Last day of the EVOC Driving course. 5.11 black field shirt over the rust 5.11 Apex pants. Garmin watch again. Every one passed with great times. I ran my fastest time other than in a Mustang GT. Qualifying time is 1.02.00. Everyone did faster than 1.01.00.

CW = Critique welcome! A bit of everything on tap today. Client meetings, vendor coming to the home office, internal calls, yelling at my Montblanc dealer (err, having a "conversation" about a spot of disappointment), and - time permitting - some actual client work to pay the bills. I hope you'll all having a great day. • Jacket — DOJ-008 (Hart Schaffner & Marx): A charcoal gray odd jacket in fully-lined wool with a faint pattern carrying light brown accents, cut for serious business-formal presence. The neutral charcoal anchors the day's warmer red and caramel notes while reading sharp on a video call — a recently tailored piece that brings authority without rigidity. • Shirt — DS-041 (Charles Tyrwhitt): A classic-point collar dress shirt in light blue and navy Prince of Wales check with barrel two-button cuffs. The pattern adds visual interest on camera without competing with the tie's bolder geometry, and the soft blue keeps the warm palette feeling cool and balanced. Estimated 2.5" collar stays. • Undershirt — US-022 (Sene): A custom Peruvian Pima cotton and elastane undershirt in white, fitted MTM and rated excellent for breathability. Invisible under the patterned blue check and quietly comfortable for a day of back-to-back meetings. • Tie — NT-037 (Fort Belvedere): A Regular Self-Tipped tie in Ancient Matter silk and wool challis — red with buff and black, low-sheen finish, hand-rolled edges, three-fold construction. Large repeating geometric patterns with small detail work give it texture and presence; the ancient matter silk is a quiet luxury cue. • Slacks — SL-019 (Ralph Lauren): Light brown wool slacks with a great fit and recent retailoring. The caramel tone provides warm contrast against the charcoal jacket and creates a natural color bridge to the burgundy wingtips and red tie — an earthy foundation for the warmer palette of the day. • Belt — B-009 (Nordstrom): A dark brown leather belt with a polished silver buckle, traditional thick-collar single keeper. Tonally tied to the slacks and shoes while keeping the metals story strictly silver across belt, collar clip, and watch.

I was getting ready for my weekly Wednesday 6:30 AM men’s group while my wife was still sleeping. So as I grabbed 501 Levi’s I wore yesterday and in my dark closet put together my OOTD by iPhone flashlight, I was contemplating my personal style. Over the past couple of day’s I’ve blathered on about the terms old money and preppy and how each is fraught with the danger reducing Classic Timeless Menswear to merely another fashion category. Antonio’s recent video I spoke about yesterday did a brilliant job of describing why “ old money” style is so much more than just a fashion term: https://www.skool.com/rmrs/mia-culpa-antonio?p=9d9bbd8d Rather than create a name for my personal style myself, I choose to borrow from Harold Powell for whom I worked in my 20’s. He private labeled his casual wear Old School and I remember him telling me why that best described what he was doing and how that differed from other stores in the South Central USA. Harold was a product of The University of Oklahoma -Established Dec. 19, 1890 -17 years before statehood. https://journals.shareok.org/soonermagazine/article/download/11147/11146 https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=HA028 Like many other state universities, the school song and school colors were “borrowed” from east coast colleges. (Boomer Sooner is the Yale Boola Boola song for the Bulldogs and OU’s Crimson and Cream are Harvard’s colors). Harold worked for the McCalls brothers ( a firm I worked for before Harold’s ) but his mother owned the building they were in and when they moved he opened his own shop in their old location in 1948 across Boyd Street from the OU campus. He chose to go a different direction in styling than most west coast clothing oriented stores in Oklahoma and focused on the East Coast, a bold and risky move at that time. His philosophy was to adopt styles that were more perpetual and rather than have a vast array of colors and designs (wide and shallow), he would provide an extremely limited design and limited colors with a lot of minute details (narrow and deep) Explained further - all his coats had a 3/2 roll and all his trousers had deep double forward pleates. Beyond the tweeds in fall or shantung silks or seersuckers for summer, every brand was offered in Navy, multiple shades of Grey, tans, and olives. Ties were classic stripes and foulards primarily and shirtings were mainly oxfords with some stripes and tattersalls. Footwear was of very high quality but clearly defined traditional styles.