Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, “I’d marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial.
#WIFEMATERIAL: VERONIQUE BRANQUINHO ROPE BELT
Do you remember back in middle school (late 90s here) when “sagging” was a thing? I don’t mean to suggest that before then sagging didn’t exist or that even today young male teens don’t show their disdain for societal norms by resting the waist of their pants snug up under the horizontal crease of their asscheecks—they did it before and they definitely still do it now. But there was a time when it seemed like every local news broadcast put their house fire programming on hold to bring us an investigative report on pant-sagging teens. “SAGGING: Fashion trend? Or the beginning of the end of moral decency as we know it? And just how scared should you and your family be? More at 9pm.”
I never sagged my pants, really, except every single day of high school when I’d wear 4XL $5.99 sweatpants from Wal-Mart over basketball shorts. Also I never really had to, because JNCOs had the back pockets sewn low on the back so you looked like mid-concert Lil’ Wayne even though the waist of your pants was high enough for church. Actually sagging your pants at my middle school was risky, because around every corner there was a school administrator waiting to give you The Rope Belt™—a literal rope that some volunteer member of the PC Police force would tie around your waist to keep your pants up near your navel. It was always the same lady, too, the one who probably made every student get a signed permission slip to learn about evolution in biology class and see tits when your class watched Roots. Fuck that lady. And this particular rope, it wasn’t just some cute twine your one aunt who uses Pinterest would wrap around your least-anticipated birthday gift—this thing was closer to the thing you had to climb in gym class. Because of this, I learned more about belts in middle school than any other subject. Belts are good. The Rope Belt™ is bad.
However, I found a rope belt for this week’s #WifeMaterial that isn’t like The Rope Belt™ at all. This Veronique Branquinho rope belt from her S/S 2015 collection is hot as hell, not just because it’s that smooth off-white color but because it’s tied around the paper bag waist of a flowy white skirt and flowy denim instead of a teenager’s Old Navy Carpenter Jeans.
This Veronique Branquinho rope belt commands attention, and not in the “I’m wearing Vineyard Vines look at all these fucking whales” kind of way. More in the “I’m just a belt yet this entire outfit revolved around me” kind of way. The only other notable belt I can think of was the one David Carradine autoerotically asphyxiated himself with, so finally, some good news for belts.
[Images via Now Fashion]
Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first.
