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.

Color blocking

Some of my favorite recent thrift finds have been of items with solid colors, but amazing textures. After a week or so of trying to work new ties and other items into the rotation, I decided that Friday would be a day where I only donned only solid colors.

As it turns out, the informal challenge actually worked out quite well. A good mixture of brighter and subdued colors (plus some varied textures) drew my eye (at least) in unexpected ways. A casual Friday at the office, so to speak.


On the left is my indoor outfit; A light olive shirt with a slight herringbone weave (my only cheat) was matched up with a super thick Scottish wool tie ($1, and one of my recent favorite finds) in cream and a 100% wool sweater vest by Lord Jeff ($3, another recent find). When I ventured outside, I added a heather green knit cap ($2.07 cheapie on clearance at Target), my perennial, slightly-damaged red Pendleton scarf and the heavy-duty navy pea coat.


Below, I wore some forest-green Polo corduroy pants ($5.00), paired with a thick Chaps belt and some Florsheim bluchers (not pictured).

As a whole, the outfit was certainly conservative by most measures, but popped with just enough flourishes of color to reflect the days getting longer and the temperatures slightly less cold.

Rediscovering a classic

The temperature has dropped pretty drastically here lately, with overnight temps settling down in the single digits (Fahrenheit). Days have crept up into the 20s and even the low 30s, which means that it's time for serious business when dressing for the day. In past years, my go-to coat was a leather shearling coat that still sees some appearances on cold days, but the other evening I remembered that I'd acquired a vintage pea coat (complete with a name stamped in the lining) late last spring and had been stashing it for major thermometer drops.


The coat is incredibly heavy, and I've found that it's so warm that I only need to button the middle two buttons during the morning temps, while I drop down to one in the later part of the day (pictured).

With my usual layering, I imagine that the coat would easily suffice for sub-zero temperatures (buttoned up to the neck), as it blocks wind like no other and heats up the body quickly with a bit of walking.

I can't believe I never owned one of these before. It's definitely become an instant staple.

A hat and a hankie

Although they've watered down their brand a bit as they've expanded far beyond what they were initially great at (embroidered towels? night lights? really?), I'm still a huge fan of Pendleton Mills clothes, especially when I run across one of their older pieces. I have a couple shirts in red tartan patterns that are among my favorite pieces to wear on cold fall weekend days, and I used to own an old gray peacoat that I wore for many, many years before it gave up the ghost.


At a recent family dinner, my mom surprised me with this truly awesome tartan driving cap that she'd found thrifting (hey, what can I say, it runs in the family). As I've mentioned in other posts, I often feel self-conscious about wearing hats (simply because they make me even taller), but the low profile of this Pendleton number is perfect, and the wool keeps my head warm on the winter days when a stocking cap isn't necessary.

The second find is something I haven't worn yet, and I'm still looking for the right occasion to mix it in; That's right, I bought an ascot.


It's my first ascot, and oddly enough I found it on the same exact day that Giuseppe warned against them. It's the nicest one I've ever seen thrifting, though, and for 99 cents I couldn't pass it up.

Someday, I will work it.

P.S. Monday night (Dec. 6th), I'll unveil the items for Style Share for the month of December. There's more than just ties this time out, so swing back and stake your claim.

Yay or nay? The Hickey.

A wise man probably would have thought twice in starting a style blog, knowing full well that they are often incredibly self-conscious. I am not a wise man, though.

Despite not posting regularly, I have been scooping up some interesting things over the past couple weeks, and I might as well lay out a few of them, including this amazing/atrocious vintage Hickey Freeman jacket.



Did I mention that it's insane?



Sized at 40 Long, this jacket is by default a, "nay" for me (I wear a 42XL or 44XL, depending on the cuts), but I bought it anyway due to the cheap price ($3.50) and the good name of Hickey Freeman. I'm guessing it's 60s or so from the tag. It's definitely 100% wool and doesn't have even a slight nibble of damage, so I'll have to find a good home for it at some point. The pattern-matching is impeccable and the tailoring is fabulous, as one would expect.

Speaking of homes, this is the sort of jacket that certainly would take a certain... je ne sais quoi to pull off. Or perhaps just a bit more swagger than I have right now. In all honesty, though, it's not too far off from some of the louder Huntsman Tweeds that I've seen crop up in the series of posts on Permanent Style.

Be honest. Would you wear it?

Stocking up in the off season

Over the course of the past couple years, I've discovered that despite being very tall, my leg measurements are not all that weird, and it's not all that hard to find pants that are fairly nice. Shirts are another matter entirely (and discussed more in this post), as my sleeve length runs 3-4 inches longer than my inseam, making jackets and shirts rare finds indeed.

At any rate, this post is about pants, and I scored some absolute gems recently. Unfortunately, they're all wool, and despite a couple pairs of them being fairly light, they'll probably get packed away for the next couple months.

First off is two pairs obviously tailored for the same person, as they're exactly the same other than color. Oh, and look (and lust) at those colors! Navy and dark brown, with beige, red, and light blue woven into each.



If these were part of a suit combo at one time, I weep at not having found the jackets to go along with them.



There are no tags of any sort in the pants, but the fabric is killer on each. The bright threads woven through each makes me think I should try to break each pair out at least once with something complimentary before it gets really warm. Perhaps the best part is that each pair was only $1 on sale.

The next pair (and these will really be coveted in October or so) is a seriously dense pair of vintage army-issue wool pants in the standard green. They're as solid as they come, with a full metal zipper and great detailing. They are, however, much too warm to wear when the temperature is anywhere above 50 degrees.



I am a sucker for crisp military wear, so I forked over a whopping $3 for these. I certainly don't foresee any cold legs while biking with them on.

When you wish upon a (thrift) store

I am not a proud man. Sometimes I get all excited about a clothing item that I know I shouldn't be excited about, and I am not ashamed of that. A couple months ago, I saw a pair of baby-blue Gap khakis at a thrift store and lusted after them for spring. Unfortunately, they weren't even close to my size, so I got on the internet and looked around for something similar, only to be denied.

Imagine my surprise when I snagged these babies this weekend for only $2; half off their original price.



Definitely a sign of spring. And if that weren't enough, I also found a couple other great pairs of pants. The first were these 100% wool beauts in brown with threads of orange, blue, and green woven in ($3).



Finally, in the "you can never have too many pairs" category are these Land's End khakis, with suspender buttons (again $2, half off their original price).



Oh, and speaking of suspenders, I hauled in these emerald green and navy (sadly, my picture does not do them justice) numbers at the same time ($2).



Oh, and it is totally on. I rode the bike to work today after a nearly 4 month slumber.

And it was good.

Sorry captain, we can't save him

About a week ago, I was out looking through the racks at a local haunt when I came across an absolutely stunning vintage shirt / jacket from Timberline, a fine company known for their wool items.



I'd seen pieces like it sell for near a century note online, and when I discovered that it was nearly my size, I started doing little somersaults inside. It was only $4, and it had huge juicy green buttons and a nice blue/green and black windowpane pattern over cream that was really sharp.

Before you chastise me for not steaming prior to taking photos, please read on...

There was only one (well, more than one) problem, though. The jacket had some staining issues. Around the pockets and the bottom of the coat was dark discoloration of some sort that made me re-think buying it several times. In addition to the darker stains, there were a couple smaller (and even darker) spots at various spots on the front. Looking the jacket over, I couldn't find so much as a moth nibble, though, so I decided to spend the money in the hopes that I could somehow convince the stains to detach themselves from the garment with a couple different treatments at home.



My first attempt at removing the stains was a cold bath with shampoo and some light agitation (my usual wool washing technique). This managed to fade the discoloration a little bit, and with some more specific finger scrubbing I was able to almost completely dissolve a couple of the darker spots.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the discoloration remained, so I squeezed some dishwashing detergent into a large bucket with some hot water and tossed in the jacket, hoping to dislodge the remainder of the stains. I let it sit in the bath until the water cooled, then pulled it out and was saddened to find that the dark areas remained.



You know the look you give when you're watching a movie and a doctor or someone else is frantically giving another character (who is obviously dead) CPR, hoping against hope to bring them back to life? That's roughly the same look my wife gave me as I pulled the jacket out of its second soak and I was trying to think aloud of yet another way to remove the stains.

Yes, it's probably about time to let this one go.

I'm sure I'll try to wear it a few times while working outside on a crisp spring day, just to make myself feel like I didn't completely waste 4 dollars.

If that doesn't work, though, I'll chop those buttons off and save them for another project. They are indeed very cool.

Wooly for winter

The worst winter in years has decided to continue to stick around, so my wardrobe hasn't shifted a great deal over the course of the past couple weeks. The daily outfit basically consists of some sort of dark pants, a dress shirt or oxford with a tie, and a sweater of varying weight over the top.

This last week was particularly pesky, with a couple daytime highs that didn't even get close to double digits. One morning I had to take our car into the dealer to get a recall issue fixed, and the temp when I left the house was -20 (Fahrenheit) with the wind chill.

To combat this, I broke out one of my warmest combos, which included 100% wool Gap (which look nicely vintage) pants ($4) and one of my rather standard Arrow dress shirts ($1) with one of my favorite sweaters. I'm not sure why I'm so fond of the older military-style black cable wool sweater (I see them all the time, but mine was well worth the $1 I paid for it), but there it is. It has thick padded patches on the elbow and a padded area on the right breast area, as well as epaulettes on the shoulders.




By itself the sweater seems a bit on the serious side (which is perhaps obvious given it's intended purpose), so I decided to pair it with one of my more playful vintage silk ties. I'm not sure if it works. I think it does.



Even with the wind temperature what it was, I actually found myself getting slightly on the warm side as I scraped some ice of the windshield of the car before making my morning journey.

Wool. For The Win.

This will not end well

Over the course of the past couple weeks, I've picked up not one, but three nice vintage wool sweaters (none of which cost more than $3). This past weekend, I finally decided I should give them a good, cool sloshing about so I could actually add them to my wardrobe.

As I tossed them into the tub, I looked at their tags closer and was surprised to see how casually one sweater wanted me to treat, "the world's best virgin wool."

Machine wash and dry? Really?

Granted, Puritan isn't known for being a top-of-the-line brand, but I've never given a 100% wool sweater a machine wash and dry and not had it turn out looking something like a miniaturized version of its former self.

In one case, an old sweater of mine that received such sad treatment ended up being tied into a small, knotted ball and became a favorite toy of one of our dogs (living it's life being occasionally shaken in a frenzy and lovingly referred to as, "the sweater ball").

Giving shrunken wool sweaters to a small dog as a plaything probably isn't setting a good precedence, but neither is machine-washing wool, I say.

And for the record, aforementioned dog has never destroyed another sweater (although loveseat cushions are another matter).