Upbraiding: New Shoes

These Johnston & Murphy derbies were a gift from a friend after he found his feet were too big.  Commentary on details to come later this week or next.  For the moment, I would like to tell you, gentle reader, that these shoes pinch my ankles and little right toe.  Furthermore, this is totally normal, to be expected, and part and parcel of developing a relationship with shoes you expect to own for a long time. 

You see, non-bespoke shoes are built around a last, which is a three-dimensional model of a foot, often made of wood.  It's probably a composite of real feet that are all, for example, 10.5Ds.  Different shoe companies use different in-house lasts, and some even have multiple in-house lasts that they use for different styles of shoe.  All of these lasts have one thing in common: they are not exactly like your foot.  So when you put on a new pair of shoes, you are declaring war on the shoe's default fit.

Fortunately, you can win this war.  Your foot has a crucial advantage over leather: it can handle as much abuse as you will throw at it, yet still retain its shape.  The leather will eventually, usually more quickly than you expect, conform to your foot.  Short-term pain, long-term excellent fit.

Oh, and always use shoe trees.  They may slightly hamper the conforming process, but they more than make up for it by extending the life of the shoe.

Accessories: Briefcase

The older I get, the more papers I end up carrying around.  There are so many varieties of briefcase to choose from.  Perhaps a soft-side leather one with a strap and some internal supports (I assume) to protect your files.  Or a hard-side art-deco-influenced briefcase like this one by Aaron Irvin, a going-away present from my previous employer. Then, there's the matter of color, material, fastener--the list goes on.  In the spirit thereof, my thoughts:

1. If you dress up at all for work, your briefcase should be leather.  Leather looks casual more readily than ripstop nylon looks dressy.

2. Avoid anything with a strap.  You'll be tempted to use it, and that would rumple your jacket's shoulder or even damage the shoulder padding.  We're talking about a briefcase; it's never going to be too heavy to carry by hand.

3. Silver metal is generally more versatile than gold.  That said, if all of your belt buckles, cufflinks, and tie bars are gold, get a briefcase with gold hardware.

4. Keep the interior pockets to a minimum.  They interfere with valuable cross-sectional inches where files and papers could be stored.  Some minimal pocketage allows space to store your keys, phone, business cards, that sort of thing.

5. Those little loops of leather that hold pens are a great internal feature.

6. Avoid anything that closes using a belt-style buckle.  They're just too much of a hassle.

7. Read online reviews for anything before you buy it, but, generally speaking, you get what you pay for.

Versatile Knots

 
This blue goes with everything.  And a necktie with a thin white stripe goes that much better with a white dress shirt.  Of course, just about any necktie goes with a white shirt--the suit is the limiting factor--but the minor white stripe makes the shirt and tie hang together that much better.

Also, French cuffs!  They're just gorgeous.  Look at how those cuffs fold so elegantly.

Cufflinks from Brooks Brothers, tie from Filene's, shirt from Paul Fredrick, tie bar from Pater.

Flair: Boutonniere

I know some of you probably came to the office in casual kit today.  But I have run into eminent and well-dressed jurists at my neighborhood Starbucks, so there's no room for skipping the suit, even on Thanksgiving Eve.  However, I can let down my hair a little bit with a madras bow tie (The Cordial Churchman) and a watered-silk boutonniere (A Suitable Wardrobe Shop).  See how the bow tie contains the blue of the shirt, the gray of the suit, and the red of the flower?  Love it.

Shirt is Paul Fredrick Super 100s.  Suit is Hickey (now-defunct modern-style sub-brand of Hickey Freeman, which is not hyphenated and still makes glorious suits).

Bold Choices

Or maybe it just felt bold this morning while I was half-asleep.  One of the best ways to brainstorm new color combinations, and to teach yourself about how colors do and don't work together, is to push outside your comfort zone.  There are two ties I tend to wear with this shirt.  This morning, I forced myself to try a new one. 

I learned that cool whites and warm whites look very, very different when they're adjacent.  The warm white in the tie looks almost cream-colored in natural light next to the cooler white in the shirt.  So much of color is contextual.  It just takes practice to get a feel for it, and even then, I keep discovering new things.

The combination doesn't sing, but it definitely doesn't clash, either.

Foggy-Brain Glee Edition

I pulled on some dressy-casual clothes for a still-faintly-ill Veterans Day.  A sweater (Banana Republic outlet) in case I got chills.  A button-down (J. Crew outlet), since I practice law, after all.

Slip-on Allen Edmonds (ebay) tassel loafers, APC New Standard selvedge denim (Mater, Christmas).

After I got dressed, my somewhat groggy thought process went like this:
1. This feels really familiar.
2. Oh, I'm dressed like that guy on that TV show.  AC Slater.
3. Wait, I meant that kid on Glee. [google] Blaine Anderson.
4. "AC Slater?"  Damn, you're old, relatively.  And ignorant of pop culture.  Thank goodness Dapper Girlfriend makes you watch Glee.  She also took you to Wicked at the Kennedy Center. 
5. Hey, I guess you could do worse than accidentally put together a kit resembling the masculine-stylish headline gay character on a hit television show about musical theater.
6. After all, you sang and danced in the Law Revue at GWU all three years. [My five minutes of Internet fame.]

And thank you for the well wishes.  Feeling much better today.

Dapper District has the flu

I regret the outage.