Popped Collars

The George Washington U law school is catty-cornered from the GWU student union, which meant we got a lot of undergraduate traffic.  When I was a 1L, the look among the college boys was to wear two or even three polo shirts, all with the collars popped.  I don't know whence it came, but it fortunately went by the wayside quickly.*

Pater and I got into a discussion about this recently.  He remarked that any popped collar seemed an affectation.  This especially so in current times, when online made-to-measure shops allow you to pick from twenty different felt colors for the material underneath your jacket collar.  I agree.  However, the whole reason that there is a buttonhole on your jacket's lapel is that, once upon a time, there was a button on the other side so that you could latch your collar shut when skulking around in the cold, rainy Scottish highlands.  The popped collar was, originally, a sporting invention.  In fact, given that the suit jacket derived from old military jackets which had unfolded collars, to pop one's collar in legitimately cold weather today is almost a sort of nostalgia.

If it's cold, pop your collar.  If you really are trying to keep the sun off your neck, pop your collar.  If you can justify it in any functional way, by all means, pop.


*Not too quickly, I might add, for our student-produced follies show, the Law Revue, to cast me as an undergraduate/dancer in a number based on "Unbelievable" by the band EMF.  The reworked title was "Undergraduate," and it sang of some law students' practice of picking up GW undergrads when they were either unable to connect with any other law students or felt that the pickings were too slim.  If memory serves, and there's a video somewhere of this, I wore all four polo shirts I owned at the time, with collars popped, and danced provocatively near the law student who was singing.

Seasonal Changes

After I went to the Nats' home opener on Monday and basked in the glorious sunshine (not to mention April showers), I came home and moved these items--tweeds and browns--to the hall closet where my clothes take their seasonal vacations.

Of course, this morning saw sub-freezing temperatures in the suburbs, so I had to reverse course and put the lightweight suiting back into storage.

I love tweed dearly, but I'm ready for a change of pace.

Trouble, Trouble, Trouble

French cuffs seem to be magnets for this kind of mishap--some sort of dirt or grime or something that won't come out, even at the dry cleaners.  It happened on both sides, actually, and I've had this shirt just a few months.  No fancy solution to offer here.  You have to decide whether it looks bad enough.  I'm still on the fence (and lacking a bit of depth on my dress-shirt bench at the moment).  If I were giving objective advice to myself, I'd say, "Goodwill this immediately."  Maybe I should take my own advice.

[Juris] Dr. Who?

Wore this to an Irish pub in Dallas, for kicks, a few winters ago.  While I waited for my friends to arrive, one of the guys at the next table over kind of scooted over and said, "Bow ties are cool!"  I immediately knew what he was talking about, but it hadn't occurred to me that I was channelling Matt Smith.  I told him I'd forgotten my fez.

Madras bowtie from The Cordial Churchman (can't recommend her enough).  White linen shirt from Gap outlet.  Sweater and pocket square were gifts.  The jacket came, by way of eBay, from an old menswear store in Albuquerque, NM that closed in the 1970s when the big-name department stores started dominating the market.  I'd rate this outfit, wearing gloves and with the jacket collar turned up, at 30 degrees with no need for an overcoat.  I'm going to miss tweed when spring finally reaches D.C., if ever.

Don't Try To Stop Me

Wild pocket square (Brooks Brothers, clearance (can you imagine why?)) with hints of navy (necktie, Charles Tyrwhitt) in the turquoise, hints of pink (shirt, also Charles Tyrwhitt) in the magenta.  I couldn't decide whether the square was too outre or too matchy. The colors are so friggin' rich--why haven't they made me President yet? 

That's the nice thing about being thrifty + an eBay dry spell.  You eventually get tired of wearing the same white linen pocket square every time with an outfit and grab something random out of the back of the closet just to see if it goes.  I would do this more often, but I don't usually lay out my clothes the night before, and I dress in the morning before I have any caffeine, so my creative brain isn't engaged yet.

I would get a valet stand--something like this--and lay out everything the night before, but I think Dapper Fiancee would give me no end of ribbing about it.

I just put down a bid on a double-breasted 2x2-keystone Hickey Freeman suit on eBay.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  Need a little new blood in the closet.

Ups and Downs of Chinos

So these are from Banana Republic, on sale, 34" inseam.  That's longer than I usually take, but the 32" pair I had gotten in green shrank after one washing to the point that they never quite reached the tops of my shoes.  That look becomes trendy once in a blue moon, but it always goes away in a few months.  When I bought the 34s, the salesperson assured me that the pants were pre-shrunk and couldn't imagine how the 32s had, in fact, shrunk. 

So I toiled in the 34s for several months with the cuffs rolled once.  Dapper Fiancee gave me a hard time about this, but my alterations person said that if we hemmed them higher, it would never look right due to the material used. 

Now, having washed them a few times more than necessary and perhaps on higher temperatures than were called for by the situation, they have a full break rather than puddling at my ankles.  Not ideal for chinos, but such are the perils of having a leg height which is somewhere between the standard sizes.  This is another good reason not to spend $200 on a pair of cotton pants.

It Is Possible That I Got Carried Away

Pink and light blue seemed sensible enough as I put on my shirt.  After all, mid-gray is a nice, neutral base, no?  But I hadn't had any coffee or gone for a run, so my brain wasn't fully engaged.  So much color was making me happy, and in much the same way that the first shot of tequila makes the second one seem like an even better idea, I put on this blue tie.

Shirt and tie, Charles Tyrwhitt [introductory sale]
Socks, Dapper Classics [Christmas]
Suit, Hickey (now defunct) [Filene's Basement (now defunct)]
Shoes, Church's [eBay]