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Murder House Energy with Zach DeLuca
108 Plays3 years ago
We talk with Zach DeLuca about being dropped into pop culture without a map, Abercrombie & Fitch, collecting vs. hoarding, and canonical vintage.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
and we're live. Hi, I'm Connor Fowler
00:00:04
Speaker
and I'm Matt Smith. And today, it is our honor to welcome the big gun in Boston's, the Maven in Madras, the Titan in Tiger Stripe, the Levi's Luminary, the Mini Maestro, the Oxford Cloth Overlord, the ruler in Ralph, the Padre from the Bay, the guru of good times, chairman of the Ivy League Intelligentsia, a man once familiar with Nantucket, here's Zach DeLuca at Newton Street Vintage.
00:00:33
Speaker
Wow. Hey, thanks. That's, that's a killer intro. That's far and away the greatest intro I've ever heard. We try, myself. We try, we try. It's the greatest way I've ever been introduced. A lot of time into our intro and I help here and there, but every single guest, it's hilarious how they respond to it.
00:00:58
Speaker
I haven't been the mayor of Madras or whatever for quite some time, but I appreciate the throwback. That goes all the way back. That's like the whole trajectory. We went through your whole shit. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. We like to be thorough. That's for sure.
Origins of Newton Street Vintage
00:01:16
Speaker
So let's get started. So where is Newton Street? Oh, yeah. It's funny. I get asked that a lot.
00:01:25
Speaker
It's a street, random street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I lived a long, long time ago. And yeah, when I started doing clothes, this is like ancient history now. This is like, we're talking 09, 2010.
00:01:48
Speaker
I was living in this apartment in Cambridge with my girlfriend, and I was buying a ton of vintage. I also wanted to start my own Made to Measure Tailoring brand. I started this little thing called the Newton Street Suit Company, which was just a
00:02:09
Speaker
Gigantic failure. Oh, I think I, I got, I had suits made for myself, which was fun. Um, and then I had a couple of customers that I was able to like make and design suits for, but it kind of went nowhere. So that was like the start of like Newton street. It was called the Newton street suit company. I had like a stamp made. I was like DIY doing Taylor tags with like a hand stamp and that whole thing. It was 2010. It was a very 2010 move.
00:02:38
Speaker
And then when I started doing vintage, Newton Street Succo became Newton Street Vintage and I was doing these pop-up markets in Boston called the Top Shelf Flea. You guys remember those? You remember Giuseppe and Affordable Wardrobe? Yeah, so he started this cool thing in Boston called the Top Shelf Flea, which was kind of like a response to whatever that
00:03:07
Speaker
a continuous lean was doing down in New York at that time. I forget what that was called. What was that? Yeah, this is all like, this is ancient, ancient stuff. But anyway, that's how Newton Street Vintage came
Zach's Background and Fashion Influences
00:03:24
Speaker
about. And then I started the Instagram handle and did nothing with it for years, like forgot that I had it.
00:03:32
Speaker
And then years later, I just picked it back up, and that was my account, so that's my name. But I haven't lived there for like 10 years at least. So Zach, where are you from? I'm from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Yeah, I'm not a coaster in any sense, east or west. I'm a Rust Belt adjacent. Yeah, yeah. In terms of clothing, while you were growing up, what kind of
00:04:02
Speaker
What kind of stuff did you see in that part of Pennsylvania? I had no concept. Vintage clothing hadn't entered my consciousness yet.
00:04:16
Speaker
Preppy was a word that was used, but preppy in Western PA in late 90s and early 2000s meant one thing, and that was Abercrombie and Fitch. That's what preppy was. I went to a high school that was absolutely obsessed with Abercrombie and Fitch. You did not wear anything but Abercrombie and Fitch, and it's weird.
00:04:40
Speaker
I don't remember there being a lot of subcultures in my high school that weren't like punk kids and skater kids and indie kids and preppy kids. There was Abercrombie and Fitch, and then there was a bunch of people that were just wearing clothing. It was a weird world in 1998, 2022.
00:05:05
Speaker
That's the beginning of the rise of mass internet too. I grew up in a small town, had a very similar experience, although American Eagle was also factored in there because it was the closest store.
00:05:21
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh, American Eagle was a thing. And that's what you, that's what you got. If you couldn't go to the Abercrombie and fit store, it was a little bit cheaper. And I remember like learning the differences between like, that's sort of how I got into clothing, actually like, like observing clothing and picking out details was by basically like comparing Abercrombie and American Eagle. It's funny to think about in hindsight, because like, that was, you know,
00:05:51
Speaker
more than 20 years ago, but at the same time, like if you had a couple of malls close to you, that's literally all that you could get. And so, you know, where you could go like your J crew, but that was a very in sort of in its infancy, I guess at the time. Yeah, that really came later. I mean, it existed, but it was like a catalog brand. It wasn't like as much of a mall thing until the sort of mid 2000s, I think.
00:06:21
Speaker
Right, right.
California's Influence on Style
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, and so Zach, where are you living now? I live in the Bay Area of California, near San Francisco. And how long have you been out there? We moved out here in summer of 2020, so it's been a couple years now. Okay, dope, dope. I love it out here. Do you think change the way that you dress?
00:06:46
Speaker
Oh, 100%. Well, so there are a few reasons to sort of change the way that I dress. But being out here, I definitely invested in some flip flops, flip flops suddenly became acceptable.
00:06:59
Speaker
Um, you know, being into vintage, like I don't surf, but like they're certainly facets of like old school surf culture that have like bled into vintage culture that I think are cool and not particularly unique to me. Like that's just a vintage thing. Um, and then climate wise, like work wise, everything sort of changed. So I work from home. So like.
00:07:24
Speaker
everything that I wear is really stuff that I'm going to wear around the house. Then also, it's just warmer. I don't need a ton of outerwear. I love Shetland sweaters, but I just can't wear them here because it never gets cold enough.
00:07:42
Speaker
I can't sit around the house in a Shetland sweater. I'll just sweat to death. So it sort of changed the choices that I make, closing-wise, but also, like, the vibe of how I dress. I've gotten a little bit more workweary, suddenly moved to the West Coast, and it
00:07:57
Speaker
just suddenly felt okay to invest in a legitimate cowboy hat, which is probably not something I would have done back in Boston or Cambridge. So getting a little Western with it. My wife, who actually knows how to ride a horse, thinks it's hilarious because if you were to see me on the horse, I would be the least cowboy thing you've ever seen in your life.
00:08:22
Speaker
But yeah, and basically I put it on my western shit and I drive around in a white VW Jetta with a baby on board sticker on it. Fuck yeah, dude.
College Years and Vintage Clothing Evolution
00:08:33
Speaker
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Let's talk a little bit about Ivy style. We know you went to Boston University. Did being in Boston influence your Ivy interests? What drew you to Ivy style in the first place?
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, so being in Boston eventually sort of led me to Ivy, but not at first. When I was in college, I got into vintage, but it was like,
00:08:58
Speaker
This would have been like 2002 to 2006. So this was like the peak of the garage rock revolution. And I had like, when I was in high school, so this is probably a backtrack. I got into vintage in high school without really fully understanding what I was into, but I was really into like 70s music.
00:09:19
Speaker
And the other big thing that I think has influenced why I'm into clothing in general, regardless of the genre of clothing, is that up from about second grade up until high school, I was homeschooled.
00:09:35
Speaker
Um, so I, and I don't have like older brothers who like initiated me into pop culture. So basically when I got to, got to high school, it was like being like dropped into pop pop culture without a map. And I just had to kind of find my way around. Um, so it was like, I didn't have like, uh, it was like, I was like a blank canvas. Um, and I had to catch up really quickly. Uh, and for whatever reasons, like I tended to gravitate toward older.
00:10:05
Speaker
stuff. I wasn't necessarily into what was popular, even though I may have dressed like it at the time. My taste in music was just sort of gravitated toward the past. Maybe because I had older parents. My dad grew up in the 50s. My mom grew up in the 60s. So for a kid my age, my parents were a little bit older, and they had sort of introduced me to the music of their times.
00:10:35
Speaker
So I remember getting really into music from the 70s. And I was really into Springsteen in particular. He was my first pop culture reference, pop culture icon. And if you remember early, early Springsteen, he didn't look like he did in the 80s. He was this skinny dude with a beard and a big floppy hat. And he wore bootcut jeans and Chuck Taylors.
00:11:04
Speaker
And so for whatever reason, I started gravitating toward that kind of a look. And I was a little bit out of place in high school. I didn't have a lot of friends. I was kind of a misfit. I felt really different because I hadn't gone to school up until that point. And I tried to fit in for a while. I tried to wear lots of Abercrombie and shit.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then I decided to go the other way, later in high school. And I started dressing a little bit more like Bruce, essentially. So I used to do funny shit. You learn that his jeans just look different. I didn't really know why. But I realized that they were slightly flared at the bottom. So I used to, honestly, swear to god, I used to wear my sister's flared American Eagle
00:11:56
Speaker
Genes because that was the only way you could get like flared pants back in the day This was before like this was before like bootcut jeans became a big thing for dudes So like I would I and like I wouldn't do it every day, but like, you know, I would like wear them Yeah, I mean honestly like in the early And they weren't like stud Brittany spear jeans or anything like that They were just like a little bit little ride a little bit flared leg like, you know, hey
00:12:32
Speaker
So anyway, when I got to college, which was kind of like the question, right? Like, did being in Boston, um,
00:12:41
Speaker
I discovered a vintage store, and this guy owned this awesome vintage store, and it was just full of like 60s and 70s stuff. Not like super rare stuff, but he had all the jeans that I wanted. He had orange tab 517 Levi's. He had the white tab flared cords. So like I kind of went nuts for it and just stocked up on that stuff. And then like I said, this was like
00:13:03
Speaker
garage rock revolution i kind of wanted to look like i was in the strokes you know what i mean like on a good day on a bad day i probably look like i was in jet
00:13:19
Speaker
We were going to all those shows. I know you guys are from the hardcore scene. I have no connection to hardcore whatsoever, but I was an aspiring indie rock guy in the early 2000s, although I didn't go that deep into it.
Professional Life and Style Adaptation
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I would go to shows and also this is probably worth mentioning. I wasn't bald. I had a huge like floppy Bob Dylan afro. Nice. So I kind of looked more at the part than I do now. And that was kind of my look all through college. And then when did I get into like Ivy in suits?
00:13:57
Speaker
After college, I got a job that I didn't really want, but I needed it to make money. I was working as an office assistant at this private equity fund, this really high profile financial services place.
00:14:16
Speaker
I didn't fit in there at all. I still had writing aspirations. I was this arty kid. I knew it wasn't my scene or my culture, but I had to wear a suit every day. I don't know what it was about a vintage suit, but I started dressing around this time.
00:14:35
Speaker
like pretty hardcore, like 1960s reenactor. Like, like, like I mentioned, I like, I already liked the music from the era. So like, and I'm talking like, like skinny lapel, skinny tie tab collar. And I was getting all this stuff from these same stores where I was buying the, you know, the 70s stuff previously. So that was kind of like my way to look
00:15:00
Speaker
to, okay, I got to wear a suit to work, but fuck you. I'm going to wear a suit that looks like I'm in a Motown band from 1965 and not, you know, working at an investment bank. Uh, so that kind of led me to like tailoring and suiting. And then like through research that kind of distilled into like, well, what I was actually into was this thing called Ivy. And it actually had like this history in Boston, uh, and New England.
00:15:30
Speaker
And that led me to learning about the natural shoulder and the button-down collar and all those details that were sort of within this much broader world of just looking like you're in 1966. And that's when I really got into... I started wanting to work in clothing from that point on. And that was kind of the dream, to work in vintage to work in clothing.
00:15:55
Speaker
But yeah, that's sort of how Boston kind of worked that sort of look into my deal. Oh, hell yeah. And so I'm assuming that that's how you ended up at the Andover shop.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, so this would have been, yeah, I ended up the Endeavor shop kind of roundabout way. So I got really into tailoring. And this is why I was working at this office job. And sort of the first step was I thought I wanted to be like a legit bespoke tailor. And when I say into tailoring, I meant I enjoyed wearing suits. Right.
00:16:36
Speaker
So like, and I wore suits everywhere. Like there are photos of me at like somebody's backyard barbecue in a corduroy suit. Like I wore suits all the time everywhere. I wore suits to like post college house parties that were still kind of collegey. I wore a suit everywhere. I wore bow ties. I mean, I was like, I was that guy.
00:17:01
Speaker
Over that guy. Yeah, I was just Yeah, everyone who listens to this show is that person at some point. Yeah And I was so like confident. I was like, yes, I found the look that i'm gonna die in right? Yeah, totally, um, but yeah
00:17:24
Speaker
how to get to the end. I really wanted to work in clothing, but like I said, I didn't have any experience. I had this idea. I had been down in New York. There was this guy at the time, Danny, I forget his last name, Louis, I think. He had this brand called Brooklyn Tailors. Do you remember him? Oh, dude. That's a throwback.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think he's still around. I think his business is still doing well. And this was back when he was literally doing a made-to-measure business out of his apartment in Brooklyn. And I had wanted to get a made-to-measure suit. That's a thing, your first made-to-measure suit. But obviously, I wanted to do it on the cheap and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I had emailed back and forth with Danny. I ended up going down to New York to get a suit made.
00:18:15
Speaker
And the suit came out fine. But over the course of dealing with him, he mentioned that his tailors were in Nepal. And I was like, oh, I wonder if I could do this. So the whole bus ride back from New York, I was scribbling in my notebook about
00:18:31
Speaker
design suit ideas and like waste like what I was going to make. And that's kind of when the name Newton Street Suit Co came about. And so I gave it a try. Danny had something I didn't, which was retail tailoring and measurement experience. So the first couple of suits I tried for myself and they came back okay. I'm sure they're they're like buried in Facebook photos of me somewhere wearing these suits.
00:18:57
Speaker
That was me trying to just bootstrap my own tailoring business as a side hustle while I was working at this investment bank and wearing lots of 60s clothing.
00:19:11
Speaker
The other thing that helped me get my start is kind of a weird term because it's not at all what I do for a living now. But I managed to talk my way into this other guy in Boston who had a legit made-to-measure business selling Martin Greenfield-made suits.
00:19:30
Speaker
And the interesting, the way that I got him to pay attention to me and let me work for him for free was I rewrote the copy on his website and I got a friend of mine to do a quick and dirty web design for him, which we'll come back to later because that's more germane to my current career. But anyway, so this guy, Craig,
00:19:54
Speaker
who had this made to measure business brings me on board as like his intern. And so I get to learn a little bit of the ropes about how to work with a made to measure factory, how to work with Greenfield. I think what he was actually hoping for was that I would bring him a bunch of like really rich dudes from the investment bank, which I tried to do, but it didn't really work. And so that got me enough, just like just enough of a resume that I was able to go down to the Andover shop when they were hiring and like,
00:20:23
Speaker
get a job at the Endover shop. And I think the Endover shop has this weird like, it's also super weird to be talking about the Endover shop now, because it does feel like like a bajillion years ago. But it, it does have this like, slightly
00:20:40
Speaker
like exclusive vibe, but it was not difficult to get a job at the end of a shop. I just put on my best suit, had a quick interview, and then started the next day. So that's how I found my way there. Oh, that's awesome. And then after the end of a shop, you eventually moved to rock, right?
Retail Experience and Boston Fashion Scene
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. So, um, that was sort of, and that was sort of my last, the final act of my, uh, like men's wear career. Um, so I was working at the Endover shop, um, which was much less fun than people would think. Um, it was pretty dead most of the time. So there was a lot of standing around, um,
00:21:29
Speaker
And I wasn't making very much money. So I decided to hop on over. Like working at the end of a shop was interesting. And I was enamored with Charlie, the owner, because he's like this menswear legend. And I got to learn at the seat. You know him. Yeah, everybody knows who he was. Crazy, famous people would come into the shop occasionally.
00:21:59
Speaker
But almost all the time, it was pretty dead in there. And then I wasn't doing a whole lot. It was retail, but I was hoping that I could learn at the feet of the master. But I was kind of just like a shop boy. And there wasn't a lot of shop boy activity to do. So we spent a lot of time dusting off the neckties.
00:22:25
Speaker
So when the position at Ralph opened up, I figured it could be, one, more money, and two, I might actually be able to learn more. And that was another place where I was like, oh, man, am I handsome enough to work at Ralph Lauren?
00:22:43
Speaker
Like, are the people there going to be really snooty and luxury-minded and off-putting? And to this day, the people I work with there are some of the nicest, most down-to-earth. I still talk to my old manager from the Ralph store. This was
00:23:01
Speaker
When I say I went to work for Ralph Lauren, I was a sales associate in a pretty nice luxury flagship store. They call it the mini mansion. It's not at the scale of the Rhinelander mansion, but it sells a lot of the same stuff. And it's in this really beautiful four-story townhouse on Newbury Street in Boston. So it's like a legit big deal Ralph Lauren store.
00:23:29
Speaker
Um, but it's still retail, right? Like retails retail. Um, you know, we sold all the polo stuff on the ground floor. Um, but I got to work on the second floor where we sold luxury tailoring. Um, and I got to be like the made to measure guy who took all the measurements and worked with the factory and stuff like that. So that was cool.
00:23:47
Speaker
Um, I loved working. I had so much fun working at the store. Um, the people were great. You could go absolutely all out full Ralph five days a week if you wanted to, and no one would bat an eyelash, right? Like you could just bust out crazy Ralph Lauren looks if you wanted to. Um,
00:24:07
Speaker
So it was a lot of fun in that regard. I made zero dollars and zero cents. So that was stressful. And I wasn't like young at this point either. I was like pushing 30. So yeah, that was sort of Ralph Lauren and that was kind of where not my love of clothing ended, but definitely my like desire to do it for a living.
00:24:33
Speaker
right yeah it definitely takes a special like type of mindset and person especially with like how so many of these jobs are like structured like the commission based or whatever um
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was rough. Cause like, so what was interesting about the Boston store is that the Boston store had the number one seller in the entire Ralph Lauren company. She worked on the women's floor. Um, and she made more money than like the next three sales, three people on the list combined. She sold everything. They brought in all the fall, like the super, super rare collection pieces, the stuff that goes down the runway. They brought it in just for her to sell.
00:25:27
Speaker
Most of the guys that are wearing suits in Boston are wearing suits to go to office jobs. It's still a very conservative place, both in terms of style, but also in terms of spend. People don't buy expensive. I'm sure the sales associates that work in New York and Miami,
00:25:46
Speaker
But from a men's perspective, selling in Boston is tough. The Boston market for men's clothing is rough.
00:25:49
Speaker
like make way more, you know, Chicago even, probably do better than the Boston store, even though it's this beautiful, like, world of Ralph mansion.
00:26:02
Speaker
It was just tough to sort of eke out a living. And I was pretty good. My first year of the year, I was the second highest men's seller in the men's department. So I was doing well, but it still wasn't like I was still just barely eking by. And moving in Cambridge, that's tough. Oh, totally. Totally.
00:26:23
Speaker
It sounds a little like DC, kind of. I mean, of course, there's mega money in DC, but people are not wearing fine clothing. They're wearing a sort of uniform. Yeah, it's very much the same, I think. Brooks Brothers would always do a ton of business. Yes, exactly.
00:26:44
Speaker
someone, you know, you know, whether they were a multimillionaire or just, you know, someone with a regular job, like they would all go to Brooks Brothers. I mean, not to be drool, but what last week we had photographic evidence of the president of the fucking United States going to Joseph a bank. Oh, Jesus, dude, but that's Joe. Yeah. There's the documented photos of Biden and Ralph Lauren.
00:27:12
Speaker
Sport coats. He gets around, certainly, but like, that's him, dude, is Amtrak Joe. Like, he is the master of AIDS as an everyman, even though he is the president. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it's just, it bums me out that like, this is the, you know, this is the desire of even like, quote unquote, the most powerful person in the country. It's like, go get the, buy one, get 25 free. Right, a suit made by a child.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really surprise me that Boston, along with DC or not, the, you know, bastions of Taylor clothing that you might think they would be. Because I guess people don't care, basically. Like, they have the power. They just need to look a certain way. And that way is not necessarily like elegant, but like domineering, I guess.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like what I learned actually from selling men's clothing for a few years is that most men are really just like what they want is acceptability. They want to fit in and if you can do that and have like maybe a subtle nod to like power, that's like
00:28:38
Speaker
That's the key. It was interesting to go back to when I talked about when I was working at the investment bank, I gradually learned all these subtle cues.
Corporate Dressing and Personal Style
00:28:50
Speaker
Dudes would wear Josave Bank suits, but they would wear them with
00:28:54
Speaker
Gucci bit loafers right or one thing was like cufflinks if you were a junior or like an associate Banker you weren't supposed to wear cufflinks only the senior guys would wear cufflinks right or they'd wear like a regular old non-iron Brooks Brothers shirt but they'd wear it with like an Hermes tie right like those were sort of the moves
00:29:18
Speaker
um in that world there were very few dudes there was one guy who wore a lot of like isaiah um but there were very few dudes who like power dressed or luxury dressed even though they were well within the means to do so will
00:29:33
Speaker
Well, it's sort of frowned upon, like at least in my experience working in DC, like it's really frowned upon. And it's, I would go as far as to say like slandered as being like homosexual. If you dress nicely, then like you're just kind of a weak person, you know what I mean? You need to be wearing the same suit every day, same tie, no variation. And that is your strength is uniformity, class uniformity, basically.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely an element of that, I think. Yeah, yeah, totally. Then there was me. God, I remember the other thing that was really funny. This is just a random story, but talking about power dressing versus dressing for yourself versus trying to stand out versus fit in. I went to grad school in 2009, 2010.
00:30:29
Speaker
And I was super into suits while I was there, and I had this part-time job at a law firm, and it was great. I did the same shit that I did at the investment firm, but I did it only like 20 hours a week after classes. It was a graduate degree, so it wasn't like I had a full day of classes every day. And I would wear the one suit that I wore, I swear to God, was like a
00:30:50
Speaker
one button shantung silk like emerald green suit from the 50s with like super pegged pants and I wore it with like pointy black shoes and a super skinny black knit tie and a tab car and I looked like I was about to play in like Sam Cooke's band and I go this like super conservative
00:31:13
Speaker
law firm in the UK, in Scotland to work every day. And it was really funny because I also didn't have the clothing language at that time to really know that what I was doing was totally outside the bounds of how you're supposed to look in that environment, even though
00:31:34
Speaker
You know, it was, I just thought I was wearing a suit. Everyone here is wearing a suit. I'm wearing a suit. That suit's blue. My suit's green. Like, it wasn't like a fully intentional, like, move to try and appear different. It was just like me being into that shit and thinking like, well, I gotta wear a suit. Guess I'll wear my emerald green silk shantung. Like, I must have looked pretty wild to some people. I used to wear modern. Being Scotland, they didn't have a ton of context.
00:32:04
Speaker
Madras was so they were like, Oh, you're wearing tartan. Like, no, this is Madras, man. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, so I wanted to ask you because I did this a little bit later than you. I'm 32. So I kind of came up wearing suits. I was working for a congressman. I wanted to wear a suit. I bought it at Marshalls. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. But later,
00:32:28
Speaker
I was really peacocking and wearing like wild shit. And like, it just didn't work out for me. You know what I mean? I don't know. How do people perceive you? I don't know. Because they didn't tell me. I imagine they perceive me as a little bit strange. But it was also like, in the position that I was in, in these places, like I was kind of an, not an outsider, but I was sort of a
00:32:58
Speaker
I was the help, essentially. I was the guy who brought you your mail. So it's not like I was going to client meetings in my- Oh, sure. You weren't in the room. Like, I wasn't really a person of consequence. And I gradually sort of let that sort of allow myself to wear what I wanted. But I'm sure some folks in that environment might've looked at me sideways.
00:33:25
Speaker
I didn't really, didn't really care about it. But the green suit is verboten. That's like a big no-no. And then obviously like when I was working in clothing, it was a totally other, totally the opposite direction where it was like, I felt like I needed to look really, really good in order to be able to sell this stuff. And being at Ralph, like,
00:33:49
Speaker
I tied a pink sweater around my neck. I wore velvet slippers. At one point, I had so many damn suits. It's so funny now because I have almost zero suits. But at one point, I had a whole room full of suits.
00:34:05
Speaker
And that was like my closet was like a spare bedroom and then and three of the four walls were lined with racks that were just covered in suits and they were all secondhand suits. I mean like I would totally just go all out patterns and colors and the full Ralph Lauren look.
00:34:23
Speaker
And it was really funny cause like looking back, like I'd feel really confident and good in that in the store. But once you left the store, once you got on the sub, once you got on the tee, once you were walking down the sidewalk, it was a little bit of a different feeling and you're like, Oh man, like look.
00:34:38
Speaker
I used to walk down the street in a Panama hat and a white linen suit. Just crazy shit. I wanted to be in menswear, so that was my world. I felt like I needed to look better and different. I've dialed that back so much that part of what I love about
00:35:02
Speaker
True vintage to use the term that people are using nowadays are like canonical vintage, which is kind of what I call it. Is that right? That's actually a great. Yeah, dude. I've never heard that before. That's that's fucking money. So like canonical, this is just whatever's in those like Japanese books, right? Like lightning. Like that's that's the canon. It's literally the body of written material that's defining what this stuff is. But what I like about it and I'm not like
00:35:32
Speaker
a stickler for only that stuff, but you can pick a look out of those elements and be a little bit the same as someone who's wearing just normal clothes. I know this wasn't a question, but I feel like my personal approach to things is a little bit, on one hand, I'm a collector and then on the other hand,
00:36:01
Speaker
I'm more into wearing the stuff than just having it or having every example of a thing. But take a simple look, take a classic vintage look, white t-shirt, fatigue pants, denim jacket. There's a way to do that look for
00:36:21
Speaker
hundred bucks at J. Crew. There's a way to do that look in vintage for pretty cheap, right? You get like a decent white t-shirt, a pair of fifties or sixties khakis and like a Lee 101 or a regular type three. And you can do that look for pretty cheap, you know, within vintage, or you can go totally crazy and wear like a pair of 1941 khakis and a type one jacket and a crazy white t-shirt.
00:36:47
Speaker
And it's really all the same look. It's just different details. And you can get into that, but still be just a dude wearing a t-shirt and a denim jacket and not have it be this look, this total look that's screaming for attention. And I think that's a bigger change, which is not to say that I don't still enjoy wearing tailoring. I still like to occasionally. But the canonical vintage stuff for me is just
00:37:17
Speaker
it satisfies those two things. I think the other thing that's really interesting shift, career-wise, attitude-wise, life-wise is I found myself in a job in an environment where I didn't feel as much of an outsider and I wanted to fit in with the world a little bit more. Then that weirdly brought me back
00:37:42
Speaker
to the stuff that I had originally liked with vintage in the first place, the rock and roll stuff, the 70s stuff, gradually like the military stuff. I started wearing boot cut jeans again for the first time in legitimately 20 years. You know what I mean? I look at old photos of myself now from like 2002. I'm like, oh, I kind of look cool back then actually. I have like pink tinted pink
00:38:08
Speaker
in a Western shirt and Levi's 517s and cowboy boots. And that was my look back in way back when. And now I'm like, suddenly I can wear that stuff again. I think it's kind of nice. It's cyclical. It's really cyclical. We got to go into the archives and get some of the pictures, though. We've got to see some of these outfits, if you would. Yes, please. I'll see if I can dig them up.
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure there are a few of them on Facebook. Definitely on my old Tumblr. I used to do Fitpix on my old Tumblr. That's a great place. The other thing that's really funny is the people that I work with and are friends with now have no context for that prior self when I used to wear white bucks and bow ties every now and then. If I want to blow someone's mind, I'll just send them a photo of myself from
00:39:00
Speaker
2012 in like a polo coat and a bow tie and white bucks and a tweed suit, right? There's a picture of you in my Tumblr archive that I reblogged at some point. Oh, sure. I love Tumblr. I was never like very successful on it. I don't think I ever had very many followers. But I love those.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was a fun thing. And like, I don't know, as far as social media goes now, like, I yearn for that type of thing again. Oh, hell yeah. Just like, oh, a bunch of people like, you know, reblogging dumb shit and cool people that they they think look rad. Yeah, I do miss I do miss Tumblr. It was so easy. And like,
00:39:47
Speaker
This was like pre influencer. Although like the sort of the mainstream hashtag menswear guys had sort of been around at that point. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, that that was a very specific and particular time for fashion. Yep.
00:40:07
Speaker
I remember everything was tailored. Everything was like tailored everything all the time. I was wearing a tie and a jacket most days, but then I go back and I'll look at like shit that I archived and reblogged. And it's like, oh, it's the same stuff that I'm into now. I just wasn't dressing that way at that point.
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I feel the same way. When I look at some of that stuff, and I started to get into like, some of the quote unquote canonical vintage tumblers at the time to how that stuff sort of bleeds together.
Transition to Advertising Industry
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah, so so going from Ralph and the end over shop to becoming an international admin,
00:40:57
Speaker
Like, how did this happen? What drew you into the advertising world?
00:41:05
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it was kind of an organic thing. Um, and it happened really gradually. It's almost like this cause it almost be like a whole other podcast, like the midlife career jujitsu podcast, the, the job switch. Um, yeah. So let me think. So like, I'd always been into writing in general. Um, you know, I went to school for English. I got a masters in English.
00:41:32
Speaker
When I was younger, I did a lot of creative writing, that kind of stuff. I went to writers camps when I was a teenager where you would just go to a college campus and be a writer and then have a reading at the end of the camp in a local coffee shop and feel really arty. I loved all that shit. I still do writing and books and stuff.
00:41:57
Speaker
So that was sort of always in the background. I feel like when you have those inclinations as a kid, at least my parents were like, oh, you should be a writer for a living. But they wasn't like, you should write copy for ads. They were like, you should be, my mom thought I should be a food critic, or a screenwriter, or a journalist. You should write the next Star Wars trilogy. Sure, I'll just hop right out and do that. Call to George. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, let me just get right on that. That's what he moved. So I'm always in the. No, the California move was kind of unrelated. I meant to read this. Oh, yeah. To start my start my film career. Yeah. Now I'm closer to Hollywood, Mom. It's going to happen. It's finally.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, so one thing happened when I was at Ralph was I wasn't making enough money in retail and I love the company, so I wanted to figure out if there were other things I could do in the company. One thing they had us do, I don't know if you did this in your menswear work, Matt, but
00:43:05
Speaker
They had this thing called the book of business, which is basically like a literal three ring binder of everyone you ever sold to and what they bought. And they would have us like for a few hours a week or like there's a certain quota we had to hit where you would have to like go into the office because there was only one computer, right? Or you could do it from your phone too if you wanted to. And you would have to like email a certain number of clients with like
00:43:33
Speaker
to attempt to get them to come to the store, whether it was for an offer or a sale or like, come check out our new collection. It was usually revolved around seasonal releases, new fabrics, whatever. And so they used to make me do that. And I didn't mind it. It felt like a good sales tool, but it also occurred to me like the script that they gave me was like this incredibly like florid and long winded thing. And I sort of knew from like,
00:44:02
Speaker
my experience in the corporate America world, that wasn't the most efficient or effective way to talk to people, to entice them. So I rewrote the script. And then somehow that rewritten script got circulated. So people in other stores started using my script.
00:44:24
Speaker
And with that, you know, that wasn't a big deal, but it just sort of planted the seed like, okay, if I'm going to be writing marketing emails for Ralph Lauren, why don't I go to corporate to their marketing department and make however many times more money writing marketing emails for Ralph Lauren. Um, I didn't even know that that was called copywriting at that point, but I just start, like, I feel like, you know, I love this brand. I've been performing really well on the job that I have. I have a good relationship with my manager. Like I want to see if I can make a move to corporate.
00:44:54
Speaker
And they had like an opening in the marketing department at the Ralph Lauren kind of has its own internal ad agency. And I was like, great, this is perfect. Immediately rejected because I had no agency experience. So I was like, well, shit, I guess I'll go get some agency experience. And that led me down this really long kind of
00:45:22
Speaker
you know, pothole filled path of like trying to figure out how to get it into an ad agency. You know, I was doing a lot of informational interviewing. I had like a pretty good like writing sample because I'd been doing all the writing for Ivy style. I had all like the productivity sort of pithy little paragraphs that I was writing for my Etsy store, Newton Street Vintage on Etsy. Occasionally I still get a message about it, which blows my mind.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that New District Vintage was also an Etsy store way, way back. Yeah. I think I remember you from that. Yeah, I feel like that was that portrait of the dude in the bow tie. Occasionally, people still message me about it. There's one dude who's using it as his avatar. It's totally flipping crazy. So yeah, I had an Etsy store, but I was right.
00:46:22
Speaker
I take a whole day to write 30 product descriptions or whatever. I had a decent writing sample and I learned that in order to get a job in advertising, you need a creative portfolio, a book of your work. Some people even go to school just to create that portfolio. There are portfolio schools where people who like, they're not accredited universities and you go there and you just learn how to make advertising.
00:46:48
Speaker
I knew I wasn't going to do that. I was 30. I had no money. I already had a graduate degree. I wasn't going to drop 20 grand on portfolio school. So I had to figure out another way in. So I was informational interviewing and reading books about copywriting. And this is on the side while I was still working at Ralph.
00:47:11
Speaker
And then I happened to meet someone at a brunch who was just looking for someone to do some marketing writing. And I was like, okay, I'll do it for free. And that led to like a semi part time thing where I went to their office and like did some really basic copywriting. Um, and so that was like another step. Right. And then from there I got really lucky and I just met a guy, like I was just trying to meet people who worked in the field. Um, and I met someone who was.
00:47:40
Speaker
in the position that I'm at now in an ad agency. And he was looking for basically a low-level copywriter. The dude they had was quitting and they needed someone quick. And I was like, I'm 30, I'll take an internship. And I'd literally volunteered to be like an intern, but it ended up being a full-time job. And that's how I got my first agency job that got me agency experience. And then from there, it's much easier to
00:48:10
Speaker
go to other places and do other things once you have that like foothold. So yeah, that's copywriting. Yeah. So this may be a little broad of a question. I was going to ask you what you thought about advertising, but then I'm going to revise it and say what do you think about advertising in menswear?
00:48:34
Speaker
It's a good question. I don't really pay that much attention to advertising in menswear. They're really separate. It's not there, right? It seems like... Yeah. There's a lot of content marketing in menswear and a lot of it's garbage. A lot of content marketing in anything is
00:48:55
Speaker
Um, but I don't, there isn't like a ton of like marketing advert, like nobody's doing Superbowl commercials for the men's warehouse or J. Crew, right? Like it's just a different, it's just a different world. You know, a lot of it's digital advertising, right? Like I get retargeted. I've been retargeted for those giant fit Chinos about 10,000 times, you know, that, that sort of, that sort of stuff. Um,
00:49:21
Speaker
But there isn't a lot of pure brand advertising, at least not that I can think of. I'm sure in menswear, when we say our little world of menswear, I'm sure there are Nike ads and stuff. But I don't think that's not what you mean when you say menswear, right? No. Yeah. Yeah. You took the question the right way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
00:49:49
Speaker
It's interesting too, like I haven't, I don't work on any like menswear, even menswear adjacent accounts. That's not true. There's one that's sort of similar to, that kind of might tip over into that realm. But for the most part, my work doesn't have anything to do with menswear. So I don't pay a ton of attention to, and also since I got more into vintage, like I'm less hip to like what's happening with brands.
00:50:16
Speaker
Like I still read the, I still read, you know, die work where, and, you know, I still pay attention to some of that stuff, but I'm less like hewed into what's going on then. Um, then I was back in the day and also feel like it's so fragmented now, like everything sort of its own little niche. Uh, but yeah, yeah, I stick to my, stick to my own little, little enclave.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, Connor and I have talked just, you know, kind of in the run up to, to launching the apocalypse studs podcast, like, just about how important like Mad Men was for a plethora of clothing industry.
Impact of Pop Culture on Menswear
00:50:59
Speaker
And like, even, you know, even when I was like, in New York, working in menswear, like, the copy was always such a like, huge part of whatever the fuck was going on.
00:51:13
Speaker
And so it's really funny to like, think about that now 10 years on in the context of like, it doesn't really matter anymore. Yeah, no, that's these companies don't have to advertise. It's blowing my mind. Yeah. Cause what's so funny is like, like Mad Men, I was obsessed with Mad Men. I used to go to Mad Men parties. Actually one of the reasons, like, yeah, like, yeah, like I used to real smoke and like,
00:51:42
Speaker
go to Mad Men parties. There are definitely pictures of me on Facebook and like a trilby hat and a fake cigarette and like a shark skin suit. Um, I was, I was already into that stuff when Mad Men dropped. So I was like psyched to see that stuff on TV, even though looking back, some of it wasn't the most like authentic, but like that whole world and then it just kind of took off. Then all of a sudden it was like really like you bring it up and I totally forgotten about it. Like it's like,
00:52:12
Speaker
Mad Men, sort of the combination of Tom Brown and Mad Men helped make suits like cool, right? Even if you weren't into like specific 60s suits, like you wanted a fucking tie bar because of Mad Men. You wanted like a pocket square folded into a white sliver because of Mad Men, right? Like that whole thing, which I totally forgotten about. The other thing that's really interesting, like
00:52:40
Speaker
my interest, like loving Mad Men or being super into Mad Men, like so predated me trying to get into advertising that I totally, they don't even connect in my mind. Like, oh, that's, yeah. Like, I think you almost can't parse the two because like for, for the blogosphere generation,
00:53:01
Speaker
of like menswear people or clothing people or whatever like Mad Men was such a like such a mainstay. Yeah, maybe the first like, you know, it's obviously it's a fictional show. But like, it kind of for a generation of people probably opened their eyes to what copywriting and advertising actually is kind of Yeah, I buy that. Yeah, totally. And I see people
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah. How many of those people were like, Oh fuck, I can do this because I watched Don Draper do it. Right. Yeah. You know, it's really funny to me that, that like, you know, you're, you're kind of straddling that line between the two things, but they don't really connect for you.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah, just the different phases in my life, I guess, even though they're not separated by that many years. I was watching Mad Men for the clothes. Yes, they were in advertising. That was just the world they were. That was what they worked in. But it wasn't like, hey, how do I get that job? It was like, hey, how do I get that lapel?
00:54:14
Speaker
It's still funny. I tell people I'm a copywriter. Technically, I'm an associate creative director. I basically do. Creative directors, those weird titles. Don Draper was a creative director. When people ask what I do, I tell them, I'm a copywriter.
00:54:32
Speaker
Sometimes they know what that is. And other times they go, oh, so you like copyright infringement things? And I'm like, no, no, different copyright. So like the shorthand is like, to this day, like if somebody doesn't quite understand or isn't familiar with like advertising as a job, I'd be like, do you ever watch Mad Men?
00:54:52
Speaker
I do what Don Draper did, except usually I'll tell them that I do what Peggy did, because that's actually probably closer to the truth. He's the true genius of the truth. Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. Yeah, right. People are like, oh, and then the other thing is, if people compare me to Don Draper, I'll say that I'm Peggy. But it's funny, because the vibe of the ad world is nothing, nothing like that show anymore. Absolutely.
00:55:21
Speaker
And I think that might be why the connection is less overt for me because they just see like such totally different universes. You're not having a whiskey. Yeah, I forgot how much I love that show and how much we would have like madmen watching parties and just like just the clothes and everything. And everybody was smoking the Lucky Strikes and I was drinking a lot of Tikesville rye, which like they drink in the shelf, which is bottom shelf in real life.
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah, I bought a box of Lucky Strikes once and didn't realize they were filterless. Oh, that's the joy. I was not a smoker. This was back in college. I thought I was being cool and I was drunk one night and went into the 7-Eleven and bought a pack of Lucky Strikes. What I usually would have been smoking was cloves because I was that guy.
00:56:16
Speaker
I was an artist, but I wanted probably not because of Mad Men because that wasn't a thing yet, but I wanted to try Lucky Strikes and I forgot they were filter lists or didn't even realize they were filter lists. So that was a gross evening. So I want to ask you about your rug slash blanket collection.
00:56:43
Speaker
When did you realize you could buy whatever rug you wanted or blanket? So it's really funny. I feel like there's a miss, like if you were just to like, if you were to look at my Instagram photos and try and extrapolate what the rest of my house looks like, that is entirely 2000% not the case. So I work from home.
00:57:08
Speaker
And we moved to California. And our house, I like where we live. But it still has a hodgepodge of furniture. We've got two young kids. So our couch is just a stain-proof, dog-proof blob of a couch. I do not at all live a curated life by any stretch. But I wanted there to be this, since I work from home, I wanted it to just be this cool corner of my office that felt like my shit.
00:57:37
Speaker
Right? Literally just like one wall. So it wasn't even meant to initially meant to be like an Instagram backdrop. I was like, I've got this cool portrait that my friend painted. I've got this cool Mars poster. The blankets kind of came later. I got this desk in the corner. Like I want to try and make that as cool as I can because that's where I'm going to sit and work during the day. And like the kids aren't in there as much. So like stuff's not going to get wrecked.
00:58:04
Speaker
So those blankets, I'm not like I have, I feel like I have a decent eye for those camp blankets and the rug, but I'm not by no means like a, like a Navajo Western expert by any stretch. I didn't know how deep it went.
00:58:23
Speaker
No, it's pretty, it's pretty shallow. Um, so like I got a few of those blankets there. They're for whatever reason, they're much easier to find out here on the west coast, probably because we're closer to that part of the world than
00:58:37
Speaker
They're easier to find at flea markets. There's a really good vintage market in the San Francisco area at Alameda that happens once a month. The vintage culture out here is much more show-driven. We can talk about that. It's got pros and cons. There's fewer awesome vintage stores, at least up where I am, than there were back in Boston, which feels
00:59:04
Speaker
contradict counterintuitive, but in my experience it's true. But there are a lot of really good flea markets and vintage shows. So anyway, that's how I like amass the blankets. And like I use them as blankets sometimes if you go to the beach or whatever, but they look nice folded there.
00:59:20
Speaker
And then I was like, one thing when I really started doing the Fitpix, back when I worked in Boston, the agency where I still work, has this really cool warehouse office, like you do. And it had this really cool stairwell. And there was this sort of window ledge that was at perfect height. And I would walk up the stairs, because it was only a third floor office.
00:59:47
Speaker
And I'd stop and it would be super easy and quick just to flip my phone, set it on the ledge, take a fit pic, and then head back upstairs to work. So it wasn't a big, produced deal, which I don't want my fit pics to be like that. I'm not going to go out on a shoot and pretend to be a model. So it was that nice little moment of, OK, I could take a quick pic. I can post it. I can get that serotonin and then go about my day.
01:00:16
Speaker
And when I moved out here and started working from home, I kind of lost that stairwell. So I was like, OK, where am I going to take fit pics now? So I experimented with a few different places. And then I realized that little corner totally makes sense. I can just take a snap. And then my desk's right there. And I can just post the photo and go back to work. So that's kind of the blankets and the rug. The rug I found on Etsy. I love the colors. I don't know how old it is. I checked.
01:00:44
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's legitimately Navajo made. There are lots of made in Mexico knockoffs of Navajo rugs, so I did a little bit of research on how to spot those. But it looks legit, and it wasn't too expensive, and it looks nice on the floor. And it is surrounded on all sides by just chaos and nerf guns.
01:01:09
Speaker
half eaten cookies and dog toys and whatever else. So I had, that's like my one little corner of the house and everything else is kind of like very kid oriented or very just like functional, non curated. But yeah, that's my, those are the blankets. Excellent. That's it. Yeah. So while we were researching, um,
01:01:38
Speaker
we saw on your website, you say you finally arrived at the perfect answer for, quote unquote, buy vintage. And so we were just wondering if you could clue us into that.
01:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, so one thing that's weird about people in my line of work is there's this weird pressure to have quirky personal things on your portfolio site.
Passion for Vintage Clothing
01:01:59
Speaker
And honestly, I sort of agonized about my portfolio site from like, do I sound lame? Even more about that than the actual work that's on there. But yeah, that was an idea that I had.
01:02:14
Speaker
People always ask me, people who aren't into vengeance, you don't already know about it. Like, well, what is it? Why do you like it? You tell someone you're wearing a pair of pants from World War II and they go, what? Those are from World War II. What does that mean? And I could try to find a way to explain it. And you can say, oh, well, I'm really into history, but that doesn't quite get at it. I do like history, but I'm not
01:02:45
Speaker
I'm not wearing this stuff because I want to be a living historian or an actor. Yeah, that's not my thing. So I was like, well, why do? What is it about vintage clothing? And I wanted to come up with an explanation that was interesting. And the way that I think about it is,
01:03:11
Speaker
Do you know why people, and this is totally roundabout, but like, do you know why it's hard to sell a house that someone's been murdered in? Like, even though rational, like if a house has been, if a murder has happened in a house, it depreciates the value of the house.
01:03:32
Speaker
And the reason isn't anything rational, right? The mathematical likelihood of a murder happening there again doesn't go up. Even if there are no visible signs, it still affects that house. There's something that's retained in a non-rational, almost spiritual way in a house. In a way, yeah. And I feel like there's something about that
01:04:01
Speaker
in vintage clothing, that clothes sort of retain, and this is going to sound foofy, but retain the energy or the spirit or something of the past. And it's not necessarily a rational historical, oh, this was made in XYZ for XYZ purpose. And it's more of that energy. And I think it's the reason why vintage clothes feel
01:04:29
Speaker
like meaningful and full of life and something that's brand new on a rack feels sort of lifeless. Like these have sort of already been inhabited. They're things that have already been used and worn and that actually gives them life instead of like expending their life.
01:04:49
Speaker
And I'm not saying in like a literal sense, like I don't like put on a P44 jacket and become a Marine or like put on a cowboy hat and become a cowboy, but there's an energy to these things or a sense of them that sort of gets retained. And it's also kind of the reason why vintage people aren't into repros because you can't reproduce that. Even if you do a stitch by stitch reproduction, even if you've got the same machine and the same thread and you can't create that again, it
01:05:18
Speaker
It's something that only can be imbued through time and use. And I think that is the answer that I've arrived at. It's not history. It's not patina. It's not, I want to look like I'm from the past and not from the present. It's that sense of murder house energy where something is retained. Something is retained that can't quite be explained. But once you're into it, once you sense it,
01:05:49
Speaker
You know it, right? Yeah. Our previous guest to you, actually, on his Instagram bio, he says he wears he wears dead people's clothes. And I think that that is like that that kind of sums it up to a little bit differently. And I think, yeah, it's it's character, right?
01:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, and not even necessarily physical character, but yeah, it's almost just like, and maybe it's more about sort of the way the wearer feels or thinks about things, but it's really, yeah, that relationship to time, right? That somehow these traces of lived experience live on in the clothes in sort of a non-literal sense.
01:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So that perfectly leads into our final question here, which is oldest piece slash favorite piece. You can give two answers or you can give one answer, but we're curious about that sort of thing.
01:06:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. Uh, oldest piece is easy. Um, I don't have anything super old. I'm not like a 1900s work wear guy. I don't have any chin straps. My oldest piece is probably a 1941, uh, us army denim chore jacket, which is pretty old. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, with the zinc buttons and all that good stuff. It's, it's, it's up there, but it's probably not my favorite piece. Okay.
01:07:26
Speaker
Let me think about my favorite piece for a second. It's so interesting. The pieces that you find tend to stay top of mind or be your favorites, but then they're not necessarily the pieces that you wear a lot. Yeah, because there's the hunt, right? And then there's the practicality of wearing something.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. And it's also like the rarer something is, do you really like wear it all the time or is it like, do you, do you, are you a little bit more precious with it? I mean, I try not to be, but, um, I'd say my favorite piece, my like never sell, it's probably my Levi's type two jacket. Um, which there's no great story behind. I bought it on eBay. Um, but I bought it on eBay before.
01:08:17
Speaker
Type 2 jackets became just insanely prohibitively ridiculously priced. But also, it fits me really well. I wore it when we drove across the country. I have cool memories in it. It goes with lots of stuff. I feel like if my style shifts a little bit, I could still figure out a way to work a Type 2 jacket into it.
01:08:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think that's, I think that's probably my favorite. We're going to ask about the, the Hunter S. Thompson jacket. I just, I literally just traded that. I put it in the mail today. It's no longer mine. Yeah. Yeah. It's no longer, it's no longer in my possession. It is currently in route to its new owner.
01:09:13
Speaker
Wow, dude, I would have never thought I thought like that was I thought probably you were going to say that was your favorite piece. We do sort of anticipate answers when we're writing these questions and naturally lead into it, you know? Yeah, no, I was definitely it was nice to have. But yeah, no, it's not. I don't think I call it my favorite.
01:09:38
Speaker
I mean, it wasn't low on the list, of course, but it wasn't like, no, it wasn't like Sophie, Sophie's choice that are the, that are the type two. Like that's not a hard, it's not a hard one. Yeah. It's a very impractical piece. You know, it's extremely loud. It's very like recognizable. So I feel like it would be a challenge to wear that like on a regular basis without looking clownish, unless you were Hunter S Thompson.
01:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, it was less like I had some weird experiences wearing that jacket.
01:10:12
Speaker
online and in person. And it was less about the clownishness for me, because coming from the IV patch this, patch that world, that coat feels very, and I think that was kind of like the original intent of that jacket was to be sort of a go to hell adjacent kind of thing. And it sort of got co-opted by Counter Culture and Hunter S. Thompson. I'm not a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan. I don't have anything against Hunter S. Thompson. I'm just not like,
01:10:40
Speaker
a member of the Hunter S. Thompson fan club. It's just not my thing. But I like the coat.
01:10:51
Speaker
I, it's so warm out here. Like when the hell am I going to wear a patch or a corduroy coat to work from home to walk the dog? Yeah. Um, and the loudness was a factor too. Like you can only wear it with so many other patterns. Um,
01:11:10
Speaker
But yeah, that was, that, that wasn't on the, that wouldn't be my favorite. That wouldn't be, that wouldn't make the favorite, the favorite item list, especially now that it's no longer mine. Zach, I do have one follow up to this Hunter S. Thompson coat discussion. Um, if, and, and feel free to say no to this, but if you want to divulge what was the most absurd
01:11:38
Speaker
monetary offer you got for that thing? There wasn't a lot. Yeah, it wasn't absurd. I got a lot of attention in a weird way having that and it felt like there was weird hype around it. I would love that fucking thing and I feel like I am insane enough to wear it.
01:12:01
Speaker
Yeah. So was I, but like, you know, and it's, I mean, it's loud, but they're all like pretty basic colors tan red. True. True.
01:12:10
Speaker
I got a lot of comments about it. I got a lot of inquiries, but I never got crazy cash offers. Honestly, if I had, I probably might've sold it. I'm in my late 30s. I have two kids. I know where my priorities are, but I didn't get any crazy. I ended up trading it to a friend for some good stuff. Right. Right.
01:12:38
Speaker
Outside of monetary offers, what's the most ridiculous thing you got offered for it? Um, I had a guy who was like,
01:12:51
Speaker
who when I, I tried to scare him away with a large number and it didn't work. And the conversation continued, which made me nervous because like, Oh man, how far can I take this? Um, and we were talking like $4,000. Oh, wow. Um, yeah. And like, I don't know exactly what it's worth. I don't, I know what I paid for it. Like, and it's fine. Um,
01:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, that wasn't the kind of attention that I got. It was more generic, for sale bro, for sale bro, for sale bro, for sale bro. Yeah. And then a lot of weird Hunter S. Somebody messaged me and told me that owning the coat doesn't make me Hunter S. Thompson, which felt weird.
01:13:43
Speaker
I felt like that wasn't something that I was implying, but thanks for letting me know. There was a weird, people would come up to me and ask me about it, not even people that I was interacting with at the time, but people would cross the street to ask me about it. It was a lot. I'm kind of an introvert, so I'm not into those kind of interactions.
01:14:07
Speaker
But it was a lot. Plus, the friend that I traded to, I know he's going to love it. It makes sense. The deal made sense. And once it's gone, I don't miss things. I feel like that's one of the things about vintage that I'm not a hoarder.
Collecting Philosophy and Social Media
01:14:26
Speaker
I love and as I've
01:14:28
Speaker
Gotten like advanced in my career, whatever like I've definitely spent more on vintage and like liked enjoyed collecting like rarer things But like I don't think that's important to style necessarily. I think style something totally different And I also don't hoard
01:14:47
Speaker
Like I don't need three of everything. I don't need a giant stack of like, cause I'm not a reseller. So like, I'm only buying stuff in my size. Like, you know, so, uh, you know, I don't need to hoard stuff. Right.
01:15:01
Speaker
So it makes it fun to sell stuff, because now I have the funds and the anticipation of what I'm going to get next. So it's a little bit of a revolving door. But it's like, to me, that's more fun than just what the vintage game sometimes feels like, which is just who's got the biggest stack. Yep. Well, Zach, this has been a really fun conversation.
01:15:30
Speaker
I'm stoked that we had the chance to talk to you and thank you for coming on. Yeah, this was so great. It's, uh, you know, I, I follow you both and, uh, great to put, like I said, put names and voices to faces. Absolutely. This was a lot of fun. This was like a great, this was, this was like the best lunch break I've had in a long time. Before we go, Zach, do you want to plug anything for yourself?
01:16:01
Speaker
Uh, I mean, my Instagram at Newton street vintage. Um, but that's, that's it. I'm not dropping an album or anything. I don't have a, don't have an artisanal denim collection coming out or anything like that. So, okay. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to see me take a picture in the exact same two foot square of my house every single day for the next, follow me and follow me at Newton street vintage. Awesome.
01:16:31
Speaker
All right. Well, thanks everyone to listening. I'm Matt Smith. And I'm Connor Fowler. And we are at apocalypse studs on Instagram at apocalypse studs at gmail.com. If you have questions, comments, concerns, whatever the fuck. And yeah, thanks to you all for following along. Zach, thank you again for being here. Thanks for having me. All right.