• J. Crew for your relatively affordable options:

  • This oxford cloth “dress shirt,” point collar, kinda dressy but still not that dressy because it’s oxford cloth.

  • Band collar. That works.

  • They used to offer a big oxford work shirt, but it sold out recently, sorry.

• Ralph Lauren

  • Patchwork Oxford Work Shirt in Big & Tall

    • Looks kinda like madras, but it’s oxford cloth

    • Not sure why the big guys get the spread collar. It looks like they do the same thing with their iconic oxford, the big & tall gets a spread collar.

      • The ones on sale have button down collars, though… I guess this was a change from one season to the next?

• Drake’s oxford cloth shirts with long point collars.

  • I have one of these with a purple stripe, see above. I love it. I can’t fully explain why. I guess it’s worn in right, that’s a part of it. Good fabric, aged well.

  • Also, the collar here is really unique: it’s exactly the same as their button down collar except there’s no button and no buttonhole. That means that there’s a slight curve in the collar. And it just hits.

• Vito’s New York in white and this red stripe. These have camp collars. If they look like point collars, you might now realize why camp collars are also often called “convertible collars.” They also have that collar loop, which is good.

  • Collars can be confusing, but it’s okay, I gotchu.

• Original Madras Trading Co. boxy point collar from their Josh Peskowitz collab. Not a dress shirt. It’s got a straight hem, guys, call it what it is.

  • They cycle some oxfords in and out here and there, but at the moment, this is the only one without a button down collar.

First, this is a confusing word problem that needs to be turned into simple math. “Extra” is not really a mathematical concept. You might be reading this and thinking, “100 percent minus 50 percent minus 40 percent minus 30 percent is negative 20 percent. It’s 120% off. If i buy this tee shirt, you pay me 20% of the sticker price.” If you were an alien, that would be a valid way to read the description of the sale. But you probably know, from living on the planet earth, that this isn’t what they mean. In fact, they use this reasonable intuition of yours to make sales sound bigger than they are. “50% off and an extra 40% off” sounds like 90% off, and that’s intentional, but that’s almost never what they’re saying.

Instead off adding up those discounts, they’re multiplying them. Almost all of these sales use multiplicative discounts, almost never additive. And they’re not multiplying 50% times 40% — that would be 20% off, which would be stupid. Rather, they’re multiplying how much you have to pay.

If something is 40% off, you should really be thinking, it’s 60% of the regular price. For discount A, you’re paying 100%-A.

When they say 50% off and an extra 40% off, they’re saying that you are going to pay (100%-50%) x (100%-40%) = 50% x 60% = you are paying 30%. that is 70% off. If you take an additional 30% off, that’s 30% of full price times 70% of full price, which 21% of full price, or 79% off. Buyer pays 21%, instead of the seller paying 20%. There you go.

In case you’re struggling to multiply percentages.. that’s because percentages are just decimals or fractions masquerading as whole numbers. 50% is really 50/100, 0.50, or one half. 40% is 0.4, 30% is 0.3. And of course, 100% = 1.

So 0.7 x 0.3 = 0.21. If you wanted to, you could say 30% x 70% = 2100 %% = 21%, but that’s more confusing, if you ask me… percentages are pretty dumb sometimes.

Alright, so all that said, the formula for the effective discount given multiplicatively-stacking percentage-based discounts A and B and C is:

If you plug 0.50, 0.40, and 0.30 in for A, B, and C, you get 0.79.

Let’s try it on the Banana Republic sale that made me think to write this, although… well, now we have another complication. The sale is an extra 20% off sale prices, plus an extra 10% off with code BRAFF, but what are the sale prices?

0.8 x 0.9 gets us 0.72, so that’s an extra 28% off… the main discount. The main discount is up to 50%, which means we’re paying as little as 36%, or getting up to 64% off. Or, you can take the price you see on the page, and multiply it by 0.72, to see what you’re actually paying. If you have a base price, the formula for what you end up paying is:

So this linen jacket is marked $179.99. That means it should be $129.59 in cart. And this knit polo is… what the shit, BR, that’s 60% off, you literally just said “up to 50% off,” why are you doing this to us? Well, anyway, that’s 28.8% of regular price, or 71.2% off. With a regular price of $100 even, that should take us to $28.80. Right? Well, 28.79, god damn pennies…

I put those two in my bag, and… Yep! My math checks out.

If any of this sounds complicated… that’s what they want you to think. They want you to add stuff to your cart and figure it out after you’ve already set your heart on buying the piece.

I' really am not picking on BR here, this is super standard practice in 2026. They can make the sale sound better than it is while obscuring specific numbers to get you to put pieces in your cart. But the better you are at understanding the math, the better you can spot what they’re doing and decide which deals are worth your time.

I paid $10 for the tie and $30 for the sweater. Both are in very good condition. I also saw a backgammon set that I really wanted but I didn’t want to spend money on a backgammon set, I don’t need a backgammon set, no matter how nice it is…

Anyway, if I get nice things at nice prices, my paid subscribers should too, right? Here’s a little roundup. This particular round up is all eBay, so yeah, contains affiliate links. And a lot of shoes in 12D, if you’re around that size.

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First: my dad never left Iran until he turned 18. He would spend time at a local record store. But the year he turned 18, before going to college in Missouri, he took a trip to Israel, and the record store owner made him an offer. He offered to pay a little extra for a few specific records that were hard to get in Iran. The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens... if I remember the story correctly, the Beatles were on that list, a few years years after they broke up. Yeah, it was hard to get good music in Iran.

Anyway, my dad bought the records and brought them back to the record store owner. He asked for a few days to check them out, and my dad said okay. A few days later, it turns out, the record store owner didn’t want the records after all. My dad got to keep the records and some of the money, and the record store owner got to sell his copies. And that’s how my dad really started to get into music.

After the revolution, Iran banned music. Seriously, they criminalized nearly all music that didn’t fit certain narrow religious criteria. I remember my dad telling me that, and I couldn’t process it. It was a sad moment. Fuck the IRGC.

(That’s what “Rock the Casbah” is about, it’s about that time Iran just fucking banned music. Look it up.).

One more story. When my dad was in his early 20s, he bought himself an album—Rumors, by Fleetwood Mac. He was looking forward to listening to it until he paid a visit to his nieces and nephew, including my cousin Nada, who was celebrating her birthday that day. Excited as he was to hear his new album, he was more excited to give little Nada the perfect present. One of the greatest albums of all time.

He’s the reason she loves Fleetwood Mac, the reason I love Paul Simon and Elton John. I played him Buena Vista Social Club and Amy Winehouse and Rodrigo Amarante. He played me Adele and Eagles. Music is such a deep avenue for taste, something accessible and rich, but it may be a better avenue for forging connections and memories.

We played him his favorites in the hospital before he passed. I’d like to think it brought him some comfort.

In my initial search to find where this cardigan was from—admittedly, a word search, because I was too lazy to search by image—I found one horrifying result. A result that specifically said—two days later—that it was “inspired by” Adults Season 2. Inspired by. In two days. I got a screenshot.

So, let’s stop and think. Did they a. have a designer see this cardigan, design a similar cardigan inspired by it, send it out to a factory for samples cut for both men and women, grade the pattern from XS to 3XL, and had a production run made, all in the span of 2-days or b. scour every fucking TV show to AI-generate more photos of clothes than Shein across thousands of nigh-identical fly-by-night websites and take money to probably never deliver anything, but at best, if they get a lot of orders, churn out a production batch of the cheapest possible imitations they can put together. But probably not. And they charge $120 for that?

I saw similar websites while I was writing my celebrity styling cheat sheet. There are dozens of them, all with 2-3 different UIs on repeat, none of them looking that legitimate. It was sketchy as hell then, but I didn’t realize how bad it was. They were generating this shit that quickly? Off obscure TV shows? Off existing garments?

I still don’t know if they ship. It’s almost worse if they do…

This article was originally published at The Second Button. Because Substack does not use a canonical link system, posting it publicly here would hurt my search engine performance. Accordingly, it is going behind the paywall. You’re welcome to read it in whichever way you prefer.

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I want you to imagine a chore coat. It’s probably not made of worsted wool, right? Chore coats are workwear, they’re made of hardy cotton fabrics, they have big pockets meant to actually be used. They’re unstructured, because if they were structured, the structure would probably not hold up to heavy wear. And… they don’t have lapels.

The biggest difference between this suit jacket and a chore coat is the lapels.

This suits is made of a cotton herringbone fabric It has two giant patch pockets and a single button cuff. It’s unstructured. If you want to roll up your sleeves, load up your pockets, and let your suit wear in on a job site, feel free. If only the pants were double knees…

No, the pants are pretty ordinary herringbone twill chinos. I guess those are smarter than double knees, fatigues, or jeans, but they’re still pretty casual compared to a suit. They hold a crease, which is the bare minimum for you to call them dress pants, if, for some reason, you want to. They have a flat front and belt loops. Pretty standard stuff.

The jacket and pants also both have a little extra stitching here and there. Really, if you wear this to a casual event, most people will know better than to ask why you’re so dressed up. They might not see these details, but instinctively, it doesn’t look dressy. It’s not sleek or dark or refined. This is all intentional.

And this is why it looks natural with a tee shirt and sneakers.

It’s not perfect. The functional cuff and particular method used to construct the shoulders make it hard to tailor. This cotton model is there very first, so there’s a slight trouser balance issue that makes them look higher in the rise and fuller in the thighs than they really are… Although it’s pretty easy to cover that issue by wearing the jacket. The cotton hasn’t worn in yet, so the crisp fabric contributes to collar gapping in some shots, and I forgot to ask my tailor to press the right lapel to match the left, so yeah, the right lapel isn’t rolling right. Finally, the jacket doesn’t come in short sizes, so I’m just wearing a 38R (as opposed to my usual 40S).

So it doesn’t fit me perfectly… but I’m not much of a fit perfectionist, especially for a casual suit. I can make it work. Styling can often overcome these fit imperfections, and a casual suit makes your styling options just so much more open-ended.

Cotton ages over time. The sport jacket will age like a herringbone twill chore coat. It will soften. It will wrinkle. It might stretch a bit at the waist, as the wasitband on your jeans tends to do. It will fade, but slowly, since I won’t be sticking it in the wash. It will come out unique to me.

I kind of wish it had three patch pockets. I didn’t always love a chest patch, but they’ve grown on me, and would have been fitting here. Alternatively, bellows pockets or patches with flaps might have been a good idea. Then again, these are truly gigantic patch pockets, so they’re kind of unique as is.

All of the imperfections are pretty reasonable given the overall charm and the price point. The jacket—again, made in the USA—is $325. That’s bonkers. The pants are $250, bringing the whole suit to $575. This model also comes in an olive green herringbone. They are making more casual tailoring in Irish linen (sport jackets) and a wool-linen blend suit (a slightly newer iteration that has fixed the trouser balance issue). They’re working on a dressier suit as well, which I’m excited for. And an overcoat. And knowing how American Trench operates, they’ll keep going until they get everything just right.

Thank you, again, to Jacob and the team for sponsoring the post. American Trench really is one of those brands I’ve always wanted to work with, and I hope you can all see why. If you want to see more of what makes them special, I have a whole selection on shopmy, including their titular trench coats, ventile harringtons, knitwear, beanies, and of course, their famous retro stripe socks. Enjoy!

My on ramp into absurdist humor was probably Childrens Hospital, a writer’s strike gem turned into something legendary. If that’s a discovery, you probably also want to hear about Burning Love, a three-season play on The Bachelor with a very similar cast (and one incredible cameo in episode one).

But my favorite work of absurdist genius is Man Seeking Woman. Based on a set of short stories by Simon Rich, Man Seeking Woman is a series about how truly ridiculous dating can be. Absurdity, here, is a tool to frame reality in ways that seem more real than any literal work can manage. There are differences between each season, but not wanting to spoil them, I’ll just give you one example from early on: Josh’s sister sets him up with a troll, and not a figurative troll. When Josh objects, Liz tells him he’s no catch himself. And then Josh goes ahead with the date.

Josh is the main character, but you do get a few different perspectives over the course of the series, so if you don’t identify with the Josh you meet, then please, don’t worry. You’ll find your perfect absurd little reality soon enough.

A Young Doctor’s Notebook

I went into this thinking “oh, Jon Hamm is great, I want to see him in a wider variety of roles!” And then, I found out that Daniel Radcliffe is a really fucking good actor. (Years later, I met him after a December 23rd showing of the Lifespan of a Fact: I wished him a Happy Chanukah and a Happy Festivus, and now, we’re best friends, fun fact). For the record: Jon Hamm is great in comedies (like Childrens Hospital) and so is Daniel Radcliffe (Miracle Workers, also a Simon Rich project). And I’d call this a comedy.

Maybe I should actually describe it. Jon Hamm is a jaded old Russian doctor, addicted to morphine, and he’s about to be caught. He finds his old notebook and takes a trip down memory lane. Daniel Radcliffe plays his younger self, assigned to a hospital in the middle of frozen 1917 bumfuck nowhere. The young doctor makes horrible decisisons while his older self tries in vain to stop the memory from going the way it does.

I actually haven’t seen the show in… it’s probably been over a decade, but it sticks out in my memory as one of the most disgusting shows I’ve ever seen, and absolutely worth finishing anyway.

Vicious

Okay, Vicious is an easy sell.

It’s Ian McKellan and Derek Jacobi starring in a simple sitcom as an old gay couple. It’s low budget. Fourteen episodes, almost exclusively shot in one location.

The cast includes Iwan Rheon (you know him, but I don’t want to remind you, so I’ll just say he was in Misfits), Marcia Warren, and... No, you know what, Derek Jacobi alone is enough reason to watch the show.

I’m not even saying it’s that good. But what are you going to do, finish this article and *not* go watch Ian McKellan and Derek Jacobi shoot jokes left-and-right? Go ahead and skip it. I dare you.

I picked out some highlights here on ShopMy, but I didn’t see them all in the store, and I didn’t see them all in my gifting selection, so there’s a bit of a mismatch between each collection. Oh well. Here’s some glasses.

Oh, btw, cute little thing to note, their “Lancier” line is called that because it sounds like Land, Sea, and Air, and they have lenses meant for each of those. That’s cute.

I liked this chambray blouson/harrington. This is a small. That’s all at J. Crew. Here’s my updated shopmy collection.

(side note: tuck in your overshirts)

Here are three brands. I’ll get you three more at some point. Always more options.

Charles Tyrwhitt, on a discount

I’m not sure who spends full price at Charles Tyrwhitt because the current discount, with code XY9T2RM8C, gets you three shirts for $120, which is less than the price of one under normal circumstances. It used to be a legendary 3/$100 deal, I got a couple of those myself, but that was years ago, and inflation finally caught up with them… Hey, 3/$120 is cheaper, adjusted for inflation!

Having quite a few dress shirts now, many made to my measurements, I can tell you that my Charles Tyrwhitt shirts are still among my best-fitting shirts. That’s because they offer neck + sleeve sizing with four different fits in the body. They tend to run big, so I, not being particularly slim nor particularly into slim fits, wear the slim cut. The point is, they have thorough, inclusive, granular sizing, and that’s great.

The main issue these days is that they have a bunch of stretchy shit on the website, and no filter that lets you filter down to natural fibers. Also their collars are small. Still. For $40, really solid shirts.

Atul Paris

The deep cut on this list, I found out about them through Clea, and I really want to try what they offer. Really, the highlight here is the gigantic collars. I love gigantic collars. And it’s hard to find one for less than €90 new, even if you’re going MTM—not sure why, but MTM factories just won’t do long point collars.

Maximillian Mogg

You had to know I was going to recommend Mogg. Their spearpoint collar is called “Zee German,” which is really an inside joke I don’t feel like explaining, and their button down is also very, very long. They do MTO or true bespoke… let me tell you, bespoke shirts are kind of silly. They are generally agreed to not be worth the money unless a. you have more money than you know what to do with or b. you just need to find out what a bespoke shirt is about. That said: try their MTO. They’re good with fabrics, and they bring all that wonderfull Mogg drama. Frankly, I’m upset I don’t already have one… we’re talking, though.

So people went looking for a replacement. Substack made one. The old twitter dude made one. Instagram made one and strongly encouraged every instagram user to get in ASAP. But there was already a competing network out there, small but built around a technology with the potential to fix so much of the internet. We call it the fediverse.

The analogy I like to use here is email. Imagine you were using Gmail, and you could only email other gmail users. You are trying to apply to a job, but the company has its own email servers, and you just can’t interact. That would suck, right? Google and others would have monopolies on their networks, and you’d need about seven email apps with seven accounts to talk to anybody. That’s most social media right now.

But now imagine a social network that works like email does. You can follow and talk to anybody you want regardless of what network they’re on. If you don’t like the service you use, you can move your account to another service but keep all your followers and keep following all the same people. You could set up your own server, if you needed to for some reason. The code is open source, you can do what you want with it. You could even launch a competitor, hire a developer to invent a whole new social media app that capitalized on the existing network.

Essentially, that’s the promise of the fediverse. One network, but no monopoly issue, no matter how large it gets, because you have the freedom to access the service without relying on any tech company at all. This awful power tech companies have over us? It would melt away.

When Twitter fell apart and the tech companies were all scrambling to pick up the pieces, the sales pitch for Threads took advantage of this. Smart people were talking about the fediverse, and Meta wanted to bait smart people in. They wanted techies, developers, economists, social media experts, all of them, to back their horse. So they promised Fediverse integration.

They lied.

For a year or two, they half-assed a fediverse integration. If you federate your account (good luck digging through the settings), I can follow you, I can reply to your posts, you can follow me, and that’s it. You can’t reply to me, you can’t repost my posts, we can’t interact in any meaningful way. And then, with no fanfare, they said they weren’t going to bother anymore.

Nobody should have trusted them to begin with, of course.

Other tech companies managed. Flipboard is a relatively big one, if you’ve heard of them. Ghost, the blog service I use that is better than Substack, has official fediverse integration.

I’m sure nobody here wants another social network. If you’re open to it, please follow my mastodon account (@DanHakimi@mastodon.social) or The Second Button’s official fediverse page (@dan@thesecondbutton.com). I’m also sure you won’t stop using Threads if you have people you talk to over there. I thought we had a real opportunity to federate social media. I tried to get everybody excited. But here we are, having let more tech companies take more control of our lives. Can we at least say we learned our lesson, please?

Edward Green

The footwear nerds on /r/goodyearwelt know a lot, and they have never been shy about spending silly amount of money on well-constructed footwear. Still, they mostly agree that by the time you get to Edward Green, diminishing marginal returns of quality and craftsmanship have taken hold. But they still love Edward Green shoes, and at this point, the realization is clear: it’s not durability you’re buying, or heritage, or some hokey cost-per-wear math. Edward Green shoes are beautiful works of art. Incredibly well-made works of art.

Probably the first brand in this price range to demand my attention, Edward Green has a wide selection of iconic styles. Let’s go over a few.

We’ll start with the Galway, the legendary and oft-imitated boot for which they are most likely best known. That horizontal curve with the spike… Look at that, take in a few other details, and then wait a few months and tell me how many clones you’ve noticed at high-end footwear brands. Some time ago, Derek Guy commented that this category of boot was a little hard to wear; a little too casual for tailoring, a little too smart for jeans. I’d love to prove him wrong, but they ain’t cheap…

Their split toe, the Dover, is another staple. If you were going to get a pair of their shoes, I’d say to start with a focus here. A split-toe blucher is a casual style, and the Dover is just elongated enough to feel like the proper British shoe you may have been dreaming of, but, in the right makeup (suede or a pebbled grain, most likely), definitely casual enough to pair with jeans. Wear these to just about any office. Wear them with a flannel suit. Wear them.

They make beautiful loafers, oxfords, slippers, chukkas, and more, really. Honestly, I could stare at their photos for a very long time if I wanted to. But I shouldn’t.

Allen Edmonds Reserve

Allen Edmonds’ latest acquisition scared a lot of people, but it turns out that, instead of ruining the middle tier that has been their golden goose, they just added a higher-end line to round out their offerings. They make really nice bluchers (not derbies, the website is less pedantic than I am), and these croc penny loafers are sexy.

Particularly special is the Mason longwing. The navy calf model is on sale for only $700, while the navy shell cordovan is sitting at… let’s not say. Back in the late 80s, you could get well-made shell cordovan longwings from Florsheim for… less than that. If I had a time machine…

Florsheim, J&M, and Cole Haan have all gone from making great footwear to making… footwear about which I have nothing nice to say. But Allen Edmonds is here, not only holding out, but pushing a new line that aims to surpass Alden. Given Alden’s issues with corruption, their price increases, and their limited output, I am putting a lot of my faith in Allen Edmonds. Here’s hoping they can keep American Heritage in place.

J.M. Weston

Menswear nerds mostly like to focus on England, Italy, and Japan, with a little bit of China and the US depending on the breed of nerd. France tends to be forgotten, for some reason, but let’s not forget.

J.M. Weston’s flagship product is the 180 loafer. A split toe penny loafer with a unique last—not remotely sleek, but not exactly chunky, more… blocky? Some of these options have lug soles, but they remain an absolute classic. Maybe these can inform us of the weird and elusive concept of “French Ivy.” It’s elegant by no standard I can articulate… it just is.

France has a number of great shoemakers, including Parabut, Heschung… I’ll give Saint Laurent the nod, and… well, Berluti, if you’re into fake patinas, which I’m not, but… Really, J.M. Weston is the paramount, at least among French RTW footwear. And that might just be what you want at this price point.

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Anyway, I’m going to be the greatest uncle ever, and, at this stage, that means trying to find out which of the brands my sister is obsessed with can also be obsessed with her. Let’s start with Burberry, I have them on ShopMy...

Burberry

When she told us, she joked that her kids would exclusively be wearing Burberry and Loro Piana. Burberry is realistic. Click the links. Help me get them some matching little baby trench coats (in cotton gabardine with proper viscose lining, made in England… wait, they went hard with the baby trench coats) and matching boots.

This North Face Baby Hoodie

This is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen until and unless you see my niblings in it. Especially if they match. A nice, cozy little winter… Ugh, I can see it now.

One of these Swaddle Up things

She has some vague idea that these are better than the swaddlers where you wrap them tight? We’re not sure. They’re $35, which is cool. If there’s something better than this, please let us know. Also, if these actually are incredible, please let us know.

Ralph Lauren

This doesn’t really need an explanation, does it? Our cousin has a Ralph Lauren family. She pretends she isn’t spending a silly amount of money there, but literally every time I see them, they’re all in matching Ralph fits, so there’s gotta be a catch, either she’s lying or she has some kind of secret connect over there that not even I have.

Petite Plume

I was going through brands in the childrens section of ShopMy, and my sister did not know/care about many of them, but then I mentioned Petite Plume, and she loves them, both for adult PJs and baby stuff. Unfortunately, the set she recently bought herself does not fit at the moment, but if you click the links, maybe we can have her matching the twins!

J. Crew

Yeah, Ralph is obvious, but J. Crew baby stuff is aimed at a similar aesthetic but is more affordable, so yes, of course J. Crew is on the list.

The babies want more, still. They want playmats, and corn flakes (whoops, I mean corn flakes), a bottle cleaner (or maybe this one?), and an omelet made by their grandmother, specifically (she has a certain style nobody else can match).

We still don’t know everything. She randomly saw Burt’s Bees Baby, and said, “oh, Burt’s Bees is good,” and I asked “wait, Burt’s Bees makes baby clothes?” And she doesn’t know. Apparently they do. Not quite an AIlbirds-level pivot, but… The point is, we’re still finding out what’s good. You people are smart. Tell us what’s good, and I’ll use that feedback for a future Substack post.

I’ll try to do my best here, as I do with clothing. I know a lot less, but we’re all going to learn as we go. Thank you for joining us in this journey. I’m excited to be crowned the world’s greatest uncle, and hope you can all be there for my coronation. The kids will be in matching Burberry trench coats.

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I found this on a Reddit thread about Betty Gilpin. I don’t remember hearing about this series when it came out (on Peacock in 2023, which makes sense), but multiple users raved about it in a thread that was ostensibly about Widow’s Bay (which is also wonderful and worth a watch; it was the top rec on my reel about TV shows).

I went in blind, and I’m happy I did. It’s a wonderful series of twists and mix of genres, resulting in some unprecedented chaotic wonder. The closest analogue I can piece together in my head is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, but I watched through that once, and I don’t remember it being this good.

Every twist in Mrs. Davis builds towards something. It’s perfectly arranged in a way that only a miniseries can achieve. This show helps display the growth that makes Damon Lindelof one of my favorite showrunners. (wait. I’m writing this on Friday. Lanterns airs on Sunday? Fuck yes.)

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

The premise of this show is one of the craziest I’ve heard in a long time: what if Big Bang Theory didn’t suck?

Technically a spinoff, this series is pretty unrecognizable. It’s sci-fi, featuring Kevin Sussman and Brian Posehn as characters who, I gather, come from the BBT universe. Except here, three of the nerds invented some stupid device that changes the universe, essentially causing interdimensional travel. What does it for me is that the characters usually act pretty blasé about the whole situation. The tone changes often enough that it hasn’t gotten old yet, but generally, they act like half the sci-fi bullshit they have to deal with is a minor annoyance, or mildly interesting. They are more focused on petty things, or personal problems, or really, anything but the main plot.

And thankfully, there’s no laugh track.

Furious

Dark television is probably overrated by TV nerds. I came to this conclusion… probably around season 2-3 of Daredevil. The original Netflix run. I’m not saying Daredevil was bad, but it was kind of… preachy? What do you call it when something feels preachy but the thing it’s preaching is that everything is terrible? That, plus them constantly describing Hell’s Kitchen as though it’s its own city with its own mayor, kind of got me rolling my eyes.

But any show that’s faux-dark, or dark just for the sake of being dark, got a lot of love around that time. Darker is not better. The same way I keep telling you that more formal is not better, darker is not better. But it’s not worse. If the darkness is really integral to the story, and the story is worth telling, I’m fully on board.

Furious tells a story worth telling. Emmy Rossum stars as Alice Black, a deeply troubled FBI agent trying to catch a serial killer. Quincy Tyler Bernstine steals the show, for me, as the hardened superior who wants to help her, but who has her own baggage. Black’s abuser is still in the picture. Police are real and shitty and human, and sometimes sympathetic even when they suck, and sometimes… not sympathetic, because some of them are messed up beyond repair.

Unlike the other shows here, Furious is still in its first season. I am genuinely wondering what is going to happen next. If you see an episode before I do… please don’t spoil it.

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Hey, Dan here. Warren reached out to offer me this shirt, and while I enjoy what they do (and the country they do it in), their tops are really cut for somebody much taller than me. So I reached out to Matt, and asked if he’d want to try it out. He did. Here are his thoughts.

The chambray shirt has been touted as menswear’s favorite summer shirt for decades at this point. If you’ve found your way, here you probably already own one (or, at least, you should), but who can stop at just one? I got my hands on the Windsor shirt from Warren, and it’s a little different from your classic chambray shirt. After a few weeks of testing I’m ready to deliver the verdict.

What exactly is chambray? Typically we would think of a light blue plain-weave cotton, something airy enough for the summer months without being fragile. Usually you’ll find them made up into a work shirt or perhaps a westerner with pearl snaps, but what if chambray could be something else? Warren chose this 4.5oz Japanese chambray that’s a little different from your classic solid blue, and what’s more is a helping of linen blended in(70%Cotton 30%Linen). What you’re getting is a fabric specifically made to beat the summer heat.

These stripes take inspiration from the “hickory stripes” found on vintage workwear, but flip the color palette around to navy on a white ground, and it feels appropriate for just about any part of your day-to-day. They make a version in blue with white stripes, too, if that’s your thing.

The cloth starts off stiff and crisp, but starting from the first wash it gets softer and softer. Since the cloth has a decent bit of linen mixed in, it's taken on some of the properties you'd expect from a linen shirt, just toned down. Wrinkles should be treated like a feature, not a bug. This kind of shirt looks best once it’s been lived in for a while.

A button down collar isn’t the traditional choice for chambray, which is probably why Warren opted to make this a hidden button down. The collar buttons are just as functional as you’d expect from a normal BD, but the overall look is a little more sleek. Keeping with the theme of a classic casual shirt, the collar points are shorter and stay out of the way. This might not be what’s currently trendy with the menswear crowd, but it’s inoffensive and perfectly suitable for your average person.

I love a locker loop. Most people ignore it, some call it useless, but I want them on all my shirts because I’ll use the locker loop almost daily. Definitely a nice touch that adds functionality to this shirt.

I have a feeling this will be the most divisive part of this shirt. Yes, the fit is slim. Hear me out, I have a theory. A shirt is not a structured piece of clothing, there’s nothing to give it shape other than what’s underneath it, so the fit should work with your body type. If you’re on the slim and tall side, the Windsor is probably going to work for you. I’m wearing a size Medium and not only does it fit fairly well, the sleeves are actually long enough! The hem is cut a little shorter than usual for an easy going untucked look, but there’s still plenty of shirt tail for tucking in. It’s the choose your own adventure of shirts!

The verdict? The Windsor shirt is not a flashy “piece” for the fashion crowd. It also won’t go out of style by the time next summer rolls around. This is a quality no-nonsense shirt that will get you through many summers to come.

Either they want to sell you testosterone supplements directly (through affiliate links; you shouldn’t click this one, but it pays $49.20 no matter what you buy, which may be a red flag) or sell you some random, half-baked homebrew solution they just made up. Oh, if you buy my tea, and my tee shirt, and my leg-roller, and my cell phone case, and these twelve other products, your testosterone will naturally improve!

It may not surprise you that this is all one big scam.

They present testosterone as not only an important hormone, but as the greatest miracle in nature, as the singular thing that makes men great. They take elements of what testosterone does (such as helping to build muscle) and possible symptoms of low T (such as fatigue) and go hard on the assumptions that buying their shitty testosterone solutions will maximize all of those benefits, resolve all of those symptoms, and cause no noticeable side effects. those are all wrong.

Some of them are trying to convince you that you have low T, so you need their solution. Here’s a quick little hint: your doctor can test you. Your doctor might roll their eyes given how many men are asking about testosterone these days, but most of them try not to judge. Get tested. I’d bet even money against any of you that your testosterone levels are not a problem.

Some influencers just tell you that you need to “optimize” or “maximize” your testosterone. This is an easy way to say: you don’t have a problem, but pay me for these hormones anyway!” But if you’ve been through puberty, you’ll probably know that testosterone has side effects. And that’s when your body is regulating the amount you get. If you follow manosphere advice and self-medicate with a hormone your body does not want or need, you’ll regret it.

Even if you do see some vague improvements in muscle mass or similar, you are now stuck; your body will reduce the amount of testosterone it naturally creates to adjust for the amount you’re forcing on it, which will reduce any theoretical benefit, but also cause you to crash if you ever stop paying however many hundreds of dollars per month. Taking hormones will fuck with you for quite a while after you stop.

I didn’t bother citing sources here. I’m teaching you to be skeptical. If you don’t believe me, look up what I said. If you don’t believe them, look up what they said. If you are too lazy, don’t look up what any of us said, ignore us, and don’t take the testosterone. If you want, I’ll look for a doctor willing to do a guest post on this or other manospherical topics. Or, you can just go to your primary care physician. They’ll do the hard part for you.

Please, don’t trust the manosphere.

A silk gabardine field jacket from Purple Label. This is a large, but I should probably be in a small. It also doesn’t appear on their website, so I’m just going to link to this collection of good Ralph Lauren stuff instead. Anyway, the jacket:

Then, on to Hirschliefers, this piece from Willy Chavarria, small:

A polo from Margiela, way too long on me. Also, it has a sort of boucle texture that doesnt’ show on the website and a fun pocket shape you actually need to look to see:

A heavy cotton cardigan from Cherry LA. Doesn’t appear on their website. I think of this as an instagram-ass brand… is it? Anyway, the cardigan:

This shirt from Auralee, size 3, also too long on me and definitely too expensive:

Five pocket pants from A. Presse in Size 2. They’re a woven silk-cotton piqué, probably my favorite piece I tried on (well, the deck jacket is still awesome):

Aaaand the new Todd Snyder Timex: