I'M BACK BABY + THE ISSUE WITH CARMY/THE BEAR-ESQUE FASHION WANNABES

ALL CAPS. ALL CAFFEINE. ALL POWER. ALL CRITIQUE.

MAN I MISSED YOU GUYS.

I’ve been making sense of life / parenthood / marriage / job opportunities and it’s all come crashing down in a mess of things — it is beautiful. But…that means TS missed out on some love from me. I apologize and I’m back.

Also shoutout to Theo for holding it down for like a month. He’ll be a dad soon so I’m sure Mariano-a-thon-2024 (or is it 2025?) is coming where it’ll be me and hot takes for a month.

Some things I want to hit on this month: menswear Reddits being embarrassing, people dressing like they’re enjoying the heat, the irony of wanting to buy nice things but being a tasteless fool, etc. — for today though, let’s talk about the hottest show of the year so far (in terms of cast and jawnz), The Bear.

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I like the show a lot. My brother does not like the show but he also wears hats from Siegelman Stables so that says a lot (love youuuuuuu).

It’s quick-witted, chaotic, and pretty interesting considering the slowwwwwwwwww burnnnnnnnnnn drawwwnnnnnn outtttttt romanncccceeee betwweeeennnnn Carrrrmmmmmm aannnddddd Syyydddnnneeeyyyyyy. Like 3 seasons too long if I’m honest. I love the internal struggle we see Carm go through. I love how they tie in mental health and abuse to working in a toxic job setting, and how they show that by not addressing the trauma you’re likely to then breed more trauma. Depth. Trauma. Chaos. 37 minutes of anxiety. It’s incredible.

My biggest issue with the show though goes beyond the show itself and into the menswear world where every guy things he can go and put on a white t-shirt and some jeans and a nice jacket and look like Carm. There’s a few issues with that, and I’d like to address those below:

1. You're not as jacked as Jeremy Allen White. Let’s start with the obvious — no t-shirt is going to look as good on you as it does him. Like go spend the $100 on a Merz b. Schwanen t-shirt why don’t you! And put it on! And look in the mirror! And be disappointed! Products don’t make you look better if you’re not built like the people on TV. Like go do some push-ups, maybe go for a run or two, and cut out the soda & alcohol and maybe in a few months you’ll start to look similar. Or maybe just size down and wear one of those form fitting tank tops and see if that pans out???

   

   Do you SEE those veins? THE BICEPS?

2. Carmy isn’t a real person. You know that right? He’s FAKE. You are aspiring to dress like a dude with highly unstable ptsd and trauma. Like his aura and energy only works because he’s chain-smoking and on the verge of a breakdown at any given moment. The reality is to really commit to the look, you’ll need the physique mentioned above and the trauma as well. It’s a marriage. If you’re stable and generally happy and life is ok? Man you’ll never look like he does. You need to suffer more. [THIS IS ALL SARCASM, OK?]

3. His whole thing on the show is that he doesn't care about jawnz like you do, and he’s better than you for it. If you’re googling what t-shirt he wore, or where to get jeans like look vintage and worn in, or have considered dropping +$1,000 on a resell NN.07 jacket then you’ve disqualified yourself from ever being like him. Granted, he’s not real, but his character isn’t a clout chasing hypebeast posting on reddit asking ‘WhErE cAn I fInD tHaT jAcKeT’ hoping to get a link sent his way. He wears what he wears because he knows what it is, and how good it is. Those $100 t-shirts are being worn to work in, to cook in, to sweat in, not to post a mirror selfie. His jacket isn’t being worn because it’s from a hyped brand — NONE of you knew about NN.07 until the show started. He knows what’s good and he wears it practically, not to flex. I think that’s the difference between menswear nerds and actual enthusiasts — one wears things to show off, the other wears things because he knows they’re good and well-made and will last. If anything, he seems like the guy who buys something and wears it for years; his fascination with vintage Levi’s in season 1 is proof of that. If anything the takeaway is not to dress like Carmy, but to learn to find pieces that’ll last and wear them like Carmy does: into the ground.

   

   THE jacket that people are losing their minds over. But...it existed like...before he wore it??? And if he hadn't worn it would people even like it?

4. I don’t think Carmy would post fit pics in the r/throwingfits sub. Genuinely that place is a garbage dump filled with the worst type of humans.

5. If you like clothing for what it’s meant to be, you’ll care more about wearing the clothing than you will acquiring and posting about it. I’ve said it before, but the menswear landscape is truly the lamest it’s ever been. People are buying things solely because they’re seeing it worn by celebrities. No one has personal style. Every is Command + C → Command + V on what they see on instagram and it’s making the whole scene stale and repetitive. At that point it’s not even about the love for clothing, it’s who has the biggest following + who is the hottest. It’s doomed! So instead maybe just…buy the stuff and…wear it? A lot? Wear it to cook and to clean and to run errands and let it get dirty and wash it, and keep wearing it. The love of clothing should be rooted in how it’s been made and how it’s made to be worn, not in the amount of engagement it gets online. Stop being a nerd.

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We’ll be back to posting semi-regularly. And we’ll be MORE aggressive about it. All of this to say — love you nerds and glad to be back. Oh and if you haven’t subbed yet…