Do it to Julia! I love Barker Black
Over the last two years, every couple of months, one men's magazine or another touts Barker Black, the spin-off shoe company that started it's world takeover from Elizabeth Street. (The above is from a 2005 GQ) Each time a company gets this much good ink, I resist. Band Of Outsiders1 is a perfect example of a hip-outfitter whose product seems like it was designed with the fashion editors at GQ in mind - but turns out to be useless in the long run of things. Thom Brown likewise (I'm working on a theory that Brown represents the corruption of menswear by women's fashiong - for later.)
I thought I would hate Barker Black shoes. But, I don't. Initially I rolled my eyes: oh this whole Skull and Crossbones pattern in the brogues is just too cute by half. But you really only notice them when you get very close to the shoe - as in this spread from the British Esquire.
At a real-life distance, it actually just looks like normal a pair of very well constructed shoes. In the first photo, notice the crown shape in the loafer. I don't care if these shoes make some wall street types feel "subversive" - they are great, classic shoes - period. Just avoid their velvet slippers which are a bit too Vegas lounge for my taste. The detailing is enjoyed by the wearer and any woman who might find them by the bedside in the morning light. The shoes themselves are incredibly conservative. The brash bits are only in the most unobtrusive details. So, despite the relentless pimping by the men's fashion media complex, I'm a fan.
1. Take note of Band of Outsiders absurd website - which uses an obvious blogspot.com template and fills it with polaroids of Jason Schwartzman in their clothes. Imagine a hooker who wanted to capture a clientele of ultra-slender, passive, intellectual types, ones who want to make love to mix-tapes of The Postal Service, Lauren Hill and Feist, so she gets plastic surgery to look like Tina Fey - that's Band of Outsiders. A whore for trust-funded hipsters. I thought this style of advertising lost its punch after the first round of Orbit-girl ads had my fellow Bard College students buying packs of spearmint gum with their Camel Reds from me at the campus bookstore (where I played Weezer and Ben Folds Five albums).
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Fashion
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