L.L. Bean Handsewn Moccasins, Blucher Moc
I went on a little shopping binge this summer. It’s shameful, because even though I’m always rallying against excessive materialism and conspicuous consumption, I’m also a mall nut and a packrat (and, I might add one hell of a bargain hunter) and on top of that was probably a little depressed, too. So I was at malls a lot, looking for a lift (I guess) and also discovered I was finally had a nice enough body to wear t-shirts and shorts without looking like a war-torn starving villager in one of those old “Care” commercials.
It was the perfect storm.
I bought a lot of shorts and t-shirts (and baseball caps) during my binge, along with a few extra pairs of sneakers to go along with them, because you can’t rock the new gear with old kicks, y’know what I’m sayin’? Sorry, got a little ‘hood there. Anyway, I was set...unless I wanted to look a little classier (I was wearing this stuff to work, too). Where should I turn to kick it up a notch?
The old-school.
Preppy was hot this year, so boat shoes seemed like a logical choice…but not really. You see I’ve always liked the general style of boat shoes, but the way that people wear them kind of dampens my enthusiasm for them. For one thing they’re not “dress shoes,” but yet people around here persist in trying to wear them to dressy occasions, usually in a color that doesn’t match anything else they’re wearing. My God, if I see another goober in a blue denim shirt, black pants, white socks and brown boat shoes calling themselves “dressed up,” I’ll hurl. Strike one. Then there’s finding the right type. The market is flooded with cheap Topsider knockoffs and the good stuff is hard to find, especially in my size (13 B). When the appropriate classy pair of luggage-brown Sebago boat shoes was found at Nordstrom, they cost over a hundred dollars. Strike two.
My inspiration for the right pair of causal shoes came from a person that no one who knows him would ever associate with “style”: Eddy Hicklin. Eddy’s a land surveyor, and not a particularly flashy one at that. But he’s a tall, slim guy who’s in decent shape, and he could make whatever he was wearing look nice. The dude could rock overalls and a bright yellow Green Bay Packers sweatshirt with a Packers bucket hat and still look great! We used to work together and on some of the days he didn’t go out into the field, he would wear an old pair of L.L. Bean Blucher Mocs in the “cactus” color. They had a few years on them, but they were great on him, worn to the old-shoe perfection that we all enjoy when we find a shoe that’s “just right” and wear it ‘till it falls apart. This could be the shoe I need to buy, I thought.
I’m on the horns of a dilemma, though. No one outside of a few people who haven’t let the ‘80s go and/or hard core Bean fans are wearing these shoes these days. Eddy’s looked at least 5 or 10 years old. They peaked fashion-wise around here circa 1987. At that time, preppy was in, and almost anyone who was cool in my age group had a pair, either the real ones or a Sebago, Bass, or whatever knockoff. Even Kmart had them. I didn’t have any. I was too shy to ask for anything because my family was kind of broke at the time, and it never struck my parents’ consciousness that I wanted any, anyway. So I grew out of it and moved on, but a certain part of me wanted to have a pair, even when they were woefully out of style in the grunge-covered world that was ‘90s fashion. To tell you the truth, other than when my friend Todd Martin bought a pair for work back when we were in college I wasn’t sure if they still made them. Or if my flat narrow feet would look good in them. I was miserable when I really shouldn’t have been. God, they’re just shoes, I thought, what’s the big deal either way?
The answer to my question came in the mail. I went to the mailbox one day in the spring and out popped the latest L.L. Bean catalog. On page 56, they had them: the old Blucher Mocs I remember, in my size for less than $70.00. This was it. I was going to get my perfect summer shoes and if they didn’t work, I would utilize L.L. Bean’s liberal return policy. When I got up the nerve to call, they were backordered. I began to question my decision. Was it a sign? Naw, man stop being stupid, I told myself. After a month of backorder and a daily check of the package tracking once they were shipped (the internet: we love obsessive people!) I got them in the mail on a Saturday morning. I was excited, to say the least. I put them on right away.
coming soon, part two
find out what happend after I tried them on...
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