Styleforum’s Most Popular Brands: Summer, 2017

While Styleforum’s diverse cast of members can be counted on to both discover and argue over the merits of countless brands, both casual and tailored, there are a few names which, year after year, occupy the top slot in the interest of our internet tribe. This summer, we’re featuring another selection of Styleforum’s most popular brands.


Acronym

acronym styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum

The Dream: Tokyo at night. You crouch in a shadowed alleyway, hiding from The Corporation, while your corneal implant tracks the agents sent to follow you. They want you – not because of the state-toppling secret you carry on the drive hidden on your person, but because you’re special, destined to overthrow the shadow-government, score a sweet babe, and ride a motorcycle in the movie adaptation.

The Reality: You spent way too much money on pants you found third-hand on the internet. People call you “Naruto,” and it’s not a compliment.


Buttero

buttero styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum buttero shoes buttero sneakers

The Dream: You’re a cowboy. An Italian cowboy. You look, always, as though you may have just gotten off a motorcycle after a trip to a vineyard. And when you wear sneakers, you make sure they’re more than just sneakers. Like your motorcycle boots, they’re made in a family-owned factory in Italy, out of fantastic materials and in fantastic make-ups. They’re sneakers for real men, sneakers you can wear without feeling self-conscious, sneakers worthy of a rad Italian cowboy who rides a motorycle.

The Reality: You wear your sneakers on casual Friday, and you are neither Italian nor a cowboy.


Buzz Rickson’s

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The Dream: You call your wardrobe your “Collection.” Everyone you know thinks you’re fantastically well-dressed, but  can’t figure out why, and when they ask how you got interested in fashion you say: “I don’t care about fashion. I appreciate fine objects.” Your home, like your closet, is stocked only with the finest examples of the last 150 years of design.

The Reality: You can’t bring yourself to wear your reproduction military gear outside the house because you’re afraid of looking like a poser.


Epaulet

Epaulet styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum epaulet NY epaulet new york

The Dream: You support the best of the new menswear movement: your clothing is small-batch, artisanal, and 100% free range. You’re a new breed of consumer, one who cares as much about provenance as style, and if there’s one thing that excites you, it’s quality.

The Reality: You own over 50 nearly-identical button-down shirts.


Gaziano and Girling

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The Dream: Your liquor cabinet is full of aged scotch and fine cigars, and when you arrive at home you change into a dressing gown worth more as much as a small car. People tell you that you look half your age, and that they wish more men remembered how to dress well.

The Reality: Your friends really wish you’d stop putting your feet on their furniture.


Luxire

luxire styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum

The Dream: “It’s custom,” you say to the numerous people who ask you where you got your clothes. Your entire wardrobe is built to your exact specifications; you know, to the tenth of an inch, how much space is between the cuff buttons on every one of your painstakingly-designed jackets. When you see an interesting garment on one of your global travels, you take note of it, and plan to have it turned into yet another hit piece.

The Reality: You’ve never ordered from Luxire, because you can’t figure out how and you’re too embarrassed to ask.

 


RRL

RRL double RL styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum

The Dream: You’re a historian of life’s finest pleasures, and that extends to your wardrobe. Every item is a beautiful re-imagining of a fine vintage garment, executed to the finest standard. Sometimes, you look inside your closet, and you let out a deep sigh of self-satisfaction, because the stories behind the clothes you own are as varied and moving as the story of your life.

The Reality: 50% of people assume you really like steam engines, 100% assume you really like the sound of your own voice.


Sartoria Formosa

sartoria formosa styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum

The Dream: Your evenings are a combination of cocktail hours and black tie affairs, your weekends spent at Instagram-worthy vacation locales. People ask you for wine recommendations, and laugh delightedly at your stories. You are a cultural icon and global influencer; a single one of your posts on social media is worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The Reality: Greg Lellouche, proprietor of No Man Walks Alone and champion of Sartoria Formosa, is swimming in a pool of your money like a French Scrooge McDuck while his minions toss confetti made of fabric swatches into the air.

 


Stephan Schneider

stephan schneider styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum

The Dream: Your life is modern but accessible. You don’t care about fashion – not at all! – you just like to live well. Your house is never messy, your car is always clean, and you’re always happy to go see your friend’s new art show downtown. Your closet is a zen garden, perfectly organized and immaculately laid out by color and tone.

The Reality: You only wear your Stephan Schneider trousers with a company polo, because you’re terrified of standing out.


Vanda Fine Clothing

vanda styleforum styleforum's most popular brands styleforum vanda fine clothing

The Dream: Every month, you’re featured on the cover of a new men’s interest magazine. You know all the best people, and they all know you. This year you’ve planned several trips to sample bespoke tailoring offerings from around the globe, and your trusty photographer is even more excited than you are.

The Reality: You can’t stop. You’ve tried, but your collection of pocket squares now requires its own room. Every time you think you’ve got it under control, a new fabric or a new pattern is released, and before twenty-four hours are up you’ve crawled, shaking, back to the computer. Just one more, you think, as the world narrows to the image on your screen; you don’t own this exact shade of cream, and once you do, your wardrobe will be complete, and you will finally be free.


 

 

Member Focus: Cleav

Cleav is perhaps Styleforum’s best-known Englishman, known for sharing pictures that showcase a well-selected wardrobe, idyllic surroundings, and a particularly nice collection of shoes. Here, he waxes lyric about his youth, and how he’s grown.


Simple, the life of an interpreter.

The day job is about explaining what one person is saying to another, being able to convey that message accurately with the correct tone and tenor. Then interpreting the response in an equally culturally sensitive manner, facilitating the dialogue so all parties understand the intentions of others. Simple.

Thing is, speaking on behalf of another allows you to take on a role; become them, essentially, for the purpose and duration of the assignment. Amongst many parts played I have been a Doctor, Comedian, Patient, Politician, Woman, Prisoner, Barrister, Accountant, Bricklayer, Lawyer, Footballer, Rock Star, Policeman, Actor, etc. etc. It’s a relatively straightforward task, armed with specific vocabulary, to accurately reflect the thoughts and intentions of someone.

With all that in mind, imagine my consternation then when asked to write this piece: speak for myself? All of a sudden, my interpreting facade is taken away leaving myself bare. Writing about me makes this doubly difficult…I’ll try to keep this brief.

A proud Englishman, forever inspired by my Father and Grandfather. Dad was a highly skilled Tradesman who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty building intricate wooden spiral staircases, cabinets and furniture; equally he scrubbed up well as keen to uphold the standards as set by his Father, my Grandfather. Fred was a senior engineer working for Rolls-Royce, building aero engines for British fighter planes in the 1940’s. My Grandfather would go to work in a jacket and tie, go to the Club for a ‘snifter’ in a jacket and tie, yet would relax reading the Sunday newspapers at home without a jacket though still wearing a tie! They both set the bar high in terms of their integrity, passion and commitment and would impress upon me many things that I in turn have passed on to The Flower Garden, our wonderful daughters courtesy of the love of my life, The Duchess.

I can remember my parents being keen to ensure I and my brother were sufficiently well turned out to visit our Grandparents. Short back and sides with a bowl cut fringe, matching shirts and ties, grey tailored shorts, knee length grey socks and polished black shoes, all at an early age. Well, at least the hair got better! We would be greeted with a matter of fact attitude by my Grandparents, who expected nothing less.

I clearly remember my Grandfather’s words of wisdom, including “Attention to detail, dear boy” and “You can always tell a man by his shoes and his wristwatch.” Some things just stick with you; after all, it is often said we are a product of our environment.

member focus cleav styleforum

With this grounding, I look back with no surprise as to the path I took and subsequent influences. First album bought: The Specials. Best gig: The Jam. First grail item bought: black tasseled loafers, second grail buy: English original Mod jacket. Northern Soul All-nighters. Quadrophenia…I’ll save the rest for another day.

When pressed to describe my style/look etc I was stuck as I found it difficult to summarize decades of experience that has led to a personal style whilst still (hopefully) keeping it interesting. I called on dear friends made here on Styleforum (@cleav) and on Instagram (@ignoreatyourperil) who helped me consider that I go with my instinct, rooted in a ‘classic’ look, whilst able to mix and match pattern and color. Conservative business dress with an elegant continental flair? Regardless, above all else I wear my clothes for me; comfortable, dressed, though never dressed up.

member focus cleav styleforum

Little did I know those shiny black shoes worn as a boy would lead ultimately to my current shoe and boot collection, a quest best described as a journey with no end. Or that being persuaded to wear an elasticated necktie as a youngster would pave the way to my never ending fascination with English and Italian tailoring, bespoke ties, shirts, pocket squares, wristwatches and of course socks – after all, “Attention to detail dear boy, attention to detail!”


You can follow @cleav on Instagram

Styleforum Member Instagram Inspiration

Styleforum’s wide-ranging community isn’t active only on Styleforum.net. You might know that we’re also active on Instagram, and that we often feature Styleforum members who use the hashtag #styleforum. Direct from our feed, here’s some Styleforum member Instagram Inspiration.

This month, we reached into the vault to collect the 18 most-liked outfit photos from the Styleforum Instagram page. All of these great looks were found under the #styleforum tag, and one was the feature of a Styleforum Member Focus. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, make sure you’re tagging us in your own outfit posts (and following us, of course).

Which of the below is your favorite?


Styleforum Member Instagram styleforum member instagram styleforum instagram

Styleforum Member Instagram styleforum member instagram styleforum instagram


 

styleforum instagram

Member Focus: Upr_Crust

One of Styleforum’s best-known and longest-serving members, Upr_Crust can often be found in 3-piece suits, looking about as elegant as a man can look. Here, he talks about the reasons behind his interest in menswear, and what led to the development of his own style.


I cannot remember a time in my life when I was not interested in clothing, perhaps first inspired by my father, who was fearless in what he wore, though perhaps at times he rushed in where proper sartorialists feared to tread (the 1960’s and 1970’s have much to answer for in such matters).

My tastes were refined by my exposure to New York (I moved to New York, poor as a church mouse, when I was 24), and by my first husband, a stock broker by profession, and a sharp dresser, with more means than my schoolteacher father to express himself sartorially.  It was his taste that informed mine, certainly exposing me to better sources for menswear, and changing my perception of what constituted proper attire.

As I established myself in my professional career, my wardrobe benefited from greater means, and from international travel – London was my first overseas destination, and is still one of my favorite foreign haunts.  There is a strong Anglophilic element to my sense of style, the byproduct of over 30 years of visits to the UK.

Like many who develop an interest in menswear, part of the impetus for dressing well was visual defense – I was, at one time, about 35 to 40 pounds heavier than I am now.  I needed all the means at my disposal to best disguise my excess avoirdupois.  Conversely, when I began to lose weight, and particularly after the death of my first husband eight years ago, I had to un-learn a view of myself as an overweight person, which had a beneficial effect on both my appearance, and on my self-regard.

I started posting photos of myself on Styleforum on a regular basis shortly after the death of my first husband, which was both a form of therapy, and a source of some initial shock, as I was informed, at times in no uncertain terms, that I was not quite the well-dressed person I imagined myself to be.  I learned from the criticisms (at least those with which I agreed), and have continued to post here, with perhaps unnerving regularity, to this very day.

The process of photographing oneself on a regular basis does make one more acutely aware of the details of one’s appearance.  The mirror can be a shameless flatterer; a photograph (or a set of them) can be more truthful.  I have enjoyed the dialogue between my inner self and my appearance; the daily act of snapping shots of myself has helped me focus on the details of my attire (and has cost me much in both alteration fees, and in new suits).

My style is, for this day and age, very formal.  I like the visual vocabulary of wearing a suit and tie, and all of the detailing that can accompany it.  Perhaps I am like the ermine, at my visual best in the winter, when it is cold, rather than the summer, when the ermine is just another long-haired rodent, and I am just another New Yorker, attempting to survive bouts of boiling heat waiting for a subway car, wearing as little as possible.

A very long time ago, when I was a painting major at the Rhode Island School of Design (until I woke up), I learned that you have to have respect for the material with which you make art – to appreciate the qualities of a piece of wood or stone from which one would make art, and to work with those qualities.  I think that I have done the same with my personal style, working with my natural rather professorial mien (both of my parents were schoolteachers – there was no escape from that).

I have taken great pleasure from posting on Styleforum, and have had the pleasure of meeting a number of other regular posters.  I look forward to continuing with this for as long as I something to contribute to these forums. 

Streetstyle from Pitti Uomo 92, Day 3

Today’s photo selection of streetstyle from Pitti Uomo 92 shows us two things: first, even the brutal Tuscan sun can’t keep a Pitti-goer from enjoying their tailoring, and second, that a lot of attendees – even in summertime – manage to look very good. Let it be a lesson to you: don’t let summer get you down!

Don’t forget to check out the previous days’ Pitti streets style shots:

Pitti Uomo 92 Streetstyle Day 1

Pitti Uomo 92 Streetstyle Day 2

 

5 Tips to Make Your Clothes Last Longer

We all know that you can build a long-lasting wardrobe by buying clothes that are good quality and are meant to last more than a few seasons in style. To truly ensure that your clothes last as long as you’d like to wear them, you need to take proper care of them. Here are 5 tips to make your clothes last longer.

  1. Spot clean your clothes

I know that many people tend to throw their clothes into the laundry bin quite easily and often –whether because they think everything should be washed after 1-2 uses, or because they don’t want to put the garment back in the closet with other clean clothes. Obviously some items need to be washed immediately after the first use, like underwear and activewear, but most clothes can be worn multiple times with just a little effort.

It’s easier to just throw a shirt in the washing machine rather than take the time to spot clean even a tiny little food stain. However, washing your clothes is stressful for the garment for a number of reasons: the fabric wears down, the stitches suffer, the shape can be compromised, etc.

Make an effort to spot clean whenever you can, in order to spare your clothes from unnecessary washes. This is valid also for stains in the back of the neck, which are oftentimes the reason why we feel the need to wash a shirt: buy a natural sponge (those fluffy, yellow sponges that dry up when they’re dry), soak it in tepid water, add a drop of detergent, and brush it gently over the stained area. Rinse off with cold water and repeat if necessary. Armpit stains – another curse for our precious garments – can be easily avoided by buying a deodorant without aluminum (this is the best on the market according to my experience).


  1. Aerate your clothes

Another way to save your clothes from a trip to the washing machine is to let them aerate immediately after you remove them in order to get rid of any trace of smell. Leaving your clothes hanging will encourage the air to circulate through the fibers, and it will most likely get rid of most smells, including sweat. If you enjoy the smell of fresh laundry every time you wear something, you can put some water in a spray bottle along with 4-5 drops of essential lavender oil or 8-10 drops of orange blossom water, and spray down the clothes while they hang. If your shirts are not completely soaked in sweat, you will probably be able to do this trick at least a couple of times before inevitably sending them to their washing destination.

For jeans and sneakers, as odd as it may sound, putting them in the freezer is an excellent option to avoid throwing them in the washer, as the cold kills the bacteria responsible for the smell. Just make sure to seal everything in a plastic bag if you don’t want your next steak to smell like the gym’s locker room.


  1. Avoid machine washing

Again, it is way easier to throw everything in the washing machine and come back an hour later to freshly laundered clothes. However, machine wash can be quite stressful for garments, even if you use cold or lukewarm water. Natural fibers don’t like being tumbled around, especially if other items in the machine have stiff, pointy, and hard parts like buttons, zippers, and chains that can potentially damage them. Additionally, elastane fibers suffer from heat, and after repeated exposure they eventually lose their elasticity and alter the shape of the clothes. Avoid machine-washing at least for your favorite items and for those with natural fibers, and prefer a simple soak in lukewarm water. Trust me, most items do not need energetic washing and tumbling to get back to a neat state, and water and a tiny bit of detergent will do the trick.


  1. Store seasonal items in fabric garment bags

Many people use plastic bags when it comes to storing clothes and making space for seasonal items. While this protects them against insects and moths, you have to consider that humidity is just as harmful for textiles, and plastic bags generate of lot of it – even in the driest environment.

The Hanger Project offers a variety of garment bags made of cotton twill; they’re affordable, breathable, and reusable, and they’ll protect your suits and coats until the time to use them again comes.


  1. Do not dry your clothes in the dryer

I first encountered a dryer 5 years ago, during my first visit to the States. As an Italian who used to hangs her clothes on the balcony to let them dry, I had no idea such thing as a dryer even existed, until my then-boyfriend-now-husband threw my favorite pair of jeans inside his, and returned them to me two sizes smaller. Since then, I refuse to use the dryer for anything that I care about. I am fine with underwear, t-shirts, pajamas, and everything that is not meant to last a lifetime, but I hang all my precious textile belongings in the bathroom (sadly, in the US I don’t have a balcony to hang my clothes en plein air).

I’ve noticed that the few times I washed and dried my pants, they shrunk to a size smaller, only to loosen to a bigger size the first time I wore them, leaving me with no other choice but to throw them back in the dryer to shrink them again. This happens especially to clothes that have a percentage of elastane in the fibers, as elastane doesn’t react well to heat, and eventually it loses its properties.


This is everything! I hope these tips will be useful to some of you, and that they’ll extend the lifespan of your clothes so that you can enjoy them for years to come.

By the way, let me tell you that you guys in America are really missing out not drying your clothes outside, as there is almost no feeling more beautiful than wearing something that has been soaked up in the sunshine.

Arianna Reggio

Pictures from the Styleforum Toronto Meetup

Ken Jim (@suitforcourt) and I (@casadisartoria) were honored to host a special event on Thursday, April 27th at Spier and Mackay in Toronto. The event was the culmination of our efforts to bring together the community we interact with on a daily basis in the ultimate Toronto thread on Styleforum, and I’m happy to have the chance to share some pictures from the Styleforum Toronto meetup. 

Ken was looking for someone to help plan a local meet-up and I heeded the call. Toronto’s menswear scene is vibrant and growing rapidly, but there just aren’t enough communal events in a given year to bring people together. This was our chance to get folks to come out and share their passion for menswear and lifestyle, classic or otherwise – and to showcase their penchant for style!

Spier and Mackay, a Styleforum regular and an Affiliate Vendor, graciously accepted our request to host the event. The turnout was great, albeit during an evening downpour, and everyone got a chance to put some SF handles to faces.

Although a small speck among the sartorial destinations of the world, many talented artisans and craftsmen call Toronto home. The intention of this event was to also introduce local SF members to these talented artists, and perhaps consider commissioning future pieces from them. Many travel long distances or wait for local trunk shows, which may not always be practical. If you’d like to learn more, Pedro Mendes of The Hogtown Rake has really dug deep to uncover local talents and feature them on his blog.

I’m thankful to everyone who attended and made it such a memorable evening. I will be taking the lead (along with Ken I hope) in planning similar events down the road to really bring the community together, and to introduce live demos by local artisans and craftsmen showcasing their skills.

Lastly, thanks to Spier and Mackay for hosting us. Here are some intimate moments captured from the evening.


Words and photos: Hamza Khan

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Review Policy


At Styleforum, we work within a very subjective field, which can make objectivity seem difficult to achieve. However, as has always been the case, our focus is on providing you, the reader, with trustworthy information, whether it has been generated by our users or produced by our editorial team.

Occasionally, Styleforum conducts reviews of products or services we believe may be of interest to our members and readers. Not all products received are reviewed, and the receipt of product in no way guarantees a positive review. We take your trust seriously, and have a strict policy of being as objective as possible, given the nature of the product. As a consequence, reviews are always un-paid content.

Styleforum does publish infrequent sponsored content, which has been paid-for by advertisers and is clearly marked as such.

If you have questions, or would like to reach Styleforum’s Editorial Department, please send an email to [email protected]


 

Making a Handmade Wallet with Pierpont Leather

There’s a lot of work that goes into making a handmade wallet, as you might expect.  Here, Parker Pierpont of Pierpont Leather walks us through the labor-intensive steps that go into crafting luxury leather goods. Enjoy the beautiful photos!

Making a Handmade Wallet
Part 1 of 7: Clicking
Usually, there are several hours that are dedicated to developing a pattern that meets the physical or aesthetic needs of a client. Sometimes, it can take days. A truly deep understanding of patterns and design emerges from hundreds of hours that are spent designing and realizing patterns for projects. It’s the direct relation of designing, patterning, and constructing a piece from beginning to end. This iterative process allows the maker to say “Oh, that’s a bit short,” or “I want this to feel softer” – and to then take a pattern out and write notes on it to implement for the next project or final iteration of the work at hand. Once the pattern (shown above) is settled upon, the leather is painstakingly ‘clicked’ – or cut – with hand tools.

Making a Handmade Wallet
Part 2 of 7: Lining and Trimming
Lining is extremely important to the integrity of a piece. It allows for a certain rigidity, and for a final product that feels lush and luxurious in the hand. After clicking and dimensioning, we arrange pieces together with their lining. Usually all of these pieces (in the case of the wallet shown, there are about 20 individual pieces of leather at this stage) have been refined to a very specific thickness already, within a tolerance of about .1mm. After all of the pieces are sorted and checked, the parts are carefully laminated, pressed, and allowed to cure for some time before being trimmed to final size. Below, you can see how the leather looks upon completion of this process.

Making a Handmade Wallet

Part 3 of 7: Finishing Pt.1
All edges that can’t be accessed later in the process are individually creased, sanded even, dyed, waxed, and polished multiple times. This seals any exposed edges and provides a finished look. This is especially time-consuming, but incredibly important, as it prevents unwanted moisture from entering what would otherwise be the very absorbent edges of the raw leather. Pictured below is the second to last stage of the edge finishing process, before the final polish.

Making a Handmade Wallet
Part 4 of 7: Assembly
Next, the internal pockets are assembled, sealed, and stitched down one by one. (This is the stage we’re at in the photo below). Afterwards, the entire card pocket assembly is lined and stitched closed on the side that will sit on the interior of the wallet.
Final assembly consists of lining the main pieces, stitching down any full-length pockets into place so as to limit their depth to a useful amount, and carefully lining them up to be perfectly symmetrical to one another in order to prepare for the next step.

Making a Handmade Wallet

Part 5 of 7: Stitching
After the wallet has been assembled completely, holes are marked along the exterior of the wallet to prepare for saddle stitching. All holes are placed with great consideration so as to make sure that any pieces that may be under stress are held down under a well-positioned stitch. The best part of this type of assembly is the amount of control that you feel you have with the final piece. It’s generally an extremely enjoyable process, though some find it slightly tedious.

Making a Handmade WalletMaking a Handmade Wallet

Part 6 of 7: Finishing, pt. 2

Edge finishing is pretty straightforward – you make sure your edges are level, you seal and crease the perimeter, and then you polish with with dye and wax. In the first picture, you see a refined edge that is about halfway through the finishing process, and the final result in the photo below.

Making a Handmade WalletMaking a Handmade Wallet
Part 7 of 7: The Reveal
This is the final piece – thanks for working along with us!

Want to know more about Pierpont Leather? You can view their affiliate thread (and ask Parker all the questions you want) here.

The Perils of Being Intentionally Underdressed

A couple years back, I flew to L.A., ostensibly to let Stanley van Buren tour me around the city, write about vintage clothing and denim stores, and attend some kind of Epaulet trunk show that Mr. and Mrs. van Buren were throwing in their loft apartment. Some of that happened, but mostly I remember sitting in the pool at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs at one in the morning wondering where our pitcher of sangria had gone – which is, incidentally, where I first met Eric, who’s gone on to do some of Styleforum’s photography. The lesson here is to never say no to anything.

One of the things that Stanley had been adamant about during the planning of said trip to L.A. was that he was going to take me to some sort of very cool whiskey bar that was really awesome but at which you weren’t allowed to wear denim. That seemed great and all, so I decided I wasn’t going to pack any trousers and to hell with stuck-up whiskey bars. Instead, I brought a pair of black jeans and forgot all about Stanley’s fancy whiskey bar until the morning of the trunk show.

Naturally, at about ten A.M., I started panicking due to the fact that I hadn’t brought any trousers to wear so that I wouldn’t get turned away at a cool bar. Completely irrational, I know; but this was one of those occasions when you start fixating on something stupid and your mind digs in with a kind of sadistic glee and refuses to let go. It’s been two years, and I can still distinctly remember pacing back and forth in the weirdly charming patchouli-smelling basement studio/room I had AirBnB’d in The Brewery, which is a kind of rambling, gated artist’s colony somewhere in L.A., wondering what the hell I was going to do about these pants.

There are many ways I could have resolved this situation. I could have stopped caring completely, gone outside, and spent the morning scratching the really soft nose of the giant rabbit that my hosts had in a cage by the front door. I could have sat and read a book and watched the chickens in the sprawling coop across from the rabbit. I could have told Stanley that I didn’t care about going to a whiskey bar at all. I could have even gone out and bought a goddamn pair of trousers. Instead, I wrote an email to Mike Kuhle of Epaulet and asked him for a pair of pants.

Mike is a pretty cool dude. The kind of cool dude that makes you maybe try to act a little cooler than you are, the way we all claim we never did in middle school, which made wording the email even harder. How do you ask to borrow a pair of pants while sounding both professional and nonchalant? I still have no idea. I guess I wrote something in a kind of blind panic, which I sent along to Mike, and never heard back.

I think the best way I can communicate the combined embarrassment of a) realizing I hadn’t brought trousers – by choice, mind you, b) freaking out for no reason over said lack of trousers (which is, I think we can all agree, not something to freak out over), and c) writing an email to a near-stranger to ask for trousers is to describe it as watching a Ben Stiller movie that you yourself are starring in. Once I’d written the damn thing I felt even more horrified, because the whole affair had snowballed so massively around me that I couldn’t extricate myself without losing a limb or my mind in the process. To this day, I haven’t a clue why I was so fixated on the absolute, howling necessity of having a pair of trousers to wear to a whiskey bar I’d never heard of.

Do you ever look back on things you’ve done or said or written, and feel yourself cringing away inwardly? I even tried to look up the email just now, just to see what I’d said, but I had to squint at the text out of the corner of my eye and I closed my mail client without reading it so I guess I’ll never know. Then I had to walk around my living room and drink a glass of water before sitting back down.

 

I was too mortified to ask Mike if he’d seen my email for most of the the trunk show, which involved looking at Mike’s wares, talking to Epaulet customers, and taking dumb pictures. At some point I mentioned to Stanley that I didn’t have any trousers – I may have mentioned it to him several times, in fact – and he, like a completely rational, well-balanced person, didn’t seem to think that this was a big deal. And so the evening passed, the trunk show ended, and we reached the hour at which it was time to consider our next steps – whiskey bars included – and I had to re-summon the courage to ask Mike if I could borrow a pair of pants. Middle school me was appalled.

“Pants? Sure,” he said.

He claimed he hadn’t read my email, which I assume was his way of saying that he had but that he’d tried to forget it immediately. He did let me borrow some pants, though – a shirt, too. Unfortunately, by this point I’d reached a point of exhaustion no doubt brought on by twelve straight hours of intense, trouser-based panic, and it turned out that no one else was that keen on going to the whiskey bar either. We left Stanley’s loft, intending to see where the night took us, only to end up under the harsh fluorescents of a corner taco joint where we ordered burritos approximately the size of a compact vehicle. I was wearing my borrowed shirt and trousers, feeling even dumber than I had that morning, wishing for my abandoned jeans and tee with a quiet, crushing desperation. There is no feeling worse than feeling uncomfortable in your own skin, and it seemed that evening as though my entire existence revolved around a kind of spindle of existential distress resulting entirely from an intentional packing oversight.

The next day, I returned the clothes, and I never spoke of the episode again. The rest of my time in L.A. was focused on, I think, negronis. During the enjoyment of one of these – atop the roof of a different Ace Hotel – I found myself talking to a middle school classmate who I’d forgotten existed and who I hadn’t seen since age whatever you are in 8th grade. That should give you some idea of how the trip unfolded.

Stanley did chauffeur me to some stores, which he also dutifully photographed, and he also took me to his favorite crepe restaurant, because of course he has a favorite crepe restaurant. Mike, Stanley, and Karen van Buren were kind enough to sit through my attempts at karaoke, and Stanley and I got a flat tire. Then we (Stanley, Karen, Eric, and Eric’s then-girlfriend) drove through the desert, stopping in Joshua Tree to win that week’s white jacket challenge, before landing in Palm Springs, where we drank a lot of sangria and decided it would be smart to spend the next day wandering around in the sun on top of a mountain. On our way back to L.A., we stopped at some kind of old west LARPing haven called Pioneertown, which someone must have thought would be a good idea.

 

being intentionally underdressed styleforum white jacket with jeans cream jacket with jeans

I’d intended to tie this all back to clothing and personal style somehow; perhaps offer a poetic conclusion or philosophical observation on the state of American dress codes and how it is, even now, possible to feel underdressed. Unfortunately, reliving the experience has been traumatic enough to require a glass and a half of red wine, and now I’m doubly determined to forget it ever happened. I think the moral of the story is to be comfortable in the pants you have. Or to be careful what you wish for. Or, perhaps, that the pants are always greener. Regardless, I’ll be damned if I’m ever going back to L.A.