Dress Like a Goddamn Man: Summer Footwear

by Andrew Cedotal | 5:08 pm, June 7th, 2010

You there — it’s summer! What the hell is going on with your shoes? Are those flip-flops? Do they have little nubby plastic-y bits to keep your feetsy-weetsies from getting hurt? Are you by any chance wearing hideous, Sergey Brin-esque, camo foot-gloves?

If so, your shoes are wrong! Your feet are doing a bad thing! Shame on you!

Oh, no, did I hurt your feelings? Quit blubbering! Strand up straight! It’s time to dress like a man!

The following types of shoes are acceptable for summer. If you’re not wearing something listed below, then you may as well be clattering around the streets on cloven hooves, braying and stinking of manure.

Dress shoes: Any of spectators, loafers, oxfords, monk-straps, bucks, or even bluchers are acceptable. The bottom line is that more or less any type of dress shoe (except for full-brogues, unless you’re playing golf) (and I sincerely hope you’re not playing golf) is acceptable, provided it’s in a shade of medium-brown or lighter. If you are going to wear black shoes during the summer, you had better know what the hell you’re doing.

Non-dress shoes: Non-dress shoes are generally only acceptable for summer if they evoke a seasonally appropriate leisure activity. Docksiders are associated with boating. Canvas shoes are associated with court-based pastimes such as tennis and squash. Espadrilles are associated with…being Basque? Regardless, activities which are NOT acceptable for the fulfilment of this rule are running, hiking, and skateboarding. Leave your Vans and Timberlands at home. Better yet, leave them in an incinerator.

In addition to particular types of shoes, there are a few specific rules to follow:

• Take care of your toenails: Otherwise, you will have disgusting feet, ingrown nails, punctured socks, and a laughably bare social calendar.
• Do NOT show socks when wearing shorts: Do you really need to be told this?
• Get some low-cut socks: Just because you’re not allowed to wear socks with shorts doesn’t mean that you can sweat directly into your shoes, turning them into foul cocoons of foot-stench. Get some no-show socks. And wear them.
• There is NO RULE that your shoes should be darker than your pants: This is a foul calumny spread by small-minded men who fear the blinding glory of white bucks. Whether you’re wearing trousers or shorts, all you have to do is match your shoes to the rest of your outfit. (There is also no rule that your shoes should be lighter than your pants.)
• If you’re wearing long pants, wear socks that are seasonally appropriate: Put those gold-toed navy numbers back in your drawer, and don’t even think about them until October.
• Wear sandals on the beach, and nowhere else: What on earth. You look like you’re in a Samuel Bronston film. What the hell.

And that’s how to wear shoes during the summer…like a man!

Bucks Dress Like a Goddamn Man Espadrill Baby Drill Espadrilles footwear Menswear Sandals Shoes socks Spectator Shoes summer

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