#WIFEMATERIAL: CARVEN S/S 2016 CROPPED NAVY DRESS PANTS

Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, "I'd marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial. 

#WIFEMATERIAL : CARVEN S/S 2016 CROPPED NAVY DRESS PANTS

Weddings are fun! Haha no they’re not. They’re expensive and predictable and tacky and the food is bad and the music is bad and the dancing is bad and you always end up sitting next to a Republican. Also, they involve commitment, which, nope.

I realize the irony of having this opinion and writing an ongoing feature for DJ Manneeni’s website that’s based entirely on the idea of marrying someone because of what she wears—but realize that this is purely just a construct that allows me to pick women’s fashion without the risk of destroying my mentions when I post it on Twitter.

It needs to be said again and again and repeated ad nauseum:

Weddings, they are bad. Thank you.

The only good thing about weddings is the opportunity to flex. An impossibly casual knit tie, a shiny collar chain, no socks—shit like that. One time I wore (and pulled off) joggers at a wedding in Wisconsin and a guy called me a “faggot” outside the reception venue. This is the exact kind of reaction I’m going for when I’m coming to your wedding. I am not the kind of asshole who wears a polo shirt, but I’m still kind of an asshole. Striking a balance between "conversation piece" and "the guy who wears his tie around his head" is an art—and I’m fucking Rembrandt. 

The last wedding I was at I decided to wear cropped dress pants—and because this wedding was in California, it seemed like a great decision. However, a friend told me that night how he couldn't have a conversation with anyone without that person mentioning my pants. This was disappointing because, well, I say and do so many more awful things for people to talk about than my goddamn "couture" dress pants. I thought Cali could handle some high waters, but I was wrong. Though I guess next to getting hate crimed, this response wasn’t all that bad.

Anyway. Cropped dress pants, they, on the other hand, are good. I saw these cropped dress pants from Carven’s Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection presented in Paris, and briefly heard wedding bells in my head before snapping back to reality. The black stripe down the side is a nice little “fuck you” to faux paus and an even nicer little “fuck you” if you could pull these off at a wedding and look sexier than anyone in a dress.

Yes, cropped pants at a wedding. Maybe even your own.

[Images via Self Service Magazine and Vogue]

Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first.

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#WIFEMATERIAL: VERONIQUE BRANQUINHO ROPE BELT

Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, “I’d marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial. 

#WIFEMATERIAL: VERONIQUE BRANQUINHO ROPE BELT

Do you remember back in middle school (late 90s here) when “sagging” was a thing? I don’t mean to suggest that before then sagging didn’t exist or that even today young male teens don’t show their disdain for societal norms by resting the waist of their pants snug up under the horizontal crease of their asscheecks—they did it before and they definitely still do it now. But there was a time when it seemed like every local news broadcast put their house fire programming on hold to bring us an investigative report on pant-sagging teens. “SAGGING: Fashion trend? Or the beginning of the end of moral decency as we know it? And just how scared should you and your family be? More at 9pm.”

I never sagged my pants, really, except every single day of high school when I’d wear 4XL $5.99 sweatpants from Wal-Mart over basketball shorts. Also I never really had to, because JNCOs had the back pockets sewn low on the back so you looked like mid-concert Lil’ Wayne even though the waist of your pants was high enough for church. Actually sagging your pants at my middle school was risky, because around every corner there was a school administrator waiting to give you The Rope Belt™—a literal rope that some volunteer member of the PC Police force would tie around your waist to keep your pants up near your navel. It was always the same lady, too, the one who probably made every student get a signed permission slip to learn about evolution in biology class and see tits when your class watched Roots. Fuck that lady. And this particular rope, it wasn’t just some cute twine your one aunt who uses Pinterest would wrap around your least-anticipated birthday gift—this thing was closer to the thing you had to climb in gym class. Because of this, I learned more about belts in middle school than any other subject. Belts are good. The Rope Belt™ is bad.

However, I found a rope belt for this week’s #WifeMaterial that isn’t like The Rope Belt™ at all. This Veronique Branquinho rope belt from her S/S 2015 collection is hot as hell, not just because it’s that smooth off-white color but because it’s tied around the paper bag waist of a flowy white skirt and flowy denim instead of a teenager’s Old Navy Carpenter Jeans.

This Veronique Branquinho rope belt commands attention, and not in the “I’m wearing Vineyard Vines look at all these fucking whales” kind of way. More in the “I’m just a belt yet this entire outfit revolved around me” kind of way. The only other notable belt I can think of was the one David Carradine autoerotically asphyxiated himself with, so finally, some good news for belts.

[Images via Now Fashion]

Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first.

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WIFE MATERIAL: MARQUES’ALMEIDA DENIM OVERSIZED SHIRT

Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, “I’d marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial. 

#WIFEMATERIAL: MARQUES’ALMEIDA DENIM OVERSIZED SHIRT

In The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and #SQUAD laid out a few truths that they said we must hold to be self-evident in order to prosper as a nation. I haven’t read it since middle school but it’s something like—”that all men not named Russell Westbrook are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (read: Kanye) with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of a happy middle class life simultaneously glorified by modern day Republicans and undermined by their policies.” However, this was all written back in 1776, so I spent yesterday writing to my congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez to suggest a few updates:

Dear Mrs. Velazquez,

It is now 2015, very nearly 2016, and there are a few more truths that I think our society must—by law—hold to be self-evident in addition to the ones that the Founding Fathers laid out like a million years ago. “All men are created equal, life, liberty, happiness” yada yada yada all that’s still great but we could use a few more. Here they are:

That hot dogs are not sandwiches.

You have to “sandwich” something between two other things for it to be a sandwich. Sandwich, in this sense, acts as a verb. You can’t “taco,” “burrito,” or “bun” other ingredients in one cohesive delivery device—tortilla, bread or otherwise—and call it a sandwich. That is bullshit. 

That tights are pants.

Look, I didn’t decide this. Women everywhere decided that tights are pants by continuously wearing tights as pants, even when most of humanity (and most guys) were like, “tbh tights aren’t really pants but whatever.” Like, if I saw a group of HR professionals and Tory-ish high school administrators gathered together picketing somewhere with signs that said “TIGHTS ≠ PANTS,” I probably wouldn’t join them, but I wouldn’t disagree with them, either. Unfortunately, it’s already been decided—they’re pants.

That shirts can be dresses.

Paired with pants, big shirts are just big shirts. Sans pants, big shirts can still be big
shirts (if you’re watching Netflix in the comfort of your own home) or they can be dresses (if you’re out in public and the big shirt is an appropriate dress length). Big shirts not only *can* be worn as dresses, they *should* be worn as dresses whenever possible. I guess what I’m saying here is DOWN WITH PANTS. Feel free to use that in your re-election campaign.

If you know the best way I could get these updates on President Obama’s desk, or you have any minor revisions, let me know. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Civic Duty Lu
Lower East Side

You see, hot dogs aren’t sandwiches, tights are pants, and shirts can and should be worn as dresses as much as possible. That’s why for this edition of #WifeMaterial I chose this Marcus’Almeida Oversized Denim Shirt that should’ve been categorized as a “dress” as well as a “shirt” on Opening Ceremony’s website. It’s got this aggressively frayed edges that look so comfortable you wouldn’t know where the denim stops and where your skin begins. Yet it’s got this industrious, utilitarian vibe that comes with the kind of denim that gets better the more you wear it and spill drinks on it.

Buy it at Opening Ceremony. I’ll make you wear it as a dress on our wedding day.

Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first.

[Images via Opening Ceremony]

#WIFEMATERIAL: FEIT HAND SEWN LOW LEATHER SNEAKER

Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, “I’d marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial.

#WIFEMATERIAL: FEIT HAND SEWN LOW LEATHER SNEAKER  

I’d need a third hand to count the number of times I’ve seriously considered buying a pair of women’s shoes for myself. You see, sometimes, as a young fuccboi, during those years when you’re still growing into your full fuccboi self, you need your sneakers to stand-in as the confidence to your personality while the cruel world is busy shaping it. So you find yourself browsing yellow, purple or pink colorways that distract from your hopefully-dwindling insecurities. Many times, you’ll end up staring down a wild pair of kicks thinking, “Damn, these are cool,” while being subconsciously comforted by the idea of your peers’ attention being focused your feet and not, say, literally anything else about your appearance or what happens to be going on in your life.

That hadn’t happened to me in a few years, save for a light bone/sail grey pair of Nike Huaraches that don’t speak as much to my insecurities as they do of my increasingly desaturated wardrobe palette. But a week later, it happened again. I nearly pressed my face up against the glass and started licking when I walked past FEIT on Bowery and saw this pair of Hand Sewn Low leather shoes. Seriously, look at these things. It’s like someone took the Photoshop eyedropper and extracted the color of latte froth so perfect that The Lord (a Kanye/Future hybrid) himself would feel guilty letting it pass through his holy lips. My word. That mocha color alone is enough to get more than just a mouth wet. But then FEIT went ahead and made a damn hand-sewn, luxury leather version of a court sneaker with it and now I’m all “Hey, does this come in a Women’s 12?” and the FEIT associate is like, “Who are these for, your giant aunt?” What the hell, FEIT?

Someone, anyone—a female, preferably—please buy these. I will marry you, I will love you deeply for eternity, and I’ll damn sure make you keep these on when our children are conceived.

Images via feitdirect.com; Available here

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Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first. 

#WIFEMATERIAL: LACOSTE F/W 2015 TENNIS DRESS

Most men shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves let alone suggest what a woman should wear. But every once in a while I’ll stumble across an item of women’s clothing that makes me think, “I’d marry a girl on the spot if I saw her wearing that.” I call it #WifeMaterial.

#WIFEMATERIAL: LACOSTE F/W 2015 TENNIS DRESS

The US Open is well underway in Queens, the annual event in which New Yorkers shell out a stupid amount of money for tickets to a sporting event driven skyward by the willingness of corporate douchebags to out-douche other corporate douchebags. Beyond seeing world class tennis—some of it at night!—is the inspiration to make plans to dust off your tennis racket that you'll never make good on and the opportunity to gawk at the atrocity that is tennis fans trying to dress like they're at a fancy tennis event, and the fancy one percenters trying to dress like they're tennis fans.

This dress, from the Lacoste Fall/Winter 2015 runway collection, will ensure you don’t fall into either of those camps. It’s perfect, with the subtle tennis skirt ruffle (are you sensing a pattern here?) and diagonal stripes that say, “My body doesn’t need them to be vertical and my boobs don’t need them to be horizontal.”

Tennis needs more of this. Because unfortunately, fashion in tennis has become a cliché—where the country club crowd adheres to an absurdly corny hyper-white aesthetic that has the women looking like they aren’t just allowed on a championship golf course, but are caddying a round, and the men showing up to their weekly doubles match/capital gains tax bitch fest looking like they moonlight on a professional paint crew. Sure, they’ll defend it as “classy,” but let’s be honest—that’s too much white for anyone to wear, let alone those who can spill red wine and dijon mustard without consequence.

Fortunately, Lacoste has been doing this fashion in tennis thing long enough that their clothes don’t look like they belong in the closet of a caricature of Connecticut. And it’s not a fleeting, fashion show concept, either. In 1933, Frenchman René Lacoste co-founded the Lacoste brand after a professional tennis career that included seven Grand Slam titles and a world No. 1 ranking in 1926 and 1927. That’s legit.

You should be able to buy this dress later this Fall. So in the meantime, you’ll have to find something else to wear if you’re looking for a mixed doubles partner at the Open.

[Images via vogue.com]

Lucas Shanks is a writer and creative in New York City. If you want to marry him, you have to follow him on Twitter first.

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