The best investment jawn??
The best investment jawn??
Plus: Looking wack in dope clothes, cool NY-made bags, literal fire tees, elevated post-GORP & more
Welcome to Blackbird Spyplane. Today we’ve got
Intel on a fire line of backpacks, totes, duffels and shoulderbags — made in NY since 1970 — that are very cool because they have no interest in being cool, and no one is checking for them,
Sick throwback-soccer-inspired longsleeve tees on their “FLAME ON” s**t,
Beautiful Italian-made “post-GORP” clothes currently coppable for the relative low…
A slappy answer to a Spyfriend’s request for “the best investment jawn” …
BUT FIRST — let’s dip into the Personal Spyplane mailbag and tackle some mind-expanding recent reader Qs…
@gourmet___bathing asks about “the fits you admire from afar bc they don’t suit your personal vibe and/or body type tho u try.”
A huge component of “personal style” is not merely the ability to identify sick pieces you love but the ability to identify which of those pieces are actually right for your particular individual-a** gestalt. And the only way to figure out why a particular garment you find objectively dope is / isn’t clicking is to “be a good and patient listener,” attuned to the ongoing 3-way conversation between your body, your vibes & garments …
Is that jacket getting into an argument with your shoulders? Does the hue of that shirt beef with your complexion? There are physical facts like these — not immutable, but formidable — to take into account, just like how, say, you can show a picture of young Elliott Gould to your barber, but if your hair is naturally straight? That particular god-tier do might not be in the cards for you, cousin.
Then there are psychological limits. You might have pants that fit you fantastically, but they don’t fit the way your other favorite pants fit, so you feel irksomely off-balance when you rock them — like you’re in costume as someone else, incapable of “owning the role.”
Determining these limits follows from knowledge of self, which tends to follow from time and experimentation. But it’s crucial & beautiful to remember that experimentation doesn’t ever stop, because the self is not stable, it’s constantly up for negotiation and discovery. And so today you may decide “I don’t look good in cropped jackets,” but down the line you might prove yourself (happily) wrong. Get a sense of your limits, but keep testing them, too !!
“Is never being satisfied with your wardrobe normal?” — @ssmith2113
It’s a normalized abnormality, as mainstream a pathology as they come, thanks to vast & pernicious consumer-culture superstructures engineered to make you feel eternally itchy in the name of PROFIT. Shout out, as ever, to Adam Curtis’s must-watch documentary Century of the Self.
However, you wouldn’t give a book lover a hard time for “never being satisfied” with the books they’ve read, reading new biographies and seeking out new novelists — that’s a totally healthy way to behave when you love books. So do your best to identify and nourish the part of yourself drawn to clothes the way a cool erudite person is drawn to the MF majesty of language. (Since you’re reading the literary miracle known as Blackbird Spyplane, chances are good that you are this person.)
And do your best to identify and kill the part of yourself vulnerable to the seductive coercions of MARKETING DEMONS. This is easier said than done, but attempting to draw the distinction will help you better understand and react to your own dissatisfactions and acquisitive urges.
“What’s the best investment jawn?” — @david.r.fry
If you mean what’s the best “secondary-market-value-holding”-type jawn to buy and then flip down the line, you’re asking the wrong sletter, this isn’t Charles Schwabplane bro 😜!!
But if you mean what’s a great “staple”-type jawn to spend a bit of money on, then reap the rewards of the s**t looking dope for the rest of your years??