Classic Style

Yours truly all decked out for a morning and early afternoon of errands around town. . .  on foot since the day is so temperate.  We had quite a bit of snow on the ground and much colder temperatures this time last January (2014). I t's a strange and somewhat amusing experience to find labels attached to to certain kinds of attire that, in one form or another, have always been a part of one's life and don't seem like anything special or unusual.  Take the combination of clothes above, which I put on after a mug of coffee and toast with thick cut, bitter orange marmalade mid-morning today.  The blue oxford cloth button-down?  My maternal grandfather and father wore shirts like it 5-6 days a week, and sometimes in white, pink, or blue university stripe.  I always had and wore at least a few throughout my formative years and began purchasing them myself in my late teens and early 20s once I left home to live on my own.  No big deal.  Just part of the landscape.   The

Here's the get-up for the first day of a new semester.  If my appearance didn't scare my students to death, the amount of work present on the  course syllabi certainly did. A hhhhh. . .  Hear that? Yes.  It's the start of another semester, which means an opportunity to dress nicely five days a week.  Rugby shirts, tan corduroys pants, and L.L. Bean Boots are great, and they certainly have their place in my "at home" wardrobe, but it's nice to dress with a bit more pizazz if and when one is able.   So, it was with a light heart that I donned a Tattersall oxford cloth button-down collar shirt, a Harris Tweed jacket, a dark red knit silk necktie, a pair of gray wool flannel pants, and a gray Shetland wool crewneck sweater this morning after a hot shower and a wet shave (with shaving mug and brush).  Yes, I was feeling more than a little Wooster-esque this morning, you know?  More like a day of shooting at Totleigh Towers awaited me, though, rather than a d

10" Bean Boots in use.  Unlined.  Very comfortable.  Very warm with ski socks underneath.  Wish I'd had a pair back in the early 80s. J ust returned from walking the Young Master to preschool in the midst a beautiful cold, snowy January morning.  The snow sparkles when the low sunlight hits it.  Enjoying a quick second mug of coffee before I head upstairs to don my cross-country ski gear.  The Grand Duchess and I are off to a local park for some quiet morning skiing while we have a few child-free hours at our disposal. The L.L. Bean footwear shown above has been my go-to choice since our first appreciable snowfall of the winter arrived last Monday evening.  I managed to purchase them at the end of October 2014 -- a birthday gift certificate from good ol' Mom -- before the company sold out of this year's batch.  When I mentioned to my mother on the telephone how comfortable the boots are, and that I wished I'd had a pair years ago in SE Pennsylvania when the

The wonderful Stephen Fry as the Wodehousian character 'Jeeves,' the very embodiment of polish and reserved sophistication. T wo weeks into the new year, but let's resolve to make 2015 the year of "polish and sophistication," to use a term that recently came from the mouth of my five-year old son.   Make it your business to learn how best to present yourself to the world through improved attire, speech, and personal behavior.   There are lots of books out there on these subjects -- my personal favorites are by names like Peter Post and Bernhard Roetzel for example -- or you can drop by The Average Guy's Guide to Classic Style for occasional how-to musings and discussions of why this kind of thing remains important and relevant in the 21st century despite the fact that many people in 2015, inexplicably,  seem to take great pride in being coarse.   With a nod to the infamous 'Dean Wormer' in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), badly dr

The Young Master trying out his Christmas skis for the first time this afternoon. W hen it's cold and snowy, you can forgive people a lot of what we at The Average Guy's Guide to Classic Style might otherwise consider style don'ts.   Nevertheless, the Young Master really dressed up the slopes of a local park this afternoon as he joined his mother and me for his inaugural run under his own steam, stylin' on his new pair of yellow and black cross-country skis (a gift from Santa Claus).  The outting went really well.  No falls for him, even when he got his skis tangled up.  And the Young Master even reminded me at one point to keep my own skis parallel to one another as we 'shuusshed' along the top of a ridge and down a slight incline before repeating the exercise a few times during the hour or so that we were out today.  It was a moment I've waited for since before he was born. In other style news, I walked into the better of my two local thrift/char