Sitting here late into the evening after spending the last hour and a half pressing dress shirts and spit polishing my shoes it occurred to me that the search for that perfect shave, the empty-mindedness that comes from practicing a craft isn't just reserved to shaving.
I started my career many moons ago working in mens formals and learnt from an old hand about the qualities of proper suiting, footwear, hats and the likes. A properly cut suit looks good, feels good, wears well and sets the tone of the wearer. Cheap $200 suits look like cheap suits and they speak volumes of the people that wear them thinking they look professional because of the suit (not to disrespect people that wear cheaper suits because it is all that they can afford). A good suit is an investment, something that you will keep and wear and should last for years (not unlike a good shave setup!).
Of course the best suit looks cheap and nasty if the shirt you wear is a cheap afterthought. Your shirt says just as much as your suit, sometimes moreso. And then there are ties and cufflinks.
You don't rush a suit, shirt and tie combination. They must blend well to tell a story - its not that the colours should be muted or dull or matching, rather that they "fit" together. Again, very similar to the thought of the right brush, cream/soap, razor, blade and so on.
Your shoes are also of paramount importance. Real leather, hand polished, well cut, good sole, proper fit... its just important. I've been polishing my shoes by hand since I was knee high to a grasshopper and still love getting my hands dirty polishing my shoes. Shoes are a living breathing thing - they tell so much about you; how you walk, whether you pick up your feet or drag them... that you have dirt on them can tell people you don't care. Like the suit side of things, cheap shoes look cheap. I abhor patent leather shoes, modern ones at least with the plastic coating - to me they are the epitomy of laziness and tackiness. If you can't get a mirror shine from a pair of shoes you are simply doing something wrong.
So anyway, to tonights endeavour. I started by meticulously pressing my shirts, ensuring that seams lined up, that the yoke was perfectly square, that the drape of the shirt was maintained through careful pressing. Paying attention to the cuffs to make sure that there are no odd creases, really aiming for a BBS result out of each garment. After hanging the shirts carefully on wooden hangers (yeah, I like the old school approach to hangers too
) I picked up my dress boots for a thorough cleaning and polishing. I had recently attended one of best mates father's funeral and it was in a paddock. Yep, soles of the shoes were dusty and dirty, the upper leather had a nice patina of dust... time for a good polish.
Now its anal I know, but I love to lay down the polish using cotton wool and alternate between a slightly damp piece of cotton wool and a dry piece to buff the shoes crisply. It takes time and if you get it wrong you have to go back a step and start again. Scuffs in the shoes take real work to clean up. But it is the same way I approach shaving. The time does not feel wasted or the task onerous. If I were using wipe on liquid polish and cheap leather I'd feel like I did when I used to shave with cartridges and goo. Its just not the same as the traditional method.
It irks me that so many younger people (and not all, I believe there are younger people with good habits in this regard) take the easy road or the fast approach, I'm thinking this is probably what landed us with the latest "21 blade cartridge system with ground shaking rotating action for the smoothest possible shave ever" guff that seems to fill a lot of the market.
I haven't worked in mens formals for a very long time and I've been riding a desk more or less since I graduated uni, so my outlook may be a little old fashioned. Sure, everything I did tonight was a job and they take time, but you can take pride in your efforts. Well suited, good shoes, crisp clean look and a cleanly shaven face... what more could any man (or indeed woman) ask for?
I started my career many moons ago working in mens formals and learnt from an old hand about the qualities of proper suiting, footwear, hats and the likes. A properly cut suit looks good, feels good, wears well and sets the tone of the wearer. Cheap $200 suits look like cheap suits and they speak volumes of the people that wear them thinking they look professional because of the suit (not to disrespect people that wear cheaper suits because it is all that they can afford). A good suit is an investment, something that you will keep and wear and should last for years (not unlike a good shave setup!).
Of course the best suit looks cheap and nasty if the shirt you wear is a cheap afterthought. Your shirt says just as much as your suit, sometimes moreso. And then there are ties and cufflinks.
You don't rush a suit, shirt and tie combination. They must blend well to tell a story - its not that the colours should be muted or dull or matching, rather that they "fit" together. Again, very similar to the thought of the right brush, cream/soap, razor, blade and so on.
Your shoes are also of paramount importance. Real leather, hand polished, well cut, good sole, proper fit... its just important. I've been polishing my shoes by hand since I was knee high to a grasshopper and still love getting my hands dirty polishing my shoes. Shoes are a living breathing thing - they tell so much about you; how you walk, whether you pick up your feet or drag them... that you have dirt on them can tell people you don't care. Like the suit side of things, cheap shoes look cheap. I abhor patent leather shoes, modern ones at least with the plastic coating - to me they are the epitomy of laziness and tackiness. If you can't get a mirror shine from a pair of shoes you are simply doing something wrong.
So anyway, to tonights endeavour. I started by meticulously pressing my shirts, ensuring that seams lined up, that the yoke was perfectly square, that the drape of the shirt was maintained through careful pressing. Paying attention to the cuffs to make sure that there are no odd creases, really aiming for a BBS result out of each garment. After hanging the shirts carefully on wooden hangers (yeah, I like the old school approach to hangers too
) I picked up my dress boots for a thorough cleaning and polishing. I had recently attended one of best mates father's funeral and it was in a paddock. Yep, soles of the shoes were dusty and dirty, the upper leather had a nice patina of dust... time for a good polish.Now its anal I know, but I love to lay down the polish using cotton wool and alternate between a slightly damp piece of cotton wool and a dry piece to buff the shoes crisply. It takes time and if you get it wrong you have to go back a step and start again. Scuffs in the shoes take real work to clean up. But it is the same way I approach shaving. The time does not feel wasted or the task onerous. If I were using wipe on liquid polish and cheap leather I'd feel like I did when I used to shave with cartridges and goo. Its just not the same as the traditional method.
It irks me that so many younger people (and not all, I believe there are younger people with good habits in this regard) take the easy road or the fast approach, I'm thinking this is probably what landed us with the latest "21 blade cartridge system with ground shaking rotating action for the smoothest possible shave ever" guff that seems to fill a lot of the market.
I haven't worked in mens formals for a very long time and I've been riding a desk more or less since I graduated uni, so my outlook may be a little old fashioned. Sure, everything I did tonight was a job and they take time, but you can take pride in your efforts. Well suited, good shoes, crisp clean look and a cleanly shaven face... what more could any man (or indeed woman) ask for?
