of sneakers. When more guys wore ties to work and fewer wore T-shirts. When every man had a sport coat in his closet. When cords were common and unremarkable.

If you have never thought about any of this, you might be wondering for the first time, “Oh yeah, what ever happened to cords?” It’s one of those things that happened very slowly, so it’s hard to pin down an exact year they faded. They just vanished from the mainstream.

A true tragedy, because cords are the perfect winter trousers.

Seasonal classic

Even though cords have shrunk in terms of their popularity, you can still find them if you know where to look. It may not be easy to hunt down 100% cotton cords with no stretch added, but you can do it. I recommend J. Press, Cordings, or J. Crew. These aren’t cheap pants, but they are great pants. Unfortunately, because cords are not as common as they once were, we end up paying a premium for what was standard just a few decades ago.

Cords are warm and cozy. The fabric is luxurious. A worn-in pair of corduroys are comfortable like a pair of sweatpants, yet dignified and strong. Classic clothing — like cords — understands the seasons. The summer pieces feel inexplicably like summer, and the winter pieces feel undeniably like winter. Classic clothing helps us feel both season and time in our clothes. This adds a natural variance to life.

When you bring your summer shirts out of storage, it’s exciting. When you wear your overcoat for the first time after the temperature drops, you have an extra skip in your step. Classic seasonal clothing allows us to reflect the changing world around us. It’s deeply organic. It feels whole. You would never wear a pair of cords in the spring or the summer, but you would in the autumn or the winter. Cords solidify an outfit as being autumnal or wintery.

A shot of color

While a simple pair of neutral cords is a must-have, cords don’t only come in navy or brown. Cords are fascinating in that there is a tradition of them being bold and bright. Red cords, yellow cords, purple cords, green cords. These are all classic iterations. This is something very unique. We don’t see this kind of adventure in other classic pairs of pants. Cords are very special for this reason. Bright and colorful, yet traditional and classic.

The bright and colorful cords of the winter are like the brightly painted houses you see near a gloomy fjord in Norway. They are a shot of color in the darkness of winter. A bright reminder when the sun hasn’t shined in weeks. They are indefatigable optimism when everything feels grim. They are a supremely unique instance when you can wear red pants as part of a traditional outfit.

When working with a pair of brown or navy cords, you have many options with your shirt. Take your pick of an OCBD, and it will most likely work great. When working with a pair of bright and colorful cords, you want to keep your shirt simple. Stick with white or light blue to make sure you don’t look clownish. Too many colorful pieces is never a good idea.

Flexible formality

Cords are incredibly flexible in terms of formality. You can dress cords up and you can dress cords down. Cords work great when paired with an OCBD, loafers, navy blazer, and knit tie. They also work great with bean boots, an OCBD, and a Shetland wool sweater thrown on top.

The rich texture of corduroy is unparalleled. Whether you are wearing fine wale or wide wale, there is no other pant in our wardrobe that offers this level of textural interest. The only other classical fabric that comes close is seersucker. The grooves of corduroy feel nice to the touch, and the unique texture adds a subtle point of interest to every outfit. Often, we think of color when we are considering interesting points in an outfit. But texture plays its own role. Cords are a wonderful reminder of that.

Winter can be depressing. The weather is often oppressive. Our mood can turn dour. The mundanity of it all can get to you. But cords give us something in our closet to look forward to. They are fun. They are comfortable. They are interesting. They are cozy. They can be bright and colorful. They are classic and traditional. They are the perfect winter pant.

Polo shirts should not be made of polyester



No shirt is more ubiquitous in men's closets today than the polo shirt.

And with good reason. It's the shirt you throw on when you want to wear more than a T-shirt but less than a button-up: a middle-ground that's a safe bet for most occasions in this post-business-casual world. Which is why it's a daily go-to for millions of men.

The 100% pique knit cotton polo, by contrast, only looks better with age. When the placket shows wear and tear, it feels welcoming.

But not all polo shirts are created equal. Some are hardier than others. Some wear better than others. Some last longer than others. Some look more classic than others. Simply put, some are better than others.

Tragically, the most commonly found polo shirts are some of the worst polo shirts. They are the polo shirts that should be cast into a great volcano on some distant tropical island. They are the polo shirts that don’t even deserve to be a rag in your garage. They are the polo shirts that look like the uniform for a low-level data analyst at a nuclear waste treatment facility in the distant future.

They are the sleek, shiny, polyester monstrosities known as "performance" or "Dri-FIT" polos.

Polo shirts can be unflattering. They can be unforgiving. Even the nicest ones can be tough to wear. The way they are constructed and the general thinness of the fabric tend to reveal any imperfections in one’s physique. If you are carrying any extra weight around, a polo shirt is going to throw it in your face.

If you ever wonder why you never look that good in a polo, this is the answer.

You aren’t alone. And if all this is true with the nicest polos — 100% thick pique cotton knit polos — it is all the more true with their garishly colored petroleum-based counterparts. The main way these garments "perform" is by reliably making you look much worse than you need to.

They do this by being utterly redundant. A "sporty" version of the polo shirt? The polo shirt has always been sporty — it was "athleisure" a century before the category existed.

The polo shirt was originally meant for tennis. French champion René Lacoste created it in 1926 as a more comfortable alternative to the long-sleeved white button-ups men usually wore on the court.

Short sleeves. Pique knit cotton. An unstructured, flat collar. Hard to improve on that. And for years, nobody tried. Until our scientific hubris got the best of us. What if we made these out of plastic? And in colors undreamed of in nature? We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, we didn't stop to think if we should.

But these polos are "moisture wicking," they'll tell you. Nonsense. The claim that moisture-wicking is desperately needed for comfort during normal daily life is a delusion. If it’s so hot that a pique cotton knit polo isn’t cool enough for your daily life, then a short-sleeve linen button-up is in order. Nothing is cooler. Nothing is more classic.

The synthetic Dri-FIT polo, like all synthetic things, ages terribly. With every bit of wear, the shirt looks worse. There is no expectation that the shirt will be broken in one day. There is no repairing or mending that will ever be done. The synthetic polo is meant to be tossed the day that it starts showing any kind of wear and tear.

The 100% pique knit cotton polo, by contrast, only looks better with age. When the placket shows wear and tear, it feels welcoming. The more broken in, the more comfortable it becomes. The nick on the collar feels like a worn handrail. The fabric is subdued and quiet. The thickness of the knit is forgiving.

A synthetic polo leads you down a path of disposability. It looks best with disposable pants and disposable shoes. A 100% cotton polo looks best with 100% cotton khaki chinos and a pair of leather boat shoes. Natural begets natural. Natural complements natural.

You deserve a better polo shirt. You deserve a 100% cotton pique knit polo. Row the boat out to the island, climb the ancient steps, look down into the crevasse, and throw your moisture-wicking polo into the volcano and never look back.

You used to care about your clothes



Every August of my childhood, the same thing happened. The first two weeks were still summer: the pool and the beach, baseball and camping.

But then, sometime around August 15, my parents would start talking about school shopping.

Moms are the ones who make you put on the jeans, walk out of the dressing room, and stand there on display while they get down on their knees and yank on the waist to see how much room you have.

It was an ominous sign that summer was nearly over, a reminder that school was looming. Dreaded school. Hated school. After deliberation with each other, my mom and dad would settle on some day in the coming weeks. We would wake up and my parents would remind us to have a good breakfast because “we aren’t eating at the food court.” We would all pack in the car sometime after breakfast and make our yearly trip to the mall for school shopping.

Nice pants

Back-to-school shopping was an all-day affair. We would get there around 11a.m. We had to get jeans, a couple of boring pairs of nice pants, shirts, shoes, and winter jackets if we had grown out of them.

Sometimes my brother and I would split off and go with my dad to look for clothes — the easy stuff: socks, underwear, undershirts. My dad wasn’t a clothes hound. He never spent five minutes inspecting the rise on our jeans, checking to see if they really fit well or if they were the right length.

Moms are the ones who make you put on the jeans, walk out of the dressing room, and stand there on display while they get down on their knees and yank on the waist to see how much room you have. Tugging on the fabric and hiking up the jeans, embarrassing you in front of any random people who might walk by. You’ll never see them again, but you were always so embarrassed. “Mom!”

Mall malaise

Dads, generally, just want to get out of there. Or that’s how my dad was. He dreaded going to the mall for school shopping. I would say that walking around the mall, waiting for my mom and sister to finish whatever they were doing, was one of the things my dad detested most. But for us kids, it was a great day. School shopping at the mall was probably the only thing that made going to back to school somewhat bearable.

School stinks. Who wants to go back to sitting at a desk after running around outside all summer? No kid in their right mind wants to be cooped up in some classroom while the sun is still high. Resting your head against the smooth painted concrete wall, looking forlorn, gazing out at the bright green grass calling you through the sealed window. Let me out!

Carnival of shoes

But getting new clothes was fun. It made going back to school worth it, kind of. It felt like you had a chance to be a new person this year. I imagined how different my life would be if I had cool new skate shirts from World Industries, real JNCO jeans (I always had off-brand knock-offs — the leg opening wasn’t ever that wide), and a pair of skate shoes that were way more expensive than what I got last year.

Shoe Carnival was a highlight. Walking back and forth down the aisles, dreaming about which pair of shoes I would end up with. The really pricey ones were never an option. Eventually I learned I shouldn’t even try. I would finally select a few options. My mom would come over. I would put a pair on and she would have me walk down the aisle and then back again. She would study the way I walked like an Olympic judge.

She did this all while the Shoe Carnival employee was there watching, of course. Then she would take her thumb and press down at the tip of the toe to make sure I had enough room to grow over the course of the next year. She would press down hard three or four times, manhandling the shoe in focused judgement.

It was so embarrassing. But why, exactly? In what world does a 12-year-old get to pick out his own shoes without his parents taking a second look? No world. But when you are 12, you want that to be your world.

Natural fit

Kids are excited to get new clothes for school because they are new things and kids like to get new things. But kids also like their clothes. They might not talk openly about the clothes they like; they would rather talk about the clothes they don’t like. They don’t necessarily have the language at their disposal. Nevertheless, they have opinions about their clothes and they like when they get new clothes.

True, they don’t like them like we do. They don’t care about nice quality or anything particularly advanced. They just want a cool-looking shirt. But they do care in their own way.

It’s a natural thing to care about your clothes. Kids, for better and worse, exemplify us humans in a pure and natural state. But slowly over time we grow up, and many start to resent their clothes. Lots of guys end up viewing clothes as a burden rather than a blessing. They don’t really like thinking about them, and they don’t get too excited about them either. If they do get excited about them, they certainly won’t show it.

In short, guys have issues with their clothes. They need clothes therapy. The natural state of man is not one of resentment toward his clothing but one of enjoyment and interest. Kids show us that.

It’s funny to reminisce about those days at the mall before the first day of school, but there is a deeper lesson in these memories as well. We naturally care about how we look. We want to cultivate a personal aesthetic. Deep down, we want to enjoy our clothing.

For the guys who have built up wall after wall to protect themselves from caring about their clothing, it’s okay to let go. It’s okay to remember how you were once so excited for the jeans your mom bought you before school. Or how you looked forward to wearing those cool new shoes that first day. How you were secretly excited to show them off. It’s not embarrassing. It’s natural.

Work from home? Give yourself a dress code



I have never worked in an office. I have always worked for myself. I have always set my own schedule and determined the rhythm of my day.

Back in early 2020, when COVID hit, everyone’s work changed. All of a sudden, people were working from home. Almost everyone I knew was asking me for advice. How to adjust. How to deal with it. How not to lose your mind. How to stay productive. There was one thing I told everyone: Dress decently for work from home.

When no one is there to make you dress decently, will you still dress decently? When no one is there to stop you from being a slob, will you turn into a slob?

Working from home can be great. You don’t have to battle endless traffic every morning. You can work from the comfort of the nook in your kitchen. You don’t have to be on guard constantly, always trying to stealthily dodge cultural land mine after cultural land mine.

You are free to get your work done when you want to get it done. You are also free to look like a slob. You don’t need to wear a jacket or a tie. You don’t need to wear a shirt with a collar.

Honestly, you don’t even need to wear a shirt at all. You can, theoretically, just lie in your bed naked and get all your work done. You can skip the grocery store and start ordering all your food in. You can end up living your life in pajamas. Hour after hour, day after day. It’s all the same.

Slowly, ever so slowly, you become a shut-in. You leave your house less and less because everything is so easy at your house. Your work is there. Your food can be delivered there. Your bed is there. And life is so much more comfortable in pajamas. Oh, isn’t it so easy when you don’t have to put anything on?

“I’m just not in the mood to get dressed today.”

And while these details of this trajectory are extreme, this is generally how it happens. One thing leads to another, and then another, and then another. It can happen to anyone, but it happens most often to those who are thrown headfirst into WFH. For the person who is used to a certain life working at an office with expectations thrust upon him from the outside, the freedom of work from home can have disastrous consequences.

Dressing decently for WFH is a simple act that helps stop many potential problems dead in their tracks. A great deal of the degeneration that occurs when working from home hinges on being homebound. If you look like trash, you don’t want to leave your house, so you won’t leave your house. It’s a vicious cycle. While if you look nice, you want to leave your house, so you will leave your house. It’s a positive cycle.

Dressing decently for WFH helps tremendously with productivity. In theory, you might be able to get all your work done from your bed. Practically, it’s not going to happen. You are not going to be that productive in pajamas. You are not going to be that sharp in your bed, in a hoodie, unshowered and unkempt. It’s just not going to happen. All of that makes your mind dull — and if not your observable mind, then certainly your spirit. You might be doing fine on paper, but really you are operating, at best, at 75%. That just happens to be enough to make it.

You are simply less capable when you are working from your bed while looking like a street urchin. Your mind is sharper when you are dressed with intention. You might not be dressing up for anyone else; you are working from home, after all, but you are dressing up for work. You are also dressing up for yourself, and that’s important. It’s good for you.

When you work from home for an extended period of time, you run the risk of having your life blend together into one indistinguishable mass. Your personal life blends with your professional life. Your work day turns into your personal day. You lose all distinction and end up feeling like you are always working and never resting.

Or it could be that it feels like you are never working. Or maybe you are just perpetually stuck in this strange no-man’s-land. Whatever it is, you don’t feel right. You lose distinction and slink down into a worse version of what you want to be.

Dressing decently for WFH helps correct this problem. Since you are not able to segregate your personal life from your professional life in space, you need to segregate them aesthetically. With your clothing, you can make a distinction between work hours and personal hours. Dressing up for work, even when you don’t have to leave, makes work into something distinct that also, in turn, makes your life outside work into something distinct.

Wear loafers when you are working and camp mocs when you aren’t. Wear a sport coat when you are working and a sweater when you aren’t. Wear an OCBD when you are working and a polo shirt when you aren’t. Wear a tie when you are working and take it off when you aren’t. Make some distinction.

It doesn’t mean that you have to wear a suit or anything overboard. Just some addition of something that makes work feel like work. It doesn’t have to be grand, but it has to be something. That little something, when repeated over and over again, helps separate your day. It helps to prevent everything from blending together into an amorphous mass. It helps you stay sane and the best version of yourself.

WFH is about freedom. And freedom is a revealing thing. It’s a doubled-edged sword. When we are free, we are allowed to rise and we are allowed to fall. It’s up to us. No one is making us do anything. We are in control. No one is going to make you dress decently for WFH. No one is going to make you care. In a deeper way, WFH reveals who aspires to something higher and who sinks to something lower.

When no one is there to make you dress decently, will you still dress decently? When no one is there to stop you from being a slob, will you turn into a slob?

At first it might be uncomfortable to wrestle with these questions, but ultimately, it is emboldening and energizing. WFH gives us an opportunity to dress decently not because someone made us, but because we want to. In an era of ultimate freedom, choosing to dress intentionally is about choosing sanity, doing something better for ourselves because we care about ourselves. That is what dressing decently for WFH does. It keeps us sane and keeps us better.

Iron man



Our eyes slowly creak open. We drag ourselves out of bed, pour a cup of piping hot coffee, and try to bring ourselves back to life one more time. Every morning it’s the same. We are lost in our emails before our eyes adjust to the golden morning light. We are shocked by the digital realm.

Wake up!

Ironing is certainly not some great feat of strength, but you are altering the physical world, even if only in a very small way. You are flattening the wrinkles.

Our eyes are still foggy as we scroll through notifications. From that point on, it’s a race to the end of the day, when we finally collapse exhausted into our beds. In the ancient days, we set aside time for morning prayer. We would orient ourselves spiritually before we went out into the world. Any day could be our last, after all.

But not any more. In our age we are thrust into the gears of the great machine without any pause to enter the spiritual realm. Our minds are clogged before we even start the day. No moments of reflection. No breath of peace. No chance for quiet. We are plugged in even before we realize what day it is.

There is, however, a morning ritual that allows us some respite, a few moments that draw us away from the digital realm and back into the actual. A brief experience that forces us to focus on only that which is in front of our face. It directs us toward the small and the mundane, which, in turn, frees our mind to wander aimlessly and, sometimes, even introspectively.

For modern man, ironing is a secular rite that takes place every morning.

In our day and age, many men don’t ever iron their clothes. They don’t wear clothes that need to be ironed. Many don’t even own an iron. They take their clothes from the washer to the dryer, then from the dryer to the dresser, and that’s it. The sweatshirt and jeans aren’t ever pressed. They are tumbled. And, of course, the clothing suffers aesthetically.

But it isn’t only that. Something else is lost. It’s not just the aesthetics. It’s the ritual of ironing that’s lost.

In my daily routine, ironing comes after a shower. My eyes are still wet and my hair is freshly slicked back. I am working on my second cup of coffee at this point. I have an addiction; yes, it’s true.

I stand in front of the closet and choose my pants and my shirt. I toss them onto a chair, open the ironing board, pour some water into the iron, and wait a few minutes as it heats up. The morning light breaks through the window. The trees outside are tossed by the morning breeze. The shadows flicker across the plain fabric of the ironing board. I wait in silence.

A few minutes later the iron is warm and I begin. It’s a boring task, ironing the crease in my pants. Making sure the front, back, and sides of each leg are all tended to. Taking time to iron in between every button on my OCBD. Giving the collar copious amounts of steam. Going after the sleeve plackets even when no one really sees them.

It’s tedious. It really is. But I can’t do anything else when I am doing it. I can’t text or respond to emails. I have to be fully immersed in the process. And in this strange way, it is peaceful. It is a few moments that are only mine.

The physicality of it is important. Ironing is certainly not some great feat of strength, but you are altering the physical world, even if only in a very small way. You are flattening the wrinkles. Creasing the cotton. You are making a decision to beautify your clothing. You are taking care to do something with clear intention. You are carefully crafting your aesthetic in a way that you aren’t if you simply take the sweatshirt out of the dresser and throw it on at the last minute before you race out the door.

And, in a sense, this intention leads to a feeling of ownership. When we care about something, we take time to prepare it. And when we prepare something, we start to care about it. It’s a cycle, a chicken-or-egg situation. Ironing leads to care and care leads to ironing.

Those moments of care and intention each and every morning set our minds in a different place and direct our actions down a different path. They orient us toward the world with a certain kind of certitude and direction. We start our day making a conscious effort, and that leads to more conscious effort. We have something special in these few moments of modern meditation and conscious effort.

It’s peculiar, isn’t it? It’s so small. It’s so mundane. It’s so uninspiring. And yet we are forced out of the matrix when we iron. We have a chance to be quiet and manipulate the world with our hands.

That might sound strange to a peasant from 1400 — all he did was work with his hands — but to a modern man who is perpetually engaged in the digital world, drawing back into the actual is a brief retreat into something refreshing. It’s a breath of fresh air.

That mundane routine every morning might be small, but it gives us a chance to just be quiet. It gives us a chance to just be. And that’s something we need.

Crocs prove it: 'Idiocracy' was a documentary



What are Crocs?

They are shoes, kind of. But these hideous objects that remind you of some kind of toxic nuclear waste aren’t merely shoes.

They are something more. Or they represent something more.

Crocs are an abolishment of standard. A signal of the bottom rung as the standard rung. Degeneration in the form of a squishy synthetic mold littered with holes designed to let your smelly feet breathe.

Crocs are, to no small degree, a physical representation of a much larger phenomenon, a darker phenomenon. Crocs are the physical embodiment of a culture and society turning away from form and distinction and instead mutating into formless matter.

Crocs represent a society that has stopped developing and evolving and has settled into regression as its trajectory for the time being. Crocs are the quintessential example of our current cultural degeneration in the form of footwear. Crocs prove that "Idiocracy" (2006) was a documentary.

Defenders of Crocs claim that they are comfortable. I am sure they are. That’s the point. Crocs are part of the comfort worship that appears to be a core value in America 2024.

Comfort at any cost is not a sign of ascent. It’s not a sign of development. It’s not a sign of aesthetic taste, determination, or refined dignity. It’s a sign of giving up. It’s a sign of a culture that has reached an end point and decided to sit back and relax while everything crumbles. As long as we are comfortable and entertained, nothing else matters.

If, at the height of the 20th century, we saw men in suits and ties, slicked hair, and clean-shaven faces, at the (hopefully) low point of the 21st century, we see men in sweatpants, sweatshirts, and clown-like shoes.

The trajectory here is clear. It is one of descent. In the world of Crocs, man is shrinking. Man is no longer severe and capable, outward-facing and determined. He is relaxed and comfortable, well-fed and entertained, stupid and goofy. Degenerating.

If you described a pair of Crocs to your grandparents half a century ago, they would, undoubtably, laugh. If you told them that people would be wearing these in public in 50 years, they would stop laughing. They would start worrying.

What is the difference between the oxblood loafer and the neon-red Croc? Everything. One is a shoe made of natural materials. The other is some unholy synthetic creation. One is a shoe of dignity. The other is the shoe of a clown.

Crocs are, simply put, shoes for clowns. They are shoes that don’t demand to be taken seriously. They are shoes to be laughed at. They are so accepted today that it is easy to forget just how preposterous they are. It’s easy to forget how degrading degeneration can be.

There is no sexy heel in the world of Crocs. There is no woman who puts on lime-green Crocs because they make her feel beautiful. Crocs don’t make her legs look appealing or her stance alluring. There is no man who puts on a yellow pair of Crocs because they make him feel strong. They don’t make him appear serious or reveal a sense of intention in his approach to the world.

Crocs add nothing of value and only detract. Crocs exacerbate and accelerate a world of androgyny. They lessen the beauty of woman and the strength of man. Crocs play a small role in making the world a less romantically charged place.

“I look like an idiot.” That’s what your great-grandfather might say if you traveled back in time and put a pair of Crocs on his feet.

Is there any place for this phrase in 2024? Is it possible to look like an idiot? Can you really look like an idiot if everyone else looks like an idiot? Being concerned about looking like an idiot is a fear that only exists in a society that demands that you don’t. That only exists in a society with some standard and expectation.

Crocs are an abolishment of standard. A signal of the bottom rung as the standard rung. Degeneration in the form of a squishy synthetic mold littered with holes designed to let your smelly feet breathe.

The Croc makes no effort to be anything at all. It’s formless matter. It possesses no aesthetic value. It is comfort and ease. That is it. It has no history, no cultural continuity, no story. It requires (and assumes) no thinking or consideration.

There is no thought given to how it will pair with your belt or your shirt. It is not a part of a well-put-together outfit. It is a shoe for an unthinking populace with no higher value than comfort.

When "Idiocracy" was being produced, the costume department decided on Crocs for the standard footwear due to their affordability and the absurd aesthetic that suited the degraded state of society portrayed in the film.

Allegedly, the team assumed that these idiotic shoes would never become popular. They thought they were simply too stupid. Whether these details are all true is somewhat irrelevant. They were wrong in the end. Crocs did become popular.

America of 2024 is eerily similar to the scene in "Idiocracy" where Luke Wilson, wearing a sweatsuit and Crocs, wanders into a Costco the size of a small city. He is greeted by a worker who repeats over and over again: “Welcome to Costco, I love you.”

Sweatpants, sweatshirt, Crocs, and Costco. "Idiocracy" was a documentary.

Man or mannequin: Dressing to live instead of living to dress



There is man, and there is mannequin.

A mannequin is stiff and still. Motionless. Without face and without personality. Without story and without will. He stands quietly in the store window. His clothes are pressed. The tags are attached. All through the night, in the dark of the empty showroom, he remains alone.

He shouldn’t worry about wrinkles; they are natural. He should’t worry about stains; they will come out. Bumps and bruises are a sign of life lived. Rips and tears mean action.

All day, when the world comes alive again, he stands frozen. People walk by, stop and stare, and then go on their way. His clothes are perfect and without wrinkles. No stains and no blemishes. His appearance is pristine and his posture immaculate.

The people get close; they aren’t afraid. They could smack his face and he won’t retaliate. He is powerless. He’s a mannequin.

Purple noon

Man is different. He acts in the world. He exerts his will. He moves from place to place. He lives and breathes. He works and plays. He travels across the sea and writes his story for himself. He builds a world around him.

Man isn’t here just for looking. He isn’t a doll. He isn’t waiting behind the glass. He loves and fights. He creates and destroys. He is action incarnate.

Man must never become mannequin. The day he does, he becomes useless.

Avoiding the fate of the mannequin is a struggle for the man who cares about his style and personal aesthetic.

It’s easy to see how a man becomes a mannequin. One day, he decides that he wants to dress better. He starts to care about his clothes. He starts to develop his eye. He starts to stake out opinions about what he likes and what he doesn’t.

He likes jeans of a certain shade. He likes chinos with a certain rise. He likes a certain kind of balanced stripe. He doesn’t like checks. He develops his taste, and he becomes more particular. He cares more about his clothes. He spends more money on his clothes. And this all means that he takes greater care of his clothes.

La Piscine

And this is a good thing, right? Yes and no. A man should care about his clothing. He should take care to cultivate his personal aesthetic. He should appear strong in his clothes. He should dress with intention. It is good that he cares.

Yet this care can mutate into something toxic. It can turn into something unhealthy and unbecoming. Less man and more something else. He becomes like a collector. He becomes too fastidious and neurotic.

It’s possible for him to care too much about keeping his clothes perfect. He can care so much about his clothes that they become an idol that he worships. He can become so attached to his precious shirts and favorite pants that he ends up retreating from the world because he doesn’t want to put them in danger.

He can’t go lay in the grass because he is concerned about grass stains. He worships perfection. He can’t go out in the rain because he is worried about his jacket. He can’t go for a walk in the back because he doesn’t want to hurt his nice shoes. He can’t relax because he is too worried about his clothes.

He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.

He becomes less engaged with the world because he doesn’t want to damage his wonderful clothes. He no longer wears the clothes. They are now wearing him. They don’t serve him. He serves them.

He becomes stiffer in his movements. He is wearing clothes that he loves, but he doesn’t seem at home in them. He looks great, but he doesn’t look comfortable.

You know him when you see him. You can feel that something is off. He is always adjusting his sleeves, his collar, his tie, his pants. He isn’t present and living; he is always thinking about how he looks in his clothes. He secretly longs to be a mannequin. If only he could just stay still. If only he didn’t have to move about like a living and breathing man.

Le Samouraï

A man should care about his personal aesthetic. He should know what looks good and what doesn’t. He should embody an aesthetic that is natural and true. He should realize that his clothing is part of his culture and it matters a great deal.

He should put a great fit together in the morning, but then he should forget all about it. He should never forgo some activity out of fear of hurting some precious garment. His clothing should never hold him back. It should accompany him on his journey through life.

He shouldn’t worry about wrinkles; they are natural. He should’t worry about stains; they will come out. Bumps and bruises are a sign of life lived. Rips and tears mean action. He should live naturally and aesthetically.

Men must dress well, but not as mannequins. Men are not dolls. Men are meant to act in the world. A man dressed with intention exerting his will on the world is living aesthetics. It is vitalistic.

It is man, not mannequin.

Style for mini-men: How to dress little boys



Last week, I wrote about the joy of dressing little girls; this one's for the boys.

The basic principles remain: If Kate Middleton wouldn’t choose it for her George, it’s probably not the best choice. That said, there’s no need to spend a fortune. It’s very easy to find classic silhouettes at affordable stores like the Children’s Place and secondhand stores like Once Upon a Child.

I think part of what makes Catherine’s decision-making so prudent is the ever-present thought of the future: These children will lead the Western world someday.

I wonder how my own decision-making about my kids (in every area) would improve if I more intentionally remembered the promise etched on my children’s hearts the day they were baptized, which is just as real: These children are future members of God’s kingdom.

They deserve to dress with beauty and dignity. Matching their socks is not the most important thing in the world, and it’s certainly not a moral issue, but it’s something I like to do. Maybe you do too.

Helen Roy

Jon Jons/smocking

These are the male counterpart to the smocked bishop dress I mentioned for the girls. They are a lot like overalls but are usually a light, cotton fabric and smocked and embroidered across the chest.

I so enjoy picking out Jon Jons (and bishop dresses) with my kids’ favorite motifs. The girls have some with ballerinas, and my George has trucks, for example.

Another great part of these that I forgot to mention: Because they’re cotton, they wash very well! Dawn dish soap is my favorite degreaser and stain removal product. Just rub some in and let it set. Good as new, even for the most boisterous boys!

See: Pleats and Stitches, Feltman Brothers

Socks: Navy, white, or printed

I love calf-length or knee-length socks on boys. For boat shoes and boys’ Mary Janes, especially in the summer, they aren’t totally necessary, but I definitely don’t dress them for church, for example, without socks.

If you go for a patterned sock, make sure the rest of what he’s wearing isn’t too busy in the patterns and that the colors or motifs match.

See: Jeffries’ Socks

Shoes

For shoes for little boys, consider loafers, boat shoes, Oxford boots, or, again, Mary Janes. Oxfords are the most formal and cumbersome option here, but each go very well with Jon Jons, khakis, and the rest. I avoid suede because it simply isn’t resilient enough for my kids. Always match shoes and belts. You can’t go wrong with brown.

See: L’Amour, Carter’s

Shirts

As I type this, I realize it’s basically a guide for mini-men. There is nothing I like seeing my husband in more than a classic button-down. White, light blue, and stripes all work fabulously. For babies, the buttons may be too annoying, in which case you can find shirts with a Peter Pan collar, linked below.

Aim for cotton in various weights according to the season. Oxford shirts are made of thicker cotton than more formal dress shirts but still look sharp. They work extremely well in the cooler months.

See: Old Navy, The Children’s Place, Little English

Blazers

This is a Southern staple. I remember the day my brother was fitted for his first blazer at 8 years old. Dark navy with brass buttons is the move. I know some as young as 3 who show up to church in their blazer and khakis. Just delightful.

There’s no real need to tailor a 3-year-old’s blazer unless they have strange proportions. Try Poshmark for high-end brands at a discount.

See: J. Crew, Izod, Vineyard Vines

Pants: Chinos

Another classic. Needs no explanation. I love bright colors for the spring and summer. Anything will go with a navy blue blazer, but khakis are standard.

See: Vineyard Vines, Ralph Lauren, The Children’s Place

Sweaters

A winter essential that will make your Christmas card feel catalog-worthy. Baby boys in sweaters make my heart melt.

See: Ralph Lauren, Trotters, Kiel James Patrick

Ties

Is there anything more adorable than a baby in a bow tie? This is another area where I love to include family symbols or motifs that conform to the kids’ personalities. These are the things that end up in memory boxes and passed down to grandchildren. For that reason, I say buy the nice one. Clip-ons and pre-tied are just fine.

I know it’s the age of fashionable minimalism, but sometimes things are more meaningful than we can imagine. When our babies outgrow us, it’s nice to have tangible memories. Legacy lives in these little things; it’s even nicer to pass them on.

See: Land’s End, Izod

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