Patagonia Baggies are Trad

by oxford cloth button down on April 26, 2024 in Style with No comments

I am not sure how Patagonia Baggies made it into the picture. If I had to guess I’d say that they wandered into Tradsville from a far away place called Fratagonia with their friends the stand-up short and the classic snap-t. Regardless of how they got here, they are here now.

I was never in a frat, but as a resident of Tradsville I love my 5″ Patagonia baggies. When summer gets into the swing of things and the heat is pumping these are the shorts that I reach for. They are super light, they come in great colors, and they dry pretty quick. I am a big fan of yellow and purple.

Yellow Patagonia baggies & OCBD

What do I wear them with you ask? Easy, anything and everything. I wear polo shirts, ocbds, broadcloth shirts, madras, and of course my grey-t’s. When it comes to footwork you can obviously wear sandals or sneakers, but camp mocs look great and I could see some beat up loafers working as well. In short, they are versatile.

Now on to the liner. This is what I get asked about the most. Do you leave the liner in or cut it out? My answer is that it depends. If you are going to use them to swim fairly often the answer is leave it in. If you don’t plan on using them to swim then remove the liner. I have some with and some without the liner. Don’t overthink it.

Purple Patagonia Baggies w/ polo shirt

There you have it. The 5″ Patagonia baggie is the warm weather adventure short of trads. Whether you are going to the lake, beach, river, pool, hiking, or just hanging these shorts are perfect. They are my go to vacation short. To learn more about trad items with frat origins checkout Red Clay Soul’s classic Late 90’s-Early 00’s Fraternity Style post.


Bonus Pics

Yellow Patagonia baggies & OCBD

Is the LHS in Danger?

by oxford cloth button down on April 12, 2024 in shoes with No comments

The abbreviation LHS needs no explanation. It is the loafer for trads, but that may be changing. This isn’t because the much beloved shoe has stopped making unlined cordovan LHS for Brooks Brothers or due to the infamous Alden shoe scandal (see here). It is far more nuanced than that.

LHS stock seems to be dwindling if not disappearing. What has been replacing it is being termed the LMS by Alden enthusiasts. For those that don’t know LHS stands for leisure handsewn and that’s exactly what’s in question. The loafer that seems to be supplementing the LHS stock the LMS is not handsewn, but machine sewn. While this seems like a minor change and it is for most part, but us trads view change (at times even progress) as the enemy. The hand stitching that resulted in small bumps now looks flat, dressier, and kind of lifeless.

Snuff suede LHS
The Alden LHS
The Alden LMS

Why are they doing this? This part is easy to identify. It’s a people problem. The people with these skills are aging out of the workforce and finding people that have these skills is getting harder and harder. Alden is not alone here. It’s a systemic issue that stretches far beyond menswear sphere.

Alden isn’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes. These loafers do have their own model number. For example, the snuff suede pair LMS are 6221 vs the snuff suede LHS’s 6243. On the other hand I have noticed some shops like Shoe Mart to call them “Leisure Penny Loafer” which could lead to some confusion.

Now I am not one to spread FUD. This could easily be nothing more than a short term stop gap or even a new loafer model that will stick around and potentially grow on the trad community. Worst case scenario is that the LHS will slowly vanish from shelves never to return. If you are like me and don’t own a pair this could be our time strike armed with just enough FUD to justify a $600 loafer.

Shorts on the Horizon

by oxford cloth button down on April 5, 2024 in Style with 8 Comments

I’ve been down and out with the flu all week. I managed to make it out of bed yesterday, but I still haven’t got one single fit off all week. What I have done this week is sleep. A lot of sleep. While sleeping I also dreamed a lot. I dreamed about warm weather and wearing shorts. My fever dreams left me thinking that I need to add 2-3 pairs to the lineup this year. I’d like a batik pair and a non-fatigue olive pair, and potentially a pair in linen (yes, I said linen). Below are my current shorts. .



Madras Dump

by oxford cloth button down on March 22, 2024 in Style with 10 Comments

Madras season is rapidly approaching. Opening day is officially Memorial Day with Easter getting an exemption. While I used to observe this arcane rule (and many others like it) I have since replaced it with a much simpler rule which is if it is hot, wear it. In celebration of the fact that warmer weather is on the horizon and to help me assess my current madras shirt situation here is a dump.

JPress Madras Popover

J.Press Madras Popover

John Simons Madras

John Simons Button Front Madras

Proper Cloth Madras

Ralph Lauren Rugby Madras

Polo Madras

The Flap Pocket OCBD That I’ve Never Seen

by oxford cloth button down on March 8, 2024 in Clothing and History with 10 Comments
Brooks Brothers Flap Pocket OCBD

Anyone who has spent anytime here in Tradsville knows what a flap pocket OCBD is and who makes it. If you are new around here it’s the shirt above with the flap over the chest pocket and it’s made by J.Press. It’s not the only OCBD with a flap pocket, but it is the flap pocket OCBD.

Not too long ago while doing some online vintage shopping at Placid Vintage I spotted a vintage Brooks Brothers OCBD with a flap pocket. I did a double take. I had never heard about a Brooks flap pocket let alone seen one. Sure I had seen flap pocket OCBDs from brands new and old like Ralph Lauren, Michael Spencer, Kamakura, LL Bean, Ratio, Gant, etc., but never Brooks. This OCBD appeared to be a custom makeup, but still I was shocked.

BB Flap Pocket OCBD

Here is why this is so interesting to me. J.Press added the flap pocket during the 1950s to distinguish itself from the competition. What I had always assumed is that the competition was Brooks Brothers. Now here is the competition adding the detail to their shirts that J.Press added to be different. That had to be extremely flattering and a little aggravating or maybe the other way around.

Brooks Brothers Flap Pocket

I thought about this some more. Maybe Brooks wasn’t their competition at this time. There were plenty of other popular OCBDs back then such as Troy Guild, Gant, Sero, and many more. So maybe I am reading more into that than there is to be read. A revisionist history per se. Then I found an old Ivy Style turned J.Press blog post seems to confirm that Brooks was indeed competition. That blog post also contains some interesting OCBD history about how J.Press, Gant, and Sero origins were all intertwined. You can check that post out here. The moral of this story is that yes Brooks Brothers did make a flap pocket OCBD.

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