Tote Bags Have A More Specific Origin Story Than I Expected
I’m standing in line at my thrift store, the one on the corner, holding a canvas bag someone’s tagged $6 like it’s a normal object, when the guy behind me…
Theres A Stitch On The Back Of Your Trench Coat Youre Supposed To Cut, Nobody Warns You
Four days before a work trip to Chicago and I’m standing in my bedroom trying to figure out why my new trench coat looks like it’s wearing a fanny pack.…
The Trench Coat Sits In An Awkward Spot Between Formal And Casual
The moment always arrives at the coat rack, not before. You’re standing in the front hallway at 8:10, client call at 9, dinner with people from business school at 7,…
What My Tote Bag Apparently Says About Me, According To A Stranger On The Train
You know what I think it says? I think it says whatever the person looking at it needs it to say so they can feel superior for four seconds on…
Buttoning Both Buttons On A Blazer Is The One Rule Everyone Quietly Ignores
I bought a blazer off a resale app three months ago, gray, structured, the kind of thing that photographs like it costs more than it did, and the first thing…
Men Carrying Tote Bags Got Side Eye At My Local Coffee Shop
I’ve heard a man on a menswear forum say, with total sincerity, that a tote bag on a man is “the fashion equivalent of asking to be mugged for your…
Whether Men Can Get Away With A Crossbody Bag Turned Into A Proper Debate
My nephew told me, with the specific confidence of someone who has never once experienced a fanny pack in its natural nineteen nineties habitat, that the crossbody bag is “a…
I Had No Idea Where Jeans Came From Until I Looked It Up
“Denim’s from Levi’s, obviously, that’s just where jeans come from.” That’s what a guy at a vintage fair in Nashville told me while I was digging through a bin of…
Where The Tote Bag Gay Stereotype Came From
Someone at a wedding, three drinks in, leaned over and told me, “just switch to a crossbody, that’s what did it for my sister.” That’s it. That was the whole…
Brown Loafers Get Called A Universal Match, I Wanted To Test That Properly
I bought my first pair of brown loafers eleven years ago because a guy at the shoe counter told me they’d go with anything, and I believed him the way…