"I'll Have Peach"

You don't see the peach colored shirt as much anymore and that's a shame --  Loads of color will  go with it and it's an elegant way to ride off the reservation… on an Appaloosa …backwards. That and it's my favorite home made ice cream flavor. Larry Miller tells my favorite story about peach.  I know it doesn't look like much -- But, like peach, I think it'll surprise you.

Chino Tasting: Best Dress Chino

G. Bruce Boyer inspects Best Dress Chino # 9

J. Press MTM Chino

Made by Martin Greenfield $275

The NY Times recently featured a $550 khaki made for Band of Outsiders by Brooklyn tailor, Martin Greenfield. Band of Outsiders is a brand so irksome in it's faded Polaroid hipness that I refuse to link it here. The Time's piece questions a $550 khaki in this economy but stops short of any real criticism. Instead, the paper quotes a consultant who suggests, "It's not about the price...it's about who's wearing them..."

There are a lot of guys, not as many as before the depression of '07 but there are a lot of guys who pop into Bergdorfs and don't give a second thought to dropping $550 on a pair of khakis. This is the same kind of guy who has a fur lined sink at home. I'm not sure I want to dress like a drunken sailor but what if I were to tell you that J. Press sells a Martin Greenfield khaki for half the price?

Press only had a sample in white but the pant can be ordered in khaki as well. All kinds of bangs and whistles including a full lining are offered and inclusive of the $275. Bruce gave it a 90 and called it, "well made and clean, trad silhouette, nice fabric" while Robert thought it deserved a 95, "fancy maker, twill fabric, dress make, tab waist, high rise, cotton drill." Both men awarded it winner of the "Best Dress Chino" category.

It's a damned nice pant and it has me wondering. Last winter I broke out a suit maybe five times. Instead, I reached for a Shetland sweater and wool dress pant over and over and never was I under dressed. A dressier chino pant with a decent shirt, an interesting belt and serious alligator loafers could take the Casual Friday uniform of, Dockers, golf shirt and Kiltie loafers, to a whole new level.

$275 is a lot of money for a chino. But what have you spent $275 on and had nothing to show for? A round of golf? Dinner? A bottle of Champagne? A long night on Hay Street in '77? Think of this chino as a chilled Antinori chardonnay from Umbria- rich and elegant but understated and cool as you stroll up Lex crossing 62nd on a very hot August afternoon. Suitless and tieless but well turned out and turned up.