ils thread for general menswear and men's clothing ish

Here is my general look:

OCBD or muted flannel
Plain-ish tie
Cashmere blend or merino v-neck in colorblocky pattern OR some kind of seasonally apt coat, ideally with elbow patches
Khakis, black denim, or lightly patterned trousers
Chunky old sneakers (Air Maxes, Jordan IIIs)

I’m not gonna apologize for the v-neck-and-tie professor look, on account of that is fairly close to my job.

xpost Last year I just got a pair of Dr Marten chelsea boots that don't have the yellow stitching (my optometrist was wearing them and they looked so great). But I see they don't do the no yellow stitching for men. I would wear then easily to any office job.

they seem to have a monochrome black in the 1460 boot but i'm torn between the style of the yellow stitching and the versatility of a monochrome

I vote monochrome. The yellow stitching kind of cheapens it? But that may be my thing, since I'll always associate it with teendom. I have a pair of doc oxfords monochrome too and they got far more use than if there had been yellow stitching.

does anyone just rip their clothes to shreds in the course of normal use??

Yes and it's hard with women's clothes because the fabrics tend to be delicate. Sweaters always get pilled and abraded under the arms from swinging my arms when I walk, pants wear out in the thigh/crotch, shoes get walked down quickly and soles/heel pads always need replacing (if you can find a cobbler who does it), fabrics don't launder well, and on and on. I sometimes wonder if people who get in their cars and drive to work have these problems or if it's because we do so much walking in NYC.

actually this might be the best of both worlds. apparently these are made in the former dr marten's factory https://www.solovairdirect.com/collections/soloviar-boots/products/solovair-8-eye-derby-in-black

i like those boots.

xpost the water where I am is very very hard and I have noticed that my clothes are wearing out super fast.

1. I am so old and so unhip that my "professor look" is still a tweed sportcoat with actual leather elbow patches. Dress it up with a tie and a white shirt; dress it down with a striped shirt and no tie. I am a 70s/80s creature. The punchability of Joseph Gordon Levitt is just not a factor in how I get dressed each day.

2. Rip, jim, man alive, what the hell are you doing with your crotches? This has never happened to me. I buy like Banana Republic or Lands End chinos. After four or five years they start to fray around the hems, but the crotches are intact. This is while doing normal stuff, but also vigorous playing with small children, biking for errands, walking in urban settings, etc.

3. Will, sorry but I am not going to be uncomfortable for weeks in order to hit some future nirvana of comfort that may last for a year or so before I need to repeat the process. That is not a good advertisement for your sartorial vision. See above; one can buy clothes that are already comfortable. I look like a burb dad a lot of the time, sure, but I AM a burb dad so it fits. And I'm not waddling like a penguin for a month waiting for my jeans to hit the right degree of broken-in-ness. Sorry for the strident tone but sheesh.

I have a tweed overcoat with leather elbow patches. I love the look,

it isn't as bad as you make it sound, they're just a little stiff for a while. and you can even mitigate that in most cases with a cold water soak when you get the jeans. and you don't need to repeat the process every year. i'm saying that's exactly what you /don't/ need to do. two pairs each ended up with a totally repairable tear after about two years of FREQUENT wear, and have since been repaired and are still in rotation and look great. honestly barring significant changes in weight, or some kind of jeans disaster, i should not need to buy another pair of jeans for the next ten years or so. seriously.

also like i said it isn't for everyone, but like honestly complaining about the comfort makes no sense to me. i find EVERY pair of jeans i buy to be uncomfortable at first, particularly random levi's, because no two pairs (even in the same fabric, in the same size, in the same store, on the same day!) ever seem to fit the same, and they hug the love handles or the crotch wrong or they sag or they ride up, and you kinda just get used to them, and they never change -- they just feel 10-30% uncomfortable until the crotch blows out and you throw them in the trash. with raw, at least in my experience, you feel like that for a couple of months, but eventually they feel like they were custom-made for your body. the pair i am wearing right now are more comfortable than any jeans i've ever worn.

and inner thigh rips are not caused by doing crazy shit in your jeans, it's from your thighs rubbing together, which for some of us is inescapable.

cambridge analytica bro, as discussed on this thread

‘Wylie...has been hired as a consultant for H&M. He’ll basically use data and AI to help the brand better understand its consumers and their online habits’ https://t.co/Xmrxtd311D

— Tim Maughan (@timmaughan) February 1, 2019

physician heal thyself lol

great

He's really made this work for him

Chelsea boots are the new square-toed shoes. Fight me.

chelsea boots should be inaugurated as a classic, never fail. It has been there for at least 10 years.

i don't like them but i hate most laceless shoes so i am biased in this case

they're fugly

TBF, they are not as hideous as square-toed shoes, but there is something off about them, plus they are becoming a go-to for the same douchebags that were wearing walnut oxfords with jeans a few years ago (a look that is actually fine but just got played out and ruined by association)

henlo fellow mem will you give me shoes advice??

I just want a pair of stylish but basic wide-width black dress shoes. My habit for the past 5 years has been buying a cheapish pair from Century 21 or Nordstrom Rack for like $50, and they inevitably fall apart within a year (of near-daily use), and I buy another pair. I've tried to go up to $100 with like Aldo and Steve Madden, and they also fall apart just as fast, so I'm like fuck it, why bother spending any more than $50

Are there shoes around $100 that actually last longer, or is my only alternative to spend like $200+ on resole-able shoes and get them resoled (which iirc costs just as much as a cheapish pair of dress shoes anyway???)

is there any hope for me?

I don't know men's shoes but you can def extend the life if you find a cobbler/shoe repair place and have them put rubber layers on the shoe and heel and have the rubber replaced instead of the sole wearing through.

In the $100 range you can get ok quality in brands like Johnston & Murphy, Bostonian, Florsheim but they will def be a bit trad/conservative. Maybe you can find a style you like and make it work. Otherwise, I just bought some Allen Edmonds factory seconds for around $200 and they are super nice def last if taken care of -- sometimes their more stylish shoes are actually the ones more likely to go on clearance since a lot of their customers are bankers and lawyers.

Oh, also look for brands like AE, Loake, Church's etc. on ebay -- often you can find something with pretty limited wear for around $100. And even a worn pair of good quality dress shoes can look v stylish imo.

Also the higher-end brands like AE still make most styles in multiple widths, whereas most brands have gone to a single width. I was able to get my factory seconds in E.

in orbit's advice is very good. do that and you shouldn't need to resole nearly as often. wearing dress shoes year-round in the northeast places a premium on shoe care.

i think you may have reached the floor for what you can spend on shoes annually tbh.

repairing more expensive shoes is not going to work out cheaper.

if you object to the waste or want nicer shoes then it's a good plan.

Yeah, IME it's kind of a wash in the long run to keep buying new cheaper shoes when they wear out vs resoling/taking care of more expensive shoes. But in the latter case you get nicer shoes.

And you don’t throw so many shoes in the garbage

Honestly I’ve had tons of luck buying secondhand on eBay. AE, brooks brothers, Alden, and I’ve never spent for than $80.

*more

Yeah, IME it's kind of a wash in the long run to keep buying new cheaper shoes when they wear out vs resoling/taking care of more expensive shoes. But in the latter case you get nicer shoes.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, February 6, 2019 5:58 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You can still buy the less expensive shoes and then have them protected at the cobbler and get more wear out of them! Unless the upper is cracking or falling apart--that I can't help. But if the sole and/or heel are the point of most wear, a cobbler is your answer.

I guess if the uppers are cracking you might be able to give them longer life by wiping/brushing down and using shoe trees?

you can, but IME the uppers on cheap shoes wear out too bc either the seams start to go or the leather is just not good and starts to look ugly beyond what polish can fix

Yeah, IME it's kind of a wash in the long run to keep buying new cheaper shoes when they wear out vs resoling/taking care of more expensive shoes. But in the latter case you get nicer shoes.

Totally. I accept my boot habit is about having nice boots, not saving money in the long run. Resoling costs do almost vanish if you commit for a few years and accumulate several pairs to rotate, but to be real you're deep in at that point and you're more than likely planning a visit to the Northampton factory shops. Another visit to the Northampton factory shops.

Generally agree with all the above - got some great 2nd-hand things for <£100 on eBay - Trickers, Crockett & Jones. Main washout was because my creasing on the vamp mashed into the previous owner's creasing and they ended up looking just fucked up rather than lived in.

And yup get rubber on the soles and heels (once tried metal where my heels wear. Sounded like I was tap dancing whenever I was off carpet). But shoddy shoes used to split at the welt near the ball of the foot for me. Harder to fix.

I guess if the uppers are cracking you might be able to give them longer life by wiping/brushing down and using shoe trees?

― chinavision!, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 8:02 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. I started my new shoe life last year by buying a couple pairs to rotate every other day as well as using shoe trees and horns. I did this specifically because I bought fancier $200+ shoes and didn't want to risk fucking them up, but I imagine that the same treatment might work out alright for cheaper shoes too. I had just never thought of it back then.

I condition all my leather shoes and bags like quarterly even if I don't wear them.

also re: Chelseas. Lovely when done well, but they aren't for me. I'm broad/stocky and not quite made to pull off that skinny/pointy thing they suit when done sharply. tbh they feel a bit Jeremy Clarkson/Cameron-on-the-weekend if you get them even slightly wrong.

Oh I definitely agree that better shoes and better leather will last longer. Corrected grain just isn’t made to last but I’m just thinking of what could extend the life of any shoes.

Try not going anywhere

what are the best northampton shoe shops?

I've only been once - got a pair of grain leather chukkas (brecons) from the Crockett and Jones shop for about half-price. Love them. aiui it's a bit of a lottery since it depends on what seconds have come through, but the selection was p good at C&J when I went. I'd probably look at Church's and Tricker's too if I went back. If I could get out to Desborough I'd like to visit the Cheaney shop.

I'm in Northampton a fair bit so I should investigate

This site's messy, but has most of the basic info:
https://northamptonshoes.com
Often some recent-ish reports from the shops on menswear forums, but that does mean you have to visit menswear forums.

Bowties C or D.

A former girlfriend once described my style as "drunk English professor" and my reaction was "eh. I can live with that."

I have a few self-tie (that is, non-pre-tied) bowties dating back to the 80s/90s. Kinda prided myself on knowing how to tie them and on keeping a dying art alive.

Then I put them away for a long time because they seemed too twee even for me. I am not a 60-year-old lawyer in Charleston. Around the same time I ditched all the Festive Novelty Ties. I am also not a 24-year-old sales guy. I embraced quiet dignity, then telework (where some days I wore the same t-shirt I slept in).

Then for some reason I started wearing bowties again. Maybe once or twice a year? People freak the fuck OUT. All the women in the office are like "ooooh, look at you, all dapper!"

About a year ago, we went through a phase at the office where three out of the 6 men on staff were wearing bowties on a daily basis. I bought some ties and spent a lot of time practicing how to tie them, but it wasn't easy because all of the mirrors in my house are too short for me. I actually got one tied perfectly once and then gave up. I'd like to give it another try sometime before spring rolls around though.

bowties never imo. Everyone who tries to wear them in the spirit of "let's make bowties cool" still winds up looking like a bowtie guy, because there have been generations of bowtie guys who think "let's make bowties cool."

Bowties feel like those someone on Twitter whose bio is "Wordsmith. Flaneur. Lover of gin. Father."

Like those someone

I have one friend from law school who just goes all out with the bowtie guy thing and makes it work, but he is a Waspy guy with a long waspy name and a hairline halfway back on his head who fixes himself and his wife cocktails and enjoys gilbert and sullivan. He is just sincerely and wholesomely all the way that guy.