This massive vintage drawer acts as a divider and penny candy dispenser.

The Liptons stock their kitchen and market with organic produce, poultry, and flowers from their farm in nearby Augusta, Missouri and they support other local farmers — “partners,” as they refer to them — stocking and using their products as well.

With his laid back demeanor, Winslow’s employee Brody rocks out at the register.

Why the name Winslow’s? “When I was a kid, art always spoke to me. It was the one thing that always got my attention,” says [Mrs.] Lipton. “Winslow Homer (19th century artist) was one of my earliest memories. When this came about, it is that historical connection and trying to put a face on the time when a general store would have served its community and provided the old, the young, the sewers, the bakers with essential goods—and a little bit of folly. It was that connection that allowed me to come up with a name and a visual to go back to. It’s a reference point for me.” [c/o St. Louis Commerce Magazine].

With wines under thirty dollars, vintage and vintage-inspired toys, organic and natural cleaning products, and a plethora of cookbooks and utilitarian kitchen supplies, their general store offer something for everyone.

These rosemary lemon sugar cookies are addictive. Initially, I bought two, then four, and I walked out with half-a-dozen. When I gave my compliments to the cook, she assured me that the dough is always in-house. “Just ask. Eight minutes and you’ll have fresh cookies.” I can assure you I have eight minutes a day to devote to them. If rosemary lemon cookies were a religion, I’d be their high priest.

I’ve been for breakfast and lunch, and I assume a dinner date of brisket or one of their hearty entrees is in my future.

On your next visit to St. Louis, be sure to bring something from Winslow’s home to your house.

Winslow’s Home
7213 Delmar Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63130
(314) 725-7559

#For additional photos of my visit, see Flickr.

That’s more-or-less how the conversation began on Christmas Eve of last year when I called Ryan Plett, creator and moderator of the Denim Debate.

Build Kansas City

“Ryan,” I said, mining every bit of composure. “They’re making selvage denim right here in the good ol’ US of A.”
[Silence.]
“Ryan?”
“Is it any good?”
“… yeah. I mean. It’s a nice entrée into the world of raw denim, a very democratic fit, and it’s reasonably priced.”
“Do they want in[to the Debate]?”
“I’ll ask.”

My entire family is from Kansas City. For their first date, my parents went to a Royals game. After being born in a small town in Southeastern Kansas, the first place my parents took me was to see the Christmas lights on the Country Club Plaza, and they have maintained the tradition for the better part of my 29 years. So you can imagine my surprise when, this year, I spotted a shop with a giant Vally Forge American flag flying behind a bunch of plaid-clad mannequins. Amidst the mall-worthy corporate-run brick-and-mortars, indie darling Standard Style has become the town’s mecca for the latest and greatest in men’s and women’s clothing.

In its seventh year, Standard Style is going strong, integrating fresh new products into an already exciting buy. Their Plaza location consists of 4,200 square feet — which includes the company’s office space. While many small, independent store owners would consider this a retail coup, to the folks at SS, that’s just their B-Team.

The front door at 5076 W 119th St. Standard Style’s outpost in Leawood, Kansas

Their A Location is the 3,500 sqaure feet of a former coffee shop they first opened in the suburb of Leawood in 2003. Newly renovated, the space is primed for co-owner Matt Baldwin’s enthusiastic roll-out of American classics for the modern man and his pet project, Baldwin Denim.

“Dude literally loaded up a truck bed with old barn wood and traded us a twenty for it.”
“One man’s trash…” I said.
“Exactly.”

Matt Baldwin sounds like he spent his entire life shredding in SoCal, but he’s from a town about three and a half hours away from Kansas City.

“‘TA Town!? How do you know Wichita?”
“I was born just outside there… in Newton.”
“No way. Small world, dude.”

The accent isn’t for no reason. Mr. Baldwin, a graduate of California’s FIDM, and his wonderful wife, Emily spent time in Colorado working as part-time ski bums and in Los Angeles working as full-time designers, before they decided they wanted to raise their kids around their family.

“She’s from Springfield [MO], and I’m from Wichita [KS]. Kansas City is affordable, it’s big enough that we held onto some of Los Angeles’ metropolitan sensibilities, and we were close enough to Grandma and Grandpa.”

He also mentioned that Kansas City is home to some of the world’s best barbeque and one of its most storied denim brands, Lee.

There was a problem in the store the other day.

“A well-dressed guy came in complaining that the Baldwin Denim he bought didn’t fit. I asked him which pair he bought, and it was totally the wrong pair for his body-type.”

Needless to say, that week, Baldwin’s staff had two three-hour Denim Sessions. “There’s a fifty page glossary of denim.” I can imagine the pop quizzes he must hand out.

And what of the jeans? With a signature white rivet on the back pocket, triplestitched yoke (Just like the Lee 101b Cowboy Jean), They’re terrific. He knows fits, he works hard to improve each style before releasing it to the public, and he’s passionate about each style. “At a concert the other night, I looked out at the crowd and saw all these white rivets jumping up and down. It was overwhelming.” Baldwin has converted the men of Kansas City. Next stop: the world.

He can read my face. He knows I don’t like the size of the back pocket on the Reed, a pair he was kind enough to give me. “You’ve got to try the 77, you’ll love the fit. I know you don’t like the drop pocket, but the 77s will fit you perfectly.” He’s quick to remind me, “That free pair? Those are limited edition. You can’t get that denim from Cone any more.”

He talks with such authority, referencing denim mills and factories like everyone the world over knows what he’s talking about. But, again, he can read me. He knows I know.

Not too long ago, an out-of-place gentleman sauntered into their Plaza location. “Excuse me, but do you accept railroad papers?”

“Railroad papers?”

“For Red Wing Boots.”

“… Sure.”

Railroad papers act like a claim check that Red Wing issues to the men who work the railroads, the mines, and the mills of this country. The gentleman left with a pair boots that were originally released only in Japan only, a pair of black 875s.

Even railers have good taste.

Because of the tourist appeal, their Plaza location draws folks from all walks of life.

It was so much fun to sit there, on a sun-soaked Sunday in December and observe such a varied cross-section of America co-mingling amongst clothes that anyone could wear.

Seven years in, Standard Style has established itself, a True Standard.

Most photos c/o Ryan Strong.

It was brought to my attention that George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, was recently measured for a pair of boots at the 2010 Safari Club International Convention in Reno, Nevada.

George W. Bush with the Russell Team. L to R: Joe Gonyo, Doug Herge, and Richard Sanders.

After Doug Herge, the same man who measured my feet when I visited Russell’s headquarters last year, squatted to take the measurements of the former president’s feet, W. walked away with a pair of Russell Signature South 40 Birdshooters.

A fine choice, by anyone’s standards.

Thanks, Mr. Gannon, for the head’s up.

When Mr. Tiller and his partner Derek Galkin of Seavees approached Gitman’s Chris Olberding to develop a bleeding madras fabric for a shoe collaboration, the idea flew.

“We focused on these two fabrics because we liked the repeat in the plaid, and the colors really pop on a pair of shoes.”

With the remaining fabric, Chris Olberding has chosen to re-issue, for the first time in the popular Vintage fit, a pop-over. “Even though Gitman has made a pop-over since 1978, it hasn’t been produced for years,” Olberding said today. He mentioned plans to offer the pop-over as a seasonal model for Gitman Vintage from SS11 on.

Collaborations abound in the menswear business, but this one makes a lot of sense. Seeing how excited two of the men behind the collaborations became as they talked about the composition of their fabrications,  I can understand why this marriage of shirt and shoe maker happened. Of course, I can understand. They’re two guys really excited about a summer-weight plaid fabric. What of other collaborations for the Gitman Bros.? Coy, Mr. Olberding replied, “We’re doing everything we can to give our customer exactly what she — I mean — he wants.”

Imagine it. Gitman… Sisters?

The service provides a new box, two mitts, a new set of trees, which nearly makes up for the $145.00 repair fee.

While it was hard to go without them for a month, the shoes came back better than I could have expected. The exterior leather has that nicely worn patina of an old, beat-up pair. The sole and guts of the shoe shine like they are brand new.

# For an interesting take on the history and social implications of the tassel loafer, read this 1993 article from The New York Times.
# For the most fantastic documentation of the factory, watch this video put together by Epaulet co-owner Michael Kuhle and documentary filmmaker and animator Tom Eaton. It features a real American hero, and one of my personal heroes, lifelong road warrior and master storyteller, Mr. Floyd Gilmore.
# For additional photos of the shoes, including one that shows off some pretty nasty gashes (seriously, it looks like I take a cattle prod to them every once in a while) see Flickr.

NB: I apologize that the “before” photos languish somewhere in the vast wastelands that my external hard drives have become. If found, I promise to update this post in due course.

NB: In the first photo, I’m wearing the 3sixteen ST-100X, which are made in the US with raw indigo selvedge. They’re my contribution to the Denim Debate, a must-read.

It is possible, and in this day and age, in fact, quite necessary for everyone — truly everyone — to approach business from the most personal place possible. The Spades’ successes are a living testament to that fact.

Highlights from the article include:

“‘The bigger you get, the smaller you act.’ By which [Mr. Spade] means: The more personal a brand, the more stuff it can sell.”

“If you look at everything that was going on in fashion at that time,” Andy says now, “there was not a voice that just said hi or hello. There just wasn’t a lot out there that looked real. But there’s something great about suburbia. There’s something great about innocence. A Peter Pan collar is sexier than a bustier.”

On working with his spouse: “I remember this one horrible fight over whether a pink was the right pink,” Andy says. “Ugh. And then it was important for everyone to think we were so happy all the time.”

“It’s possible that all this works because Andy Spade comes by it so naturally: The brand he built is an honest version of himself, of who he is and also of who he aspires to become.”

“Someone once told me that if you ask a woman What is the favorite thing in your closet?, she’ll pull out her newest dress,” says [J. Crew's creative director] Jenna Lyons. “If you ask a man, he’ll pull out some tattered old thing he’s had forever. That’s the big difference. And that’s what Andy gets.” Essentially, he understands that men are happy to have their shoes resoled again and again, and that they’d like to buy shoes that deserve it.

In regards to letting go of their company, Mr. Spade said, “… the game for us? We just wanted to be in fourth place. We just wanted a good little company.”

“You know,” [Mr. Spade] says, “I was just thinking about this time that Katie defended me. It was so hard working together, it was so exhausting. And then one day we were in this meeting with the Neiman Marcus execs who owned the majority of our company, and someone had a copy of a magazine that had a write-up of Paperboys, which was the first film I produced at Jack Spade. He pushed it across the table and said, “Is this what you’re spending money on?” I couldn’t even talk. I was totally freaked out. And then Katie just totally went to the mat for me. She was like, ‘This is what makes us relevant.’ ” He flushes pink at the memory.

Again, the key to the entire piece is “‘The bigger you get, the smaller you act.’ By which [Mr. Spade] means: The more personal a brand, the more stuff it can sell.”

Special thanks to New York Magazine for this terrific read.

The photo journal of Tadd Myers’ cross country tour of American factories, A Portrait of the American Craftsman, is featured in this month’s issue of Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines.

Trail Town Custom Leather

What Mr. Myers is able to do with his camera is awe-inspiring. With the exception of the beautiful images captured by Foster Huntington during our visit to L.L. Bean, the photos of my own factory visits pale in comparison. Myers is able to capture the artistry in the handmade, for these people are true artists, crafting — by hand, with a little hard work and a lot of precision — original, everyday masterpieces.

Bruce Cheaney Handmade Custom Saddles

Pawless Guitars

Jay Brown Stagecoaches, now J. Wilson Stagecoach Works

Nokona Athletic Goods

Hull Historical Architectural Millwork

King Boat Works

Danner Boots

# Also seen in Garden & Gun.
# Be sure to visit this project’s homepage for updates — additional videos still to come — where you can download a .pdf featuring several of the photos.
# Special thanks to Mr. Myers for sharing his artwork with the world.

I pulled in to Madison on a snow-covered evening, late enough that the last of Context Clothing’s customers was just bundling up before heading home with a new pair of Momotaro jeans, but co-owner Ryan Huber was kind enough to keep the shop open for yours truly.

They’d wrap my arm in butcher paper if I asked them.

After closing the shop, Ryan and I crashed fellow owner Sam Parker’s date night with his lovely wife. We ate at Natt Spil, a place lovingly referred to as the “Chinese Pizza Disco” by its regulars, a place down the street from their shop that brought new meaning to the words “fusion food.” Asian, and Mexican, and Tapas, and hamburgers all melded together beautifully with the red wine we were drinking — in fact, it was probably because of the red wine we were drinking.

Everyone in the restaurant seemed to know Ryan and Sam, and it’s no wonder why. With a recent flood of coverage — GQ named their exclusive Alden boot, the Roy Boot, seen here first, among some of the best stuff of the year and Monocle Magazine highlighted the store in an issue devoted to entrepreneurs — they’ve become known internationally for providing the highest quality products at a fair price, and they hold themselves to a very high standard in customer service. Not to worry, they don’t let it go to their heads too much.

Professional Hunter Elephant Boots purchased on a trip Ryan and I took to Russell Moccasin.

Foot-So-Port, Made in Wisconsin.

“Ah, phooey…” was Sam’s gruff reply when I likened them to rock stars. “We’re just nice to people, and they’ve started to respect our opinions.” Nice is a word for it. By the time we finished dinner, I wasn’t sure if everyone in the restaurant knew them or if they knew everyone in the restaurant. Either way, Ryan and Sam seemed to have nicknames for everyone, none any cleaner than the next. “That guy’s nickname is “Boob Donkey.” If you haven’t yet, the next time you place an order, call Context and ask to speak to Sam. The man’s rough cadence is an art form.

Madison is a special town, though. A fairly liberal people, with the capitol and the university mashing like perfect lumps in a side of warm potatoes, the conversation is always facile. During our dinner conversation, one minute we’re learning from our server about the leather maker who hand-tooled his belt, the next we’re discussing Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary, featuring one of my heroes, University of Wisconsin professor and environmental historian William Cronon. The people here are as fluent as they are affluent. And while a majority of Context’s business is in online sales, the fact that there is a lot of money in the town makes a difference when you’re selling a $500 pair of jeans steps from the capitol building.

Little antique vocabulary cards dotted the store. The one pictured sat propped among a display for American shirt maker Gitman Vintage.

That Fjällräven display is all plaidout.

Upon leaving the restaurant, I’d discovered that my rental car had been towed. “White Dodge Avenger, white Dodge Avenger,” I repeated to myself as I stalked the streets of Madison, warming myself only by the glow of the streetlamps. After about ten minutes of trudging through grey snow, I’d had it. I called Ryan.

“Oh, it’s likely that they just moved it. There’s really only two tow trucks in town.” Ryan got me the number of the towing company, and sure enough, the car was right where the shopkeeper said it was. Parked on a dark side street, no ticket, no fee, just a torn piece of notebook paper in the driver’s side wiper, with a note attached, “Hey. Ya idiot! This ain’t a parking space.” In my haste, and due to the fact most of Madison’s streets were covered in at least a foot of snow, I’d failed to check the curb and parked in a red zone.

“Cinnamon roll or coffeecake?” My only response was, “Yes.” The red cups are made in California by Cambro.

Nothing says, “Go Packers!” like a pompom-topped stocking cap. And that bike rack banana hook gets me every time. Look for it in Dwell Magazine.

The next morning, I made a triumphant return to Mickies Dairy Bar. I’d been once before, but school was out, and I wanted to get the full effect. I’m not sure if your college experience was at all like mine, but Mickies at ten a.m. on a Sunday smelled exactly as I’d expected. The stench of stale beer and spicy sausage wafted through the air with equal verve. It was as though the place had been serving pitchers of High Life alongside the corned beef hash all morning, which is not an objectionable practice in the opinion of this writer.

I planned to stop at the cake, but the student on the stool next to mine looked so satisfied as he elbowed into his corned beef hash. I had to try it. It was spicy — a warm, hearty flavor that stayed with me all day long.

Context sits next to live music venue, The Majestic Theatre.
Full, I considered walking back to Context. For fear of towing, I drove. I needed to get a good shot of their new exterior, and I wanted to buy a Christmas present. I picked up one of local leather artisan, Kenton Sorenson’s natural leather Dopp Kits, which were a big hit this Christmas. Ryan and Sam assured me, exclusive, holiday-themed products will become standard practice in the future. “We want to do more collaborations for the Christmas season, incorporating a little taste of Wisconsin wherever we can,” said Ryan.

Ryan suggested I head over to Blain’s Farm & Fleet. In my travels, I’d lost one of my gloves, and he thought they’d have just what I was looking for. Did they ever. If Blain’s was thinking ahead, ten years ago, they would have opened a spot right on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Talk about pay dirt. This place had “urban woodsman” written all over it. What am I saying? It had just straight capital “W” Woodsman written all over it.
I first discovered Servus Boots when writing about wellies.
Hav-a-Hank reminded me of Emil Corsillo’s observation that for companies, a unique name was meant to be a way of bringing “brand identity” to their products.

I walked away with two Carhartt Watch Caps and Thinsulate-lined deerskin gloves, which came in handy while changing a tire in Minnesota.

Before heading on, I stopped at Rutabaga, an awesome paddlesports shop that’s been in business for more than a quarter century. The best part? It backs right up to the lake. Give yourself plenty of time when visiting this place. In the summer months, you can do on-water testing with most of the goods they sell.
An embroidered Stormy Kromer cap. I love mine.

On my way out of town, I stopped to get a car wash, but the octopus wasn’t there.

In the two times I’ve been to Madison, I’ve marveled at how much it felt like home: a place where quality takes precedence over all else, where sharing a meal with friends and family is the most important part of the day, and where spending time outside, no matter the season, is as important, if not more so, than sitting in front of a computer.

This last point — the call of the wild — is one I hope to shed more light upon, as it’s one aspect of my life I so rarely share here. Ryan told me a doozy of a story about a recent wintry hiking trip which I hope he’ll share here on all plaidout at some point in time very soon. Until then, give some thought to making a weekend in Madison your next vacation. You won’t regret it. Oh, and if you decide to go, be sure to stop first at Context, Madison’s local board of tourism.

For more of my trip to Madison, see Flickr.