Learning to love
A tale of £1 Barcutas, chambrays, desert boots, and hubris
Chambray, jeans, tweed jacket, Miles Davis in the ears, raining, leaving the hotel bar where I write to go to the jazz club, one pint down, it feels damned good man. And, underneath that smear of romanticism— if you’re not on vibes like this one you’re missing out— there’s something interesting, the chambray has never really been my thing…
The same thing again, band rehearsal, light drizzle between the front door and the cab, a coat would just get in the way of carrying guitar, amp, etc. . The obvious choice, G9. I reach for it so often, and yet I don’t care for it in any reference picture I find.
This all points to a question, do you have to like a piece of clothing in order to wear it?
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The £1 Baracuta G9
It’s innately counterintuitive, and perhaps a touch over-analytical, but there’s a certain fun to be had in trying at great lenghths to make something work. I think my G9 is my finest example, and it’s a garm worth telling the story of besides.
I was always a little unsure of the G9, never quite convinced by any way that I’d seen it styled, forever a little too moddish for my tastes. It was a piece for brit-pop glory days and Brighton Dads, through my youth it was never seen without Doctor Martens or three stripe trainers. The lining put me off too, somewhat distracting from whatever colour the jacket was, red imposing itself on an outfit uninvited.
These apprehensions were all still on the mind when I decided I should get one. My thinking was, there is surely no way that a piece can hold such an indisputable place in menswear canon, and be bad. In another sense there was a touch of hubris, a belief that I could do better than what I was seeing online. I think this sort of hubris is very necessary, actually, when it comes to expanding horizons. The belief that “I can do better than that”, sits at the heart of essentially any discovery we make as a populous.
So I was buying a G9, as an experiment more than anything else, to find out whether I could make it work the way I thought I could. It’s a risk though, right? There’s a fair chance at this point that I could be flat-out wrong, it’s just not my thing, so it helps if there isn’t much capital at risk. This one was a somewhat uncanny listing, at £10 originally on Vinted, with some staining up the arms that looked a little like mildew. Being somewhat smell wary I enquired further and found out it was given to the gentleman by Baracuta whilst he was Pete f*cking Doherty’s manager, during the Babyshambles days. I also found out that he was moving overseas and just wanted the thing gone without throwing it out, so he gave it to me for a quid, and stuck an old Babyshambles backstage pass in the lining for good measure.
So, with very little capital invested I’ve got a G9— and something that’s very nearly genuine rock and roll memorabilia. As I mentioned earlier, it’s become a bit of a go to, for all the practical reasons it gained popularity in the first place. I’ve felt somewhat of an obligation to carry on it’s legacy so I wear it onstage or at least on the way to gigs before I get too hot. I still have beef with that lining though, I tend not to fold the collar out, but I don’t mind that. I suppose it also helps that it’s a very, very nice shade of blue, different enough to navy or denim to be able to pair with both. It’s killer, man, there’s not much more I can say.
The Chambray Development
The chambray was a little different, not an experimental adventure, but a change in perspective, in context and frame of reference. For the longest time I’d only ever seen the chambray worn with tailoring (I was, at the time, only really looking at tailoring for inspiration). It tended to stick out when styled that way such that I didn’t like it at all. It was far too casual for me when worn with a jacket and tie, and it was a bit too much Western flair, which really isn’t my bag.
It flipped this time when I saw the chambray as marketed by J. Crew in the nineties, as beachy, worn lazily unbuttoned and untucked. A completely different frame of reference to the tailored jackets, or even its naval origins. From there it was game on, bug bitten, and after a very, very long search I’ve got one that fits the bill properly now. It’s old Lands End [see last week’s issue of THE RADAR for the low-down on cheap bds], a halfway house between work and ivy shirt, two buttoned breast pockets, but a generous button-down collar.
The funniest thing is that it’s come back around, I bloody love that thing under a sport coat, so long as it’s tweed. You get the full-bore Ralph look, for less-than-casual evenings, cocktail dates or gastro-pub dinners, this is the go to. I’d maybe even go as far as bringing a tie into the mix, a heavily patterned foulard or paisley probably, toe the smart-casual line. That’s that hubris again, the “I can do better factor”.
It was much the same when I picked up a pair of desert boots too, a combination this time of the same conceit as before, with a bit of snobbishness thrown in there too. I like that not many people wear them in those super fashionable online spaces, I like that they’re kinda old-timey and out of style, I like challenging that. I like them with my Zoomer-ass baggy pants, but also in their natural habitat at the end of a 501.
I hope this goes to show that sometimes it takes a bit of blind confidence in yourself over all the reference pictures and style advice, to find something cool and new that you like. Having a crack at your dislikes, head-on, might reveal a brand new love.
Prep Club adjourned, peace out.
Suede Bombing / Affordable BD Roundup / Reebok LT Court / Garms I Fancy
Hello! Welcome back to THE RADAR, The Prep Club’s fortnightly mini-magazine keeping you in the loop of what’s hip in the sphere of collegiate threads. You can attend last week’s meeting here, for a slightly heady adventure into seasonal dressing and the universal desire to disappear.
That G9 backstory is incredible, a quid well spent. The idea of challenging your own style prejudices to discover somthing new really resonates. Those desert boots with baggy pants sounds like exactly the kind of unexpected pairing that works when you trust your insticts over what everyone else is doing.
“These apprehensions were all still on the mind when I decided I should get one.”
Tale as old as time 😅