Sooner or later I’m gonna make an unauthorized music video for this song by White Williams (the original, not this live version). It reminds me of a cockier yet more misty-eyed version of Henley’s “Boys of Summer” and I’m all about it.
Even when Joe, the mastermind, forgets the lyrics as he does here.
1. Broken silver BUTCH cup.
2. ULTIMO typewriter ribbon tin.
3. Toddler-sized toy gun.
Sooner or later it was going to become completely obvious on The Treasury that I’m a complete Peaks-freak. At the age of 14, it was because of this television show that I first began to long for the classic style and strength of a simpler world. In jr. high, I started looking at the strip mall Applebees restaurants and french-rolled acid-washed jeans that surrounded me and wishing I could live in a time or place as beautiful as Twin Peaks.
I think the current movement in men’s fashion toward rugged, American-made classics is born out of these exact same longings. To escape the cheap and tacky chill of modern America and head someplace richer and and cozier.
The new A.P.C. x Nike shoes seem to be getting mixed reviews. I don’t know that these Twin Peaks x Nike hi-tops are a step in a better direction, but they’re weird and charming, like some of my favorite things.
Available at flatspot.com.
News flash! The first images of the S/S 09 collection from My Actual Wardrobe began leaking to the web this morning. Critics have suggested the leaking of the images has something to do with me purposely leaking them. (Shhh!)
Based on the advance preview, it appears that My Actual Wardrobe will be favoring off-white denim, trim-fitting blazers in neutral corduroy, and Bavarian feather pins for its upcoming line.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, when the weather finally warms up a bit, I can definitely see myself in any/all of these pieces.
…I’d wear a shirt like this…
…and short trunks like these…
…and pretend I was Dickie Greenleaf and that Marge and Tom were mooning over me, underneath the sun of summer.
Even if I wasn’t tan, it might be a lovely masquerade.
(Bergdorf Goodman private label polo, Robinson les Bains trunks available at Bergdorf Goodman.)
I need a favor.
Two years ago I was on a frantic mission to find the perfect pair of vintage eyeglasses frames. During that search I downloaded these two images, from some on-line store, but I don’t know where.
I’m on the hunt, once again, for frames. Might anyone know the source of these two frames or other good on-line sources for other deadstock 1970s-era frames?
The first three pages of Google search results weren’t all that fruitful.
Thank you, friends!
-Will
P.S. No matter how old this posting becomes, keep sending in any ideas, if you have them.
A heated discussion was sparked recently in the comments section over at A Continuous Lean regarding the whole rugged-wear trend as far as who has the right to adopt it, and to what degree, and how poser-y they are once they do.
What’s striking me suddenly is that the more spiky accusations come in one of two slightly different forms:
1. Real men don’t follow trends.
2. Cool men don’t follow trends.
I don’t fear the word trend like some people do, and these attacks are harsh, but honestly I don’t disagree with either of them.
Women can craft carefully how they look, buying into the fads of their day, and neither their authenticity nor their allure as women is ever questioned for it. That’s not so for men. Is this an unfortunate double-standard? It’s a double-standard, definitely, but it’s the way we all want it, I think. Our expectations, our desires even, for how a man should form himself is very different from how a woman should, and it’s impacting the way we are fashioning ourselves as men, whether we’ll admit it or not.
As a man, if you have to study before hand what it means to be real or to be cool, you’re neither, the silent rule goes. Look no further than the many jpegs of railway workers and big game hunters being posted alongside those of Rogues Gallery’s new spring line on our favorite fashion-sighted sites. Our original emblems of manhood, of coolness, the ones we’re currently emulating half a century later, carry with them that intoxicating air of unstudied uncaring.
All of us bickering about boots on blogs, bookmarking Engineered Garments’ new spring line, stressing over how much to distress our A.P.C. straight legs…we’re all clearly studying before hand and caring deeply how to look. Which proves instantly false any of our claims to be either real or cool.
Ouch.
But stick up your chins, my fellow fake and horribly uncool men. Once we release ourselves from the delusions that we are real/cool, we’ll be one step closer to becoming ourselves. One step closer to not trying so hard, to not caring, to finally just being. One step closer…to cool.
- – - – -
Poetry aside, I think the main drag of this workwear trend is we’ve begun taking ourselves so seriously and we’ve been cornered into becoming rather defensive about our style and our interests. Let’s just enjoy ourselves and one another. Who’s with me?
(Images: Hunter in L.L. Bean from LIFE, 1941. Male model as Hunter in Burkman Brothers, 2009 via ACL.)
A Camp
“Stronger Than Jesus”
Filmed on obsolete, early 1980s television equipment.
The import cd of COLONIA is available today! My copy is ordered.
On a recent run to my favorite thrifty-antique store I picked up this framed photo for my office at home.
I’m not sure if they’re actors playing roles, or if they were heads of some early 1960s insurance sales company. Either way, they’ll be watching over me and all my tasks at the Treasury from now on.
-Mr. Rees
A preface to this volume including further information on its founding editor.
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