The Jay Kos Acrostic

My

Sister

Found

Another

Napkin…

...acrosticates the most significant remembrance of my brief Jay Kos foray earlier this week. While two well behaved ten year olds sat quietly, I hurried through the giveaway sizes in the hundred- dollar-pant-pile. Tons of great stuff remained in waist sizes 35 and up but pickings were slim down in the sexy middle aged man sizes. I was able to pounce on one pair of top/western pocketed linen trews that of course, I do not need. I paid up and my fillies and I were about to exit but then an undeniable circumstantial thang percolated.

The twee little acrostic above introduces my Northampton Home Run…an Edward Green pillage of estimable value…quantifiably justifiable…leastways in my little mind. So let me spill the mnemonic beans…

Monk

Straps

For

Almost

      Nothing …

...well, pretty darn close to nothing. As the girls decamped their perch and I thanked the Kos-ettes for the fun banter and hundred dollar trousers, I spotted a brown suede contrivance on the shelf. And wouldn’t you know it, they were just my size. Showroom sample shoes and retail display shoes are often my size. When I lived in Montclair NJ years ago, all of the Ralph Lauren sample shoes made by Baker-Benjes were dumped in a shoe repair shop about a mile from my house. I used to hang around that place like an OCD laden stalker. But I digress.

It would have been a moral failing to not buy these Edward Green babies. Even on the cusp of my maiden George Cleverley appointment in a few weeks. These suede monks retail for just south of a grand. If you’ve never worn a properly sized, off the shelf shoe from a Northampton maker, please do so before you die. Which by the way…again…is May 21^st of this year.

“So how much are they now?” I axked. Two hundred clams and a ten dollar UPS Ground charge later and the three of us were out the door. At a couple of Benjamins, even if I’d bought an identical pair the day before at full retail, they’d still have to accompany me back to Old Town Alexandria. If that had been the case, I’d have simply lain the chocolate suede puppies down beside the Bordeaux in the cellar (read…kitchen corner…on the floor…under the liquor trolley) and called them up years later when needed. Oh and by the way, don't call Kos and try to do any phone shopping or inquiring about the availability of similar bargains. These were the last pair and had been their display shoe for quite some time.

Had the E.G. offer been some type of brogued lace-up, I’d have passed even at a double Benjamin. I love my brogued ghillies but they become anything but restrained with their Dainite soles and tasseled laces.

Ghillies are neither fish nor foul...especially when worn with Flusser Fish Socks.

Monks too...are neither fish nor fowl and are fuzzy enough for all ADG occasions. I slept in these one night. These only. And we are still marveling at how I navigated my jeans over two monk speed bumps. It’s amazing what one can do amidst a craving or a crisis. Note the Jethro Bodinesque swagger above. Double Naught Spy rigging...so that I'll blend in.

Monks are as dressy as anything I’ll ever require and easily make the transition to jeans. Hell, I’ve even worn them with shorts.

I’m not sure that my iPhone (shut up) photos adequately illustrate the difference between the Edward Green monks and my Faconnable monkeys. The retail price difference is about triple and the real difference, other than the understated, less burnished buckle and the sleeker last, is the feel. I can’t photograph “feel”…at least not in ways that will allow me to post the pictures here.

“Faconnable”…ever heard a Southerner try to pronounce that word? Actually, I think Southerners should be banned from trying to say it. First Amendment be damned. “Fashion-knob?” Please.

My monk lineup includes from back-left clockwise (that would be from the upper left corner moving right...for you South Carolinians)... the Leather Soul Alden Algonquin monk strap fuzzy love-child in Whiskey Shell Cordovan, an Allen Edmonds double monk brown suede contrivance, my old, beat-up pair of Fashion-Knob standards and now my E.G. two-Benjamin spoils. Nice.

Onward…pre-Eastering it with LFG on amidst our last two Spring Break days.

ADG, II … Monk...and Double Naught Spy.