Sometimes you have to ask yourself: how committed am I to the buckle doctrine? “Sometimes,” in this particular case, meaning one hour and three shops in. But cowboy up son, because that’s weakness talking. The buckle doctrine exists for your own good and you know it. It exists because, what, you’re gonna walk around in plain black loafers like some schmuck? You’re gonna settle for laces? Get the fuck outta here.
Wildly veering linguistic register aside, you do need some kind of trademark. Stick with your bog-standard thirty-quid Dunnes effort time after time and it starts to seep into your brain way worse than any tie or shirtsleeve; you’ll be walking The Man’s walk in no time. Did they put up with that shit in the eighteenth century? No sir, they did not. A man’s gait was his own. And do you know why? Buckles, my friend. Buckles.
The only problem is the price. The b-s D-e, as alluded to above, is cheap. Character is not. Especially for a man such as myself, who hesitates to exceed an annual outlay of fifty of your earth Euro in sheathing any given body part. I exceeded it most grievously this time – presumably due to inflation, since what I ended up getting is an ever-so-slightly-updated version of the shoes I’ve been wearing since Maastricht. But these are the shakes, and there’s no point complaining. All you can do is find a way to balance the scales, whether by cheaping out on runners or persisting in wearing jeans made out of holes. No matter how much your mother gets onto you about it. That’s right, wussbuckets: I am exactly as cool as you think I am.
Footwear is one thing that I don’t think should be skimped on. It’s important, both from a comfort point of view, and a sartorial one. One will be forgiven for wearing old jeans, or bad, ill fitting shirts, but for me, the shoes maketh the man. And much as you seem to be doing, I have moved beyond, trancended if you will, laced foot wear. If it doesn’t slip on, or have a craftily hidden zip while appearing to poerate by buckle, then it is no longer for me. I recommend moving on from runners to some form of slip on moccasin.
I was bowled over when you said “poerate,” and am mightily disappointed that it appears not actually to be a word. Also, moccasins? No no no. Laces are important on runners, because you can tighten them in a manly fashion whenever you need to convince yourself you mean business.
Jeans made out of holes you say? I like that. Takes me back to the days when I thought of myself and some sort of grunge cult member and I tried to speed up the ripping process by cutting myself some slits in the knees not unlike Mr Cobain. It ended badly. Not only did I discover that clean scissor cut took a monstrously long time to fray into the satisfactory ‘scruffy’ look but I stupidly attempted to cut the knees whilst I was still wearing the jeans. T’was a difficult thing to explain in the hospital I can tell you.
Excellent post my dear.
Ripped jeans account for 66% of my casual trouser usage. Surely you’ve seen them at some point.
much as you cannot imagine me in charge of a motor vehicle, i cannot imagine you in ripped denims.
I was wearing my most ripped pair when I met you at EP last year. Check and mate.
… although I’ve just remembered I was kneeling behind your chair the entire time. Checkmate grudgingly retracted. But still.