Welcome to The Search Continues

A newsletter about style and substance.

I recall the period between 2009-2013 fondly, and not just because I was in college, but because they coincided with what I’d consider to be the golden age of blogging, particularly in the niche that came to be known as “#menswear,” which was largely active on Tumblr.

As someone who’d grown up in a rural corner of a rural state (Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) I found it fascinating. I couldn’t get enough, and would happily stare at scans from Japanese men’s magazines or read 3,000 word round-ups on every button-down collar on the market.

This moment (which, naturally, has been colored in by nostalgia) felt like everything the internet promised: amateurs joyfully pouring their hearts and souls into the interests they enjoyed, often for zero monetary compensation, but with the satisfaction of finding like-minded strangers online who shared their niche passions.

Naturally, nothing lasts forever, and to make a long story short social media blew it up (yes, I do have an Instagram, which I’m fairly active on). Instead we get an endless array of disposable, forgettable “content”, which imparts the distinct feeling of sitting in a room while someone continuously flicks the light switch on and off.

But I haven’t forgotten about that earlier era, which had a profound effect on the development of my career aspirations, to the point that I hoped to one day be paid to write about style. It didn’t happen overnight, but in the 10 years since I’m remarkably fortunate to have built a little career around it, contributing to publications and websites like GQ, Esquire Robb Report, InsideHook and WM Brown. Along the way I’ve gotten the chance to meet, interview and occasionally work under some of those same figures I’d read as a bright-eyed 18-year-old.

Back in those fresh-faced undergrad

days I’d toyed with starting a blog, but had never gotten around to it. I think it’s for the same reason that I dabbled in fiction but given that up: I didn’t know who would be reading any of it.

Today I’m remarkably fortunate to not only be paid to write about the topics that interest me—an eclectic mix that covers not just oxford-cloth shirts but hidden firehouse bars, the history of royal warrants and alternative uses for gentian liqueur, but to have them be read by living human beings.

What I haven’t done over the last decade is write for myself: Which is where The Search Continues comes in.

Why “The Search Continues?” I think the title is a neat summation of what I hope to use this space for: an exploration of my own curiosity, which is often focused on (but not exclusively limited to) “classic menswear” (however broadly one defines that), stirred cocktails, 20th century American short story writers, bars with a long history of existence, and preserving the analog life.

It’s, admittedly, a grab-bag, but one I hope is united by something increasingly short of supply in our auto-play ad, suggested-reels, reaction-video present: substance.

Going forward, I’ll try and send a newsletter each week detailing some recent thoughts on style, interviews with or stories on subjects that have recently stuck in my mind, and recommendations on what I’ve been reading.

To be completely transparent, I’m not really sure where this is going. Will there ever be a paid component with more content? Maybe. Who’s to say! For now, I’ll be using this little corner of the internet to express and sate my own curiosity around style and substance, and will be grateful towards all of you who decide to come along for the ride.

---