Yesterday, I picked up my vintage Brooks Brothers University Club tweed jacket from my friend, the old Chinese tailor. It had been there for at least three weeks. It's funny, my Mon uses the same tailor, and always gets yelled at for leaving things there too long. I never do, because my kids are cute and Mrs. Chinese Tailor is a sucker for babies. But I digress... The jacket cost me $2.49...dry cleaning and shortening the sleeves cost me $30...As far as I can tell, $32.49 ain't a bad price for a nice, soft , Brooks Brothers sack with a 3/2 roll.
Also just making the rotation are the red cords I bought on sale from Land's End last year. I love these pants...the perfect Fall 'go-to-Hell' pair, loud, but just this side of too outrageous. But I'll be damned if these things aren't a tough nut to crack sometimes. I'd really like to wear them more regularly, so I'm looking for options. Plus, I was Hell-bent on busting out the new tweed, it being cold and rainy today. At a loss for what to do, I remembered an old post about the First Lady on Hollister Hovey hoping she would wear a red and brown outfit to the inauguration (that's right, fellas, it is not only o.k. but encouraged that we occasionally take out cues from the ladies)...then I got to thinking about the Burberry plaid, and how it consists of tan, black, white and red, and so my mind was made up. To further drive it home, I busted out the too-rarely-worn Burberry Macintoch ($9.99, new with tags). Usually, I abhor such shameless brand name flashery, especially at the luxury brand level, but in this case the Burberry plaid actually matched, and it was raining, after all.
Here's a fairly bad photo of the whole look. Forgive me, I've been trying out some new angles, just to keep it fresh. (I don't know why, but this shot makes me think of ADG.)
Here, the accent colors of black and white are carried subtly down to the floor with these $2 socks from the Gap.
All in all, I was happy with this get-up. But as I sat down to write this post, it hit me: This combo doesn't 'work' because of Burberry, or the First Lady, or any of that. It works because of Old Mother Nature...of course. I do live in New England, and it is late October. Mother Nature trumps worldly status any day:
I think I may have just had an epiphany involving red corduroy and brown tweed. Score one for the good guys!