May Signals

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.

Please also consider liking, commenting, or sharing — your engagement really goes a long way! Either way, I hope you enjoy.

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The (Swedish) Dispatch

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed some sparse posting (I’m going to try and get better about this at some point I swear) from a place that clearly wasn’t the US.

That’s because I was in Sweden on business (on 5 days notice too, I LOVE working in biotech!) — unfortunately not a major city like Stockholm or Gothenburg, but I still got to absorb a good bit of Swedish culture, and, depending on your perspective, maybe even more of authentic Swedish culture than I would have gotten in a more “global“ city. Some thoughts:

• A genuine high-trust society — My corporate card didn’t work at a restaurant that I went to, asking for a PIN that I never set up. This repeated for both of my personal credit cards as well. I asked the waiter if it was cool if I ran back to my hotel to try and set up my PIN and if he’d prefer that I leave something as collateral. He looked at me kind of confused and then just went “oh no, I trust you,“ and went back to his job.

  This struck me as something that wouldn’t really fly in the US, provided you’re not a regular at the place. There are also so many here that would take advantage of that kindness — so much so that such a relaxed policy could never work.

• Cycling is huge — Everyone bikes or walks everywhere here. It’s not clear to me if this is due to extremely high gas prices or just a cultural propensity toward cycling (big all across Scandinavia). It nice. I like biking around, but it’s not very tenable in the US.

  From my perspective, this is less to do with how spread-out everything is, and more to do with cyclists being vilified and the latent road rage of every driver. If I had to guess, this is MAMILs (middle-aged men in lycra) poisoning the well for everyone else. They are genuinely the worst people on the road in the US. Also, going back to point 1, everyone leaves their (often multiple-thousand-dollar) bikes completely unlocked because they know they won’t get stolen. Really just a massive culture shock for me.

• Snus — my coworkers were casually ripping like 40 mg nicotine pouches at work. Crazy shit. Seems like it’s pretty evenly-split between actual snus (tobacco pouches) and nicotine pouches (like Zyns). Speaking of, there’s an insane amount of flavors out there. We can only get flavorless here in Boston, so for the foreseeable future, I will be sampling their “lemon spritz“

  

• Having everything be sized to accommodate people over 6ft is a really subtle-but-great quality of life improvement. I can’t see above my nipples in my home’s bathroom mirror, because Massachusetts was founded by manlets. Not having to stoop down for every little thing was actually really awesome (I’m 6’2 by the way aha).

J. Crew vs. Webcomic

J. Crew posted this questionable “summer pants research” post to their Instagram, included but not limited to assless chaps.. their 4th option reminded me of this all-time web comic about getting caught staring at cleavage in the office:

Replicube

This is a fun little game that I stumbled upon recently. The idea is that you’re using code to manipulate “voxels“ into looking like the target image.

It’s a great intro to coding if you’ve never done it before. The answer can be as simple or as sophisticated as you can manage: there’s no one right answer, just more and less efficient methods of getting there.

The Shoe of the Summer?

Yeah it’s that time again — time to find the most niche minimal white sneaker that you can for summertime. The last couple of years have seen the adidas samba become way too popular, speedrunning their way to being the most unbearable person you’ve ever met’s footwear of choice, thus ruining it for everyone else.

Anyway, this year’s shoe of the summer is gearing up to be plain old GATs. Kind of an “old reliable“ pick, not really all that flashy, but you can still flex by overpaying for Maison Margiela Replicas if you really need to be “that guy”…

A sidenote, but the MM replicas are selling for $750 now — I swear to God that their MSRP was like $400-something pre-pandemic, and I definitely used to see them get into the $200s on sales occasionally. I imagine that they will practically sell out this year too. Crazy what a combination of hype and buy-now-pay-later apps can do.

If you’re looking to not get fleeced this summer, here’s a couple more options:

• Adidas BW Army — These are the genuine OG German Army Trainers. This is what Margiela made their “replica“ of. Adidas has very recently started selling these again, and they’re sold out pretty much everywhere already, and actually, they did a limited release in Korea last year, which also sold out and was highly sought-after internationally, provided their feet were small enough. Both of these in series were my cue that we’re in for a good while of GATs dominating the footwear conversation. They released a collaboration with Hartcopy early last year which did really well, and it looks like they’re moving back to normal production.

  

  This is the Hartcopy collaboration version, to be clear

• Beckett Simonon — These are MTO GATs that have been pretty popular since the company opened. They use full-grain leather and high-quality materials from what I can tell. They occasionally go on sale for as low as $119, but the price point has always come across as suspiciously cheap for me. Caveat emptor I guess.

• Crown Northampton Adnitt — Per the Iron Snail’s video on these, they have a cult following in Japan where they’re known as “marshmallows“ due to their superior comfort. These are also MTO and will take 9-12 weeks to reach you, per their website.

Creating Your Own Vintage

I harp on this a lot nowadays, but the patina that you make is uniquely yours. You should wear your clothes into the ground. Each new scar or wrinkle is intimately tied to the memory of how you accrued it. It’s beautiful in its own way, and allows your garments to tell their own story.

This revival of the GAT reminds me of Margiela’s rather controversial Paint Replica sneakiepoos, which are now selling for an eye-watering $820. I’d like to reiterate that I think you’re a rube if you buy these. This company is doing nothing more than seeing how big of a sucker you are. Also look for these to break the $1000 mark using tariffs as an excuse…

Anyway, literally just buy the originals (the adidas ones) and do some cool shit in them. You might not get this very deliberate paint splatter look (I think pre-distressing is pretty gauche anyway), but like go create something - paint your room even if you live in an apartment, better yet, get into painting or pottery or some creative activity, and allow your stuff to get beat up and dripped on.

When I say dripped on, I mean like in a cool, vaguely artistic way. If I see any of my readers walking around in something that looks the the margiela goonshoes, it’ll be on-sight.

GH Bass x Buck Mason

Hey you, did you make the mistake of reading a guide on r/malefashionadvice that told you to buy GH Bass Weejuns as your casual shoe, only to do so and realize that they’re hunks of shit? You’re not alone…

Bass used to be the go-to shoe way back in the 50’s when Ivy style was just starting to bud. The 1950s is a long time ago, and the brand has deteriorated noticeably in that time. They’ve made a concerted effort to rebrand in the last few years, and although my experience with their footwear is from before that time, I’m not sure if I believe them.

That said, the weejun is an iconic version of the penny loafer, and Buck Mason has partnered up with GH Bass to offer an actually high-quality version of their Larson model.

Their collaborative model is using black horween chromexcel leather with a blake stitch and full lining. At $248 this is a really good price for something that is almost definitely a home run.

V.

Just finished this towering behemoth of a book. This was Thomas Pynchon’s first novel (and the second I’ve read from him, after The Crying of Lot 49), completed in 1963 at the ripe young age of 26 (genuinely crazy, this thing is a beast and Pynchon was wise well beyond his years to have written something so potent so young).

The book itself is set in NYC in the mid-50’s — an ode to the 20th century and bohemianism, and a call to not lose oneself in the inanimate. Perhaps, in retrospect, almost prophetic for the times we live in now.

The story itself follows two protagonists, one a self-described “schlemiel” who finds himself involved with a group of “““artists””” in New York. Among that group is a middle-aged man (our second protagonist) who has a singular focus on finding and uncovering the identity of a mysterious entity only known as V.

I’m not gonna lie, this is probably the most dense and difficult-to-parse book that I’ve read. It took me a couple of months to get through, and there is no payoff at the end. Very much a “the journey is the destination” style of narrative, with each character acting in accordance with who they inherently are.

Rating: 4/5

[spoilers]

I know that how V. connects to Stencil is not actually important to the novel, but I feel like it’s made pretty clear that it’s his mother, a fact that he is incapable of confronting , and thus blows off early on.

Abercrombie Seems To Be Ripping Off Lady White Co

Abercrombie is kind of known for doing this, but it still seems crazy to rip off a brand known for plain t-shirts.

One of Lady White’s signature washes, a sort of washed out gray which they call “grindle”, has been repurposed by Abercrombie as “brindle wash”.

No idea if the tees are any good, but one of Lady White’s selling points is that they’re tubular and made in the USA. I just can’t imagine Abercrombie putting in that effort for a $25 t-shirt, so literally what is the point of this?

Just feels kind of lame you know? Anyway, I guess if you’re a fan of Lady White tees, you can get a skinsuit version of them on the cheap now.

Birthday Coming Up This Week

Is it finally over for me?