I’m totally fascinated with the clothes men wear, with what we say with our clothes, consciously and (mostly) unconsciously, about how we’d like to be seen in the world. Today, for instance, I’m wearing the following, from the feet up:
Bright blue and yellow retro-looking Saucony sneakers. They’re a hipster signifier, more or less, as most things retro are.
Aqua argyle socks from Banana Republic. They’re subtle, but only sensitive men wear aqua, and argyle, in this context, is vaguely retro-hipster.
Dark blue Calvin Klein bootcut jeans. I don’t quite have all the nuances of jeans figured out yet. They’re not skinny jeans, which is the fashionable move du jour, but they’re relatively tight-fitting, which is to say that they look tailored enough (as opposed to your typically shapeless Old Navy jeans) that they suggest that I’m at least trying to look fashionable in a vague way.
A gray and orange ringer tee (the ring is orange, the rest is gray) under a slightly tattered V-neck charcoal heather gray sweater from J. Crew — which is to say a kind of shabby chic preppy.
The total effect, I’m hoping, is a loose mix of preppy, hipster, artsy, and non-specific American male normalcy. It’s meant to suggest a certain amount of affluence, but not too much. I want to look good, but not look like I’m trying too hard to look good. Maybe a hint of literary-ness and nonconformity. As I think I’ve written before, it’s basically David Duchovny-chic (not really X-Files Duchovny, but almost everything he’s done after X-Files).
