I’ve never owned a pair of white bucks, but I can feel myself warming to the possibility. I generally steer clear of preppy apparel, but I’ve got this idea that wearing these things (remember when people used to call high-style shoes “kicks”?) will make me feel good about life — that I’ll feel like some kind of special-aroma Great Gatsby guy if I wear them to screenings and restaurants and…whatever, to the West Hollywood Pavillions.
I can imagine wearing a pair as I stroll into a nice open-air rooftop bar (the Waldorf Astoria, say) while listening to Eric Clapton‘s “Anyone For Tennis” on my Bowers & Wilkins P5 headphones.
I can foresee two problems. One, being snickered at or, you know, people calling me a clueless poseur. Two, the Robert Redford-as-Jay Gatsby thing only lasts for the first week or two, for once they get scuffed and beaten up the special aura evaporates.
I was looking online this morning and none of the white bucks I liked (like the ones for sale at the Brooks Brothers site) were in my size — i.e., 13. In the guy realm 13 isn’t all that unusual, but shoe sellers treat you like a carnival freak if your size is larger than 12. Plus a sales rep told me this morning that white bucks are regarded as seasonal accessories (in Southern California?), but summer is just beginning and they’re already running out. All right, forget it…a bad idea from the start.