Set For Spring: Navy Blazers, OCBDs & Bow Ties

Top left: Brooks Brothers 3/2 sack, Brooks Brothers pink OCBD, Cordial Churchman patch madras tie
Top right: Brooks Brothers 3/2 sack, J. Press white flap pocket OCBD, J. Press madras tie
Bottom: Southwick 3/2 sack, J. Press blue flap pocket OCBD, Brooks Brothers tie

*I don't recommend looking quite this rumpled in public.

Rediscovered: Bill's Khakis

I haven't been very satisfied lately with my choice of pants. I have a few paris of J. Crew chinos that see pretty regular rotation but, bluntly speaking, they kind of suck. For starters, they're just too long. And I don't care for the way they are constructed. Frankly, I don't think they would be worth the money that I would spend to have them altered and so I have just been wearing them as is. At the same time, I'm not the kind of fellow who just goes out (or gets online) and buys new pants. So, in an attempt to take a tip from a New Year Archival Clothing post, I've been consciously "shopping from myself" which means digging into drawers, closets, and vacuum bags for things that I may have forgotten about or put away for some reason that I can no longer recall. That's how I ran across what was once my favorite pair of Khakis, the Bill's M2 model. I picked this pair up from David Morgan seven or eight years ago. Back then I wore them all the time. But at some point between then and now I decided that the cut was just too big and baggy. (And if you've ever worn the M2 you know why I decided that.) But the thing about Bill's is that they are made to be adjusted. You can tell when you look inside a pair that they were built well to be rebuilt if needed. So I took them to my local shop where they were slimmed in the legs and adjusted in the rise considerably. First time out, I paired them with a vintage Gitman BD in small tattersall (not to be confused with Gitman Vintage -- but that's another post) and Quoddy boat shoes. Now I want to wear them every day. So here's to shopping from yourself. Long live Bill's!