Mens, Where?

Yesterday Mr. C., our son, and I took a turn at his favorite jeans shop, Blue in Green, on Soho’s Greene St.

There they sell Japanese selvedge jeans, and Mr. C. picked out a pair of Sugar Cane jeans, modeled after the original blues wore by miners in Nevada.

While waiting, I had a good time checking out the men’s shoes in store: I loved a pair of Paul Smith wing-tip sneakers (either black or white base, white tip) and saw some shoe art in motion: one client was wearing a pair of Liberty print Nike Dunks (which I blogged about here).

They looked totally cool on him, but I was happy to be in my Chie Mihara sandals, which have considerably more air conditioning (I wilt in the heat). And he accepted his compliment gracefully and graciously, so he not only looked good, but acted good too. Oy vey—can’t this blogger conjugate a verb?

I also liked how Blue in Green packaged Mr. C’s new jeans—white tissue in a plain, unmarked black bag. Because—and this may be a quirk of mine—I don’t like seeing men with logo-ed shopping bags.

My men’s wear day continued with a pop into John Varvatos. A few weeks ago the wily Mr. C. tried to fool me again by saying that someone we know would only buy Varvatos. But I knew he was talking through his hat since I’d just seen an item in the Page Six magazine about an athlete who “gets John Varvatos to make [him] clothes.” By the way, it’s another quirk that I never like when a celebrity “gets” someone to make him or her something. I consider designers to be artists, not service providers, so I’d prefer a little more semantic respect.

But I digress.

I entered Varvatos to confirm a direction and was accosted not only by lovely shoes and clothes, but by a gorgeous young Italian fellow, with brown curly hair and soft brown eyes. After he pointed me toward my street, he asked me whether I was alone (!) and I faux-grudgingly-bemusedly admitted that I not only was I with Mr. C., but was with my three-year-old son as well.

Ah well—a New York moment for the ages . . . maybe I should go shopping with/without Mr. C more often.