Planning ahead; Fashionably late

The due date has come and gone and there's still no arrival at our house. We'd gotten the room arranged and the car seat installed and extra food cooked and stored in the deep freeze, so we're just kind of waiting. We figured we might end up at the hospital this past weekend, and when it didn't happen I decided to spend an entire day in the garden instead. The scarecrow needs a new outfit as well. His pants are torn into strips near the hems and his OCBD has pieces missing that went into building a squirrel nest (no joke).


The freeze cut-off date still isn't for several weeks, but we thought we'd take our chances. We've been saving milk jugs for months to serve as miniature hot-houses, so I turned our four beds and planted 16 tomato, 12 pepper, 3 squash, 3 pumpkin, 3 cantaloupe, and 4 basil plants. There are a few smaller spots that we'll fill in when and if we get the chance.


Despite another real burst of spring weather, I kept it subdued today with a vintage Brooks Brothers repp tie, a navy jacket and university-stripe OCBD.


Gray chinos and burgundy penny loafers rounded things out.


The magnolia is blooming and the grass is greening up, so even the snow forecasted for later in the week won't last long.

Spring will be here soon enough, and hopefully another arrival will grace us with her presence in the near future as well.

Avoiding the pinch

I'm going to state right off the bat that I'm not Irish. I'm a classic American mutt, and I'm totally fine with that. If the words of a great uncle of mine can be believed, then my family is descended at least in part from Ponce de León, but I know that I'm part French, part Dane, part English, and probably a few other nationalities for good measure.


I picked up these pants last fall, and stowed them away for the winter after dropping them hems on them a couple inches. Besides being St. Patrick's Day, unseasonably warm temps were in the forecast again, so I couldn't help but break them out.


Not only are they bright green, but they're also vintage Izod Lacoste, with expansion straps and buttons on the sides. Kinda dorky, but I love them. If you have a good memory, you'll notice that I re-claimed a tie from February's Style Share and incorporated it here as well.


A true "business up top, party down low" outfit, I kept things somewhat normalized with a standard navy jacket, university stripe OCBD, and the aforementioned clover-leaf tie and a cream and green pocket square. Burgundy penny loafers rounded it all out.

Over the course of the day, I only got a few playful comments and some random smiles from passerby's (either out of joy or pity, I can't be sure). It's either confidence or folly (perhaps a little of each), but I wouldn't have had the mind to wear something like this a couple years ago. I'm glad I did, though, because it was fun.

I'm hungry for spring

Today was one of those glorious days where it truly felt like winter was really retreating back into the shadows. On the bike ride into work, it was in the lower 30s, but warmed to almost 70 by a mid-afternoon stroll and just under that on the bike ride home. I didn't have any meetings and thought I'd play it a little loose, so I went with the vintage dinner jacket that I found late last year.


I didn't try to do too much with it in fear of making its more odd qualities stick out, and paired it with a lighter pair of chinos, a blue wool knit tie, and a pocket square with similar coloring. Keeping in mind some fairly consistent color-matching, the spread-collar shirt had dark brown stripes that tied into both my dark brown leather belt and loafers, as well as blue stripes that were close to the tie and pocket square color.


In the end, it didn't feel costume-ish at all. Instead, the more playful aspects of the jacket (one button closure and sleeves, lapel and pocket cording) seemed perfect for the lighter weather.

I doubt the anonymous poster who expressed their one-word dissatisfaction with my purchase will see this, but overall the jacket worked out even better than even I had expected it to. It'll go into regular rotation, for sure.

Spring inspiration

About 6 years ago, we planted a star magnolia in our backyard. It's always been a fragile thing, and the first couple years the blooms froze off at the first sign of cold temperatures. At the same time, random branches have been pruned off each year as they went woody and dead. When we purchased it, it was about 6 feet tall, and it stayed that height for some time. During those first 3 years, I wondered if it would even make it, and after the place we bought it from went out of business, I thought for sure that it would die, just to spite us.

The past two years, though, it has made a real comeback and surged in height. I'm sure this is at least partially due to establishing a more solid root system, but I'm happy with the results either way. The magnolia is now much taller than me and has burst out with luscious blooms each of the past couple years.



Speaking of blooms, it was just two days ago that it started to really unfold to the spring, and after its trials and tribulations of the first couple years, I decided to pay it some homage by basing my wardrobe for the day around its colors.



It's certainly nothing new for seasonal fashion trends to be influenced by nature, but being a person who enjoys landscaping and gardening, I always feel like I'm at the very least subconsciously influenced, and most of the time directly so. I get excited when the lawn starts to green up (even though it means more work with mowing and tending to weeds and so on), while tulips and daffodils springing up around the edges of the lawn seems to be a go-ahead sign that it's time to start really shaking free of the drab tones of winter.





So here's to you, star magnolia, and spring in general. I will try to brighten up my outfit choices appropriately.

Tweed tweener

Today was one of those weird days of the year where it was 29 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning on the bike ride in, then just a smidgen over 70 when I stepped out of the office after work. As mentioned in a another post, such dramatic temperature swings require a bit more planning than normal.

Fortunately, I have a nicely-weighted tweed go-to jacket (bought for $3 a couple years back) that keeps me warm but is made of a lighter fabric that breaths a bit. On the ride in, a thin sweater provided an extra layer, while a scarf, gloves and hat kept my extremities warm. They went into the messenger bag on the insanely beautiful ride home.

The other nice thing about this jacket is that it has some fairly bright colors woven in, in very subtle ways, which you'll probably have to view the full-size photo to see

At any rate, I paired it with some dark brown khakis and one of colorful madras ties from this haul. Due to my commuting habits, I haven't made the full-on turn to spring, but it's definitely creeping closer.

Right before this picture was taken, my wife said something about "blue steel" (cue Zoolander) that made me laugh. She rocks.

If you look to my right in the above photo, you will see our garden scarecrow, who is modeled after a headless Patrick Bateman.

Have I mentioned how excited I am about spring?

Subdued spring

Ah, so this is what spring feels like.

For the first time in five (FIVE!) months, the temperature rose above 60 degrees (Fahrenheit), and for about 6 hours all seemed right with the world. With a morning temperature hovering around 30, though, I knew I'd have to wear one of my jackets that was warm enough that I wouldn't get too cold on the bike in, but light enough that I wouldn't crack a huge sweat on my ride home and back for lunch.

Basically, it was the perfect excuse to pull out my brown cashmere/wool combo from this post. With a scarf and some gloves (and ear-band and helmet!), it was just about right in the morning, and was thisclose to being too warm at lunch. With a temperature swing of over 30 degrees, I consider that a success.

At any rate, I paired it with my favorite light wool LL Bean pants ($2), a paisley Oscar de la Renta tie ($2), a blue/white striped Stafford oxford ($2) and what are quite possibly my favorite pair of shoes; A pair of vintage Florsheim wingtips that I scored for $1 just over a year back.

Yes, the bike is mine. More on it later.

In wearing the jacket again (and especially looking at the above photo), I realized that I'm going to have to get the arms taken in just a bit. They're rolling almost 29 inches from the shoulder seam right now, and I'm closer to 28.

The light was bright and harsh at lunch, so the shots didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped, but I did take a couple details to hopefully give a little better idea of how the colors went together.



Seeing a close-up of my shoes also makes me realize that I need to give them a little love.



Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the reason I named the post as I did is because we're supposed to get several inches of snow tomorrow. I couldn't go an break out all my crazy bright colors quite just yet with such knowledge in hand.

*Sigh*

I consider this a sign

It seems like I've mentioned the weather in a majority of the posts I've made on here since I started, but screw it, this winter sucks and I'm sick of it.

It was then, like a shot of sunshine and warmth, that these ties called to me when I saw them at the thrift store tonight ($1.99 each).



They're all 100% cotton madras, woven in India and constructed in the good old United States. They're bright, and they make me happy.

This ice will melt soon, I know it.