Most of my clothes come from on sale purchases at J. Crew which range from $15 - $60 and Banks Journal which is almost always less than $100. It’s fun to share some expensive pieces that I enjoy but wouldn’t buy due to cost.
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I’ve got like seven pairs of japanese denim in my closet I either don’t fit in or haven’t started breaking in yet. It’s problem. Currently working on a pair of 21oz iron hearts
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They are brutal
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I need a shoe for hiking that is comfortable, preferably waterproof, and can double as a casual shoe. Any recs?
Some of us in another thread were hyping Merrell Moab 2 boots and shoes, not sure if you’d consider them a casual shoe (i don’t wear mine for that reason) but they might work. They make waterproof, Gore-tex and non waterproof versions. I have the waterproof ones and they seem to work well for me but I haven’t really put them through heavy rains.
I was having a look at those. My main reason for asking about casual wear is that if I took them on a trip, I wouldn’t want to have to bring an other pair of shoes also for that purpose. IIRC, I think those would work. At least, they would work for me. My fashion sense is dogshit.
You can definitely wear them in casual situations if you’re a little older and have that dad vibe or you just aren’t concerned with more fashionable stuff. I’m the kind of person who takes 4 or 5 shoes on most of my trips so I never really considered it when I was picking out hiking boots.
Yeah, taking 5 pairs of shoes on a trip is unfathomable to me. I’d rather just look bad. And I’m old enough I can fall back on the dad defense.
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My wife bought me these for Christmas and I’ve been wearing them a lot. I don’t think they are waterproof though.
https://www.sorel.com/p/mens-mac-hill-mid-ltr-boot-1915541.html?dwvar_1915541_color=286
It’s all about bargain hunting. The markup on this stuff is insane, but there’s so much product that’s destined to find the clearance rack. Some places will let you tag coupons/codes on top. Fashion is fast and rack space is limited so you can really leverage that to your advantage. In B&M stores I pretty much shop the clearance only and ignore the rest. You ever notice how stuffed the clearance racks at, say, Macy’s tend to be? From there it gets dumped to the TJ Maxx type places for even less. If you’re confident enough to buy out of season (e.g., sweaters and outerwear in July) you can save even more since there’s no market for it and people don’t tend to shop that way. I always get asked where I get my threads–especially by dudes–and my answer is always CLEARANCE RACK.
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Thanks for the tips. That said $500 for a jacket is way out of my price range so for the most part I’ll have to continue slumming it until my work and life situation changes some.
$500 is always a lot of money for a jacket. Going below that isn’t slumming it–it’s paying a normal price for a jacket. It’s like anything else though. You can get a pretty good Swiss watch for $200 but also $2,000 or $20,000 or $200,000. Depends on how much it matters to you personally and to your budget. I hope people post picks and deals in all price ranges.
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I can’t even imagine paying $100 for a jacket. Bernie’s meme jacket was around $500 on Amazon.
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Definitely snagging these next Vegas trip.
I had a similar experience with a D&G coat that I found at an outlet store. It was originally $1k, then marked down to around $550. I tried it on, and I felt like a superhero. The cut and fit were amazing, and the way it looked…so smooth. I was pretty broke at the time, but still spent all day contemplating buying it.
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50% select items at REI if anyone is in need.
REI - Winter Clearance up to 50% off https://www.rei.com/f/scd-deals
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Damn I’ve been looking for some snow pants but the only sizes left are too big
The following post is a public service announcement and may contain NSFW images.
Women’s underwear is a zillion-dollar industry with tons of great and diverse product, but what about men’s underwear? I’m going to share my decades-long experience navigating this underserved market that’s laced with sedated fashion design and then outline what you should be doing but probably aren’t doing. All puns intended.
This might sound bizarre, but there’s only one style of underwear I consider viable with tight tolerances on what I find acceptable. That style is known as the trunk (sometimes sports trunk or square-cut) and is the undisputed king of men’s underwear. They’re form-fitting like briefs but have a small inseam, yet don’t confuse them with boxer-briefs which are a different and misguided style of underwear that should only be worn for exercise. The problem is that although trunks are the stone cold nuts for reasons I’ll articulate, finding quality, good-fitting pairs is somewhat difficult. Let’s meet our common styles of men’s underwear in order from worst to best:
Boxers
(These are good for nothing.)
Briefs
(These are good for pro wrestling.)
Boxer-briefs
(These are good for exercising.)
Trunks
(These are good for styling out of control and being sexy as fuck.)
Advantages: The trunk has a few advantages over other styles, the first and foremost being comfort. Once you adjust to a properly-fitting trunk, it will be difficult to wear anything else. Compared to briefs, they have enough inseam to prevent upper-inner thigh chafing, they don’t cuff where your legs meet your goin, and they don’t ride up your ass. Compared to boxers they’re form fitting, so they keep the kids in the car with the windows rolled up. Compared to boxer-briefs, they have less material constantly squeezing your thighs to remind you that your underwear aren’t designed properly; they also don’t show the mid-thigh panty line. On top of fit and comfort, trunks are the most stylish with good proportionality and tend to feature more fashionable prints, colors, accents, and materials.
Dimensions: I don’t allow much latitude in the variation of the inseam: minimum of 2" and maximum of 3". You will absolutely feel the difference in 1". Any shorter is actually annoying and doesn’t solve the problems presented by briefs. Any longer and they start to encroach on the boxer-brief’s territory of hideous proportionality and mid-thigh panty lines. The 3"-4" range could be a gray zone for people with longer legs but I’ve never seen a pair that long on a model that had the right look. Personally I’ve found 2.5" to be ideal, but the incredibly annoying thing about trunks is precisely this variation in inseam. You’ll be lucky to find pairs with listed inseams at all let alone accurate ones, so it comes down to visual inspection, brand familiarity, and chance (to some degree). I’m going to help you out here.
Materials: Poly/spandex blend is preferable to cotton/spandex which loosens with movement and exercise–not great for running the jewels–and cotton also absorbs moisture which is awful. Also, the poly blend just feels, conforms, and retains shape better without being clampy, and in my experience it lasts longer. There are some other factors that affect fit & comfort like the waistband, contoured pouch, and piping. For example, the piping can be fashionable, but I’m careful with it on the leg cuffs due to issues I had with elastic piping that gripped more than the waistband.
Tips and Showcase: Use your eyes for the length. Some pairs incorrectly listed as boxer-briefs are actually trunks and vice-versa. The Discover watermelon trunks pictured above are exactly how a 2" inseam should appear on the model (they are indeed listed at 2"). However, here’s another pair they list at 2":
These are clearly shorter in length though, probably about 1", which is just too short in my experience to get any of the benefits. And another 2" pair that looks correct:
A proper 2" seam will have about 1" of inseam visible from the bottom of the pouch on the model. Some other things to notice about these particular trunks is that they appear to have a nice 1.75" waistband (that won’t roll), a contoured front pouch delineated with a piping detail, and non-elastic piping on the cuffs. They’re 95/5 cotton/spandex blend which wouldn’t be my first choice.
Next up and appearing to be just slightly longer,
this Calvin Klein (Power FX Low Rise) trunk has no piping but appears to have a 2.5" inseam. Fabric is microfiber which is perfect so I’d consider these a buy. They don’t list an inseam spec. Note that these are low-rise trunks like the Discovers, but not all trunks are low-rise.
One my favorite brands for trunks is 2(X)ist. They tend to be on the shorter side (2" to 2.5") and have consistent fit, feel, quality, and stylish designs. Examples:
That last floral print looks more like a 3" inseam than a 2" to me. They also have different side seams (7" top floral vs. 8" bottom floral). Adding another inch (4" inseam) is where I think it starts to lose the look and feel of a trunk and become more of a boxer-brief.
Greg Homme makes this product they refer to as a boxer-brief
but you know better and already realize that this is, in fact, a trunk. Oddly, this pair pictured below with a longer inseam is listed as a trunk:
That looks like a 3.5" inseam and the fabric is perforated which really rides the boxer-briefs line. I think I’d still go with trunk on those though, whereas the ones below are definitely too long.
Here are some more examples for the SHOWCASE:
Where to buy: A lot of these images are from CheapUndies which is a clearance site, but they are hit-or-miss on stock. Popular sizes (M, L, XL) usually sell out fast. There are plenty of other sites like that doing underwear. I also check regular retailers for sales and clearance.
How much to pay: Generally expect to pay anywhere from $8 to $13 on clearance for interesting designer pairs. Retail price is usually $15 to $30. For couture stuff like Versace it’s more obviously.
By the way, I’ve chosen some pretty SFW pics so far. Shopping for men’s underwear online can be a bit weird due to the shrinkwrap effect:
Seriously would it behoove them to only use the small-dicked models, growers, and mannequins for these shoots? Sometimes it feels like hog shopping.
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Welp, this thread was worth it for the underwear analysis. I’m on your team trunk for sure though. I replaced all of my undies with some fun patterns from MeUndies a while back.
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