Outfit Of The Week 9/1/24 – 9/7/24

The number of remaining hot days is slowly dwindling.

Thank goodness! I can’t wait for some honest-to-goodness fall weather!

There are pockets of it here and there, especially where I live. The morning temperatures have been in the upper-40s to low-50s before warming up considerably by mid-day. We are truly smack-dab in the middle of the dreaded (or beloved, depending on whom you ask) “transitional” weather.

The outfit I would like to highlight for this week’s edition of “OOTW” is one I wore to my adorable niece’s baptism. I wrote an article a couple years ago about what I wore to her older sister’s baptism and I stuck to a pretty similar formula here with one notable difference: my tie.

Now, in that older article, I wore a regular long tie with a tie bar, since I knew that I would need to wrangle my unruly children at the church and then at the party afterwards and I needed a way to keep my tie in place.

This time, I opted for a bow tie which alleviated the need for a tie bar. There was also the added bonus that it matched what my boys were wearing, which they loved!

The bow tie was a gift from my wife’s sister and her husband many Christmases ago and I felt it would be nice to wear it on their daughter’s special day. The pattern on the tie is reversable. There is the striped pattern you see here and then on the other side of the tie is a paisley pattern (both in blue-white-red). I opted for the striped side, since I felt that it matched the sporty look of the navy jacket, khaki pants, and loafers.

The shirt I wore with my bow tie was a poplin, button-down shirt from Charles Tyrwhitt. I would usually do an oxford-cloth shirt in instances like these, but this shirt hasn’t been worn much so I decided to give it a go. Also, the very small check pattern of the shirt went well with the larger stripes of the bow tie.

There is a common piece of advice you’ll see on menswear advice sites that says that your shirt and tie should not be of similar pattern sizes. That basically means that if you have small checks on your shirt, you shouldn’t wear a tie that has small dots since the patterns will look bad together because they are too similar. This advice is sound. If your tie has wide stripes, don’t also wear a wide striped shirt. However, if your tie is wide striped, you CAN wear a thin striped shirt or a small-check shirt. Just visually gauge whether the patterns are too similar. You’ll know because the combination will look way too busy.

As you can see here, the tie and shirt do not have similarly sized patterns, so they look ok together. I also added a white, linen pocket square.

My jacket was my trusty navy blazer from Brooks Brothers that you guys have seen over and over again this summer. I REALLY need to get this thing dry-cleaned. Come to think of it, I need to get most of my tailoring dry cleaned. I don’t think I have had anything cleaned in years. Honestly, it’s just not needed, especially when it comes to thing like heavy tweeds. Jackets really don’t need to get cleaned very often. Pants are another story, since they actually sit against your skin, but I don’t wear wool trousers too often in the summer; I usually opt for cotton pants I can chuck in the wash.

Speaking of cotton pants… my Lands’ End khakis make another appearance here. As do my Bass Weejun loafers.

I do have another pair of brown shoes (brown derbies from Beckett Simonon) but I need to wear those in the winter due to the foul weather, so I like getting as much wear out of my loafers as I can while the weather is pleasant.

One thing I love about living in a place with seasons is that it makes the seasonal pieces in my wardrobe feel novel and new. When I haven’t worn my favorite tweeds in months, I get excited to wear them again. I look forward to it and then when those days arrive, it makes me happy. It feels like I bought a whole new wardrobe even though I haven’t spent a dime!

I am pleased to report that both my boys were perfect angels in the church! It’s amazing the difference a couple years makes!

Have a wonderful weekend!