/fa/ - Fashion

it honestly makes me kinda sad sometimes when I think that some kids wake up every morning and try to decide whether to wear their stan smiths or new balances. when I think about how amazing it feels to wear some of the finest shoes in the world, it feels odd to compare that to how it must feel to get up and try to decide which mass produced trainer is more in-fashion this week, or will make a more recognizably "fashionable" outfit when combined with black jeans and a parka. I don't mean to come across as an asshole on this; I do understand how people get into that situation, and what it feels like to get caught in trend cycles. but it seems a little empty.

there's something about the heft, the suppleness of the leather, the rich brown of the dye, the perfect evenness of the stitching, the sound of a leather sole on a wood floor. It is a child of centuries of the shoemaking tradition and an artifact of old world craftsmanship. And it's as essential and untrendy as all the best parts of life. It is vanity tempered by a deference to the past; an ostentation that revels in restraint.

It is a manly paean to the foot, our main point of contact with the world, the Atlas that bears all other limbs, the brutish and sturdy answer to the dexterous and delicate hand.

If a shoe is just a shoe, then Stan Smiths are as simple, as unassuming, and as uninspiring, as befits being no more than shoes. But if a shoe is something more, if clothing can mean anything beyond simple fashion, if art and history and craft and feeling have a place in something so utilitarian -- then -- well, I've lost my train of thought. But I do think a classic shoe is a classic shoe. Maybe (probably) it's all nonsense, yet I think there's something beautiful about the man-shoe relationship, and I don't think the cheap leathers and synthetic lining of a mass-produced sneaker are good enough for it. I think shoes deserve to be taken seriously.