What Is It?
Technically, "desert boot" is a general style going back hundreds of years, but for practical style purposes it all comes back to a single progenitor: the Clark's desert boot that debuted in the United States in 1949-1950.
A desert boot in the classic Clark's style is defined by two primary features:
• A thick sole made of crepe rubber, and
• A two-piece upper with a reinforced heel, fasted at one or two eyelets
People sometimes use "desert boot" as synonymous with ...
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Sandals
What Is It?
A sandal is relatively easy to define -- it's an open-topped piece of footwear with a solid sole strapped to the foot -- but its role in men's fashion is fairly recent.
Men, and American men in particular, didn't wear sandals for the first half of the 20th century. Even beachgoers and boaters usually wore closed-toe leather or canvas shoes with rubber soles.
The Birkenstock "Arizona" was the game-changer when it came out in 1973, in part because of its design and in part ...
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Blouson
What Is It?
"Blouson" is a word that you might not have heard, but you've definitely seen the coat.
A blouson is a long-sleeved, center-opening cotton jacket with a tight waist. It's a direct descendent of the various field jackets created by the U.S. and U.K. armies for WWII, and of the tightly-fitted "Eisenhower jacket" that sprang from them. (The Eisenhower jacket is in fact a form of blouson, but one with very specific features, including full-length back pleats for added ...
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Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watch
What Is It?
Although it's a mouthful, it's the proper name of the world's most iconic line of wristwatches: the Rolex Oyster Perpetual, often shortened to just the "Rolex Oyster."
The original Oyster wasn't the first Rolex watch, but it quickly became the most famous. Released in 1926, it was the first reliably waterproof wristwatch in the world.
Variants on the original Oyster design racked up an impressive list of watchmaking milestones:
· the first waterproof wristwatch ...
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Omega Speedmaster Watch
What Is It?
The Omega Speedmaster is "the moon watch."
That's both branding and literal truth. The Swiss watch-making company Omega offers a whole line of watches called the "Moonwatch" line, based on their Speedmaster watch's role as the first watch on the moon.
The story goes that NASA, short on time to design their own proprietary chronometer for the moon launch, simply sent someone out to watch stores in Houston in 1962 to pick up the most likely-looking options. They settled on the ...
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Chuck Taylor
What Is It?
The Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars is probably the most famous athletic shoe in American history.
It's also one of the oldest -- Converse released its "All Star" shoe in 1917, marketing directly to basketball players. Basketball player and expert salesman Chuck Taylor turned them into a pop culture phenomenon (and added a few design tweaks of his own to make them better-performing basketball shoes).
"Chuck Taylors," "All Stars," "Chukies," and "Converse All Stars" are all ...
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Safari Jacket
Safari jacket, bush jacket, brush jacket; photographer's jacket -- you've probably heard a number of names for the same basic piece of outerwear.
Most of them promise exotic destinations, which makes it easy to dismiss.
Don't be fooled. A quality safari jacket is an investment that pays off in surprising ways.
Defining the Safari Jacket
Bush jackets are just about what you'd imagine from old pictures and movies: light khaki thigh-length coats with large pockets on the front, usually ...
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Double Breasted Jackets
A Man and the Double Breasted Suit Jacket
Every coat that has a collar and lapels, whether sport coat, suit jacket, or overcoat, is either single-breasted or double-breasted.
The single-breasted construction is much more common, and consists of buttons on one edge and button holes on the other, meeting in a vertical line over the navel.
The double-breasted coat bears symmetrical sets of buttons on each side, with the left side folding over the right to be secured by one or two of ...
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T-Shirt
T-shirts are sometimes misunderstood to mean "any short-sleeved cotton shirt." You will even hear people refer to polo shirts as "T-shirts." This is not correct.
A T-shirt is a collarless, crew-neck knit shirt.
The "knit" part is important, as it gives the T-shirt its characteristic softness. The "T" refers to the shape -- simple, straight, and nearly horizontal across the top. Like most menswear the T-shirt's origins are predominantly military.
The very first T-shirts were made by ...
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Breton Top
What Is It?
The Breton top is a love it or hate it piece of iconic French fashion that has inspired countless offshoots and imitators: the horizontally-striped, slightly baggy, three-quarter sleeved shirt associated primarily with sailors, mimes, and Frenchmen in general.
Breton tops (also called Breton shirts and Breton stripe shirts) originated among fishermen and sailors in the Brittany region of northern France.
The broad horizontal stripes in contrasting navy and white or black and ...
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