I wanted to share a few photos that my wife took on our recent trip to New York City. The last time I was at the WTC site, there was yet a finalized plan for the memorial and surrounding buildings; ground zero was still visible through a gap between security walls.
There will come a time in my journey of man where things will inevitably slow down. A backyard garden will be maintained. College funds will be invested. Fatherhood and husbandhood will be towering priorities. It’s not anything I fear or reluctantly accept; it’s what I’ve hoped to accomplish on my time here. I am eager to push my children on their first training wheel-less ride, and make Mother’s Day brunch with them. It’ll be a new adventure in which in which I hope to succeed.
One thing I’ve looked forward to is that transition into the life of the patriarch. Quirks that only your wife could love tolerate. The occasionally killer delivery of a dad joke. And my favorite: hanging out with the crew.
EuroChasse is a little gem on Connecticut’s Greenwich Avenue for those seeking clothes built excellently for a specific purpose. With an assembly of war-era knickknacks arranged on glass tables like Teddy Roosevelt’s nightstand, I couldn’t resist entering for a peak. Inside was an autumnal sprawl of muted, earthy colors on shirts, hats, vests. This was the bygone school hunter’s haberdashery, Van Pelt’s dream. Lifting a field jacket, the weight and build construed an ability to endure a New England hunt at dawn. Every item in this store was designed with zero affectation and lasting effectiveness for hunting season after hunting season.
I discovered on my recent trip to New York City that being a tourist in the Big Apple can prove a difficult role. You don’t want to stick out like a Segway tour through Times Square; you want to blend in and act as if you’re here to get some serious shit done. More apparently, you want to wear that attitude, since we all know we’re stealing looks off each other on the Q train. I had every intention to step out of my cousin’s Brooklyn studio like an apex menswearist in my two-inch trouser cuffs and spread-collar polos. But as suave as it could’ve looked, hoofing it through boroughs in my suede wholecuts would’ve proved hell on my feet. The safe, blatantly tourist thing to do was to step out in my NB runners. But the ensemble! For shame.
But then I realized something for a moment, something that we men of sartorial pursuits can get caught into: who’s really going to give a shit? We may research lapel widths and color combinations, but as much as we pore through detail, we gotta relax sometimes. Go by feel, as some may say.
I wanted to feel comfortable, so the sneakers won. I changed my shirt to a navy to match the shoes, but hey, baby steps.
Before my second trip to the Philippines, a Dateline segment covered an investigation into airline emergency protocols. This was clearly appropriate to watch before a transoceanic flight. One nugget of alarmist wisdom: in the event of a plane evacuation, passengers in shorts or skirts have been known to suffer ankle-to-thigh burns after rubbing down the emergency slide. I’ve deliberately planned my flying uniform since.
These days, I always arrive to the airport in trousers and a blazer, and I am totally comfortable spending fifteen hours in an aisle seat dressed this way. As suits have returned in popularity, I have noticed debates on what to wear for a flight. I’d like to offer my own thoughts, not to justify my choice, but to offer a perspective. So here’s why I fly in a suit.
A recent article attributed the punctuality of the Hong Kong subway system to an algorithm. This single calculation pattern is responsible for moving 5.2 million people in a single day with a 99.9% on-time record. Mechanically speaking, the Hong Kong MTR operates precisely like a stopwatch.
As its passengers, we must move from turnstile to train queue with reciprocal efficiency; keep the stopwatch perfectly on time. If there is a queue, it is maintained. If there is an empty seat, it is filled. If you are standing on the escalator, it is on the designated side to allow others to pass. Take your time if you wish, but never others’.
The twenty-four hour Hong Kong suit is a product of this pace. Men and women who fly through this city to reach every corner of the globe, and on a layover can get measurements at Saturday lunch for a finished suit at Sunday brunch. This seems to be the selling point for most tailors in this city, and a buying point for most tourists, myself included. In the age of download speeds and same-day delivery, how can one deny the allure of an in & out custom-made suit?
My first summer in this city was in 2010. At that time, I would only sneak over to my wife’s apartment building, into which I moved two years later. It’s been four years since that summer, and from the time I got lost looking for Mrs. Tuazon’s address for our first date to last Friday’s walk back home from work, one feature remained constant: Mr. Lù and his roadside shoe repair shop.
Rosewood Avenue was a perfectly sloped hill to realize an infinitude of dumbass ideas, the kinds which you would only dare in the company of an equally dumbass companion. On the doggiest of summer days, without an older brother to take us to the beach, Brandon proposed the idea of taking our useless bodyboards, mounting it on a skateboard, and atop Rosewood, armed with a wetsuit and fins, bomb down the hill in search for the perfect concrete break; thus, Ghetto Boarding was born.
Carving back and forth the empty stretch of asphalt, I always found the lip of the wave at Brandon’s curb, where he’d hurl a bucket of water at me to complete the run. Prone or drop knee, we’d make it to the top of the hill, the road, hit the lip with a bucket, tumble somewhere between the sidewalk and the lawn, then repeat the process tirelessly until enough skin was scraped. All this because we were bored, young and fearlessly stupid. And that’s what makes a summer with your best friend.
It’s not Ghetto Boarding these days, but Brandon still manages to come up with ideas that would hold influence over me. Undoubtedly so is his sense of style. Though we may have differing tastes — I like to adhere to the old guard of menswear, while Brandon is more adventurous with modern Japanese fashion — I attribute the start of my interest in what I wear to him.
So, to my fashion-forward friend with the bravery to take such risks attributed from our dumbass youth, I say thank you. Enjoy twenty-nine, and keep inspiring.
Saturday afternoons in the Tuazon household were a lazy affair for most, but the scene of a years-long ritual for its patriarch.
“Jaaaaaaaahn!” he bellowed in order to reach my attention from any part of the house. Papa always used my middle name whenever he was making a request. I reciprocated accordingly.
“What?”
“Ice Water!”
Almost always it was ice water. In later years we thought we solved the problem by stocking a mini-fridge in his room to hold bottles of water and other snacks; even then he’d call me over to hand him a bottle, rather than get out of bed to get one himself.
A tall, cool glass in hand, I went to his room to drop off his order, right on the ironing board, which was Valentino’s workspace for the entire Saturday afternoon. At his feet were hampers of laundry from the dryer, on the ottoman were crisply folded tees, and from the shutters, bedposts, and anywhere he could manage hung freshly pressed polos and dress shirts. My dad would grab his glass of ice water, whose condensation formed a fat ring on the ironing board, took a sip, and went back to work like a machine. Grab a shirt. Ring it out. Sweep it flat. Smooth out folds. Make passes of the iron. Flip the shirt around. Make passes again. Iron hissing with steam. Fold it if it’s a T-shirt. Hang it if it’s nicer. Grab another shirt.
My name is Christopher Tuazon, and I wear short shorts.
It is currently eighty-five degrees outside of this building, though it runs upwards of ninety-one by most noons. In my part of the earth, there is nothing pleasant about being outside for any part of the day. Steam fogs your glasses the moment you leave your air-conditioned refuges, and before long the pools of sweat from your chest and underarms form a salty Rorschach pattern. Out here, at this part of the year, it’s simple necessity to throw pairs of shorts in the wardrobe rotation, so I’ve recently done so. But in doing this I have invited questions about suitability and masculinity. So I’d like the opportunity to explain why I’m a short short man.
