Getting in deep with an idea as subjective as menswear proves more harm than good sometimes. I ask questions. I get answers. I only have more questions. And down the rabbit hole we go.

Am I best suited with the English or Italian cut?

How many pairs of brown leather shoes is necessary?

What is the value of doing something by hand?

The last question came back around one afternoon in Pacific Place, exhibiting an annual collection of art hosted by the local French cultural bureau. This year’s focus, the French tradition of shoemaking, displayed the country’s fine history of crafted soles in and outside of the Parisian epicenter. One Saturday afternoon hosted Hong Kong colorist Kelvin, who demonstrated Maison Corthay’s unmistakable patina, all done with focused brushstroke.

Kelvin laid out his fine and fraying brushes, bottles of dyes, and blank canvasses of calfskin, tied his apron, and began a layer, accompanied by curious onlookers and those like myself unloading with English and Cantonese questions.