In May of 2012 I attended the ten-year anniversary party for Styleforum.net. I was new to San Francisco (and to Styleforum, for that matter) and was looking to meet some people with a similar interest in men’s clothing. Things were pretty different back then – instagram wasn’t really popular yet, nobody had heard the words “cut out the middleman” before, and I only owned one pair of dress shoes. The world of menswear felt a lot smaller and a bit more innocent too – we were all ready to start “buying better and buying less,” and there were less people talking about how one should go about doing that.
I was lucky to meet some wonderful people at that party – many of whom I still consider good friends – and decided to start a tumblr account to keep in touch with them (that’s where the #menswear action was, after all). That tumblr account became this blog, and here we are, over 400 articles later. Last week marked the ten-year anniversary of that ten-year anniversary party – in other words, this blog is a decade old. We have officially entered the tween years.
It’s wild to think about all of the changes that have happened over that time. Wonderful brands and retailers have been born, and just as many have closed their doors forever. The menswear community has moved from one social media platform to the next, and “influencers” came and went with each one. Pants got tighter and then looser, the suit was pronounced dead a few times, and a global pandemic made us all reckon with how invested we really were in our “essentials.” And for me personally, I left my career as an engineer and went to the world of menswear eight years ago. It’s been a wild ride and I haven’t looked back since.
As for my own tastes, I’ve noticed that I still wear many of the things I had just bought back when I started writing about clothing. My coat rack looks the same as it has for a long time. My shoes haven’t changed much either (though those wingtips are collecting some dust). And I’m happy to report that most of my Proper Cloth shirts still fit, even if they are a bit frayed around the edges. My tastes have evolved (and my budget has expanded) in the past decade but I’m still in the same orbit of what I have always liked – simple, unassuming things that are easy to wear and a pleasure to use.
This ten year mark also seems a good a time as any to also think about what the future of this site will be. Things have been quiet here, I will admit to that. The combination of changes in the wold and changes in my own life have left me feeling less inspired to write about clothes. These articles are best when I am genuinely excited to write them, and the past two years have lacked that inspiration.
With that said, I have found myself slowly rediscovering my interest in these topics and have realized that there are still plenty of things that I want to write about. After all, the main premise of my interest in clothing remains the same – I still have to get dressed every day, so I might as well take the time to know what I’m doing. The lifestyle changes we all went through during COVID will undoubtedly continue to impact our relationship with getting dressed in the morning, but that doesn’t mean that we have to do it on autopilot.
It will be a gradual restart, but I don’t think that we’ve reached the end of FSTB. There are still new and interesting things happening in this space and I’m looking forward to digging into them.
Thanks to all of those that have stopped by to read, whether it was yesterday or a decade ago – I never expected to have an audience here and it means the world to know that others have found this site useful. And if you’re feeling nostalgic, here are some of my favorite posts over the past ten years:
A Visit to the Frank Clegg Workshop
Ten Lessons from Patternmaking
How To Hem Pants (Without a Sewing Machine)
The Problem with Excellent Products
The Two-Season Wardrobe (and How to Wear It)
The San Francisco Professionals series
The Quest for the Perfect Modern Tee
Ten Things I Learned From My Father
and all my Buying Guides
Thanks again for reading-
Ian
