Ivy & Navy

These guys know their socks and sandals. While Birkenstocks fell off my radar, these guys put it right back on with their look-alikes. I'm definitely looking to get a new pair of clogs after the mum threw out my pair from prep school. They also love cats, which is a plus in my book. A lot of guys don't like cats, but I'm not sure why. They generally take care of themselves, and don't come home with porcupine quills in their mouth. And to those who say they smell, I say, "learn to clean a litter box, it's actually easier than giving your dog a walk 5 times a day." But yes, sheddin' is a bitch. Much love to these guys for reppin' the clogs and inspiring me.

Ivy & Navy

Good Taste?: Hellboy

Hellboy got screwed over when he didn't make it into "Art of the Trench". But remember, only Hellboy and public masterbators wear trenches without shirts.

Bad Taste?: Button Sleeves

LL Bean Signature was generally well received by the blogger community. It has several nice pieces that would be considered staples and several pieces that accent those staples well. Alex Carleton found a good medium between his style and LL Bean's. I have one complaint about LL Bean Signature. This shirt:




















It's not a bad looking shirt by any means, except for the button sleeve. The contraption that holds your shirt sleeves rolled kills the entire shirt: training wheels for shirt sleeves. Apparently, the human male cannot be trusted to roll his own sleeves up. We now need a button to hold it in place. Other stores have adopted the button sleeve, but most are inside the mall, where men are misguided into buying crappy, poorly cut cotton shirts and don't know any better. However, this shirt, partially directed at the heritage market, is merely insulting. Even if this was directed at the mall crowd, rolling your sleeves is not an action hard to perfect and is not in any need of assistance. As far as I know, most of us can roll our sleeves just fine. And this is why Mr. Carleton isn't a humanist.

Bad Taste?: Tumblr

What kind of jerk-wad uses tumblr? As of now, this guy does. Actually, I just hate hosting with photobucket... It really sucks.

http://notesontaste.tumblr.com/

Bad Taste?: Funky Colorways

Let's get this straight Yuketen. Good taste in footwear is actually really, really simple.

Good Taste:



Bad Taste:



Same shoe, two vastly different statements.

Bass Barret

McNairy has been killing the red brick sole look recently. Turn your head to just about any blog and you've got one of his drop-dead gorgeous shoes staring back at you. Of course, most are out of our price range, and considering that red brick soles need resoled more often than most shoes, this makes them less than satisfactory to our check books. In steps G.H. Bass. With McNairy-esque designs they throw down the Barret, which is absolutely dope. $80 for a red brick suede wingtip and you'll be able to buy yourself a TV dinner other than Kid Cusine. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the puddles.

Roy Denim

As selvedge slowly drops in price, you can almost hear the connoisseurs sob to themselves as mere mortals are able to access selvedge denim jeans for under $165. With the cheaper denim, you get more of a mass product, and less exclusivity of the product. This, of course, totally bones on the coolness of owning selvedge denim jeans. This is a good thing (less denim snobs) and a bad thing (selvedge denim quality decreasing). With cheap selvedge denim abounding, what's a dude to do? Go with the cheap stuff or spend some dough on some denim that was put together with vintage machines? Enter Roy Denim. The fit of Roy's jean is supposedly like a 514. He puts them together himself and you can get letters/names/words embroidered on your jean. He does it with old jean sewing machines and creates a good product for... $150. $150? And with that, I leave you with pics.

Ring Boots

I was going to do a post about how cool ring boots are and how surprisingly hard I imagine they would be to pull off. As an example I was going to post this picture:



After digging this picture back up, I realized Stevey McQueen isn't wearing ring boots. He's wearing some sort of moccasin that looks vaguely like a ring boot. Now that that idea is in the dumps, I'm going to rant about how ring boots can be worn wrong.





Ring boots look good when you've got some skin in between your trouser and your boot (so rolled trousers for those who couldn't figure it out). They also look good when the pant cuff sits on/around the ring. They look silly when you've got a pant opening so big that it floods over the boot and parachutes about your leg. Being a moccasin, this shoe will look and fit smaller on your foot than most shoes, so pants that look okay with other shoes may look baggy with the moccasin ring boot. For most younger men, baggy pants isn't the look you're going for. If you're older, you probably don't wear 511s-514s and wouldn't care to wear some ring boots anyhow. Ring boots really aren't that practical and if it's your first boot, I'd just get a desert boot; they're cheaper.

This is my hundredth post. Kinda' anti-climatic huh? Photos jacked from Inventory.

Ben Silver Outlet

The Ben Silver Outlet has traditional width ties for cheap. If you don't thrift for ties, Ben Silver is really quite the place to get ties. From $40-$80, the ties are marked down from $110-$140. With some nice lightweight ties on sale currently, they've got some summer ties waiting to be picked up. Even if you're into a fairly skinny tie, I'd give Ben Silver a look, as the ties are what I'd consider timeless. Also, check out their sweaters and shirts; just be warned, they don't carry many smalls.

Bad Taste?: Flip-Flops

Well, duh, they show off your bad taste, but blisters happen, as do communal showers. If you can avoid racing 10ks in racing flats that leave their mark, avoid flip-flops. Case in point, I raced a 10k in spikes last weekend and had a nasty blister on my heel. I wasn't interested in irritating my abrasion further, so I wore my shower flops about campus. If you must wear flip-flops, go cheap, as you shouldn't have to wear them that often.

Bad Taste?: Belt Buckles

Some years ago, men lost the belt buckle to the douches. How did it happen? The same way men lost the graphic t-shirt to douches. Clothes shouldn't have mottos on them. If the article of clothing is any good, it should speak for itself through it's quality, material, and cut. There's no reason to have your t-shirt tell the passerby that you love 'Great Sax' and your belt buckle proclaim to your girlfriend that you are 'Superman'. Graphic t-shirts and belt buckles have become existential ideology that every beer drinking, pussy grinding man hopes to fulfill. If you can't back up that saying on your shirt or belt buckle, you might not wanna' be seen with it on. Sadly most belt buckles fall into this trap and have fallen to the wayside.

Enter the 'find'. I was on vacation with my Grandfather during the summer before 9th grade, following the Lewis and Clark trail with other elderly folk guided by an Native American/Irish man and some guy who wrote a book about Sheheke (pronounced Shuh-hake-shote), a Mandan Indian who met Thomas Jefferson. We traveled along the Missouri River up until Montana. Then, randomly, we went to Mt. Rushmore and at the tourist-y gift shop, I stumbled upon this belt buckle that I immediately purchased.








The noses of GW and Abe are wearing off. I guess it just shows that I've been wearing almost everyday since. If you asked me which piece of clothing described me, I would tell you that this belt buckle does.

Belt buckles should be about you, not what you aspire to be. Men will take the belt buckle back, it'll just take time for each one to find a buckle that's them and not someone else.

Bad Taste?: Sunglasses

Please, do your girlfriend a favor and resist the urge.

Bad Taste?: Mellow Days of Gold and Yellow

Let us not kid ourselves thinking that patterned polos will ever be better than a solid color. While many colors in pic 1 are staples in any man's wardrobe, yellow is often missing due to the (mis)conception that yellow is a hard color to wear. Norwegian heritage males do not do well in yellow, as it tends to make their complexion look washed out. However, anybody with skin darker than cream would do well to adopt a bit of yellow in their life. Avoid pairing yellow shirts with khaki, as it's tone doesn't contrast the yellow well, but navy chinos and jeans do well mixed with yellow. If it's blue, you're set to brew (harhar). Rules are meant to be broken, but yellow needs a little help. Take a jump, add some yellow, and use good taste.