A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

I like these Vans at Oki-Ni – very much so.

But I ordered them in boring navy blue instead from somewhere else.

Today h(y)r collective posted a moccasin oxford by South2West8. A similar shoe I’ve been using as inspiration is this Weinbrenner x Beams collaboration, found deep in the pages of an issue of Free & Easy magazine.

I quite like their dweeby, Dad-ish appearance. I’d wear them with plaids or fishermen sweaters and imagine myself an office worker at the Packard Saw Mill. Well…I’d wear them that way if the shoes weren’t found only in Japan and I could ever actually procure a pair, of course.

The boy-bloggers’ collective search for a spring ’09 Saddle Shoe has intensified in recent weeks. This $78 “tonal-oxford” as UO calls it, reminds me a wee bit of the Opening Ceremony saddle shoes, but at a prettier price-point.

Some of UO’s in-house shoes can look and feel especially cheap, but these seem worth a closer look.

In a perfect world though, I’d want my saddle shoes leather – not suede. Huh…My excitement over these seems to be rapidly waning…

My knee-high rain boots from J.Crew have always had a chalky finish to them, as if they’re dusty. I don’t know what’s going on and wiping them clean does nothing to solve the issue. So I’m using this issue as my excuse for justifiably longing for these Isle Jacobsen boots.

I’ve longed for lesser things for lesser reasons, so I don’t feel too bad about it all.

Available at Oak.

This post over at The Pursuit Aesthetic showcases the clever inclusion of men’s saddle shoes into Spring 09 outfittery, as presented by Corpus.

It’s a look that seemed lady-like for a beat or two, then suddenly shifted to seeming droll and dapper for dudes as well. All Plaid Out then swiftly laid out three saddle shoe options and I’ve been Froogling and e-baying other possibilities as well, but nothing seems quite right.

The suede semi-saddle shoes by F-Troupe presented here aren’t getting me any closer in my search, but they’re a snappy little detour.

I’ll get to where I’m going, eventually.

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.

When I read early last fall that J. Crew was possibly resurrecting the Baracuta jacket for Spring 09, I wasn’t familiar with the iconic piece but it was described, and I’m paraphrasing now, “As the kind of coat your dad raked leaves in.”

With that, I whipped out my wallet and blazed over to e-bay to land myself a vintage version a full season before the trend hit the masses. But once I saw the actual pieces up for auction, concern set in. I feared the dad-raking-leaves vibe might read too literally on me. When you hit your 30s, referencing anything fatherly or grandfatherly through your wardrobe choices gradually presents itself as more of a challenge. (Darn.)

Looking at some of the pieces I’ve been eyeing to spruce up my 09 identity, many of them fall into this Parent Trap, we’ll call it, where one risks the chance of appearing as an actual cigar-puffing, Kenny Loggins-humming, father of two washing down his Taurus in the driveway of his suburban Ohio colonial. Some dope who never managed to notice that pleated Dockers and Fair Isle sweaters were wrong for so long that some now find them amusingly right.

Certain items seem to carry a prerequisite amount of undiluted hipness, youth, and/or insouciance to pull off. I can brainstorm a number of ways to modernize and un-Dad-ify the Baracuta or the boat shoe in a 2009 outfit…but I’d still fear resembling one of the silvery foxes from Knots Landing.

Wait. Maybe that’s not quite the issue. I probably wouldn’t mind looking a bit like a Knots Landing lead, really, but…I’d want the average passerby to understand it was intentional and presented with a wink.

Some trends, be it their references, their timing or their subtleties, prove a real pickle to pull off. A trend piece that only the fashion insider would understand isn’t always worth adopting. Many of us feel safer when pulling together looks that can be understood also (at least to some degree) by the non-insider as well. And that Baracuta strikes me as a little un-safe, especially with the plaid liner.

I’m curious to hear, do other readers fear falling into The Parent Trap through mis-steps in their wardrobes? Furthermore, how do you approach the two key intricacies of all fashion trends: Timing and Level of Irony?

(Products featured in this post: Red Baracuta jacket – J.Crew. Plaid shirt – Steven Alan. Boat Show – Sperry at UrbanOutfitters. Khaki shorts – Dockers at Urban Outfitters.)

Listed below is a hierarchy of the categories of works the Treasury endeavors to publish most frequently, be they in fashion, music, film, design, television, grooming products, decorating, etc…

category 1.
Works in my possession, that I wholly treasure.

category 2.
Works I endeavor to take into my possession, that I hope to realistically be able to treasure in the near future.

category 3.
Handsome works merely floating around in cyberspace.

Presenting with any regularity works in the number 3 category seems somewhat lacking in value for myself or the reader. There are numerous other sources which post in a spare and non-contextual manner the wares which today’s designers and artists are peddling.

There is validity and value in perusing an on-line inspiration board-of-sorts, but that niche is covered and covered well already by other blogs, JJJJound being my preferred source for that slant.

The Treasury was established with the belief that some of the most valuable aesthetic expressions are born in the unpredictable space where an original inspiration shifts its shape in strange and strong new ways on its path to becoming actuality. 

Getting on with it, my first official presentation in the Treasury falls under category 2: A work I hope to possess and treasure some day.

In this case, its a tawny, butterscotch-colored shoe, the idea of which first came across my path this spring via the above photo pulled from men.style.com (I didn’t know I would be an official Treasurer one day, so I didn’t document the designer/show. I’m sure one of my readers can fill in this blank for me soon enough).

The most tangible source I’ve found so far in my quest for a similar shoe is Blackbird Ballard and their collaboration with Esquivel.

But since times are tougher these days, even on sale at approximately $225 per shoe ($450 if I opted for a complete working pair) my search will unfold beyond these Blackbird beauties.

Where exactly my search will go next, or if it might veer me off in a new direction, or drop me at a destination all together different, I will share with the reader. The examination of materialism in this on-line volume shall require more than just the What, I think. The How and therefore the Who, I think, may illuminate things much more clearly.