A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

I’ve been wearing this approximate outfit almost every day built around three recent finds.

1) Pointer Brand Chore Coat that the Buckshot Sonny’s dudes hooked me up with last month. For a manual labor-like coat, I tend to actually feel a little more snazzed-up than usual when I slip this coat on and sorta snap up its collar. It’s maybe the extra crispy crunch of the coat’s duck canvas.

2) Imogene + Willie speckled cream jeans in the brand’s higher-rise and therefore more mid-60s feeling fit they call The Willie. They read bright ‘n white on screen but in person they’re more of a heather-ed oatmeal, giving the jeans a heartier, more hardware-store kind of feel I’m quite keen on.

3) And last, but prob’ly not least, a fresh pair of Red Wing 2126 boots. Apparently the deal with this style is that Red Wing stopped manufacturing them “officially” except for once a year, selling the small lot of them down around Texas where they’re especially popular. The 2126s come boxed with round, golden, workman laces, but I threaded in flat, brown ones off Amazon to make ‘em a little more mysterious and less bulldozer-driver-like.

So 1, 2, 3 and I’m pretty much good to go each morning. I haven’t found a shirt, even in the shadows of my closet, that refuses to work well with the rest of this outfit.

This is what we looked like.
This is what was important to us.

We went searching for boots and bags and better bow ties,
and on the way we found ourselves friends.

This is a document of what it felt like in our American-made world
when we came together for goods we believed in.

Thanks to Larry and to Mac & Kat for setting up this Minnesotan magic,
and for letting me capture it for everyone to see.

NorthernGRADE

An editor by nature, and by trade, I’m a real sucker for any “Best Of” list since they efficiently illuminate what was or still is relevant and radiant, while whittling away the extraneous.

Unless we count my nearly two years of Treasuring as one giant list itself, I’ve never posted a proper list. I thought I’d look back through the digi-pics of 2010 to tally up the top 10 treasures I’d measure as “The Best of The Year”.

1. Favorite Accessory
My new, U.S. issued Aviator Kit Bag. After one machine wash, and one mini-trip to New Orleans, it’s proven itself to be the perfect carry-on suitcase in terms of size and studly style.

2. Favorite Flashback
A TV junkie, just about everything’s been re-runs since early December. But Universal’s HD cable channel, roster-ed with random re-runs of hits from all eras, has been providing me with a dozen Charlie’s Angels episodes a week. It was my first favorite show as child, and it’s finally aged enough now to no longer seem dated and dull (which it did to me a few years back). Now every single tunic, discotheque, and Tom Selleck cameo highlights how chic and swanky the late 70s and early 80s were.

3. Favorite Finger-Painting
The J. Crew shorts I cropped myself then coated in 5 different colors earned me internet high-fives as well as veiled death threats, but I wore them rogue-ly and regularly all summer, to that magic point on the far side of self-consciousness. These shorts and the sideways glances they brought on taught me that if I’m not making someone’s eyes roll over what I’m wearing, I’m just not doing my job.

4. Favorite Follow Up
After two whole albums and a boat-shoe-box’s worth of B-sides, I’ve never heard a Vampire Weekend song I didn’t like. The CONTRA album was more Californian and yet noticeably colder than the New York band’s debut disc, but the sound of shivers in the sunshine made me happy and happily sad, over and over and over this year.

5. Favorite Mistake
I’ve ordered a lot of treasures over the internet these past years, but these vintage black boots were the only package that never arrived. (NOOOO!) I’m still too torn up inside to tell why I loved them so much, or type up all the outfits I would’ve worked up around them. Rest in peace, black boots. I know, without you, that I won’t.

6. Favorite Flavor
The black licorice macaron I chewed in slow motion on the windy steps of a church somewhere in Paris.

7. Favorite Escape
No one saw this coming, not even me, but somehow I became a fan of prison break books. Papillon is the ultimate, the tall-tale-sized autobiography of a Parisian criminal’s repeated escapes from prisons in French Guiana, including the Devil’s Island colony. The protagonist’s will is so strong and sturdy that even when he must endure years/chapters trapped to sunless, solitary confinement, his tone remains brave and bright. The Steve McQueen movie version of the story isn’t criminal, but it lacks the disarming charm of Papillon and his incredible adventure.

8. Favorite Fad
Reddish-orange pants, or orangey-red jeans. But we all already knew that.

9. Favorite Forty-Four Minutes
The best “hour” of TV I saw all year was Mad Men’s season four episode “The Suitcase”. There’s always been a “Will they or won’t they?” tension to Draper and Peggy’s relationship. Not “Will they or won’t they?” fall into bed, but “Will they or won’t they?” fling aside the stressed charades of their 1960s social roles for forty five seconds, and just look at one another for who they actually are. In “The Suitcase”, they finally did just that, puked-on dress shirts and all. It was a long time coming, and it was a sweet and needed relief.

10. Favorite Fantasy
Lying on the beaches of Mexico on an extra large, linen deck-towel- shaped island. I got the towel in August, the plane ticket in November, and soon enough my fantasy will turn reality!

2011 has a lot to live up to.

Other than shoes and obscene amounts of boots, I haven’t been buying as much vintage wear as I once did. When you’re young and broke and free, it’s easier to find the patience to flip through racks of Aeropostale polo shirts and Deee-Lite-ful polyester pants for hours on end to find the one rare and worthwhile wearable.

But, of course, if you never shoot, you’ll never score, and so now and then I return to my thrift-store roots in hopes I’ll hit the jackpot.

Last week’s find was a late 70s/early 80s mystery shirt by a brand called CAMPUS® Easy Life.

Its safari and sorta shutter-buggy at first glance, but the shirt’s quilted shoulders & pocket flaps, plus its rounded shawl collar take it to an almost Luke Skywalker-like universe.

It’s just the sort of unusual and interesting piece no label would have reason to design today, and which simply must be rescued from the fading force of yesterday.

So remind me not to forget again about the merits of valiant thrifting. Cause had I not flipped past hanger after hanger of irrelevant vintage for like a whole hour last Friday, I never would’ve nabbed the perfect top for photographing Ewoks or Elaine Irwin in some outer-spacy outback.

But now I do!

I topped my last few winters with a Team Zissou-style bright red watch cap. And I can’t say I’m completely tired with the look just yet.

But here and there, I don’t recall just where, I’ve recently seen 70s-era pom-pom-topped hats hanging around the internet and thought they’d be a playful dash forward during this era in men’s fashion where everything’s mucho macho and (almost obnoxiously) earnest.

On the outskirts of Tumblr town, I found a pair of Penthouse Knitting Mills hats from 1978 with their tags still on and made the green (and not the red) one mine.

I was tempted to wear it a week or so with the tattered tag still stapled on.

But the overall look’s probably quirky enough without slipping a Minnie Pearl homage into the mix.

As a Minnesotan kid, there was a cardboard box on the top shelf of my family’s coat closet overflowing with hats like this. It was then that winters seemed the wildest and its gear the warmest…

So, as is increasingly the case with me, I’m stepping my aesthetic forward by poking around in the past.

Don’t mean to Deja Vu you. Although the peppery pants pictured below might seem the same as a recently reviewed pair of 4 Strokes – they’re different. (I swear.)

I won’t deny they cover some of the same sartorial ground but, speaking of wardrobe resolutions (as my fashionable friends have been doing on the Treasury the past weeks) one of my main aesthetic objectives for fall is to wear weirder colors and punchier prints. And so a single pair of spiced up pants would’ve been a weak attempt.

These sun-faded Stanton pants from J. Crew are redder, softer, and cleanly chino cut vs. the more rugged and amber-ed denim of the 4 Strokes, for anyone keeping score. And even though I’d probably pair up both pieces into the same sorts of get-ups for the exact same overall effect, once your eyes adjust to outfits free from the chill of indigo down below, it seems only right to keep turning on the heat with well-stocked closets of warm-hued trousers.

That being said, I do think the next time I go not-blue I’m probably gonna go green.

What a way to start the week!

I figured I should forge into the very best time of year, fall, with my best foot forward – so I’m sprucing up my system a bit here at The Treasury to take things to a better place for all of us.

The site’s just received a Non-Extreme-Makeover up around top, with larger article images to be embedded down below. Also, I’ll be entering exclusive updates of additional Treasures on Twitter ’cause it’s finally time I let little Bieber influence how I’m living life, electronically.

Best of all, I’m assembling together a slate of illuminating new entries that’ll showcase the stories and style behind some of the coolest companies and internet comrades I’ve had the pleasure to cross paths with in my past year ‘n a half of online Treasuring.

Over the summer I’ve come to realize just how much we can learn from each other when it comes to sourcing and celebrating the happy and handsome things in life – and so that’s going to be a major new mindset as I move forward with my little ol’ site.

So…stick close by, friends. Good (looking) times are just ahead!

Treasury reader Peter wondered about the watch I was wearing in yesterday’s post, so I figured I might as well aim my Canon at it and devote an entry to it as I have come to wear the piece quite a bit over the past year and half.

The good news about the watch is it isn’t one of those pricy, Timex/J. Crew ones. The bad news is, there’s no identifying brand name or marking on the watch to provide us with any clues as to its origin. The word “Quartz” is as specific as this stealth little number cares to get.

What I can say is I had asked for a $30 dollar military watch for Christmas a few years back. The piece I had wanted was nearly identical to this but had a date dial as well. Apparently it was on back-order until after the holidays, and so this one was chosen for me instead as it was very similar in style and price. I believe it was purchased from some ordinary military/outdoor gear shop, and so a similar watch shouldn’t be too hard to track down via Froogle or Amazon.

Despite its lack of a date dial and my initial disdain for the piece because of that, it ends up on my wrist all the time as it is smaller and subtler than my other watches. I suppose its generic stealth-ness is the very strength of its style.

After many entries, and endless online investigating, I’ve ended my autumn search for a leather document case with this vintage piece from Murray Leather.

It’s a little shorter than the best one I’d had on hand previously, which is a plus, and its structure is sturdier and free from flop which I also appreciate.

It’s essentially perfect, I only wish it bling-ed a bit more in front with some sort of brassy clasp. So therefore, although this drawn out case appears to be closed, if you read between the lines you’ll surely surmise that a new one has already been opened.

Dunking my raw denim (with my body inside them) into a brisk Wisconsin Lake in order to achieve that perfect Levi’s Shrink-To-Fit effect wasn’t a bad way to spend a 93 degree day.

Roaming around the wannabe waves in the drenched denim didn’t feel too icky or sticky, surprisingly. It actually felt sorta swell.

After a breezy, forty minute boat ride my 501s were at least 50 percent dry.

A few sunny, strolls down hot, graveled roads on top of that and the jeans began condensing and conforming to my shape, just as the Levi’s clerk had promised.

A day later, my jeans have maintained their rough, rigid, General Store-staple type of structure, while gaining the perfect little wrinkles and angles which give them that authentic, lived-in, almost alive look.

So far they shrunk up pretty nicely. At least an inch in the waist and the length. Since they aren’t an inky indigo denim and I’m not going for a really worn or whiskered look, I’m gonna just launder them now, fly them through the dryer, and be done with them.

I don’t want to go overboard with the whole ordeal.

(Although, technically, I suppose I already did.)

I want a pair of cool, awesomely-fitting jeans as much as the next guy, but I’m not obsessed about it.

I do have a pair of (my first) selvage jeans arriving in the mail today (more on those later) and I did wear a pair of dark rigid denim twenty-plus times this past year before giving them their first wash because voices on the internet told me to. But that’s about as bothered as I’ve cared to get over the whole do-it-yourself denim perfecting game.

But a perfect storm came upon me this week that’s tempting me to play. An article by Simon Roe from Inventory’s premiere issue, along with these $50 buck 501s from the Levi’s store and the quirky clerk who sold them to me seem to be telling me it’s finally time to take the denim perfecting plunge.

My photos don’t quite show it, but the denim I chose isn’t a traditional inky indigo. They’re a lighter, almost train engineer blue, halfway down the track to actually being gray. In person, they’re just odd enough to seem like precious deadstock.

Looming together the advice of Mr. Roe and the dude at the Levi’s store, the key to killer shrink-to-fit 501s appears to be buying them an inch to two inches too large in the waist, wearing them while wet until they dry entirely, and then….

Well, we’ll see where that gets me. I’ll be near a western Wisconsin lake this weekend, so I’ll take a denim dip in my lighter-than-they-seem Levi’s and let them dry right on me.

After that, some advisors claim the jeans will have shrunk to my body already and to wear them as-is a few more weeks before machine washing them. Others suggest I’ll need to launder and dry them after the drench/air dry adventure to ensure a proper fit.

I’ll just take it step by step and see how things seem. Fresh from the store, they fit baggy and bunchy like a toddler’s favorite jeans, but the Levi’s clerk assured me that would be the perfect start to my self-shrinking process.

If nothing else, hopefully we’ll all be info-tained.

TO BE CONTINUED…