Outfit Of The Week 3/24/24 – 3/30/24

I just realized that when I link to my previous “OOTW” articles, my site only pulls up the most recent ten instead of the whole series! Hmmm… I’ll need to fix that.

Anyway, this week’s edition of “OOTW” features an outfit I wore to an award ceremony at my sons’ school on a gloomy, foggy day (as you can see by the cloudy pictures).

My son won a classroom award for being kind, helpful, and all-around awesome. The quick ceremony is held every month and they give a shout-out to a handful of children and give them little certificates.

The ceremony is done right at the start of school immediately after drop-off.

Usually, when I drop my kids off at school I’ll be in my wool, flannel, work shirt and barn coat. I usually chop wood right when I get home, so I don’t shower or anything before I drive them to school since I get REALLY sweaty when I chop. My morning consists of waking up, tag-teaming (with my wife) getting the kids fed and out the door, and then driving them to school. I don’t build time into my early morning for showering or getting properly dressed (that’s for later, after I’m done chopping).

The morning of the awards ceremony called for something a little more elevated than the clothes I use for chopping wood, though. Still, I didn’t want to eat up my morning time with showering.

I decided that I could easily look put-together with a few quick tricks.

Instead of my wool, work shirt, I put on a blue, herringbone flannel which I tucked into some well-worn khaki chinos (instead of jeans).

Over the flannel, I put an Aran cardigan.

Instead of my barn coat, I wore a leather, G-1, flight jacket.

Instead of the wool beanie I usually wear, I wore my grey, herringbone flat cap.

My outfit was still pretty casual, but not “clothes I use for yardwork” casual.

Sometimes we need to look good in a hurry. I find it’s useful to not only have a few handsome staples on hand (like the sweater and leather jacket) but to make those staples my “everyday” items so that I can grab them quickly when I need to.

I don’t need to toss aside my hoodie and sweatpants in order to find my sweater and chinos because I don’t wear hoodies or sweatpants. My sweater and chinos ARE the clothes I bum around the house in. So even though I had to set aside my work shirt for the morning, my “nicer” casual clothes weren’t too far away.

Also, what I wore wasn’t exactly a “white-tie-and-tails” level of elevation. I wanted to look presentable because I knew we would be taking pictures and sending them out to family, but I also didn’t want to look like I just came from the Ascot opening day.

This level of casual is what I think most men should shoot for in their day-to-day and downtime dressing. It’s just as handsome, rugged, and manly as a flannel shirt and jeans, but it looks like a bit more thought was put into the execution. They good thing about wearing this kind of stuff regularly is that the more you do it, the less thought it requires.

Have a wonderful weekend!