For most of my adult life, I’ve never focused on my wardrobe, much to the chagrin of the women in my life.
Maybe you can chalk it up to the anti-establishment, anti-fashion, ‘rebel without a clue’ streak in my personality. In point of fact, most my clothes came from Sam’s Club or ‘Tarjay” – or whatever else my mother bought for me on sale. Or maybe it’s because everyone pissed me off when I first moved to NYC at the beginning of my career, all the posers in their all-black funeral garb who made me stubborn about sticking with my Southern, “lumberjack chic” way of dressing.
Whatever the cause, I consistently prioritized necessity and price and convenience over style: I had to wear something, a necessary evil like a full night’s sleep or a haircut that distracted me from whatever happened to be my latest passion project (I’m a tech entrepreneur, and we’re admittedly a different breed…).
Plus, there’s this: I do really hate to shop… still do, in fact. Always feels like an utter waste of time, time I’ll never get back, time that distracts from stuff that really matters and is (stereo)typically the natural domain of the fairer sex.
Then something happened, something of an epiphany. The setting was fitting. I was in Rome with my buddy for the year 2000 new years celebration, with all the swirl and paranoia of Y2K in the air, and I walked into one shop, for escape more than anything else, then I visited another (guess I was in Rome’s version of Tribeca couture) with the best-fitting shirts i’d ever worn… and they all went for about $30/shirt. I spent almost two hours there on that row of shops, actually enjoyed the time, and came back to NYC with more than 5 new shirts (a lot of money for me to spend in those days…).
And suddenly I got it, finally understood why clothes matter. I lived in my Roman clothes. I wore those same 5 t-shirts over and over until I wore them out – because they fit so well and looked good. And that’s when I realized that, in life, to the extent you can afford it, there are just some things you shouldn’t skimp on – an anniversary gift for the girl you love, a couch you’ll live with for decades, or clothes that fit right and look good and are made by thoughtful people who know the value of using the best materials and paying attention to the way the human body reacts to fabric. Those are the clothes you’ll always reach for, and buying them saves actually you money in the long run, and prevents your home from getting filled with junkshow clothes from Sam’s Club that you never reach for. Put another way, it’s way better to buy 5 great shirts from a trusted brand that might cost a little more per shirt than it is to buy a hundred shirts at a big box store that check the box but don’t make the day better, don’t brighten your morning and the rest of your day – and take up so much space in your closet that it fogs your brain.
Well
Mack Weldon is such a brand that I trust. I have an NYC apartment that doesn’t have room for all the garbage clothes i’ve bought throughout the years… but you know what? I reach for the same 3 pairs of Levi’s jeans and same two pairs of Sam Hubbard shoes, and now… I reach for my Mack Weldon Vesper Polo.
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