I genuinely don’t know when it happened that I stopped buying clothing in person. But my jeans have all come from LC King in Bristol, Tennessee for years now – eight years? Maybe? Everything that goes on the top half of my body comes from American Giant – T-shirts of all types, polos, work shirts, flannel. Outerwear has largely come in person – but not my M65, or my travel blazers. Socks from Bombas, drawers from Made Here (and how am I gonna replenish that) – at some point I stopped buying anything but shoes in person.
About that.
I’ve actually bought most of my shoes online lately. Not the Solovairs from Camden, obviously, but the Croc-like Kanes or the loafers and chukkas from Rancourt or the roper boots which are en route from Tecovas as we speak. I’ve replenished the plastic Birkenstocks online. Basically, since before the onset of the pandemic, my entire wardrobe has transitioned to what I can buy online rather than purchasing anything in person.
That’s a lot to think about. The idea that I would buy Western boots online seems like the last straw. The idea that I would buy Western boots at all seems a bit outlandish, but bear with me: if it’s socks season, I would like to have slip-on options, and that means either wearing out my Solovair Chelsea boots faster than I’d like or wearing the steel-toed Blundstones, and I need something in between. And I do have the old black cowboy boots I bought in 2001, but my original Nashville boots don’t fit any more (and were a gift from someone I’d just as soon be shut of) and I figured, why not – they’re good value for money and well reviewed, and they’re roper boots, the sort you muck around the ranch in rather than the kind that you preen around Broadway in Nashville wearing. I don’t have a hat to go with them, and won’t, because the gray derby hat is much closer to authentic western wear than some gigantic George Strait number.
At some point, I feel like I need the boots and the blazer to bolster my look. I feel different in the boots and the blazers. Closer to how I was in DC, when I had confidence in my ability and the respect of my peers and management. It’s been too long, but maybe I can still get back to that a little bit – or at least look a cut above while doing it. Ten years ago I was actually trying to have a more polished look for my 40s, and then it all went to hell with work being a misery and the world collapsing and by the time Covid arrived, I was happy enough to rock the “upscale vagrant/mildly alcoholic beachcomber” aesthetic.
Maybe this is just a case of “dress as the person you want to be, not the person you’ve let yourself become.” I don’t know. All I can tell you is that it’s finally (almost) outerwear season, and the quarter of the year in which i can reliably dress in my preferred manner. I’m hoping to really get into it and enjoy it before the highs in the 80s come back and bring another miserable year along with them.