Fall is here and I'm really dressing. Shorts and long sleeves baby. The combination of the gods. What are you wearing this fall? After splurging on an 18 East oxford the other day (if you call the store you can buy from the warehouse; they aren't online yet), I'm officially buying exactly zero shit this season. I have all the lightweight outerwear I need, and some Kiko Asics I mostly kept on ice since last xmas. I'm good.

I think if there is any trend I am into this season, it's prep. Not that it represents a drastically different way for me to dress, but I will say that currently I have the capability and desire to wear a collared shirt every day of the week, which is fairly preppy to me. The oxford I recently bought was a double: I bought it in black and I have another identical one in pink. The rest of my rotation is a third oxford, two rugbies, and two Monitaly "Batman" shirts (this size small on grailed is a steal at $64). They all look good with shorts and also with my colder weather rotation of baggy long pants.

It's funny, we were upstate the other weekend with a serious New York City Fashion Family, and at one point I noticed all of us were wearing collared shirts. Like, button downs. And none of us just "happened" to be dressing that way, either: we were all super psyched on our collared shirts. They're indicative of one of the key touchpoints in menswear and womenswear right now, a shared prep moment. And I'm pro that, especially financially, because the prep wardrobe is something that looks good beat to shit and can be bought relatively cheaply on eBay.

I did have to laugh, though, when I noticed all us discerning "individuals" wearing the same stuff. A lot of times clothes are marketed to us to enhance our "personal styles," as if we are all way out on some specific limb, headed into undiscovered territory, figuring ourselves out. We internalize that myth to degrees. Then one day you look around and your whole friend group is wearing the same thing and you have to laugh at the conformity.

It's nothing new, of course, dressing like your cohort. Style tribes persist because style is social, and the personal style concept is mostly fake. We are generally choosing what to wear from what's already available in the marketplace, or choosing based on how we perceive that marketplace (which we might not be able to really participate in bc we are broke). And the marketplace is the domain of product marketing, where certain items are hammered into the front of our vision and we are tricked into desiring them.

If I can interrogate my own taste in clothes for a microsecond, I think it somewhat involves dressing in drag as "normal man" in order to protect against some kind of gender anxiety. Also sort of leaning into my big and hairy body, in a way that works with what I already look like. Additionally I admit I dress a lot like my mom, a primary influence on my life, who basically has two clothes modes: Polo down, and wizard in flowing robes. Both of which appeal to me immensely.

Anyway that's what's going on in Finals land fashion wise this season. It's on my mind because as I type this it's not just the beginning of the season when I really start dressing (or at least I think I do), it's also the beginning of fashion week, a time of year I have a seriously mixed relationship with as a fan and a critic. I'm very ambivalent about it. I over think it. Sometimes I write about it. This year I'm not.

ANYWAY. Music.

Fall wise, this is what I'm on. I edit this playlist weekly:

Fall is also a fine time to listen to guitar music, which I have been keeping a close-ish eye on this year:

Additionally if you need more music to listen to, I have been building this since January (it includes some late December jams):

And this:

And that's it. Sound off the in the comments, like & subscribe, peace & fucking.