As some of you may or may not know, I've been doing a challenge for the past week, courtesy of The Art Of Manliness called 30 Days to a Better Man. This includes small tasks, such as shining your shoes, and some not-so-small tasks, like finding your gratitude. Today's task is to start a journal.
Now, I know what you're thinking: I've already had this blog, or journal in this case. If only it were so easy. I need to keep up with it everyday. That is not a typo. Every. Day. And I'm just supposed to write about how my day went. I'll have to leave details of work out, but other than that, I can write about whatever comes to mind. Today, it just so happens to be shoes.
As I've been doing everyday, I was reading an article on Art of Manliness about the importance of having multiple pairs of shoes. Being the typical guy that I am, I really only had 3 pairs of shoes: dress shoes that I also used for work every day, a pair of sneakers, and a pair of flip flops. That's it. I dealt with all the seasons in with just those 3. In that article, it mentioned how you can seriously hurt the quality of the shoe if you wear them more than 2 days in a row, and you don't use cedar shoe trees in them. The shoe trees absorb the moisture from the day, and help retain the shape of the shoe. My current shoes aren't that old, but they are clearly showing wear. I figured I should listen to the article.
Another article there that I happened across last night mentioned the importance of casual shoes. They weren't talking about sneakers. These are shoes that look as great with jeans as they do with more dressy pants, excluding suits. And being that we wear jeans to work every other Friday and every Saturday, it was probably a good time to invest in some casual shoes. I went to DSW to pick them both up after work.
I went right for the dress shoe aisle. The one pair that caught my eye the most were a relatively low cost pair of Giorgio Brutini's. The pair I already had were Perry Ellis; I didn't want a rehash. I wanted similar, but not the exact same. If you're going to have multiple of something, why not throw a little change up? Since they were relatively priced, I tried them on. They were fit great and were comfortable, and with the amount of walking I do at work, that was definitely needed. I picked them up. The next task was to find a pair of casual shoes.
This was a task that I thought was going to take at least an hour. I knew I wanted a muted color, something that would compliment the outfit, but not overpower it. I did not want black shoes, however. My dress shoes are black. I wanted something different. Brown, tan, navy blue. Somewhere in that range. I just figured that it would be a task that would take some time. I was wrong.
Because of where I chose to sit, I ended up facing the casual shoes when trying on my dress shoes. Just after I was done boxing up the shoes, I looked up, and right there at the end of the aisle was a pair of Bass & Co saddle shoes. Tan suede paired with brown leather. These were the perfect shoes that I was looking for. Luckily, they had a pair each in the sizes that fit my feet (some shoes run a 10.5, others an 11). I, again, grabbed these. The next task were the belts.
Like any good man of fashion, your belt should always match the shoes you wear. I've known this for years, so I always only had a black belt (my sneakers are black too). I had to get at least one more belt. Finding a belt to match the saddle shoes, however, was a much more difficult task than I had realized. I couldn't find a tan belt to match the suede. The hue was off by just a little bit. I did find a belt to match the brown, but it was a bit too big. I had to punch a hole in the belt when I got home. -- SIDE BAR -- If you stuck between two belt sizes, ALWAYS get the larger belt. You can punch always punch a hole in a belt that's too big. -- END SIDE BAR --. I would have just stuck with the belt for the black shoes, but I found a low cost one that matched the black shoes. So I just grabbed it. And don't worry. I also got the shoe trees.
If you haven't been able to tell from this post, I'm trying to build a quality wardrobe that will last. I'm about 2/3rds of the way there. There are some items that I do want to replace, due to damage and poor quality. But I'm good with what I have for now. I have set aside a budget each month ($100) that flows month to month, so if I don't spend the $100 this month, I have $200 next. I don't know what I'm going to get next, but it's definitely a push in the right direction.
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