Indie Spotlight: Optics

Are you lucky enough to be endowed with imperfect eyesight? If so, you should seriously consider checking out SALT. Optics for your next pair of specs.

SALT. Optics is a relatively young company, hailing from Southern Cali since 2006. Their dedicated, experienced team designs and assembles their eyewear in-house, using impeccable style and craftsmanship. In the collection you can find everything from Tortoise-Shell Acetate frames to classic Aviators, and their designs are spot-on.

The WAYNE frame / Black Rain color combination is a personal favorite, especially with fade-tint lenses.

Find them at your local independent eyewear specialist.

(and yes, the company name is suffixed with a period.)

Image/Product Page: saltoptics.com

Burn your pants

Back from summer vacation sporting the hottest red sun burn orbiting a star can give, only to find that all bets are off

"Meggings" have returned.

And doesn't he look excited to be wearing them?

Fascinatingly, although a google search drew up a great many opinions about meggings, not one helped in finding somewhere to buy a pair (a fate worse than death for one who can't even sew a button).

Indeed, meggings hold a peculiar mystique in the world of men's fashion, residing in the same uncanny valley as kilts... pretty cool for an idea, but a bit too fem for the average dude. Anyone who's seen the grey concrete of a side walk would find themselves surprisingly familiar with meggings already, as the multitude of joggers and cyclists passing in "why so tight?" athletic wear seem to increase exponentially every summer. But confined to sport, they have a reason for invading the world of guys, as easy to explain away as swimmers shaving their legs.

Removed from this masculine logic, they become a stylish Bermuda Triangle, intriguing and seductive, but mysterious and deadly, luring young lads in with the promise of being years a head of the trend game, only to slam shut at the last second, forever lost to a world of Cosmanics, like manscara and beard gloss, never to drink beer and play full contact football in stripclubs again.

Image care of the beautiful people at Style Sightings

The Importance of Shoes

Friday, during a long train ride, a saw a guy get on the train wearing a straw hat, check shirt and cuffed, dark-wash jeans. It may have been a simple look, but compared to the rest of the slubs on the train wearing cargo shorts, sneakers and t-shirts that looked like "free gifts with purchase", the outfit looked good. That is, until he moved to sit down. That's when I saw his shoes. Crocs.

Dos and Don'ts of Shoes by Fashion Me Fabulous on Polyvore.com

This is the importance of shoes. The outfit was clean, casual and smart, but the shoes ruined it. I've been thinking all weekend about how many different and better pairs of shoes could have kept that look together. Paul found the perfect ones yesterday when he wrote about these Sperry Top Siders (also mentioning the importance of shoes. Paul, you read my mind). Comfortable, summery, good for walking around the city--these shoes do everything Crocs do, only they look good doing it.

Pictured:
Cuffed Jeans, Levi, $98
Straw Hat, Village Hat Shop, $18.95
Terracotta Check Shirt, Land's End, $19.99
"Do" Boat Shoe, Sperry, $80