WIFE MATERIAL: MARQUES’ALMEIDA DENIM OVERSIZED SHIRT

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: MARQUES’ALMEIDA DENIM OVERSIZED SHIRT

In The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and #SQUAD laid out a few truths that they said we must hold to be self-evident in order to prosper as a nation. I haven’t read it since middle school but it’s something like—”that all men not named Russell Westbrook are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (read: Kanye) with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of a happy middle class life simultaneously glorified by modern day Republicans and undermined by their policies.” However, this was all written back in 1776, so I spent yesterday writing to my congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez to suggest a few updates:

Dear Mrs. Velazquez,

It is now 2015, very nearly 2016, and there are a few more truths that I think our society must—by law—hold to be self-evident in addition to the ones that the Founding Fathers laid out like a million years ago. “All men are created equal, life, liberty, happiness” yada yada yada all that’s still great but we could use a few more. Here they are:

That hot dogs are not sandwiches.

You have to “sandwich” something between two other things for it to be a sandwich. Sandwich, in this sense, acts as a verb. You can’t “taco,” “burrito,” or “bun” other ingredients in one cohesive delivery device—tortilla, bread or otherwise—and call it a sandwich. That is bullshit. 

That tights are pants.

Look, I didn’t decide this. Women everywhere decided that tights are pants by continuously wearing tights as pants, even when most of humanity (and most guys) were like, “tbh tights aren’t really pants but whatever.” Like, if I saw a group of HR professionals and Tory-ish high school administrators gathered together picketing somewhere with signs that said “TIGHTS ≠ PANTS,” I probably wouldn’t join them, but I wouldn’t disagree with them, either. Unfortunately, it’s already been decided—they’re pants.

That shirts can be dresses.

Paired with pants, big shirts are just big shirts. Sans pants, big shirts can still be big
shirts (if you’re watching Netflix in the comfort of your own home) or they can be dresses (if you’re out in public and the big shirt is an appropriate dress length). Big shirts not only *can* be worn as dresses, they *should* be worn as dresses whenever possible. I guess what I’m saying here is DOWN WITH PANTS. Feel free to use that in your re-election campaign.

If you know the best way I could get these updates on President Obama’s desk, or you have any minor revisions, let me know. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Civic Duty Lu
Lower East Side

You see, hot dogs aren’t sandwiches, tights are pants, and shirts can and should be worn as dresses as much as possible. That’s why for this edition of #WifeMaterial I chose this Marcus’Almeida Oversized Denim Shirt that should’ve been categorized as a “dress” as well as a “shirt” on Opening Ceremony’s website. It’s got this aggressively frayed edges that look so comfortable you wouldn’t know where the denim stops and where your skin begins. Yet it’s got this industrious, utilitarian vibe that comes with the kind of denim that gets better the more you wear it and spill drinks on it.

Buy it at Opening Ceremony. I’ll make you wear it as a dress on our wedding day.

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.

[Images via Opening Ceremony]

#WIFEMATERIAL: FEIT HAND SEWN LOW LEATHER SNEAKER

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: FEIT HAND SEWN LOW LEATHER SNEAKER  

I’d need a third hand to count the number of times I’ve seriously considered buying a pair of women’s shoes for myself. You see, sometimes, as a young fuccboi, during those years when you’re still growing into your full fuccboi self, you need your sneakers to stand-in as the confidence to your personality while the cruel world is busy shaping it. So you find yourself browsing yellow, purple or pink colorways that distract from your hopefully-dwindling insecurities. Many times, you’ll end up staring down a wild pair of kicks thinking, “Damn, these are cool,” while being subconsciously comforted by the idea of your peers’ attention being focused your feet and not, say, literally anything else about your appearance or what happens to be going on in your life.

That hadn’t happened to me in a few years, save for a light bone/sail grey pair of Nike Huaraches that don’t speak as much to my insecurities as they do of my increasingly desaturated wardrobe palette. But a week later, it happened again. I nearly pressed my face up against the glass and started licking when I walked past FEIT on Bowery and saw this pair of Hand Sewn Low leather shoes. Seriously, look at these things. It’s like someone took the Photoshop eyedropper and extracted the color of latte froth so perfect that The Lord (a Kanye/Future hybrid) himself would feel guilty letting it pass through his holy lips. My word. That mocha color alone is enough to get more than just a mouth wet. But then FEIT went ahead and made a damn hand-sewn, luxury leather version of a court sneaker with it and now I’m all “Hey, does this come in a Women’s 12?” and the FEIT associate is like, “Who are these for, your giant aunt?” What the hell, FEIT?

Someone, anyone—a female, preferably—please buy these. I will marry you, I will love you deeply for eternity, and I’ll damn sure make you keep these on when our children are conceived.

Images via feitdirect.com; Available here

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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. 

#WIFEMATERIAL: LACOSTE F/W 2015 TENNIS DRESS

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: LACOSTE F/W 2015 TENNIS DRESS

The US Open is well underway in Queens, the annual event in which New Yorkers shell out a stupid amount of money for tickets to a sporting event driven skyward by the willingness of corporate douchebags to out-douche other corporate douchebags. Beyond seeing world class tennis—some of it at night!—is the inspiration to make plans to dust off your tennis racket that you'll never make good on and the opportunity to gawk at the atrocity that is tennis fans trying to dress like they're at a fancy tennis event, and the fancy one percenters trying to dress like they're tennis fans.

This dress, from the Lacoste Fall/Winter 2015 runway collection, will ensure you don’t fall into either of those camps. It’s perfect, with the subtle tennis skirt ruffle (are you sensing a pattern here?) and diagonal stripes that say, “My body doesn’t need them to be vertical and my boobs don’t need them to be horizontal.”

Tennis needs more of this. Because unfortunately, fashion in tennis has become a cliché—where the country club crowd adheres to an absurdly corny hyper-white aesthetic that has the women looking like they aren’t just allowed on a championship golf course, but are caddying a round, and the men showing up to their weekly doubles match/capital gains tax bitch fest looking like they moonlight on a professional paint crew. Sure, they’ll defend it as “classy,” but let’s be honest—that’s too much white for anyone to wear, let alone those who can spill red wine and dijon mustard without consequence.

Fortunately, Lacoste has been doing this fashion in tennis thing long enough that their clothes don’t look like they belong in the closet of a caricature of Connecticut. And it’s not a fleeting, fashion show concept, either. In 1933, Frenchman René Lacoste co-founded the Lacoste brand after a professional tennis career that included seven Grand Slam titles and a world No. 1 ranking in 1926 and 1927. That’s legit.

You should be able to buy this dress later this Fall. So in the meantime, you’ll have to find something else to wear if you’re looking for a mixed doubles partner at the Open.

[Images via vogue.com]

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.

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