New 'Essays in Idleness' & Other Reviews from The Hard Flex Cafe

When you wear Clinch’s Hi-Liner boots you feel like a spy or a secret agent or a Dune Fremen.   When I first saw these boots espying the website of the redoubtable Standard & Strange it took me more than a minute to grasp their genius, not just their beauty, exquisite craftsmanship, and undisguised audacity.   Then it occurred to me.  (Please forgive me for being so slow.  And, duh…)  The majority of the boot would be hidden beneath your trousers.  Since I don’t favor much taper in my pants, they’d not only fit comfortably given their 13.8” from heel to top, but no one would notice I was wearing boots nearly to my knees.  Inconspicuous elegance achieved.   Another  particularly satisfying  feature would be getting them on: quite a snug fit, a gentle but very  firm  push, and then the sublime sound:  donk , you're  in  and it’s on to that  slow lace .  (If you can love t...

“I woke up in the morning…Just glad my boots are on." ---the Boss, 'Western Stars Towards a ‘Sartorial Theosophy’ Any man who wants to learn how to live better with himself, with all the stuff that goes on inside, from light to shadow, might include in those reflections what he sees in the mirror.  I mean literally sees.   I was walking down Mahabandoola Street in Rangoon in the middle 1980s near The Strand Hotel when I saw the street sign inviting review: “Tip-Top Tailors, Sartorial Theosophists.”   I’m not making this up.  Somewhere I have the photo to prove it.   Real  theosophy notwithstanding I confess to have thought a great deal about the matter since: how  do  clothes make the man?  What do they say and what are you trying to say?  Are you trying at all?  Do you care?  Should you?   These queries may nowadays seem as anachronistic as theosophy but I’m going to presume that if...

This piece is made of a series of paragraphs that once stood on their own, mostly in the form of diary entries.    It's been cobbled into something because that's how we make connections of value.  We have to  learn how things come together when once they were just bits, pieces, some missing and broken and extra.   ***   I had some errands to do in the world today, nothing particularly unpleasant but on the level of chores.  I go to work more dressed for the part because I think that matters.  I’ve plenty of latitude about how that might look.  I make the flex and think it's important but that’s another story.  Today was more casual.   I put on a pair 25oz heavy denim still relatively new.  This means that it can take a moment or several moments to work your way into them, maybe a bit like body armor.  That top button can also cause a thumb injury (not kidding) so you should be mindful....

The Real McCoy’s just released a resized version of the classic Buco J-24 (Stock No. BJ21101).  This classic D-pocket or Double Rider jacket is often seen as the complement to the J-100 Cafè Racer.  Before we go any further in describing and comparing the particulars of their “updated fit,” as they put it, let’s consider further what RMC has done with their Buco sub-brand and indeed all of their work. This jacket is without question an homage and an appreciation of fashion and style that reaches self-consciously into the complex past of post-WWII Japan’s relationship with America.  That this modern Japanese company purchased the rights to the long-defunct Joseph Buegeleisen Buco brand suggests the lengths to which they were willing to go to express their commitment.  With a single stroke of identification they draw their own ensō, the circle of Zen which symbolizes, among other things, a deep, subtle deliberation with the possibilities of aesthetic realization. ...