Rainy and chilly this morning. OOTD: Forest Green 1/4 zip Blue/White small windowpane dress shirt Medium Charcoal Grey trousers Grey with Blue Shadow Stripe OTC dress socks Brown woven loafers Hope you all are having a wonderful Thursday!!

I was getting ready for my weekly Wednesday 6:30 AM men’s group while my wife was still sleeping. So as I grabbed 501 Levi’s I wore yesterday and in my dark closet put together my OOTD by iPhone flashlight, I was contemplating my personal style. Over the past couple of day’s I’ve blathered on about the terms old money and preppy and how each is fraught with the danger reducing Classic Timeless Menswear to merely another fashion category. Antonio’s recent video I spoke about yesterday did a brilliant job of describing why “ old money” style is so much more than just a fashion term: https://www.skool.com/rmrs/mia-culpa-antonio?p=9d9bbd8d Rather than create a name for my personal style myself, I choose to borrow from Harold Powell for whom I worked in my 20’s. He private labeled his casual wear Old School and I remember him telling me why that best described what he was doing and how that differed from other stores in the South Central USA. Harold was a product of The University of Oklahoma -Established Dec. 19, 1890 -17 years before statehood. https://journals.shareok.org/soonermagazine/article/download/11147/11146 https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=HA028 Like many other state universities, the school song and school colors were “borrowed” from east coast colleges. (Boomer Sooner is the Yale Boola Boola song for the Bulldogs and OU’s Crimson and Cream are Harvard’s colors). Harold worked for the McCalls brothers ( a firm I worked for before Harold’s ) but his mother owned the building they were in and when they moved he opened his own shop in their old location in 1948 across Boyd Street from the OU campus. He chose to go a different direction in styling than most west coast clothing oriented stores in Oklahoma and focused on the East Coast, a bold and risky move at that time. His philosophy was to adopt styles that were more perpetual and rather than have a vast array of colors and designs (wide and shallow), he would provide an extremely limited design and limited colors with a lot of minute details (narrow and deep) Explained further - all his coats had a 3/2 roll and all his trousers had deep double forward pleates. Beyond the tweeds in fall or shantung silks or seersuckers for summer, every brand was offered in Navy, multiple shades of Grey, tans, and olives. Ties were classic stripes and foulards primarily and shirtings were mainly oxfords with some stripes and tattersalls. Footwear was of very high quality but clearly defined traditional styles.

Guess who is going back to office! I am attaching a collage with three images (all minimalist, no watch). I am pairing my navy blue dress pants (wool-viscose blend) with three Polos: a grey (Supima cotton), a violet (Supima cotton), and a magenta (thick cotton but not Supima). The grey and violet Polos have a different type of collar (you can see the difference compared to the magenta Polo, which has a more traditional collar). My work dress code allows Polos and Chino combinations as semi-formal wear, but I want to dress up a notch by pairing my Polos with dress pants. I will complete the look using dark brown lace up dress shoes. Since it is pretty hot (100F) outside, I won't bother layering. Of course, I will wear a brown leather strapped watch as a mandatory accessory. Let me know if any/all of these work for my intended purpose. I don't want to come across as an oddity based on the sloppiness of the attire. PS: I have folded the hand sleeves in the violet Polo as I thought the the sleeves are a bit on the longer side.