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Bruce Boyer’s Comfort Rearranged

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“Interestingly, the insanity of the moment is guys who wear their tailored clothes much too tight. All those constricting little shiny suits that the Italian fashion herd has been pushing. Most of these guys look like they were poured into their clothes and forgot to say when. They look uncomfortable and make those of us who have to look at them uncomfortable. I think tailored clothes should have good shape, but be comfortable. I would never sacrifice comfort for fashion. But that’s what fashion is, isn’t it? Something so ridiculous, it’s got to be changed every season.”” ---G. Bruce Boyer, cited on The Articles of Style blogspot     Jeremy over at Blamo! just reran his interview with the great Bruce Boyer.  This is easily my favorite episode of his downright wonderful podcast: Jeremy’s ingenuous admiration is complemented by Boyer’s unaffected manners and inveterate decency. Both are easy to like.   I too admire Boyer’s work on so many levels: his integrity matches his insight, his wi
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High Rise, Going Straight and the End of Too Tight

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Nearly all of the cool stuff I had before I was 25 belonged to my father or my elder brother who turned his own 25 in ’72 when I was just 15, which also happens to be the same year that I  stole  his Schott Perfecto and raided his closet for some well-worn Levi’s 501s.  My father had a trunk of khakis and shirts from the War and his later Madman period when I was born.  I figured I could make a clean getaway before either of them noticed I'd raided the ark of the covenant.  That Schott jacket was later stolen from me in a bar.  Karma.  What goes ‘round comes ‘round.  Those wide chinos that were Pop’s I wore into college in ’75: he never commented on the pilferage but I am sure he noticed.   So speaking of which, finally.  I noticed this past year mainstream makers like JCrew and Todd Snyder have finally brought  sorta’ almost not really yet   straight  denim and chinos into their current offerings.  It’s been all tapered all the time, if you haven’t noticed.  You know the tide has
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The Ship John Wills Jacket

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When I was a student living in India I once had a very personal close encounter with a king cobra, an actual  Ophiophagus Hannah .  It was, I kid you not, under my sink.  Lemme tell ya’, this was nothing like knocking on the glass at the San Diego Zoo trying to get the snake’s attention.  It obviously looked like a cobra to me and it was certainly big enough and scary enough to warrant the appellation “king.” But I later found out that the King Cobra is monotypic, it is the only one of its species and so not  really  a cobra but  something else .  What appeared to me as a snake, a cobra  under my sink right before my eyes  was something  more ,  even other .    Don’t let appearances fool ya’.  Enter the Ship John Wills jacket.   I got my Ship John Wills when they announced increased production and availability.  It took about a year before it arrived.   Mine’s a V2, which has gone through some refinements in fit and construction.  I can’t compare it to the Version Ones, which I had gaw
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Making the Case for Being a Man

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Welcome to the HFC, have a seat.  A very few words of introduction.  My favorite biography is that of the great man David Hume, Scottish philosopher who pretty much invented the idea of experience as the best teacher---the dullest emotion is more articulate than the finest rational argument he once said.  Hume's biography was half a printed page long in a world in which sentences alone could consume volumes, and he write, "A man cannot speak long of himself without vanity.  I shall be short." Go here for the whole bit, this started as an essay and turned into a podcast.  Look here: https://thehardflexcafe.substack.com/ I'm going to take Hume's advice so suffice it to say that I've been writing and dare I say teaching about life for a long time now.   Sometimes you know things just 'cause you were  there .  More important are the things you've taken the time to learn, and if you've had experience too then to reflect.  No one might care what you thin
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