Put This On

If you’re looking for an alternative to stopping at the flower stand on your way to work, trendici e lupo points us to JandHP, who make these lovely knit (crocheted?) flowers and sell them for just $9.  They even have a button on the back for your buttonhole-mounting convenience.

By the by: if your flowers aren’t staying put in your lapel hole, it’s a trivial matter for a tailor to add a loop of thread behind and below the buttonhole to hold the flower’s stem.

It’s On eBay

14K Gold and Mother of Pearl Cuff Links

Start at $9.99, end Sunday

David emails to let us know that in looking for eccentric tie accessories, stock pins are worth considering.  They’re used for pinning ties for the riders of show horses, and you can find them quite cheaply online.

Several folks have asked me about what Old Dog is using in our last post to pin his tie.  It’s a style often seen on MistahWong, as well.  Most people have asked if it’s a safety pin; if I’m not mistaken it’s actually a collar pin, like the one above (from Brooks Brothers).  I’m not quite ready to start poking at my own ties, but it’s a lovely touch for those two fellas.

I strongly recommend you avoid visiting the website of Drake’s of London.  If your resolve is weak, you may be drawn into a world of sartorial fantasy which your lifestyle and income cannot support.  Not that this has ever happened to me, of course.

A couple of pocket squares by Holland & Holland, purchased on eBay from a nice woman in Kent who wrapped them in tissue paper and sealed the tissue with a metallic race car sticker.  Perfect.

There are those who say “why have a complex pattern on a pocket square, when no one will see it?”  Those who get it know that that’s the whole effing point.

My wife got me a pelican hook belt (above, rear) from Narragansett Leathers for my birthday.  Hand-made in New England with hefty brass marine hardware.  If you want one, you can give them a call at 207-563-5080, and they’ll grab one off the shelf for you and ship it priority for a very modest price - or if they’re out, they cut one for you today.  What a wonderful gift.

How to Buy Eyeglasses: A Case Study

I myself don’t wear glasses, but my wife does.  Her current health insurance covers eye exams, but not frames, so we decided to try a few ways of getting her a new pair.

The process began with a trip to the eye doctor.  My wife got a new prescription, and made sure the doctor included her PD, or pupillary distance.  That’s the distance between the pupils of her eyes, which whoever made the lenses would need so they would know where to center the lenses.  Your eye doctor will usually just give you this number - if not, I’ve heard any Wal-Mart eyeglass counter will measure it for you for free.  Then it was on to our frame adventure.

First, we visited Gogosha Optique, a boutique frame store that came highly recommended by a friend.  The saleswoman asked my wife a few questions about what kind of frames she was interested in, sized up her face and went to work.  After assembling a few trays of frames, the saleswoman had my wife try them on, indicating what she liked and didn’t like about each.  This went surprisingly quickly.  After about ten or fifteen minutes, a pair was settled upon.  It looked great - much better than any pair my wife had had before.  We asked the price.  The total was more than $700 - $500 for the frames, and $225 for the lenses.  We said we’d think about it.

Our next stop was some vintage frame stores.  We visited Old Focals in Pasadena, since I’d met the proprietor at our launch party and he seemed like a nice guy.  They had hundreds of frames, all priced around $80-100.  My wife didn’t find the kind she was looking for (something in tortoiseshell), but she did surprise herself by finding an alternate pair in black.  We bought them for $80.

At that point, we were still wondering whether to buy the $600 frames.  They had indeed looked great, were of great quality, and the service at the boutique had been fantastic.  But still: $700?  Dang.

In the meantime, we took the vintage frames and a pair of sunglasses to an independent optical shop that Adam recommended to be fitted with prescription lenses.  The place was a bit nutty, with an Armenian-American toddler running rampant, but the price was right.  Two sets of lenses, $60.  Compare that $30 price to the $200 that the boutique was going to charge us for lenses, and you get an idea of the margins in the optical industry.

We decided to take one more stab at a cheaper solution for everyday glasses, and we dialed up Warby Parker using Internet.  These folks claimed to make boutique-quality glasses for $95, including frames, returns, and a free try-on service.  The try-on service wasn’t available for the frames my wife wanted to try because of a surge in demand that the new company wasn’t expecting, but we decided to order two pairs of glasses anyway.  With a full refund available if she didn’t like them, we figured, “why not?”

It was a great decision.  The glasses arrived yesterday, and the quality is excellent.  The frames and hinges are solid - not at all like, say, cheap sunglasses or drugstore reading glasses.  In fact, they’re nicer than my go-to sunglasses, a pair of Persols which retail for several hundred bucks.  Both pairs looked great, and she decided to keep them.

The end result?  My wife has three pairs of glasses - a pair in black, a pair in tortoise and a colored pair.  She’s also got some prescription sunglasses for driving.  The total cost?  About $350.  Win.

Q and Answer: Belts

Eric writes: I understand that a belt should be roughly the same color as the shoes it is paired with but are there other guidelines? What dictates a belts width, texture, or buckle color and style?

A standard men’s dress belt is about 1 1/4” wide.  That will look “normal” with almost any trouser.  Narrower than 1” and you’re wearing a fashion statement.  Wider than 1 1/4” and the belt is casual; more suitable for jeans or work wear than for dress wear.

As you say, the color of your belt should roughly match the color of your shoes.  They don’t need to be a perfect match (some even argue that a perfect match tries too hard), but they shouldn’t look dramatically different.  The hardware is usually either brass (or some other yellow-colored metal) or nickel (or some other silvery-colored metal).  Which you prefer is up to you.  There are those who match the metal of their watch to their belt buckles and cuff links, this is a bit much for me.  The buckle should be plain.  D-ring and fancy buckles are for casual wear.

As far as the finish of the belt, I prefer a rough match to my shoes, as well.  Dark brown suede shoes means dark brown suede belt.  This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, though.  As with shoes, suede is more casual than smooth calf.

With summery shoes or sneakers, you have a few options.  You can go with a leather belt that roughly matches the leather on the shoes.  You can also go with a more casual belt.  During the warmer months, I often wear a braided rope belt with my canvas sneakers, and sometimes a colorful ribbon belt.  With off-white summer shoes, I often wear a surcingle belt, made of cotton or cotton and wool, with leather ends.

One slightly off-topic note: not many people realize that belts can be altered.  If you’ve lost some weight, take your belt to the shoe repair store, and they can shorten it for you.  They do this by removing the buckle, cutting down the buckle end, then re-attaching the buckle.  That way, you retain the same number of holes on the pointy end.

(Belts above are by the good folks at Narragansett Leathers.  We love them.)