Once a loafer man, always a loafer man.
My tailor, a 17th Century French priest named St. Vincent de Paul, recently had a sale on cheap light-colored cotton suits, so I snapped up a couple to wear this summer and get completely trashed with bicycle grease and river water.
I’m never sure, though, what kind of footwear to pair with such suits. Maybe you’ve noticed, but biking in patent leather Oxfords utterly destroys them. I have a pair of saddle shoes, but they’re impossible to keep clean, especially while staying out late and tromping through dusty warehouses and corner bars. Beatles boots are wholy unsuitable for summer. I have never thought Converse All-Stars looked dignified on any male over the age of 22 (I apologize for this belief; it frequently gets me in trouble with loved ones). Jesus sandles are probably out, too, even though I recall seeing some photos of John Cooper Clarke in them once and looking inexplicably badass. Still, I’m probably not ready for that, plus I think feet are gross. So what does that leave?
St. Vincent, as he so often has before, provided the answer: sitting atop the men’s pants rack was the cruddiest, most indestructable-looking pair of brown pennyloafers I’ve ever seen. Pennyloafers! Of course! One could simply roll up the bottom of the pants, wear the loafers without socks, and go to town. What a great look! One could show up at a party, with that look, and say to the host, after he or she answers the door, “Hello, I’m here for the insouciance party.” And he or she would say, “Of course! You are looking very insouciant. Come right in.” And a busy night of full-tilt insouciance is yours for the taking.
“First appearing in the mid-1930s from Norway, they began as casual shoes, but have increased in popularity to point of being worn in America with city lounge suits,” says Wikipedia. I like almost every word in that sentence — “city,” “America,” “mid-1930s,” “casual,” “point.” So I am confident this is the right move. I snapped the loafers up, sterilized them with shoe products to get that trademark St. Vinny’s dead-person smell out, and now they are ready for summer action.
One problem. Wikipedia continues: ”When American prep school students in the 1950s wishing to make a fashion statement took to inserting a penny into the diamond-shaped slit on their Weejuns, the name penny loafer came to be applied to this style of slip-on and has since stuck, though the practice itself does not continue.”
My loafers have such a diamond-shaped slit. And I do like co-opting prep school affectations (sweater vests, straight-leg trousers, the word “trousers”), especially when I don’t actually have to take responsibility for them; it’s a truly victimless act of cultural appropriation. The penny insertion is tempting. Still, it seems like it could be a bit much.
So, the pennies; do I insert them or not?
