hmm...i grew up in suburban TX, so I was pretty much a jeans and tee or polo wearing kinda guy (average prep). In college, it was pretty much the same...all of my cash went to books. After graduating I interned for a publishing house in Boston (summer of 99)...and during a lunch break, I ambled into LouisBoston (I had no idea what was in the store). I was totally blown away: the first floor of the boutique was a hodge podge of euro labels: Yen, Bailey, 6876, helmut lang, walsh, neil barrett and others I cannot recall.
A pair of sneakers, overdyed blue suede with thin crepe soles, caught my eye. I had never seen casual shoes inspired from atheltic models (totally common now but not so available at the time). the SA convinced me to try them on and I began my obsession with footwear...The SA said, "he's belgian and we're carrying his collection in depth. The name rhymes with grease." I forked over my meager intern stipend, which I had been saving for a month, and purchased my first pair of designer shoes ($195+$1 tax). I still have those Dries Van Noten shoes...with a better job and evolving taste, I purchased more items from Louis': Neil Barrett down vest with black MOP buttons; a classic Dries suit (robin's eggshell blue) for a wedding in Newport...My style moved away from casual preppy to "deconstructed" american (composed of all euro labels, how ironic): distressed tees and denim from Helmut Lang, a translucent polyurathane trench from Jil Sander, Cloak knits, Marni cashmere...and now my style resides somewhere between understated luxury (lame description that includes: hermes, pink, zegna, mostly my work attire, which is very conservative) to goth/street/artisinal/prep (also a lame description: mmj, mcqueen, casey-vidalenc, luc, n(n), headporter, dirk schonberger, km rii, l.g.b., etc.) In between those to diametrically opposed descritions, sprinkle in obsessions with prada (pretty much limited to belts, footwear, knitwear...however I have started to lose interest with miuccia), mmm, yohji, Original Fake, bottega veneta and cdg.
A pair of sneakers, overdyed blue suede with thin crepe soles, caught my eye. I had never seen casual shoes inspired from atheltic models (totally common now but not so available at the time). the SA convinced me to try them on and I began my obsession with footwear...The SA said, "he's belgian and we're carrying his collection in depth. The name rhymes with grease." I forked over my meager intern stipend, which I had been saving for a month, and purchased my first pair of designer shoes ($195+$1 tax). I still have those Dries Van Noten shoes...with a better job and evolving taste, I purchased more items from Louis': Neil Barrett down vest with black MOP buttons; a classic Dries suit (robin's eggshell blue) for a wedding in Newport...My style moved away from casual preppy to "deconstructed" american (composed of all euro labels, how ironic): distressed tees and denim from Helmut Lang, a translucent polyurathane trench from Jil Sander, Cloak knits, Marni cashmere...and now my style resides somewhere between understated luxury (lame description that includes: hermes, pink, zegna, mostly my work attire, which is very conservative) to goth/street/artisinal/prep (also a lame description: mmj, mcqueen, casey-vidalenc, luc, n(n), headporter, dirk schonberger, km rii, l.g.b., etc.) In between those to diametrically opposed descritions, sprinkle in obsessions with prada (pretty much limited to belts, footwear, knitwear...however I have started to lose interest with miuccia), mmm, yohji, Original Fake, bottega veneta and cdg.
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