Welcome back for the latest installment of Signals. Signals is our bi-monthly round-up of anything that has caught my eye recently, repeated here in an unedited stream of conscience. It really doesn’t have to relate to menswear or fashion or anything — it’s a true grab-bag in that sense.
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Let’s set the mood here:
A Treatise On Trend Predictions
Trend cycles are perhaps one of my favorite talking points — something I’ve mentioned on this blog and on Instagram countless times. The reason I feel drawn to talking about them is not necessarily because they’re interesting or anything like that, but I enjoy the subject specifically due to how mutated trends have become since the pandemic/rise of TikTok.
To elaborate a little further, it feels rare for a trend to last more than a couple of months at this rate, with more hyped up trends tending to burn out quicker. TikTok (and increasingly Instagram Reels) is a perfect medium to get you to consume as much as possible, which necessitates there being something new for you to consume. This creates a vicious cycle of increasingly short trends as influencers dig up “new things“ (even if they’ve been around forever like the Reebok Club C or the Adidas Samba), to try and differentiate themselves in their hyper-saturated market.
After all, being called a trendsetter is half the allure of being an influencer, right? Might as well swing for the fences since everyone’s collective attention span is too short to remember that you have a 4% accuracy rate in the trend-prediction space.
Anyway, I’ve been seeing a few large-follower accounts try to force the meme that 2024 will be the year of purple, which makes me giggle a little bit. Even if they manage to get people on board with this for a month or two, it’ll be lame and dated before it actually manages to gain traction in the real world. A neurotic exercise in futility IMO.
It’s great to get style tips from menswear peeps online — there’s lots of genuinely good advice out there. Just remember they’re also trying to get you to buy stuff to serve their own ego. Trends are good for exploring new things that you might be interested in, but maybe wait til the hype has died down before deciding whether you actually like the item or not.
Apple Vision Pro
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Apple has managed to make VR look cool and actually useful. The vision pro launched on Friday at an eye-watering $3500, but its design is so polished that the price isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Here’s a tweet of a guy showing off some of the features. Seems like a genuine peek into the future, specifically for engineering-oriented/development roles:
https://twitter.com/nandoprince93/status/1753582258370261139 (sorry, Twitter still blocks embedded videos on Substack, very annoying!)
Of course, there are people who are more than willing to go out of their way to misuse the technology as well. A reminder that this “peek into the future” is equal parts utopian and dystopian:
Alden Indy Boots… Not worth it?
On my recent AMA story on Instagram, I mentioned that I’d been (once again) thirsting over the Alden Indy boot. A number of followers had mentioned that the Indys are allegedly not as good as their reputation would imply…
If you’re not familiar, the Alden Indy is a boot produced by the American shoe manufacturer, Alden. Alden is known for its high quality, Massachussetts-made shoes and loafers, produced under the “leisure handsewn“ line, often shortened to LHS.
One of their boot models, technically called the 405, was a favorite of then-carpenter Harrison Ford. When he was cast for his role as Indiana Jones, he insisted on wearing his favorite pair of work boots for the role.
Thus, the legend was born, and Alden renamed the model the “Indy“, just so there was no doubt as to what the footwear of choice was for the world-famous archaeologist. The boots exploded in popularity, and have lasted in the public consciousness due to their unique silhouette and durability.
That said, Alden has raised the price of the boot to $650, and the materials allegedly don’t justify that price according to Rose Anvil on Youtube. I personally think he was a little overly-critical of the boots, as I imagine trashing many people’s “Holy Grail“ shoe is a good way to get clicks and drive revenue. Still, he made some good points and made a follow-up video offering some alternatives.
To save you some time, he ends up not being able to find a boot with a similar silhouette that is also higher-quality. The closest he came was J. Crew’s Alden Indy ripoff and the Grant Stone Brass Boots — the latter allegedly being better-made, but with a silhouette that was more reminiscent of a moc-toe workboot like the Red Wing 8828 than the sleeker Indy look.
That said…
Grant Stone
I really enjoy what I’m seeing from this brand. As a disclaimer, I don’t own anything from them, but their designs are top-notch.
As far as I can tell, they produce all of their boots and shoes in China, allowing them to use higher-quality materials without compromising on craftmanship. That’s right, I said it — not everything that comes out of China is junk. The current state of Chinese manufacturing is very advanced at this point. Yes, some stuff is still junk, but they are capable of producing extremely high-quality goods, much of which the US is no longer capable of producing. Obviously the US can still produce boots, but as stated above in the Alden section, a boot of comparable quality is going to run $600+, as compared to Grant Stone’s price of ~$400.
Is that still a lot of money? Obviously yeah! It still stings a little less than Alden though.
Grant Stone also does some really fun limited releases, like these kangaroo leather traveller pennies in “jungle“:
Anyway, I’m not being paid to say any of this, but if someone from Grant Stone stumbles across this article, hmu 👀
True Detective Season 4
Mild amount of spoilers inbound for this post:
I’m a big True Detective fan — I’ve enjoyed all 3 of the previous seasons (yes, even season 2). They all offer something different in my opinion, whether it be the southern gothic mysticism of the first season, a remix of Eyes Wide Shut for the West coast in the second, or an exploration of dementia in the third, they all have a story worth telling.
I had pretty high hopes going into season 4 as well — a setting in the arctic during its month of night is so perfect for a creepy detective thriller. Strong The Thing vibes right off the bat. Perfect.
But 3 episodes in, the more I perseverate on the show, the worse it seems to me. Beyond the fact that this seems like it wasn’t even supposed to be a season of True Detective (i.e., they’re juicing IP for brand recognition), my largest gripe is with the character writing. Pretty much every character feels one dimensional — yes they have “traits“ assigned to them (like detective Danvers’s sex addiction), but for many of the characters in the show, these assigned traits seem to have little/no bearing on larger plot dynamic as a whole.
On top of that, the characters are unlikable in a way that doesn’t really manage to keep the viewer engaged. One of the great parts of season 1 is that, despite Rust and Marty being shitty people, they’re written in a way that invites you to WANT to learn more about them. Here, Danvers and Navarro and Hank Prior and pretty much everyone else just suck and are drags. I have a few other gripes, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave it at that.
Otherwise, the cinematography the mystery is pretty engaging and setting/cinematography is excellent — it draws you into this dark, insular community and then contrasts it with the brilliance of Christmas lights. It makes you feel comfortable, almost at home as you watch the show.
Things aren’t really looking up in my opinion — I’d love to be wrong, but it just feels so flat. The fact that they’re squandering a cool idea makes it sting a little more.
Mare of Easttown
If you’re also struggling to get through True Detective, my wife and I found this show on HBO while looking for something else to watch, and it was really good! Like so good that I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard about it — it was released in 2021, so maybe it couldn’t gain traction at the heart of the pandemic.
It follows a townie detective in southeastern Pennsylvania as she works to try and piece a particularly brutal murder that occurred in her otherwise sleepy town. The show stars Kate Winslet, a grieving mother with a complicated and unfortunate past, whose life is being ripped apart as the case consumes her. It hits the tropes, but it feels authentic and organic.
I also have a soft spot for this show in particular, being from SE Pennsylvania myself. Hearing the Delco accent again (even if it was a little thick!) flooded me with a wave of nostalgia for home.
Alright guys, that’s it for this edition of Signals. That’s everything I’ve been up to or have otherwise been thinking about recently.
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Thanks for reading and see you next time!
I’ve heard good things about Grant Stone, and despite being a Made in USA partisan, fully acknowledge that great stuff comes out of China, which in many cases has factory equipment and technology that our own decayed manufacturing infrastructure does not.
But what’s always rubbed me the wrong way about Grant Stone is that despite its quality, which I have no firsthand experience with but no reason to doubt, is that it still feels like a knock-off factory. A lot of the designs are super derivative of Alden, and other popular makers, like its leather sneaker copy-and-pasted from Common Projects. There’s for sure great footwear coming out of China-I’d just want them to have their own point of view or identity, rather than leveraging lower manufacturing costs to replicate another label’s work.