Something for now and something for later.

If your wardrobe is comprised largely of clothes that were bought at thrift or discount prices, you know that one of the best rules is to get while the getting is good. Finding something that fits well that isn't in season is no reason to not buy it if you're paying only a small pittance of what you'd normally pay, and by doing so you're often rewarded with some of your best finds during the time of the year when you can't even wear what you just purchased.

While ties are certainly a bit more season-agnostic than a lot of other articles of clothing, like other accessories such as shoes and belts, there's certainly a time and place for everything that works just a bit better. My personal luck has been quite good lately in both regards, as I've found some stunning ties that will add to my winter wardrobe, as well as several that I can pack away and surprise myself with again in six months.

First up is a batch of really varied, and lovely ties that should work well all through the cold months. The far left tie is a cashmere paisley piece by Etro (who are usually a bit garish for my taste), while the middle is a vintage Robert Talbott wool plaid. The far right is a first for me, a really old Bert Pulitzer limited collection made from imported ancient madder. It's really beautiful and I finally see the appeal of ancient madder ties.

Possibly topping the cold-weather haul is another varied batch of ties for the summer months. On the left is a mega-vintage PRL seersucker tie, while the 2nd and 3rd are both older Lands' End (I'm still not decided on the flower print, but for some reason I find it engaging for now). The beige/pink/navy stripe tie is another vintage number, and despite looking and feeling like cotton, it's actually a paper-thin wool piece. Very odd, but will probably work best in the spring. On the right is yet another shiny bubblegum number in pink and baby blue from Lands' End.

Now, if I could just thrift a couple more summer-weight sport coats that fit my ape arms, I would really be in business.

Desaturate

While my clothing selections are often a direct reflection of my mindset, lately I've been stripping things down and keeping them incredibly simple just for the sheer ease of it. I've never been accused of being a peacock, but I've been playing it incredibly low-key lately, stripping out as much color as possible while emphasizing texture. It seems a natural thing to do in the winter, and today was one of the more extreme examples.

Up top was a white Lands' End button-down, a dark-gray wool v-neck sweater, and a light-gray tweed Pendleton sport coat that's basically my go-to when it's cold. It has leather elbow patches that are almost the perfect shade of gray between that of the coat and the sweater. A plaid Balenciaga tie with a couple strands of red and some flecks in the tweed are the only hints of color at all.

A shot of the midsection reveals even less color.

Since I went with a plain white pocket square, I figured I could get away with red socks, but even they were muted by black captoes. I suppose one could say that it's completely lacking personality (although the toddlers at my daughters daycare would disagree, with the sheer excitement they showed over the red socks), but it was comfortable and warm, and some days that's about all the personality I need.

Gray things for gray days

If I ran down a litany of all the things that have happened in my life over the course of the past couple months, it would sound like a sad country song. I've been busy, and not always in ways that have been happy, but things have now settled back into normalcy and I'm going to celebrate that by keeping on.

For obvious reasons, one of the last things I felt like doing was updating my blog, but along the way I realized that even though it's somewhat frivolous in nature, I actually did miss it a little. If nothing else, it kept my creative juices flowing a bit in trying to capture some decent images and string together some words that made a little sense.

After the most brutal summer that I can remember living through (in terms of heat and drought), we finally got a bit of a cold snap here, and it was welcome to me, as my fall wardrobe contains my favorites. I love my tweed jackets and over-the-calf socks and chunky ties and yes, even sweater vests (and sweaters). It gives me an excuse to wear wool hats and scarves and for once I don't have to worry about what hour of the day I'm going to inevitably sweat through my undershirt.

This past week, I finally broke out some of my tweeds, starting with this color-flecked gray Pendleton. It pretty much goes with anything, but I paired it with navy trousers and a green, vintage v-neck Pringle sweater.

Although this time of year features my favorite outfit combinations, it's also the hardest time to get decent photos outside, as the sun goes down so early that I have to get home early and set aside a couple minutes in addition just to have a chance. With a toddler and various household things that need done, it just doesn't always happen. In the previous photo, I managed to kill two birds with one stone in shooting photos at the same time I was emptying our compost bucket (pictured).

With a dry summer and a really long, mild fall, the squirrels have all gotten incredibly fat. We still have two pumpkins left from Halloween, but one of them has been almost completely destroyed (this is the lucky one).

I'm going to be in the giving mood in December. Six months is long enough to go without Style Share, don't you think?

Over the shoulder outside

It's been really, really hot here lately, and shows no signs of abating. This screen capture shows what the next five days holds in store, and the 10-day looks similar.

The week previous is similar, so it's pretty much a broken record around here. I only have a few summer-weight sport coats, and frankly even they get hot on days like this. From late-morning until the sun goes down, really the only respite is to remove the sport coat and sling it over your shoulder if you're walking more than a few blocks outside (that is, unless you want to have a glistening sheen on your forehead when you finally arrive at your destination).

Still, it's best to combat the heat as much as humanly possible, and this cream-colored silk/linen sport coat (a recent find custom-made for a local high-end men's clothing shop) mostly does the trick. Here, I paired it with some navy trousers, penny-loafers, a navy silk knit and one of my old cotton pocket squares. The tie was a trade with oft-commenter Mr. Readerston, who I hooked up with a couple madras numbers he had scoped out from a previous post.

Here's a close-up, which shows off the nice pick stitching on the coat, as well as the textural details that I thought played off one another nicely.

Speaking of those who comment on this site (and friends), I was lucky enough to have dinner with Yankee Whiskey Papa the other evening. Great conversation, as always, and I apologized profusely to him for having to endure our current blast oven temperatures.

Hope you all are staying cool, wherever you call home.

Waiting game

Well over a year ago now, the book True Prep hit the bookshelves. Around the time that it came out, I was sort of interested in purchasing it (especially having somewhat recently found The Official Preppy Handbook), but held off buying it, knowing that my stack of books I'd been meaning to read was somewhere between knee and mid-thigh level when stacked on top of one another.

Fast forward over a year later into the dead of winter and wouldn't you know it, I find a copy peeking at me from the thrift store shelf.

At only $1, this time I couldn't pass it up (especially considering it looked brand-new). Like the predecessor before it, the book is a microscopic look at prep culture and all that it entails, and while I'm sure there's a lot of truth in it, it reads like a giant piss take to me. Definitely worth what I paid for it, but I probably would have felt somewhat burnt had I paid full price.

It wasn't my only find at the same stop, though, as I not only got a really great navy and bright green silk ribbon belt, but an insanely electric linen tie that might best be described as Pantone Warm Red C. It's so summer it's not even funny.

Unseasonable weather, unseasonable finds

I'm not sure what it's like in your part of the country, but it is downright weird in my neck of the woods. The temperatures have been hovering about 35 degrees above normal on a consistent basis for most of the winter, and we recently hit 70. Part of me is wondering if the average temperature this summer is going to be something like 115, and the other part of me thinks that it won't be too long before we're socked with more than a foot of snow.

And really, both could happen. That's just how strange things have been. Nightly jogs clad in track pants and t-shirts and early January work days in light sport coats and pants. Heck, today I had to remove a thin v-neck sweater from my layering simply because it became too hot. I've been tempted to break out some seersucker or madras just to be a smart-ass, but I figure that would be tempting fate just a bit too much.

I guess it should figure that I'd run across this selection of ties during this warm blast. I have a couple go-to madras ties in my collection, but I can always use a couple more (especially one that's so based around the color pink) and the selection of light stripe ties completely fills an empty hole. The tie second-from-right is particularly unique, as it mixes stripes of smooth, refined silk with thin bands of raw blue silk, creating something that on first glance looks a bit like an error, but on second creates a subtle touch of texture (and in fact, I'll probably have to feature it in a future installment of Tags and Textures).

Here's hoping you're not stuck in a snowdrift. Meanwhile, I'm trying to soak up enough vitamin D for two people while this lasts.

Woolen weather

After an incredibly long fall, the temperatures finally fell a bit here this week, and unless the predictions are wildly off-the-mark, we'll have at least a bit of snowfall in the next couple days. I'd actually done the ceremonial closet-flip a couple weeks back (moving light pants and short sleeve shirts to storage while hefting out the heavy sport coats and wool pants), but hadn't gotten to actually wear much of anything due to the unseasonable temps.

This week, though, I piled wool on wool on cashmere on wool and stayed warm even when the wind picked up late in the day. Apologies on the photos, but it has also reached that time of year when it's dark when leaving for work in the morning and nearly dark when arriving home. Natural lighting is hard to come by except on the weekends.

Up top, a dark gray Polo University Club jacket, a Lands' End button-down with a vintage cashmere Lyle and Scott sweater vest and a rad wool knit tie courtesy of a trade with Kleidsam back in the day.

Told you that tie was cool. I thought I needed a close up.

Down below, I paired some older (made in the U.S.A.) Johnston & Murphy cap toe oxfords and some wool herringbone pants. The pants are actually made by Gap, and like a couple other older pairs that I own, are of surprisingly good quality. Nobody is going to mistake them for Paul Stuarts, but for $3.99 they'll more than suffice.

Layers and textures and fading rays

After an incredibly extended late summer and mild fall, we've gotten our first few tastes of actual winter here lately. One day, it was so overcast that it was still dark when I arrived into work, and another found rain turning into sleet and snow. Although long winters tend to make me feel a bit cuckoo, I have to admit feeling a bit invigorated when those days with a real crisp chill in the air finally arrive.

It's been enough of a change that I finally hauled my winter bins out of the basement and stashed all my summer garb for hibernation. In doing so, I was not only excited by things I hadn't seen in months, but items I'd picked up in the off season and had yet to wear. The act of layering for fall and winter always makes for much more exciting possibilities (for me, anyway) when it comes to texture and patterns.

With one of my first real cold-weather outfits, I perhaps went a bit overboard. Here, I paired a tartan tie with my trusty herringbone tweed jacket, a red cable-knit v-neck sweater, and a brick and gold pocket square. Oh yeah, and some cream-colored corduroy pants.

Hey, at least the shirt is a solid color, and yes, I did mean to leave the button-down collars flicked out like that. It was close to Halloween and I thought they looked like vampire teeth, so gimme a break.

Just kidding, actually I really like how they visually flow with the neck of the sweater, as well as mimic the natural "V" pattern of the herringbone. It most definitely leans towards sprezzatura, but it felt right to me for the aforementioned reasons.

Golden leaves and gold buttons

The past couple weeks have been kind of a haze around here, in some ways rather literally. Just about the time we had a weekend all planned for ourselves to get a lot of things done, a flu bug swooped through our household and basically wiped out my wife and I for a couple days each, somehow sparing the youngest one in the household. Everything got put on hold for a week or so, but we're hopefully out of the woods again now and ready to slip into a new steady schedule.

A couple weeks ago I made a post about a jacket that had circuitously found its way into a friends hands, and how I had then met him in person for dinner and he extended the favor of a jacket to me. The lighter, vintage black Gant jacket has made several appearances since then, as it's just about the perfect weight for days that start out on the cool side then warm up to indian-summer temperatures. Today was yet another one of those days, and after seeing more leaves than usual coming down this week, I decided to play off the gold buttons of the sport coat with a gold silk knit tie from a haul back in May.

As mentioned above, the jacket is actually black, but when paired with blues actually sort of takes on some of their coloring and looks closer to the very traditional navy blazer. I picked a shirt with a faint pattern that played with the boxy weave of the tie and yet another square pattern in the pocket square.

Below, I went with gray chinos (the spray-starched lines of which were completely obliterated at the end of the day when this pic was taken) and black wingtips. Fairly understated as a whole, but with just a few little hints of color.

YWP, thanks again for the jacket, and good eyeball on the sizing. As you can see, it fits quite well, even without alterations.

Here and back again

Almost three months ago now, I made a post about a rather insane sport coat that had lived in our household for a great deal of time despite not fitting me or anyone else I immediately knew. I figured that someone would try to claim it in the comments, and was surprised when nobody did.

About a month after I originally made the post, though, Giuseppe of An Affordable Wardrobe dropped in and staked his claim. He was not only one of the inspirations for me starting my own blog, but someone I really look up to in terms of style, so the decision was an easy one; I sent it on its way immediately and hoped that at some point he'd make a post with him wearing it and I could find comfort knowing that it went to someone would get some use out of it.

As it turned out, the coat didn't fit him and no alterations could change that. Being the good chap that he is, he passed it along to Yankee Whiskey Papa, another fellow blogger that I had exchanged pleasantries with and who has on multiple occasions participated in Style Share and produced winning returns each time. Needless to say, I was excited, especially since he actually spends time on sailboats.

Over a month ago, he sent me back these pictures of the coat in action, and they got buried in my inbox until I remembered them this week*. As YWP tells it...

I wore it with signal-orange pants, red pocket-square, and striped scarf, all nods to the colors of sailing.

Needless to say, he knocked it out, and I'm glad it has found a new life being worn and enjoyed instead of hanging on a hanger.

* I was reminded of the photos because I had the fortune of hanging out with YWP earlier this week. Not only did we have a delicious meal, but were fortunate enough to enjoy it outside on one of the nicest days of the year. Much good discussion was had and he even hooked me up with an excellent, older lightweight navy Gant SC in my size. Brass buttons and all. Thanks again for the curry, conversation, and coat, YWP.

Black and Blue

It's been that kind of summer. On top of welcoming a child into our lives, things have just been incredibly busy in every way. Work is slammed busy, which is certainly not bad considering the alternative, and most nights I come home and either don't have the time or simply forget to take a picture of anything I'm wearing. I'm under no delusions that anyone is coming to this site for fashion advice, but the little part of me that isn't incredibly self conscious started this blog to try and document me developing my own personal style.

It's just starting to creep into my favorite season now, with slightly cooler temperatures that are more befitting tweeds and slightly more layering, which my wardrobe in general is more suited for (although I've certainly built up my warm-weather garments over the years). Today, there was just enough chill in the air to finally break out my vintage velveteen jacket, and I kept it fairly conservative with a few pops of color.

For some reason or another, my camera didn't want to cooperate on the full-body shots, so this is a rather poor representation of my outfit, which consisted of aforementioned jacket, a pair of navy blue Lands' End pants, a blue/white university stripe oxford, and a super-chubby wool tie. Burgundy penny-loafers cap my feet.

As I mentioned above, I tried to keep things fairly conservative in terms of overall colors (with only really 4 represented in total with black, blue, red, and white), yet really set things apart with texture. The smooth, soft jacket was in definite contrast to the bright, sharp edges of the pocket square, with the thick wool tie (in somewhat similar colors) tying back into the pants, shirt, and square. I know that matching pocket square with tie is a rather major faux pas (one that I've been guilty of on more than one occasion), but with the drastically different textures between the two, I felt like I could get away with it here.

*Shrugs*

I'm going to get back to a normal posting schedule here soon, I think.

I'm mad, you're mad, we're all mad for madras

With unseasonably warm temps hanging around these parts lately, I've made it a point to wear madras on just about every occasion that I can. Soon enough, it will be time to relegate them to the lesser-worn area and break out the tweeds, but for now it's been a steady diet of soft-faded plaids in beautiful colors.


This particular tie is yet another from my recent tie bonanza haul and interestingly enough it still has the original paper price tag still attached to the inside of the tail.

It's a bit on the skinny side (probably 2.25 - 2.5 inches wide) and has an original department store (from a local, now-closed high-end place) price of $10.00, so I'm guessing it hails from the sixties or so.

Seeing the price on the tag actually made me chuckle a bit, as I haven't paid that much for a tie since I bought a new one in college in a specific color that I absolutely thought I needed at the time. Since then, it's been all thrift-store and garage-sale finds, and despite paying between $1-4 dollars for every single tie since that time, I've amassed what I would say is a rather solid collection.

Sure, I lust after new Drakes ties and would even like to grab a nice seven-fold someday, but in the past two months especially I've been reminded that ultimately ties are just skinny pieces of fabric that you tie around your neck. In that time, I've lost one for good when a cup of coffee spilled the wrong way and have had just about every tie I've worn in that time grabbed at (and sometimes pulled) by a four-month old. Ties are meant for wearing, and if I happen to lose a couple every once in awhile, then I certainly won't cry too long knowing I dropped less than an Abraham Lincoln on one.

I probably wouldn't have quite the same reaction if a coffee had tanked all over a juicy Kiton.

Under the heat dome

Lest you think that I just invented the term "heat dome," please rest assured that I am not that clever. It's something that's been coined and in use for awhile now, and I just happen to be experiencing it in person right now.

I feel like I talk about the weather too much on this blog, but to hell with it, it's been brutal. For the past two weeks, the temperature hasn't been under 95, and for a majority of that time the heat index (temperature plus humidity/etc) has made it feel like 110 degrees or more. For reference, the other night I went jogging at 7:45 p.m. and the heat index was still 113. Over the course of 4 miles (and <> 28 minutes), I lost almost 3 pounds. No kidding, I weighed myself before and after.

Needless to say, I've been doing my best to stay cool. This involves lots of light colors and lots of light fabrics. Here is a fairly typical example of my wardrobe lately:


On this particular day, it was a short-sleeved pink linen shirt from Lands' End (thrifted for $2) paired with some Ralph Lauren seersucker pants (also thrifted, for $4) and a great striped d-ring belt that I just snagged last week.


Down below, I wore a pair of Generic Surplus boat shoes, another fairly recent pickup that I got from Gilt Groupe. Normally I eschew even their "discount" prices and rarely find anything that even fits me, but in this case ($29 - $25 credit + $6 shipping = $10), I simply couldn't pass up the navy boats.

The heat shows no sign of stopping, so I'm going to keep on using it as an excuse to break out some light-hearted color combinations. If I'm sweating, I might as well have fun doing so.

Sweater surprise

Today was one of those delightful days on the plains when the morning temperatures hover around 20, but by late afternoon they've risen into the 50s. The early March air still has a bit of bite to it, so layering and wool are my friends.


The morning outfit paired some heavy chinos and gray suede desert boots with a gray shirt, cream-colored wool knit tie, a Pendleton Cowichan sweater, and a wool Pendleton jacket. Amazingly, I just found the driving cap two nights ago for $2, and the tweed matches the jacket nearly to the very color speck.

The surprise in the title of this post has a bit of a double meaning, the first of which is the amazing design that was fully unveiled when I took off my jacket.


With the temperatures warmer at lunch, I left my jacket at home and the sweater basically served as its replacement for the rest of the day. When I first donned my outfit this morning, I'd actually thought about pairing it with a Fair Isle knit tie (which actually would have been fairly interesting given the connection to Cowichan knitting), but the styles clashed too much and I wanted to let the thunderbird rule the day. If that weren't cool enough, it's actually a one-of-a-kind sweater that was sampled, but not produced.

How do I know that, you ask? Well, the second part of the surprise is that the sweater itself wasn't a thrift find, rather I was the lucky winner of a giveaway drawing sponsored by Pendleton Menswear on Facebook. If you're on Facebook and like Pendleton, I'd recommend following them, as they do a good mix of historical posts and product promotion without over-doing things (averaging a post a day or so) like some other companies tend to.

If you've been reading this site for any time now, you know of my love for Pendleton, so needless to say I was pretty excited about having my name chosen.

Encouraging the thaw

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time at all, you know that I'm very influenced by the seasons when it comes to my style. Today was no different, and while the base part of my outfit was fairly subdued by itself, a couple accessories hinted at the spring to come.

Over my left shoulder is a magnolia tree and a burning bush. In a couple months they'll both be glowing.

White OCBD up top with my camel hair herringbone jacket and cream-color Lord Jeff wool sweater vest for another layer of warmth. To keep it from being completely drab, I pulled out the fat linen square-end tie from this haul and a lovely cotton pocket square that almost perfectly matched it in color (and even repeated the square motif).


Down below is pretty darn boring as well, with straight brown wool pants and some split-toe bluchers. As I mentioned above, though, this one was all about the little peeks.

The snow is melting, and more color will arrive on the scene shortly.

P.S. Tune in Thursday night for the biggest and best Style Share yet. Brooks Brothers, Lands' End, and London Fog all make an appearance, among others.

Pull your feet to your chest

After a nice warm-up later last week and the beginning of this one, we had another cold snap here today. Between lunch and the end of the work day, we got almost 4 inches of snow, making the drive home slow going and pulling into the steep driveway a hit-or-miss proposition. Fortunately, the front-wheel drive found success on the second try.

I knew it was it was coming, though, and tried to celebrate yesterday with some suitable hints of warmer color.


Up top, I went with a western-styled tweed jacket that's incredibly versatile on days that fluctuate wildly in temperature. It's warm, but only half-lined, so it breaths pretty well. Paired it with a pink and white university striped OCBD and even busted out one of my Hermes ties. Pocket square in gold (another one courtesy of Kleidsam, - thanks man!) seems like it might be a bit of a stretch, but bear with me here...


Down below, I went with cream corduroys, striped socks and my beeswax Clark bucks, which have aged nicely and are giving off a lovely patina of yes, gold!

Like I said, that's pushing it a bit, but I was trying to shove some subtle attention in their general direction. Their color is just too nice to not appreciate.

And now, I must go scoop the sidewalk.

Feeling cheery, feeling dreary

Today was the end of the run, so to speak. After an extended Indian summer and a nice, long fall of warmer-than-normal temperatures, the cold wind started gusting around dark and ushered in a round of rain which is supposed to turn into some snow by tomorrow night.

I decided to go subdued, with a splash of color. Up top is a camelhair herringbone jacket with an off-white oxford and the regimental tie I snagged a couple weeks ago at an estate sale.



Down low were some medium-brown pants and vintage Florsheim Imperial loafers from another estate sale earlier this summer. The photo is in the dying light of the day, with Elsa the dog making another appearance.

All good things must come to an end

The usual freeze date in our neck of the woods is somewhere around October 8th, so I was feeling pretty lucky when we were still picking large bowls of tomatoes and peppers for almost 3 full weeks past then. We'd had a couple mild freezes before now, but gentle breezes and sheets managed to keep things alive.

This week, though, we had temperatures dip low several nights in a row, and even coverings couldn't save our plants. By Friday, everything was wilted and dying, and I bought a big pile of lawn bags to gather the carnage.

To give you an idea of what we plant, here's a picture of me standing in the middle (12 plants of different varieties) of one of our tomato beds in June.

Off to the left is another tomato and pepper bed, above and behind me are grapevines growing on our pergola (where our owls live).

For reference, I stand about 6'6", while our headless "scarecrow" clocks in at about 5"8" or so. If you've been reading my blog for any time at all, you know that we're kinda crazy about gardening and canning food, and the extended growing season gave us a couple more small harvests to work with.

The chives are still standing!

Here's the one big tomato bed (8x8 feet) after I pulled out all the dead plants this weekend. Standing solitary is our stylish scarecrow, which we affectionately call "Patrick" (after Patrick Batemen, of American Psycho), wearing his faded blue oxford (which was shredded and plundered in one place by a squirrel building a nest) and also-faded poly-blend pants.

The official end of summer has also brought me to my actual favorite season in terms of my wardrobe. I'll miss the fresh tomatoes and other produce that we've enjoyed for the past 5 months, but we have quite quite a few jars of sauce saved away in the basement and I'm excited to finally break out the tweeds and woolens.

I just hope this winter isn't as brutal as last.