I‘ve been thinking a lot recently about weekend footwear options for middle- aged men. Most men enter adulthood wearing sneakers for Saturday and Sunday outings, but very few men go to their grave shod that way. At some point in between puberty and senility, there is a moment in every man’s life when he says to himself, “I’m getting a little old to be wearing sneakers all the time.”
For many a man, I suspect, the tipping point comes while he is shopping for antiques. The saleslady approaches with a ready smile. But then her eyes dart down to the guy’s footwear — to his sneakers. She tries not to let her expression betray the horror she feels at having to sell a precious heirloom to a guy dressed as if he were going to a driver’s-ed course. But for the guy, the curse of self-consciousness has set in. He will never look at his cross- trainers innocently again.
At that moment his sneakers feel horribly, horribly overcomfortable. Maybe you’ve experienced this sensation. You’re riding on a commuter train, and all around you people are in business suits. In this context, your casual clothes feel ridiculously soft and easy. You might as well be wearing pajamas. The comfortableness hangs on you like a cloying hug.
The man who decides he’s getting a little old for sneakers faces a further dilemma. If not sneakers, what? Men are rarely forced to define their identities through their fashion choices. If a man wants, he can slide through life with two-piece suits that say very little about him. But casual shoes are clear personality markers. Choosing casual shoes, man is forced to confront the eternal questions: Who am I? What have I become? The unexamined foot is not worth shoeing.
Some men see their personality reflected in ankle-high suede boots. This is the kind of shoe George Peppard wore while playing those dashing characters in 1970s crime dramas. The man who wears these shoes is advertising to the world he is a playboy sensualist. He is the sort of man who has a pad, not an apartment. He has a white shag rug, not bare floorboards. If he wears ankle- high boots that zip up the side, there’s a good chance the wine he drinks is rose.
Loafers are another footwear option, so popular that they come in many styles. For example, some loafers come with tassels. One privilege of being conservative is that you get to wear tassels if you want to (in the same way that liberals get to wear facial hair). But tassels are not an option for me personally. My mother, who is already mystified by my political beliefs, might go over the edge if she thought I was taking fashion tips from Dan Quayle.
The urban upscalers I mostly live among are sometimes fascinated by the postmodern boot crowd. These people favor heavy steel-tipped black boots once designed for Italian storm troopers but now worn by art-gallery owners to go with their black shirts with pearl buttons and no collar. If you buy a large loft in a formerly industrial site in any major city, they give you six pairs of these black boots to close the deal — 12 if you’re a woman. Loft-dwellers don’t want to be confused with thin-shoed corporate types. They want to be known as industrial-strength artists who need heavy working footwear.
Another option for upscalers is the hiking boot. This can be worn browsing at the farmers’ market or strolling the Appalachian trail. The man who wears this shoe on weekend jaunts tends to be a quiet, reflective individual, ready to kick back and savor the organic richness of life. Unfortunately, such a person may also be a patsy in the suburban jungle. Though strong of calf, he won’t put up much fuss if someone butts in front of him at the multiplex. When he goes to buy a four-by-four, the auto dealer will interpret his boots as the sign of an easy mark. No one needs a casual shoe that puts him at a disadvantage.
Other men will wonder whether a pair of cowboy boots might not best complete their rugged image. The rule here is, if you have to wonder, don’t. People who should be wearing cowboy boots are born to them, as they are born to a bigsky birthplace and an unaffected taste for rodeo. Those who only want to be the sort of person who wears cowboy boots should not attempt the affectation.
Finally, there is the whole Hush Puppies line. These are normal-guy shoes, and as I look around THE WEEKLY STANDARD I see a lot of men wearing them. They are unpretentious suburban-dad shoes — the kind of footwear that fits snugly against the brake pedal of the minivan. This is the sort of unobtrusive shoe most men pick, but I think it is a mistake for anyone to settle too quickly for normalcy. There are, for example, some really nice thigh-high super-polished riding boots on the market these days — the whole Marv Albert noir look that can get you so much attention at the local Safeway.
DAVID BROOKS
