The year started on quite a smart tip in my wardrobe. As I surveyed rails of sharp Thomas Pink shirts and one or two cashmere knits, I truly believed that this time I had definitely put my streetwear days behind me.
I was going to dress my age, choose collar and crew neck over tee and hoodie. Cardigans had become my best friends.
I was quite comfortable with this new direction - I had felt it coming for a while, and over the previous few months the shirt collection had grown somewhat while my sizeable t-shirt stash had stagnated.
By early February this smartening up of my wardrobe was in full swing - I was even choosing my crisp dark denim Visvim jeans over my well-worn and loved Imperial Dukes.
It was around this time that I decided I needed a trenchcoat. Burberry had upped its game a bit with a sharper fit. After a month of deliberating I went for Dunhill, and splashed out a bit on some Visvim in the Hideout sale with the change.
A memorable trip in early march to stock up on Rapha in the sample sale included a visit to Dunhill for a particularly tasty cut price leather trapper cap, and then back to Hideout for more Visvim. That excursion has gone down as a particularly fruitful one.
I was still persevering with my silk scarves right through spring. They had become something of a personal trademark over the previous couple of years. A favourite was one in navy-black and silver stripes by Louis Vuitton. The more knackered it got, the better it looked.
By May I was convinced the classics were the way forward. I was taking my style points from the likes of Steve McQueen and Daniel Craig's James Bond. My single factor when deciding on an outfit was whether Steve McQueen would wear it.
I changed hairdressers. She asked me how I wanted it cut. I told her I wanted it to look like a modern-day Steve McQueen. She had to ask someone who that was.
Of course the single overriding garment of any McQueen or Craig based look was the harrington. Barracuta's was considered and dismissed by way of market saturation, and the hunt was underway for the ultimate harrington, otherwise known as the Visvim Ketchikan.
This proved elusive. In desperation I resorted to a Dunhill blouson which, while exquisite in fabric and manufacture, made me feel 50-years old. Even my renewed taste for polo shirts and smart shorts wouldn't shift the stigma. It was worn twice.
But the summer was no time for jackets anyway. This was polo shirt and shirt sleeve weather, casually untucked and hanging over my new Orlebar Brown shorts, Visvim Hockney deckshoes on my feet and Tom Ford aviators on my nose.
Chinos made a comeback for me. Those t-shirts for the most part remained rolled up in the drawer, but I caved in to the march of plaid, adding no less than two madras shirts to the collection. Gingham checks were still preferred though - in particular a very reasonable western cut shirt from Uniqlo.
On the cycling front, much was done, much Rapha comfortably worn.
The Ketchikan (Gore-Tex paclite) was tracked down and bagged in mid September, in time for an outing to Kew Gardens and the heaviest downpour of the summer. It passed.
By early October my sartorial sensibilities were changing, along with the weather. Where there once had been shirts, I was unrolling t-shirts to wear under my cardigans. I was thinking no more in terms of cinematic style icons before choosing my garb. The street style was calling again.
I rediscovered my love for Supreme, with a wicked bright blue hoodie, and was getting desperate to get involved with the Visvim Serra hiking boots I'd bought and tucked away in the summer. Then I bought a Supreme micro checked cap and I knew my dress-mood had shifted.
As the year drew to a close the t-shirts were out in force and in some cases were added to, along with long forgotten hoodies and a new brand or two (for me at least) was on the block, in the form of Original Fake and Norse Projects.
The classics were still there, with the early December arrival of the Visvim Alta, even though this was tempered by a decidedly street and bright Original Fake blue Gore-Tex jacket.
And that's where we are at. A year in clobber, and as I look back it feels like a good one. I like the choices I made, the guidance I took from style icons, even if some were dead.
On the cusp of another year, with the sales on, I don't see much changing in the way of my style.
Although I've already got my eye on a few things in the January sales.
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