Beautiful stupid rules
Color-layering against chaos, super-clean shirts for summer, a new movie about an enigmatic comedy genius & more
Welcome to Blackbird Spyplane!
Our Home Goods Report, full of things to enliven the place you live, and stores where you can find them, is here.
Mach 3+ city intel for traveling the entire planet is here.
The B.L.I.S.S. List — a helpful rundown of Beautiful Life-Improving Spyplane Staples, from incense to sweatpants to underwear — is here.
In today’s Plane we’ve got:
Feeling “put together” in more ways than one amid the shapeless howling chaos of modernity…. via beautiful stupid rules.
Slamming small-batch springtime button-up shirts from a kindvibed & swagged-out European Spyfriend (that cost ~$150-$200 each) for the fellas & ladies alike.
A new movie about an enigmatic comedy genius.
Let’s get to it —
When I (Jonah) was in New York doing cool things last month, I hung out a couple times with tasteful fashion journalist and Big Homie Spyfriend Noah Johnson.
In both instances I looked fantastic.
So imagine my surprise when, during hang No. 2, Noah informed me that my outfit was in ⚠️ violation ⚠️: “You’re wearing a lighter color over a darker color,” he explained, looking a little disappointed.
Apparently Noah has several rules like this. Rules, that is, for How To Put S**t On Most Pleasingly. For instance, he’s written that you shouldn’t match your socks to your shoes, because “you want some kind of contrast” between pants hem & footwear. He believes that if your pants have belt loops, you should wear a belt with them — “especially if you have your shirt tucked in,” but even when you don’t, because “a beltless waistband on pants with belt loops is like a pair of shoes without laces.” I like that one.
As far as his belief that layers should get consistently darker as they move outward, however, here is a “Flung Fit” re-creation of my color layering that night, so you can see what I was wearing and why it tripped his alarm:
Patently excellent. But the transgression here per Noah is the dark-brown tee, which would need to be a lighter shade than the ochre 1/2-zip to come into compliance.
I told my brother he was tripping. There was a certain undeniable logic to his rule, but I clearly looked good in a way that exposed that logic’s limits.
Either because he genuinely f**ked with my vision, or simply out of politeness, he agreed.
I’d argue that history is on my side on the specifics here: There are few better stylists currently working than the people who do the runway fits for Auralee and Lemaire, and Spyfriend Saager Dilawri of Vancouver’s Neighbour. Above are ensembles from each where lighter-colored pieces layer over darker ones and look great.
And yet! I’ve thought back to Noah’s color-layering rule a lot in the weeks since our conversation. Because there is something to it — and, moreover, because I’m ultimately inclined to respect someone who Lives By a Code. When I told Erin about this, she said she felt similarly: “There are so many exceptions to that rule — but sometimes it’s nice to have a rule to kind of hold you in place, anyway.”
When I write a sletter about how epaulets are wack and I’m putting diagonal pockets on probation, there’s something similar happening. I’m formalizing guardrails for myself.
There’s a hard-to-determine line where a rule spills over into onerousness and/or inanity. People who tell you “black doesn’t go with navy” are living a swag-impaired life. Ditto people who tell you that black suits are “only for funerals and waiters.” Etc.
But I get it. The world can feel chaotic… meaningless… like an all-pervading scream of unintelligibility. In the face of that chaos, a set of rules offers us a pleasant sense of form, structure and signal: rather than simply feeling stifling, rules can offer a way to feel put together, in two senses of the phrase.
If you want some deceptively simple principles as far as how to wear color well, we have a brilliant two-part guide about exactly that.
Wow —
You know what’s nice as hell to wear on a warm day, whether it’s the swelter of dead noon or the hours are curving more breezily nightward?
A crisp summerweight button up. And there’s a clothes-crafting Spyfriend we met last summer in Europe who — because she lives in a place with HOT summers, but also believes in a life lived saucefully — has become a crisp summerweight button-up specialist.
And her shirts tend to cost between $150 and $200: