Embarrassing the chokehold Monocle magazine still has on me. The primordial, craven centers of my brain just uma_thurma_pulp-glitchion dot gif -ing when I see that stupid ass matte-stock Swiss grid cum aspirational fappery: “This could be me. I could have my shit together. My house could have maple surfaces! I could wear clogs!” This past week it hits me with particular force at my most vulnerable. I joke with John at the beginning of the trip that I don’t want anything major from our time in London, I just want to come back fundamentally changed in some deep and profound way, fitter, happier, more productive and is that too much to ask?  But I am in Heathrow seconds away from boarding, more or less exactly the same, quelle surprise, and I see the stupid fucking March issue and my pupils dilate and my fingers itch and I spend the first 20 minutes of my flight skimming the pages* planning a metamorphosis, a transformation, a triumphant rising from the ashes: I am shopping.

*No one has ever read an issue of Monocle. That’s not controversial to say, it is literally just a fact.

All of this is coming at a time when I’m finding myself 1. desperately needing some new clothes due to actual attrition, 2. struggling with silly, fuzzy questions of “who am I” in the general sense, and 3. struggling with silly, fuzzy, existentially crippling questions of “who am I at 41? What’s next? Is it time to die? Don’t these lame shirts from three years ago and bags under my eyes signal to everyone that I am actually very ready to go gentle into that good night?” Let’s-get-you-to-bed-grandma. 

I spent Saturday morning tracking down a bunch of items from this spread, or at least reasonable facsimiles, the vast majority of these pieces being deliriously overpriced basics in the vein of James Perse bullshit. I like the general style though: a gently upgraded basic Sim, the fashion of a non-playable character who doesn’t even have a quest for you. I also, probably, am really only responding to the soft, perfect, extremely kissable face of model Alex Petit. 

I don’t know, I’m just at a point in my life where I truly understand the note of “the clothes are wearing you.” So I’m trying to triangulate on basics that maybe just have a little something extra, something that says “this is intentional” or “I put some thought into this” or “I was not talked into wearing this by appeals to my growing sense of aging out of existence — this is not a sartorial red corvette.” I stopped in at Form & Thread at Kings Cross in London, and picked up some items that seemed pretty versatile.