Summer Shoes and Impulse Shopping

My lovely girlfriend needed to go shopping for some shoes this weekend (our little rascal of a pup keeps chewing hers. Not mine, just hers...not that I'm complaining but I think he's trying to get me in trouble). She wanted me to come along, and it was a gorgeous day for some street-shopping through Chicago's Lakeview 'hood that we call home, so I graciously obliged. Of course, I couldn't not buy something for myself as well, so this lucky guy came home with another solid pair of summer shoes (as well as the first pair of brand new shoes I've bought in about a year).

I rolled out planning to grab some boat shoes that I've had my eye on for quite some time. I had just talked my girlfriend into looking for some for herself, and I was pretty excited to add some Sperry Topsiders to my collection. We bounced back and forth between a few stores, checking out sales and trying stuff off, and I was struggling to decide between a few styles when these grey, boat-shoe-styled tassel loafers caught my eye. Up til now I've been pretty resistant to the tasseled look (I've even posted on some blogs to make this point), but these just looked suave. I showed them to Christine, kind of expecting her to shoot them down (she tends to hold me back from making too fashion-forward of purchases), but when I tried them on she loved them too. We kept shopping for a while longer, but I found myself comparing everything else to that pair of shoes, so in the end I went with my gut and voila: my new summer slip-ons:

Not only am I really happy with these shoes themselves (super comfortable, in a neutral color that will go with anything, and a toned-down fashion statement in their own way), but I'm also kind of proud of myself for following my intuition and making a bit of a knee-jerk buy. I love men's style and I love shopping for new goods, but I'm the kind of guy that rationalizes and over-thinks every single purchase. For example, I've been shopping for a plain, brown leather belt for oh, two weeks now. Should be the simplest buy in the world, but I still currently have about 10 tabs of belt options open in my web browser at home. I tend to make good, well-informed purchases this way, but it takes some of the fun and excitement out of the whole thing, so it was great to come home with a new unexpected fashion toy.

On a final note, how much does it suck buying casual wear at the end of the day on a Sunday, knowing you won't get a chance to wear your new finds until the next weekend rolls around? Ugh, the woes of being a working man. Still working on winning that Powerball...

Longview Loafers by G.H. Bass in Nut (color sold out, available in Navy)