The Dapper Dad

Summer always puts me in a preppy mindset. It may just be my vicinity to the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, but with the heat wave coming on after a very long winter I am thinking madras shorts, skull and crossbones cotton belts, straw hats and topsiders. Really for me it is just an excuse to get as close as possible to the water and sand. While I am stuck in the simmering cement heat of the city, though, I like to daydream while sitting on the edge of the playground sandboxes that my son enjoys. To help me I have some visual aids. Two in particular are literally at arm’s length.

The first is my Turk’s head knot sailor bracelets. It is a timeless summer bracelet that I have worn for many summers since I was a kid. I used to actually make my own, but I have grown very lazy and now I get mine from a small shop in Nantucket appropriately named Nantucket Knotworks (it gives it that extra bit of “authenticity”). There are many others that sell them and, of course, if you are not as lazy and I am then you can pick up some rope and make one yourself. You may only end up using it to wipe your brow while walking across the street to your local coffee shop and not because you are hard at work on the deck of a whaler, but it’s the thought that counts.

Along the same lines I also wear another seafaring bracelet that each year seems to find a different iteration, but is always “tied” to the sea. The hook bracelet that has been recently updated by Michael Saiger for his Miansai Hooks bracelets.

With a sterling silver hook and some sailing cord I am again reminded of when I was a kid and with friends we would scour local nautical shops where I spent the summer asking for scraps of sailing chords in vibrant colors to fashion with knots and some matches (to seal the tips) into simple, but fun summer bracelets. The goal, of course, was to offer it to your summer crush and hope she would accept it. I could try to offer it to my wife, but these days I think she would be looking for something with a little more weight to it. Ah, to be young and carefree!

Vanity is for the insecure. Style is for the bold. That is my take on the matter. Vain people spend hours in front of the closet mirror worrying what others will think. Stylish people glance at themselves in the hallway mirror and say: “Damn, you look good!” I like that cockiness just as much as I despise the preening of the vain.

So many tags exist for men and their dress and manner: grunge, surfer, dandy, banker, punk, frat boy, goth, hip hop, preppy, biker, yuppie, urban chic, euro trash, ghetto and the list goes on and on. I like to simplify the “look book” into well dressed and not. Of course, I have my very own opinion of what that entails.

I believe, in fact, that, style is as much about attitude as it is about how you express it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to make you feel better because you do not have any or is just clueless.

What you wear is the easy part. Whether you are the Prince or the Pauper there is no excuse in not having those basic elements that will always get you through the day looking like the Prince.

Now all you have to do is act and feel like the Prince. Many men do this effortlessly because they have the right attitude. It is a fine line between vanity, style and slovenliness. You walk it by caring enough to put some thought into it, but not caring enough to make it a conscious effort.

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