Last night, while making my way through more Chap's Guide archive of videos on YouTube, one of his videos on becoming the person you want to be, is to have a passion. YouTube then suggested a very different video. I have seen it before, but wow does it typify passion. It's the last song played at the 2004 Rock & Roll HoF induction concert. Several of the inductees from that night were asked to play While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Harrison song who was posthumously inducted in 2004). Prince was asked to play the guitar solo at the end of the song. I like Prince, but most of his music is too pop for me. Forget everything you think you know about him and watch the video. It shows, exudes, and syphons passion in a way that made me realize my neglect for my true passion. Propitiously, the song is extremely fitting, as the passion I have is music, specifically drumming. Engaging your passion gives more meaning and sentiment to all of your life. What are your passions? Have you been finding time to engage with your passions on a regular basis?

Recently @Antonio Centeno had me speak on a zoom panel about my style journey where I stated my disdain for the terms preppy and old money. Antonio even called me out on it since he has done videos about each term. While I tried to stay on task for the limited time I had on that call and sidestepped his comment, I thought I might take this opportunity to elucidate why I dislike those terms so much. And far be it from me to speak out against Antonio whom I deeply admire. Hopefully this might clear up any misunderstandings about what I mean. Anyone who has read my stuff here for a while, probably knows that I loathe both the terms preppy and old money. Oh believe me, I get where they come from. And a part of me is pleased that there is a movement for guys to recognize the classic aspect of each’s appeal. But to understand my issue with the terms let me provide a little background first. Born in 1960 I grew up in that decade as a small boy. Naturally I was a TV kid. On television, hair styles and clothing styles were pretty standardized (think Flipper, my three sons, leave it to Beaver, I dream of Jeanie, Bewitched etc etc. Some of the youngest members of this community will need to do a google search i suppose). By the late 1960’s and into the early 1970’s there was a war waging in jr highs and high schools across my state regarding school regulations about hair lengths, tshirts, torn and worn jeans (and that’s just the boys. The girls brought on a whole new dimension regarding skirt lengths etc). My bank president ex Airforce father and I had our moments as my hair became an inverted bowl, all my t-shirts graphics were heavily scrutinized, and my blue jean waistbands got lower while my legs flared out more and more. By the time I reached college in 1978-the nightmare that was the 70’s was in full force. Yet because I worked in men’s clothing, I at least had begun wearing quality casual wear to school: shirts (Gant was a great brand in the 70s) and khaki trousers ( Berle) among the brands that we sold. By my third store I worked in, most gentlemen had finally ditched the nightmare that was the 70’s and one of, if not the biggest influence was Ralph Lauren (which we sold). By 1980, natural fabrics and classic designs were taking back menswear by a storm. Then the damn book came out. Because Harold’s (the store where I worked) was specifically mentioned in that confounded book (The Preppy Handbook), Not only did we sell the book-we would sell out every crate we received in just a few days. Worse, each of we clothiers read our copies cover to cover because the clientele expected us to be experts on all things in that confounded unholy 🙄scripture (we were on commission after all). No matter how much we would tell people it was only a parody-most people simply didn’t get it. There were kind of two types of clientele. The guys who wanted to look good. And the guys who wanted to chase the latest pastel (provided it had a horse on it or Ralph’s name on the tag.) The sad part is Ralph became popular because of its superior product and design. But the craze took a life of its own. Sort of like a swarm of sherbet madras zombies chanting preppy instead of brain's. Of course I am being flippant. Truthfully as a guy at the very tail end of the boomers I was helping most of our clients who were buying this book (essentially slightly older boomers ) who had been duped by the absurd fashion trends of the 1970’s and were eagerly searching for merely some return to sanity {hmmmm sound familiar to today perhaps🤔}. Yet many didn’t really understand what they were running to -as much as what they were running from. This reversal of the disco double knit platform shoe nightmare of the hideous clothing known as the 1970’s flipped to some kind of traditional menswear and the rapid change was world wide. Then a strange thing happened by the 90’s. School aged kids began to wear classic Ivy clothing but did so in many cases as a status symbol. Naturally this produced cliques and commensurately caused counter cliques to wear the antithesis of “preppy”. Let me explain further. While clothing fashions has always been characteristic of different social groups especially among teenagers-I submit that the multiple groups like preps, goths, cowboys, hip hop, mall rats, geeks, etc etc took on a whole new dimension from the 1990’s on, perhaps until today. (In my high school we kind of had only three: stoners, goat ropers, and everyone else).

So, the most painful thing in style for me is that when you get a good salesman and they call you for an invite only sale. It ALWAYS catches me. And pricing at those kinda of stores is painful. And then there is the fabic you touch and leave with. Like silk and alpaca weaves at John Varvatos. Just don't touch them. You do, and you go... well the cashmere was almost as nice. And then you are at the register. Gal darn it. Well, I picked up a few basics. But that alpaca silk? It beats all my cashmere. Which beats the feel of anything else in my closet. I am glad I tried on only one color. Matches my original Varvatos EDT.

Don’t be sheep. Before going into Travers Mahan last night https://www.skool.com/rmrs/new-93a5e27b?p=220c5bea my wife wanted to stop at a shop and look for some new shoes. Shoes for her last about as long as a haircut for me. So she goes cheap. A three letter chain shoe-store had a men’s section which took me about 12 seconds to walk through and realize there was absolutely nothing I would buy in that place. While she was still looking I walked down to MensWearHouse. Hadn’t been into one of those in a long while. I must have come in during a break in the crowds because the two clerks were at the mirror and one guy about my height tried on a white coat made out of some synthetic “breathable” fabric and the other clerk was commenting how the “short” fit him well. It looked like he was wearing a bullfighting bolero jacket to steal a comment from one in this community. It didn’t fit him well at all. All the mannequins had miss fitting jackets. Both clerks had horrible fits on in atrocious fabrics. I really felt sorry for anyone they were advising. I was there long enough for the shop to get full of shoppers (it is prom and wedding season so folks were streaming in to get rentals). I tried on one Joseph Aboud coat in a plaid that was about the right length of coat (42 reg) but the operable button was nearly at my sternum. I am hesitant to post this because I know some of the brothers shop at MW. And perhaps your experience is different. But beware. Don’t become a sheep shopping for the best deal. One is likely to be shorn. Perhaps it’s wiser to buy just one quality navy blazer and one quality grey trouser that lasts in style (Fit, Fabric, Function) than three suits for the same price that hits none of those.

Ok, so there is a debate on branding on clothes. Sometimes I wear with branding. Sometimes with none. Sometimes with a small touch. However, I am also a pretty heavy kdrama watcher. One think about Kdramas (Korean TV dramas) is that they expect payment for ANY brand name shown on their shows. If they don't have payment, they often put a piece of tape (often black electrical tape) over the brand. Or sometimes more extreme like when they mutilated an amazing women's Montblanc watch. This however is a hilarious, Kdrama ready British brand's attempt at satire that I adore but don't own. Note the blacked out branding in English and Korean? It just cracked me up. Kinda trying for a sly add aren't they?