Gear Patrol Magazine, Issue Nine: The Collecting Issue

Contents 18

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Found: Akai GX-747

A Reel Revival

Chasing Japanese Whisky

Big In Japan

Wish List

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34

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The world’s most desirable gear, right now

Crowded at the Top

Archivist: Running Shoes

Everything New Is Old Again

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64

68

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How to Hide from Big Tech

In Praise of Cheap Skillets

The Review: 2020 Porsche 911

Tested: Gin, Running Shoes, Sunglasses + more

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90

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How to Maintain a Dive Watch

Secondhand Style’s New Look

Bulk Buy

The Guide

2019 Ford Ranger Jacques Marie Mage Fitzgerald Leica Q2 Laurent Ferrier Annual Calendar Galet Montre École Opaline Dial The Macallan Edition No. 4 Technogym Run Personal

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CONTENTS

Features

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A Fish in the Water

A to Z of Collecting

Catch-and-release fishing means the prize fish always gets away. Avid angler Jacob Sotak heads to the Caribbean Sea to explore his love of a sport that never rewards a trophy.

From vintage bikes to a million-dollar bong to the most collectible sneaker ever made, a guide to collecting the Gear Patrol way.

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The History of Surfing Told by Six Surfboards

The Way of the Knife

Surf legend Eric “Bird” Huffman explains the evolution of the sport using examples from his 1,200-board collection in San Diego.

Manufacturers around the world use the Laguiole name but none match the craftsmanship of Forge de Laguiole, writes Will Price.

154 Timekeeper

The legendary watch auctioneer talks to Justin Fenner about his first mechanical timepiece, whether the perfect watch exists, and why he doesn’t consider himself a collector.

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TRAIL 2650 Inspired by the Pacific Crest Trail, designed for daily adventure.

Superior traction, breathable and versatile. Athletic performance meets more than 80 years of Danner toughness.

danner.com/trail2650

CONTENTS

Intel

162

164

176

Spring’s Slickest Rain Gear

Sneakernomics

Staying Sharp with Chef Roze Traore

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170

Nike’s Killer Collabs

NYC Norton, Jersey’s Coolest Bike Shop

178 The Styles Driving Spring Fashion

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192

194

The One-watch Collection

At Work with Sweats God Jimmy Gorecki

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Treat Your Closet Like a Showroom

Blu Dot and Lichen Talk Furniture Vintage and New

Bartender, Code me a Drink

OUTDOOR CREDIBILITY. EVERYDAY VERSATILITY.

MOISTURE MANAGEMENT

DURABLE FABRIC

UPF 30

W R A N G L E R . CO M

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

F Eric Yang

FOUNDER, EDITOR IN CHIEF

@hashtagyang | eyang@gearpatrol.com

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irst things first, welcome to the all-new quarterly edition of Gear Patrol Magazine. New cover, new design, same mission: to help discerning readers discover great products and explore product culture. The team has been up to a lot since last year, rearchitecting every last inch, word and idea about the way we write, shoot and design Gear Patrol in print. What hasn’t changed, though, is our dedication to richly produced stories with sharp photography, a global perspective and relevant ads.

Our first quarterly aims to be two things: a better seasonal compendium that explores a topical idea — for this issue, collecting — and a servicepacked guide focused on making you a smarter, savvier consumer.

Gear Patrol quarterly is organized into three distinct sections: The Guide, a series of briefings, reviews and essays focused on the thing we wake up for every morning, gear; Features, stories of makers, models and exemplars worthy of deeper exploration and thought; and finally, something I’m personally very excited about called Intel, our take on what I can only describe as acumen — knowledge, style and opinion.

During a late night chat amid a flurry of final deliverables ahead of press time, I was talking with our new deputy editor, Josh Condon, about the new orchestration of Gear Patrol Magazine. “It’s about having an honest conversation with our readers, not cramming layers on layers of stuff that tries to make us sound trendy or cool,” he said. “We want to get right down to what we do, which is product journalism.”

If you’ve been a longtime subscriber and read this column regularly, you probably know I’ve used

this page to yammer on and on about both products and the magazine industry. But in an era where its au courant to be cynical of both, I see our work and this magazine with a more optimistic view. We do it not to drive you to consume more, but to consume better.

Which brings us to to the topic of collecting, the theme for Issue Nine.

There are no shortage of reasons why people collect: a sense of order, nostalgia or even a validation of prescience. For some, collecting is driven by a desire to achieve some level of social distinction or identity. Others simply collect for bragging rights. But the best collectors don’t just amass, they edit.

As my life has reprioritized itself — fatherhood can do that to you — I’ve actually found my relationship with collecting to be more vibrant than ever. Sure, I still have a habit of accumulating Land Rovers, periodicals and other objets de design, but the aperture has ratcheted down significantly. I look for fewer things in better-considered places.

A byproduct is that I cherish the hunt even more than I used to, and the moments of payoff, while certainly fewer, are that much sweeter.

In the end, and something I believe you’ll find runs as a current through this issue’s topic, is a more sanguine perspective of collecting. My hunch is that the smartest collectors out there are also the best curators, blending information, perspective and taste into their passions. Today’s collector isn’t motivated by the rote maximization of things, but a better-edited, ever-evolving form of consumption — that is, the pursuit of selection and value.

Our timeless classic, rewritten in bronze.

With an ever-changing patina that reflects the passing years.

A single red hand that marks the present day. And a future that’s yet to be written.

The story continues.

Big Crown Pointer Date 80th Anniversary Edition

MASTHEAD

founder , editor in chief

ERIC YANG @hashtagyang cofounder , coo

BEN BOWERS @benbowersgp

deputy editor

vice president , advertising and partnerships

JOSH CONDON @jpc_nyc_

ZACH MADER @z_mader

managing editor , editorial operations

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ALI CARR @chasingalicarr

JASON DAKOTA DAVIS @KidDakota

senior editor

staff writers

account executives

JACK SEEMER @jackseemer

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TUCKER BOWE @j_tb3

ALYXANDER EFFRON @alyxeffron

BRYAN CAMPBELL @businessbryan

TIM MURRAY

MEG LAPPE @meglappe

MADELEINE WINROW @madeleinewinrow

senior associate editor

JUSTIN FENNER @justinfenner assistant editor

WILL PRICE

OREN HARTOV @ohartov

JOHN ZIENTEK @sieben_tagen

assistant editor , editorial operations

associate staff writer

J.D. DIGIOVANNI @jdedig

ZEN LOVE @zlo_watches editorial assistant

ANDY FRAKES @andy.frakes issue contributors

account manager

KEVIN O’BRIEN @_kevinobrien_ client success manager

GENEVA AUDUONG @genevaa25 sales planner

DOMINIQUE GAGEANT @dgag3ant campaign manager

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pacific northwest advertising director

KAILAH OGAWA @kailahogawa

CHRIS WRIGHT @wrights_writing

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STEVEN MAX PETERSON @stevep2007

GREG TATE @thegregtate

southwest advertising director

JUSTIN PARKHURST @justinparkhurst art director

deputy photo editor

JOE TORNATZKY @jtornatzky

HENRY PHILLIPS @henrysp

senior designer

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SHERRY WANG @sxw

CHASE PELLERIN @chase_pellerin

associate designer

associate staff photographer

HUNTER D. KELLEY @type_hunter

CHANDLER BONDURANT @chandlerbondurant

head of marketing

KYLE SNARR @kyality consumer marketing manager

CAITLYN SHAW @heyitscgs sales marketing coordinator

AISHA LOPEZ @aishalyn head of video and platforms

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NICK CARUSO @thenickcaruso

BRENDEN CLARKE @brenden.jpeg

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RENARD DAVIS @renardrey

SAMANTHA KEPHART @sammiekephart

head of gear patrol studios

MONICA HARE project manager , gear patrol studios

AJ POWELL @allenjamespowell deputy editor , gear patrol studios head of commerce

cfo

BRIAN LOUIE

BRANDON FRANK

MEGAN BILLINGS @meganblings content producer , gear patrol studios

RYAN BROWER @owen_brow

content director , commerce

JACOB SOTAK @jacobsotak Gear Patrol Studios is the creative partnership arm of Gear Patrol. Select advertising in this magazine has been crafted

by Gear Patrol Studios on behalf of brands to help tailor their message specifically for Gear Patrol readers. These sections are demarcated with GEAR PATROL STUDIOS.

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ISSN 2381-4241 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY PRINTED in USA by AMPER LITHO on

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ISSUE 9 TEAM

Behind The Issue

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The output is 208 pages of storytelling, but what about the input? Last December, Issue Nine was a glimmer in the eye of our staff.

In the intervening months we’ve touched a few continents, swam in a couple seas and bought way too many matchbox cars. Here’s what else we’ve been up to.

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THE GUIDE

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F

FOUND

1982 Akai GX-747 text by tucker bowe photo by henry phillips

Audiophiles' analog obsession is moving past vinyl: reel-to-reel tape players, popular in the '70s and '80s, are making a comeback.

They sound better than record players and look impressive on an audio rack. But unicorns are rare, and inexpensive machines on eBay probably haven't been maintained properly.

The pristine machine pictured here, an Akai GX-747 from the early '80s, has been fully restored by New Jersey's SkyFi Audio, which offers six- to 12-month warranties on its merchandise. Consider it non-negotiable: manufacturers like Akai haven't made a reelto-reel player in decades, and they won't provide support should something go wrong with your piece of precision equipment. $2 , 9 9 9

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The Reel Deal Reel-to-reel tape machines provide stellar quality, stunning looks and a direct connection to how music is made in the studio. No wonder hardcore audio geeks are rediscovering the tale of the tape. text by tucker bowe photos by henry phillips

All through the '60s, '70s and '80s, magnetic tape formats like the 8-track and cassette were audiophiles’ technology of choice.

They played high-resolution tracks, had an impressive dynamic range and dealt with relatively little signal processing.

The compact disc effectively killed these formats in the Nineties, with all major manufacturers — Teac, Akai, Sony, Revox and Panasonic — ending production of consumer tape machines not long after. But there are whispers of a revival, specifically for the large and beautiful open-reel machines that look like they came directly from the studio where Blood on the Tracks was recorded.

The renewed interest from purists has less to do with aesthetics than sound quality; there’s a reason reel-to-reel was the

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format of choice for professional music recording for decades, and it’s why some authenticity-minded modern artists like Jack White, Lady Gaga and The Black Keys still favor the technology. But if you’re on the hunt for a reel-to-reel player of your own, don’t make the mistake of buying something actually meant for the studio — those are designed primarily for recording, not filling your living room with deep cuts.

“A homeowner wants to play stereo tracks,” says Fernando Zorrilla, founder of SkyFi Audio, a New Jersey company that refurbishes old tape machines. “There are machines for playback of stereo that look identical to the ones made for studios — don’t buy yourself a studio machine, it won’t play right.”

Reel-to-reel tapes come in various widths.

Recording studios might use half-inch or 2-inch tapes but hi-fi hobbyists should stick to quarter-inch widths — and the machines that can play them. There are new examples on the market, specifically from German company Ballfinger, which sells four gorgeous handcrafted models direct from its Düsseldorf factory.

The only issue: entry-level models start around $12,000 and climb, precipitously, from there.

Third-party sellers like eBay, Reverb and Audiogon offer plenty of old models, but buyer beware: vintage audio products, even those from reputable brands like Teac, Akai, and Revox, require meticulous service to stay in good working order, so cheap finds that haven’t been properly maintained can cost you in the long run. A better bet is the blooming refurbishing scene, with companies like SkyFi Audio restoring old equipment to like-new conditions.

As for the music itself, that’s a hunt all its own. “Prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes are rare, but they exist,” Zorilla says. Resale sites like eBay can turn up some gems — The Beatles, Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are all available — but expect to pay top dollar.

“Those recordings can go for a hundred to six hundred dollars apiece,” says Zorilla. (A decent chunk of coin to be sure, but if you balk at the idea of paying several hundred

bucks for wonderfully rich music on a rare and authentic analog format, you might be in the wrong hobby.)

The real joy of reel-to-reel might be the genuinely weird finds specific to the format. Home recordings abound and can be uniquely fascinating — imagine finding some two-hour recording from a smalltown radio station back in 1975 — and for Zorilla, these tapes are the main draw.

“There’s tons of home-recorded material out there,” he says, “and it’s fascinating.”

(If you want to stick with the greats, check out The Tape Project, a California audio company that releases classic albums, du-

plicated from the master copy, on reel-toreel tapes.)

That DIY spirit lives on in the home tape machine, according to Chris Mara of Mara Machines, a Nashville company that exclusively restores consoles from the defunct manufacturer MCI. “You can buy a blank tape, record your own stuff and reuse it — unlike a vinyl record,” Mara says. Also superior to pressed records: the connection to how music is made, not just enjoyed.

“Audiophiles want to be closer to the source,” Mara says. “That means closer to what the artist is doing in the studio. Tape machines are definitely that.”

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Don’t make the mistake of buying something actually meant for the studio — those are designed primarily for recording, not filling your living room with deep cuts.

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TIME INSTRUMENTS FROM THE COCKPIT TO THE WRIST BR 03-94 Black Ceramic · Automatic chronograph

42mm

100m water-resistant

bellross.com

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Nowhere to Go but Gone

Demand for Japanese whisky has skyrocketed over the past few years, sending some endangered bottles into hiding. For rare-whisky collectors, the thrill is in the hunt.

t e x t b y m at t b e a n photos by chandler bondurant

The Task Rabbit was balking, but I had to save the deal no matter what. “Go quickly,” I pleaded. “I’ll tip you heavy.”

“You want me to hit a liquor store?” he asked. “And twenty miles outside of Pittsburgh?”

I told him that’s precisely what I wanted.

Task Rabbits are for fetching groceries, maybe hanging a TV, but I’d found a cache of Yamazaki 12, a rare Japanese whisky that had been cleared out of New York already. And it was cheap. The only way to grab it was the gig economy.

“State store number 0212. Make sure it’s the black box,” I said. “Grab what you can but leave enough for others. I’ll follow up with FedEx numbers when you score.”

The gambit was the latest in a line of increasingly desperate measures to stock my bar with Japanese whisky. It worked. A few days later, three neatly wrapped bottles of Suntory’s finest had arrived at my door for a total of $285, or $95 per bottle. That same whisky now sells online for $310 a bottle — and it’s climbing.

This was either a new low or a new high in my whiskey obsession. But anybody who’s

trolled StockX for Off-White Nikes or waited in line outside a Kith store knows the tractor-beam pull of the grail; whatever your genre, it’s as much the hunt as the trophy that gets the adrenaline pumping.

Whiskey is different, though. It’s exhaustible, consumable — there’s a layer of urgency that doesn’t extend to sneakers or watches.

These are anti-heirlooms, every bottle on borrowed time — or should be, assuming you’re not some cheap profiteer flipping bottles for a quick buck.

I got hooked on Japanese whisky in Japan.

During a visit to Nikka’s Yoichi Distillery in Hokkaido, I put down a procession of rare drams in the gift-shop bar for the price of a pickleback in the States. I toured the home of the founder of Japanese whisky, Masataka Taketsuru, and watched as a stout worker shoveled coal into ovens beneath giant copper pot stills, a traditional but highly inefficient method that’s been abandoned by virtually every other distillery in the world.

Back in Tokyo, I trolled a dozen convenience stores and liquor depots looking for a rare bottle to bring home: each shopkeeper would shrug and jab his chin toward a gap in

Suntory Hibiki 17 Last year, Suntory ceased production of Hibiki 17, citing shortages of this famous expression. Before you start calling every store within a 100-mile radius, know that remaining bottles will likely start around $700. If you need a quick fix, you could always buy a TSA-friendly bottle like the one pictured here. They go for about $70 a pop.

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the shelf like a missing tooth as if to say, “You really think it’d be that easy?”

I consoled myself on the top floor of the Park Hyatt, where the Suntory pitchman played by Bill Murray serenaded Scarlett Johannson’s character in Lost in Translation.

The 2003 film was one of the first mainstream portrayals of Japanese whisky in American pop culture and sparked a burst of interest among the general public, even if whiskey writers had for years been touting the craftsmanship of Japanese distilling.

Then, back in my room, an electrifying discovery: a tiny bottle of Hibiki 17 in the minibar. I had a start to my collection, even if it was only 50 milliliters.

Back in the States the hunt continued. I

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craned my neck walking past liquor stores, scanning for telltale bottles and logos. I began to speed-read entire shelves like one uniform glyph. Dusty-bottle hunting is a practice unto itself, the art of finding long-forgotten bottles of old bourbon languishing on store shelves. In the right region, you never know what you might find.

The search wasn’t all shoe leather. I pored over Google Maps and left breadcrumbs for future forays; on Instagram, I scanned geo-stamps of “haul pix” from other obsessives, zoomed in on their receipts and slid into their DMs with a sheepish “Any left?”

(You haven’t truly experienced ghosting until you’ve asked a whiskey nerd where to get the good stuff.)

Whiskey is meant to be shared, but the profiteering has become fierce. This is especially true for Japanese brands. When a product sits for 17, 21, 30 or more years, it’s hard to size up the demand for future releases, and in 2018 Suntory announced that certain caches of its sublime age-statement Japanese whisky were starting to dry up.

As it turns out, two decades ago Japanese drinkers were in the throes of a vodka obsession, so executives crimped the hose on the brown stuff.

Today, price gouging at certain unscrupulous bars means you can pay $100 for an ounce of certain Japanese whiskies, or $700 for bottles that used to retail for a tenth that cost. And while the imbalance between

MSRP and bar price hasn’t yet reached the level of Pappy Van Winkle, the rare Kentucky bourbon with a legendarily rabid following, anything with an age statement is marked up heavily and sold quickly.

That hasn’t stopped me. My head’s on a swivel and Instagram’s on alert. I’m in L.A. now, and I’ve already found a bar with accessible, practically generous prices on many rare Japanese whiskies. I’ll even tell you where it is: Rye, on Geary Street.

More good news: a $60-bottle of Nikka called From the Barrel was just named Whiskey of the Year by Whisky Advocate.

It’s around. You can buy it, stockpile it, even drink it without restraint. If you’re looking to start your own collection, it’s a way in.

For now.

facin g pa g e

Nikka From the Barrel More than 100 stock whiskies mingle inside Nikka’s From the Barrel blend, new to the States as of fall 2018. Whereas many Japanese whiskies have become rarer and more expensive with time, From the Barrel — released more than 30 years ago in Japan — went the other way. It’s widely available and costs just $60 at most liquor stores. Take advantage while you can.

this pa g e

Suntory Yamazaki 12 Suntory hasn’t discontinued its award-winning Yamazaki 12 whisky (yet), but that hasn’t stopped the price from climbing. In 2013, you could walk into just about any well-stocked liquor store and buy a bottle for about 50 bucks. Your best bet now? The online retailer Dekanta, which, at the time of publishing, has Yamazaki 12 listed for $310.

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Japan’s collector culture is in a league of its own, with an unrivaled taste level and attention to detail. Here, four overseas obsessions you should know. photos by chase pellerin

バ ン ダ ナ

Watch Magazines Like the country’s collecting culture at large, Japanese magazines are often painstakingly curated, highly detailed and full of enigmatic little quirks of design or storytelling. And since Japan is a force in the watch-collecting world, the horology enthusiast is especially well served, with entire publications dedicated to, say, obscure military timepieces, or nothing but vintage Rolexes—or something entirely weirder. Sure, the text may be largely (or entirely) in Japanese, but no matter: there’s plenty to glean simply flipping through the beautiful photography and checking out the specs. Plus, keeping a few on your coffee table gives watch-nerd friends something to geek out over when they visit.

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時 計 の 雑 誌

Bandannas Kazuhiro Hirata is best known as head designer for Kapital, the iconoclastic and uniquely creative Japanese clothing brand. But he also wrote the book on bandannas — literally — with Bandanna Book, an archive of 20th-century Elephant Brand kerchiefs. And while the designer often features the humble accessory in Kapital’s globe-trotting fashion collections, Hirata’s obsession is such that he also runs the two-story Elephant Brand Bandanna museum in Kojima, Okayama, with 250 examples from his personal collection. Want a touch of Hirata’s style? His playful Rat Brand bandannas are an homage to classic Americana but with a mix of traditional and radical designs; prices start around $20.

Vinyl Outer Sleeves Tokyo is home to some of the best record stores on the planet, each with its own meticulous taste and personality. Visit some notables — Disk Union, Jet Set Records, Technique — and you’ll spot a trend: they all use the same tough, translucent mylar sleeves with adhesive flaps. These safeguard LPs from dust and other pollutants far better than the cloudy, open polyethylene versions found stateside. If you take your record collection seriously, take note.

ザ ㆍ ノ ㅣ ス フ ェ イ ス パ ㅣ プ ル レ ㅣ ベ ル

The North Face Purple Label Hypebeasts might care about the label stitched into their down jackets even if most climbers don’t. But both groups appreciate the covetable violet tag found in The North Face Purple Label, a cult Japan- and South Korea-exclusive offshoot launched in 2003 by Japanese designer Eiichiro Homma. Until recently, collectors had to jump on a plane to Asia or enlist a proxy buyer to get their hands on fresh pieces, but TNF Purple Label recently began introducing its fashion-forward silhouettes to other cities around the globe — starting with New York.

レ コ ㅣ ド ア ウ タ ㅣ ス リ ㅣ ブ

Wish List 0 1 /0 6

2019 Ford Ranger Ford has been dominating the pickup-truck game since the first F-150 debuted in the late Seventies and immediately became the best-selling truck on the market. Today, the F-Series is not only the best-selling truck, but the best-selling vehicle of any kind in the U.S., full stop — a record it’s held continuously for 42 years.

But since 2011 there’s been a Ranger-shaped hole in Ford’s truck lineup. The midsize favorite has been out of production for nearly eight years, but Ford — always a savvy prognosticator of truck trends — heard the growing demand and jumped in with an all-new Ranger for 2019.

Overlanders, especially, should rejoice: not only is the smaller, more nimble Ranger able to tackle narrow fire roads and camping trails (unlike the hulking modern F-150, which is now sized like a commercial vehicle), it comes standard with a steel front bumper and best-in-class torque, towing and payload for non-diesel trucks. In fact, Ford’s so committed to the adventure community it teamed with outdoor outfitter Yakima to let customers kit their Rangers with customized truck-bed tents straight from the dealer floor, transforming any lone Ranger into a go-anywhere mobile camping unit. $24 , 300

t e x t b y b r ya n c a m p b e l l photo by chandler bondurant

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Nepal, May 28th, 1953.

Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary resting on the southeast ridge of Everest at approximately 27,000 feet.

Crowded at the Top

In a world with no “firsts” left, do incredible achievements lose their luster?

t e x t b y ta n n e r b o w d e n p h o t o c o u r t e s y o f r o ya l g e o g r a p h i c a l s o c i e t y

There are few stories that most everyone knows, but this is one: On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay climbed 29,029 feet above sea level to become the first humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The feat was soon beamed across the planet to every room with a radio, and the accomplishment remains lauded as one of the most important moments in the history of exploration.

Hillary treated the matter more stoically. On returning to camp he reportedly turned to New Zealander George Lowe, a member of his team’s advance guard, and said, “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.” In celebration, Lowe offered Hillary a cup of soup.

To accomplish something first is to assert your claim over it forever. In a 1999 interview with Outside magazine, Hillary said that “doing something for the first time, something that nobody has done before, is perhaps one of the most exciting things that can happen to anyone.” But what happens when there aren’t any firsts left? Without the allure of novelty, do unthinkable athletic achievements lose their shine?

Kilian Jornet, one of the world’s great ultrarunners, doesn’t think so. “Even if you climb the same mountain every day, conditions are different,” he says. “Different routes, styles. It can be as different as you want.” Born in 1987, Jornet came into the world after its most famous mountains had been summited, so he tasked himself with getting there fastest. During his multiyear Summits of My Life project, Jornet set speed records on many of the world’s most iconic peaks: Mont Blanc (4:57), Matterhorn (2:52), Denali (11:48), Aconcagua (12:49) and Everest (26:00, without ropes or supplemental oxygen).

Many of Jornet’s FKTs — fastest known times — have since been bested, but he’s not trying to leapfrog back in front. He describes his method as “a progression to be able to climb at high altitude in a minimalistic way … a way to learn and test.” You get the feeling that Jornet’s sense of accomplish-

ment comes from having done it, having ticked something off the list. That it’s enough to have once claimed a record, even if it no longer stands.

But “first” can hold more nuance than the word’s flat finality suggests. Twin sisters Nungshi and Tashi Malik, from Haryana, India, became the first siblings to conquer the Seven Summits, the tallest mountain on each continent, and the Explorer’s Grand Slam (which adds the North and South Poles to the endeavor). Their reasons for braving the famous expeditions go beyond personal achievements.

“While we climbed Everest in 2013 purely for fulfilling a personal mountaineering dream, our quest for the Seven Summits was inspired by the cause of the Indian girl,” Nungshi says. She describes Haryana as “one of India’s most conser-

“When you’re dropping in, it’s a first descent for you.” vative” states, and says a cultural desire for sons over daughters has produced widespread female feticide. The pair raised awareness for the mission through sponsors and on social media with the hashtag #mission2for7.

“We firmly believe that achieving world-level milestones by girls in a dangerous sport such as mountaineering will help shatter many stereotypes of girls in India,” Nungshi says. Climbing high-profile peaks allowed the Maliks to rise above the social constraints in which they were raised; the pair have leveraged their celebrity to establish the NungshiTashi Foundation, dedicated to both growing the sport of mountaineering in India and empowering girls through outdoor recreation.

The Maliks know firsthand that groundbreaking endeavors come with barriers — and that money is often among the most significant.

Tashi says the Seven Summits is “an attractive achievement” because “it symbolizes conquering the highest land features on each continent.”

Nungshi notes it’s “quite likely that sponsorships will come only through such accomplishments.”

In pitching potential sponsors on his idea to climb and ski each of the mountains in 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America, the famous book by Chris Davenport, Penn Newhard and Art Burrows, professional skier Cody Townsend made an explicit connection to the romance of the world’s highest peaks. “This is no Seven Summits or Explorers Grand Slam,” Townsend says, “but it’s in that vein.”

Sometimes, to be first is a matter of curation.

Not every descent in 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America is “the most gnarly or most extreme,” Townsend says, and all have been tackled previously, but before the book’s publication in 2010 those descents had never been positioned as a cohesive group. It presented Townsend with a pre-organized conceit around which to build a quest.

“It had nothing to do with being the first to tick this off,” he says. “It was more about climbing and skiing, doing it in North America.” For Townsend, holding too tight to the idea of first descents can demean the broader thrill of the sport: “When you’re dropping in, it’s a first descent for you.”

That sense of evolution clearly resonates; each athlete, in discussing their achievements, recalls an experience that transcended the physical: Jornet mentions “self-exploration,” the Maliks “a spiritual journey.” Townsend calls his “a deeply personal” challenge.

All conquests, from history’s firsts to the seemingly quotidian, force the body and mind not to avoid pain but to embrace it — and further, to seek out the profound pleasure of defying it. To savor the extraordinary feeling of confronting a seemingly impossible task, and knocking the bastard off.

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The Best Running Shoes Ever Made (According to Experts) text by meg lappe photos by chase pellerin

Runners are creatures of habit. Same socks on race day, same pre-workout snack, same routes retraced week after week. When even small disruptions like a broken waistpack can throw off a routine, imagine the panic when a shoe company decides to discontinue a favorite sneaker.

Once a shoe earns a spot in the rotation — through a highly personal calculus of race finishes, total miles, PRs, and successful workouts — runners will find a way to keep it there, even if it means scouring the Internet for new-old pairs and ordering by the half-dozen. But sometimes a sneaker just gets away. Here, five notable running shoes from years past, and the infatuated runners who still covet them.

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2014 Asics Gel-Kayano 21 “The Kayano 21s were the perfect width. My toes never felt scrunched together and they provided the exact stability I needed to get through my runs. I ran my first and second marathons in them. The colors were great, too — bright. I think I owned four pairs of the same color combo. The Kayano 21 was made for my foot and I’ve had such a hard time since finding a shoe that fits as well.”

Alex Weissner, Cofounder, bRUNch Running Notable: Out-of-the-box comfort and high cushioning Original Price: $160

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2011

2016

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2002

Brooks Racer ST 5 “I would only use this shoe for track workouts and races, buying a new version of the shoe one to two weeks out from race day to ensure it felt fresh on my feet. Some runners don’t believe in wearing new shoes on race day, but because I knew it well enough I liked having as much cushioning as possible. I have yet to find my new, lightweight, cozy race shoe, but I’m optimistic I’ll find one prior to my next marathon in May.” Chris Heuisler, Global RunWestin Concierge, Westin Hotels & Resorts Notable: Low-profile, affordable and stable Original Price: $90

Nike Pegasus 2002 “The Nike Pegasus was my first running shoe ever. I got a pair back in 1984 when I started [running] track. I probably bought ten to twelve pairs of the 2002s. It was my favorite shoe. It fit well and was breathable. I developed a hip injury after they took the shoe from $90 to $85.”

John Honerkamp, Founder, Run Kamp Notable: Soft mesh upper and roomy last Original Price: $90

New Balance Vazee Pace v2 “These were light but had stability, so it felt like they were good across all distances, especially longer ones. I ran the Hartford marathon [in them], where I hit my first Olympic Trial Qualifier and got an eight-minute PR. Since then, I’ve had four pairs and ran a couple marathons in them.”

Sam Roecker, Olympic “A” Standard Marathoner Notable: Quick, snappy and durable Original Price: $110

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2016 Adidas Adizero Adios 3 “I still remember my first run in these. It was supposed to be a relaxed 5K but the pace picked up — I was flying and it felt incredible. Good for training and racing. It was a more traditional-looking shoe but still sexy with a seriousness all runners appreciate. I’ve had about eight pairs. I’m currently training in one and have two fresh pairs in the boxes; I also have a retired pair for trips to the coffee shop or grocery store.”

Steve Dutko, Marathoner, Black Roses NYC Notable: Dependable, with reliable traction and a thin Boost midsole Original Price: $140

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2014 Hoka One One Clifton “The Hoka One One Clifton 1 was the shoe I kept coming back to. I still have my original pair for those nostalgic days. While durability was lackluster, the road running experience was game-changing. Unfortunately, the shoe changed considerably in future iterations. Even the Clifton 1 re-release from Hoka last year didn’t quite live up to the original experience. Oh, how I miss these shoes!”

Ethan Newberry, Owner, The Ginger Runner Notable: Light yet super cushioned, slim tongue Original Price: $130

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Wish List 02 /0 6

Jacques Marie Mage Fitzgerald Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses pay homage to a diverse array of style icons, including Hunter S. Thompson, Dennis Hopper and Bob Dylan. For the “Fitzgerald” model, designer Jerome Mage focused his sights on the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Kennedy had a penchant for acetate frames, sporting American Optical Saratoga sunglasses (often mistaken for Ray-Ban Wayfarers) instead of the military-inspired wire $525

text by john zientek photo by chandler bondurant

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aviators preferred by his contemporaries.

The Saratoga provoked countless copycats, and provides a blueprint for the Fitzgerald, though the glasses’ quality of materials and finishing is second to none.

Crafted in Japan from a 10mm block of plant-based acetate, the sculptural Fitzgerald frame features custom sterling silver hardware and vintage green CR39 lenses with an anti-reflective treatment on the backside. JFK surely would have approved.

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Everything New Is Old Again There’s a reason no one’s ever reinvented the wheel: some old things were just made right.

These six releases prove that good ideas come in familiar packages.

text by ta n n e r b o w d e n b r ya n c a m p b e l l will price chris wright john zientek photos by chase pellerin

W.H. Ranch Dungarees Jaguar D-Type Continuation Fender ‘62 Princeton Amp Made In Carbon Steel Skillet MK II Cruxible Nemo Switchback Sleeping Pad

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W.H. Ranch Dungarees Heritage Collection $375

Ryan Martin, a sixth-generation sewer and pattern maker out of Kansas, founded W.H. Ranch in 2011 because he wanted a pair of selvedge jeans like those worn by country musician Dwight Yoakam.

Tired of buying and altering Levi’s 517s, Martin drew on his skill to make a pair from scratch, then sold his best cowboy boots to buy enough denim to make 10 more pairs. They sold out within a week after Martin posted them online.

Through its Heritage Collection, W.H. Ranch now offers 12 historical-reproduction styles based on iconic Lee fits from the 20th century. Martin reverse-engineered each pattern after firsthand research in the white-glove Lee archives. “I was very intrigued by the Lee aesthetic,” he says. “The pockets were so interesting and the X configuration on the bar tacks was such a clever way to solve a problem of rivets scratching saddles.”

Heritage Collection jeans are made with historically accurate selvedge denim, which ranges from 12 to 14 ounces and includes hardware sourced from YKK, in Kentucky. Traditional fivepocket styles are made by Martin himself, and sell for $375 per pair. “Seventy-five percent of my orders go down to postage-stamp towns in Texas I’ve never heard of,” Martin says. “I used to sell half my stuff to Europe, but now it’s going to the authentic ranchers and farmers and cowboys that just want that old style, and a tough-as-nails pair of jeans.” — JZ

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$1,000,000 (est.)

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Let’s get something straight: continuation cars aren’t replicas, restomods or kit cars built in a home garage. They’re faithful recreations that use the same parts and methods to construct a car exactly as it was when it first rolled off the manufacturer’s assembly line. Most examples are little more than a greatest hits reissue, but the 25 “new” D-type race cars Jaguar announced last year are something else entirely: unfinished business.

In the 1950s, Jaguar set out to build 100 examples of the D-type, the legendary roadster that won the 24 Hours of LeMans three years in a row from 1955 to 1957. But a factory fire in 1957 destroyed several of the final examples, and only 75 of the curvaceous performance machines saw the light of day.

Using the same aluminum materials and monocoque construction — and fitted with the original’s snarling, operatic 3.4-liter straight-six engine producing 250 hp — these final D-Types will be built in Jaguar Land Rover Classic’s Coventry facility just as the original designers and engineers intended: fearsomely fast, lecherously beautiful and (still) unlike anything on the road. Jag hasn’t announced an official price, but going by previous continuations, expect to pay north of a million dollars to park a brandnew piece of English racing history in your garage. — BC

photo courtesy of jaguar

Jaguar D-Type Continuation

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Fender ‘62 Princeton Amp Chris Stapleton Edition $2,000

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Leo Fender was selling lap steel guitars and loud amps to country musicians long before his electric guitars graced the stage at Woodstock. According to guitarist Bill Carson, the “test-pilot” for the Stratocaster, Fender’s musical taste favored bands like Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys; he once gifted that group’s rhythm guitarist, Eldon Shamblin, a custom gold Stratocaster and Bandmaster amp.

Despite Fender’s love of country it took his namesake company 73 years to release a signature amp for a country musician. In February, Fender teamed with Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and guitar player Chris Stapleton for a reissue of a 1962 amp based on his personal favorite. “We haven’t done a hand-wired reissue of any Fender Brown amps from the early Sixties,” says Shane Nicholas, Director of Product Development, Electronics at Fender. “It was long overdue.”

Housed in a cabinet of solid pine, the ‘62 Princeton Amp Chris Stapleton Edition features the

same 6G2 amp circuit, Fender Vintage “Blue” tone caps and the Schumacher transformers from that decade. It also uses a custom Eminence 12-inch speaker, an alteration from the original that bolsters low-end range.

While this amp is a dead ringer for a vintage model, it never would have made the stage a half-century ago. “If you look at pictures of artists playing in the Fifties and Sixties, most of them didn’t play the small amps,” Nicholas says. “They played the biggest amp they could get.” Today, bands rely on PA systems to generate big sound, but that technology hadn’t been invented when this amp was originally manufactured.

“The fact that Chris Stapleton is using a 12-watt amp to play to 20,000 people in an arena is kind of interesting because you would imagine that Leo was envisioning this as an amp for the recording studio,” Nicholas says. “I don’t think the original designer would have ever dreamed that somebody would be playing this in an arena.” — JZ

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Made In Carbon Steel Skillet $69+

Cast-iron cookware sears food beautifully but so does carbon steel, long popular in professional restaurants, which has the added advantages of being lighter and naturally non-stick. So why doesn’t carbon steel enjoy cast-iron’s glory in the home kitchen?

Short answer: cost. Beautiful, handmade pieces from the likes of Blanc Creatives and Blu Skillet Ironware can be brutally expensive, which is why most restaurants make do with cheap, thingauge pans that warp over time. But Made In, a direct-to-consumer cookware brand from Austin, Texas, has found a sweet spot between cost and quality. The company’s Carbon Steel Skillet is made of thick-gauge steel that will survive prolonged use at high heat and has a low-profile curved handle that won’t rake the oven ceiling. All starting at under seventy bucks. — WP

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MK II Cruxible $649

“Vintage watches are really cool, but they’re an enormous pain in the ass,” says Bill Yao. Since 2002, Yao has toiled away in a tiny, unmarked studio just outside of Philadelphia, reimagining popular vintage watches with specifications and prices that allow the average enthusiast to afford his homages, sold under the name MK II (pronounced “mark two”), and to wear them daily.

But homages are not always welcome in the horology world; fans of the type of high-end or historic timepieces Yao uses for inspiration tend to be hyper-sensitive to anything they deem a ripoff. But Yao’s MK II watches have done something surprising: they’ve become collectors’ pieces in their own rights, with some examples going for twice retail price on the secondhand market.

That success is due in part to Yao’s design chops, but also to his perfectionism. He demands a strict level of quality from his supply chain. Early in the company’s history, with watches like the Kingston — modeled after the Rolex Submariner 6538 that Sean Connery wore as James Bond in Dr. No — this stringent approach led to interminable production delays of up to five years. But once deliveries were finally complete, frustration gave way to awe over the exacting build quality and value, and MK II’s place among the great horological microbrands was cemented.

Yao says his rigorous approach is inspired by U.S. military history — many of his watches are based off timepieces issued to the armed forces — as well as the soldiers themselves. His latest, the Cruxible, is modeled after the classic American A-11 field watch produced during WWII. “It’s an important piece of our history, an important part of the design work that America’s done,” he says.

But as Yao began studying the A-11, he came across a problem: the original, though iconic, was never a reliable watch. “Whether because of the production shortages during the war, or because watch companies wanted soldiers to have to buy new watches after the war, they were never made well,” he says. The A-11 was produced to rough specifications, so originals all looked different, constructed from whatever parts watchmakers had available at the time. Yao’s research told him that the A-11 had a water resistance of around six feet — hardly adequate for an American soldier slogging through the soaked terrain of Omaha Beach.

The Cruxible is an effort to right the wrongs of a legendary timepiece. Yao blended the best elements from different A-11 examples. He beefed up the original’s tiny size (originally 30- to 32mm) to 39mm, with a larger crown on a watch that still retains the original case profile. This gives the timepiece the same look as the original A-11 but keeps the midsection as thin as possible. The lug shape has been tweaked and the dial and hands now include luminous paint, but the original military look, with white Arabic numerals and blacked-out text, remains intact.

“No one had ever taken the time to do a good version,” Yao says. “I saw a lot of beauty hidden in the original. I knew if I could rescale or rearrange the design, it could live up to its potential.”

Yao felt bound by another hallmark of the A-11, one that can’t be defined by font or movement: the watch’s egalitarianism. During the war, the A-11 was issued across the U.S. military to soldiers of different races, religions and backgrounds.

“I wanted to remind people that the diversity of our country was key to our victory,” Yao says. “This watch would have been carried by everybody.” — CW

“I saw a lot of beauty hidden in the original.

I knew if I could rescale or rearrange the design, it could live up to its potential.”

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Nemo Switchback Sleeping Pad $50

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Take a close look the next time your dad drags out his camping photos from "back in the day." His sleeping pad was probably just a roll of foam. Companies have since figured out how to make thick, inflatable camping mattresses that are both lightweight and supremely comfortable. But as anyone who’s sprung a leak halfway through a ten-day trip can attest, durability remains a pain point.

That’s why Nemo equipment threw so much R&D behind its Switchback, and the dual-density foam from which it’s made. The closed-cell foam pad won’t pop or puncture, and is both plush and supportive. (The nodes are arranged in a natural hexagonal pattern inspired by crystallography.) It’s also far more packable than any of its forebears — even if it does thankfully borrow a few design cues.

— TB

Wish List 03/0 6

Leica Q2 Coming from any other camera company, the 2015 Leica Q would have been a flagship model: compact body, full-frame sensor, optically stabilized and autofocusing 28mm f/1.7 lens, huge electronic viewfinder — plus enough processing power to run an Apollo mission. Sure, it cost nearly twice as much as the nearest competitor, and the digital interface was a little clunky. But with the Q, a century-old company produced a thoroughly modern camera so popular that most people couldn’t get their hands on one for six months or more after its release.

Now, the Q2. New in 2019, it delivers every$4 , 9 95

text by henry phillips photo by chase pellerin

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thing photographers loved about the original while addressing all things they didn’t (except, perhaps, that price). The sensor is huge at 47.3 megapixels, the menus are clean and the compact body is weather-sealed, suggesting Leica has fully embraced the Q’s reputation as the travel camera supreme.

There’s nothing entirely new about the series’s second act, but a handful of smart updates add up to more than the sum of their parts, delivering an exceptional camera still friendly enough to produce excellent images without too much of a learning curve — assuming you can get your hands on one.

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G E A R PAT R O L S T U D I O S / P H I L L I P S AU C T I O N H O U S E

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G E A R PAT R O L S T U D I O S / P H I L L I P S AU C T I O N H O U S E

Perennial Collecting In the ever personal journey of watch collecting, the discerning team at Phillips searches far and wide to find timepieces suited for all genres of enthusiasts.

Phillips has been in the auction business since 1796, counting sales from the collections of Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, Franklin Roosevelt and Elvis Presley as part of its long history. Within its expertise today, Phillips sells some of the most coveted timepieces on the secondary market. Headquartered in New York and London, it’s currently holding up to six watch auctions globally per year and sourcing the timepieces for a sale is no small feat.

“We search the world for the highest quality collectors’ watches we can find, rejecting seventy to eighty percent of the watches proposed to us,” says Paul Boutros, Head of Watches, Americas. It may be expected that one of Phillips’s guiding principles is to always select watches that the team believes have enduring value. But, beyond this, Boutros and his team also choose pieces they would not hesitate to purchase themselves.

“Watches have such great stories to tell — whether it’s the history or importance of a model, the provenance of a particular piece, a noteworthy prior owner, or a watch’s unique functions and capabilities.” To Boutros, originality and quality are essential when both buying and collecting. That may be how Phillips ended up selling the highest-priced watch ever to appear on the auction block in 2017 — Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona, sold for $17.8 million. Yet in the ultra-personal business of watch collecting, Boutros is committed to offering a diverse selection of timepieces that touch a range of price points, hoping to meet the desires of every type of collector, from the novice to the devoted enthusiast. “Watch collecting is a journey,” says Boutros. “Having discipline, patience and being judicious are important characteristics for discerning collectors.”

T H I S 1 9 5 7 O M E G A R E F. 2 9 1 4 - 1 R A I L M A S T E R , A R A R E A N D W E L L- P R E S E R V E D S TA I N L E S S S T E E L W AT C H , S O L D F O R $ 4 5 , 0 0 0 A S L O T. N O . 4 8 AT T H E P H I L L I P S S T Y L E D . A U C T I O N I N D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 .

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How to Go Dark

You are in a fishbowl, fully exposed to all the watchful eyes on the internet. > > >

t e x t b y s t e v e n m a x pat t e r s o n

BIG TECH HAS EVERY CLICK, EVERY PURCHASE, EVERY "LIKE" — GOING BACK AT LEAST A DECADE — CATALOGED AND REPLICATED ACROSS SPRAWLING DATA CENTERS THE SIZE OF SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALLS. YOUR DIGITAL HISTORY ISN'T JUST FOR POSTERITY, IT'S FOR SALE. AND IT'S VALUABLE, FUELING ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS USED BY DATA BROKERS AND POLITICAL CONSULTING FIRMS TO PREDICT INTERESTS AND BEHAVIOR. IT'S A HIGHLY LUCRATIVE BOTTOM LINE: GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK, TWO COMPANIES THAT SELL AI AD-TARGETING TECHNOLOGY TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER, ARE VALUED AT OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS COMBINED. MOST PEOPLE DON'T EVEN REALIZE THEY NEED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES, AND EVEN FEWER KNOW HOW. BUT IT'S TIME TO ADMIT THAT THE PRECAUTIONS YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN YEARS AGO ARE NOW JUST A START. EXACTLY HOW DEEP YOU WANT TO GO IS UP TO YOU.

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_ENABLE FULL DISK ENCRYPTION

ST E P O N E _

Protect Yourself

_BULK UP YOUR PASSWORDS

_USE TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

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Large tech companies aren't the only ones out for your data. Organized cybercriminals and rogue hackers trade known vulnerabilities to break into phones and computers for financial gain. On dark-web markets, "fullz" — a full set of personal information, including Social Security number, birth date, address — can sell for a few hundred dollars if the credit score is right.

The good news is that subpar digital security is one of the easiest things to fix. First step: examine every URL. Do you trust the site? Will it infect your computer with a drive-by download? Are you staring at an imposter page designed to steal usernames and passwords? Only install software from sites you absolutely trust, and run downloads through VirusTotal, a free service (owned by a subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc.) that checks for malware by running files through dozens of antivirus services.

To protect your growing number of logins, use two-factor authentication with every site that supports it, from Amazon to Snapchat to your online bank, and faithfully apply software updates to patch vulnerabilities.

Enable full disk encryption — standard on Windows 10 and OS X Yosemite or later — which converts exfiltrated information into mumbo jumbo, making it worthless to prying eyes.

As a final precaution, revisit your passwords. All of them. Repeated names and phrases are a single point of failure; once cybercriminals break into one internet account, they have access to everything — email, social media, banks. Use a password manager like LastPass to generate and store strong, unique passwords. Also consider buying a physical two-factor authenticator, such as Security Key ($20) or YubiKey 5 NFC ($45) from Yubico.

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_DELETE FACEBOOK

> > >

_OPT OUT OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

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ST E P TWO _

Avoid Detection

_UNFRIEND EVERYONE

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If you're wary that Facebook manipulates users with AI to boost engagement, as critics charge, there's a simple fix: delete your Facebook account. If you can't quite take that leap, at least reduce your footprint on social media. Unfriend everyone you don't know. Install Social Fixer to turn off Facebook's AI-ranked posts and ads; the plug-in lets users choose from ready-made filters that strip newsfeeds of unwanted subjects (like politics) or keywords ("Putin"). If you want to do something similar on Twitter, try Larry Filter.

Even creepier: it's time to worry about facial recognition. Today's software can identify objects and people — not just who those people are but what they're doing and how they feel doing it. Amazon Web Services provides image recognition technology to companies and developers on a pay-per-use model, and use of the tech is widely unregulated. One previous client: the White House.

You can opt out of facial recognition on Facebook, with one catch: the software has to remember you in order not to recognize you. Instagram is no better: photos posted there are stored in Facebook's data centers, where AI machines distill the photos’ identities and stories into data — raw material for expanding user engagement and increasing advertising accuracy. Next time you consider a selfie, ask yourself how much that like is really worth.

ST E P T HRE E _

Close the Blinds _USE AN ANONYMOUS SEARCH ENGINE

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Ditch Chrome for Firefox. Google's business model depends on collecting and monetizing your data. Firefox is operated by Mozilla, a nonprofit corporation that promotes privacy.

Toggling Firefox's Do Not Track setting tells websites not to track you, meaning ad networks won't be able to spam you with ads for products you browsed on other sites.

The catch: there's no legislation or regulation requiring companies to honor this setting, and a website can ignore it with little or no consequence. The fix: a browser extension called Privacy Badger prevents uncooperative websites from using third-party tracking, while another called uBlock Origin uses customizable lists to block ad servers.

Install both.

Also, it's hard to hide from Google when you're googling. Switch to an anonymous search engine like StartPage, Qwant or DuckDuckGo. The results are generated independently from your identity or geography since these sites don't store personal information.

_PREVENT THIRD-PARTY TRACKING

_DITCH CHROME FOR FIREFOX

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_USE A VPN

_BUY A BURNER PHONE ST E P FOUR _

Cover Your Tracks

_USE A PREPAID VISA CARD

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_DISASSOCIATE FROM YOUR ISP

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It's time to disassociate from Verizon, Comcast or whatever internet service provider (ISP) gets you onto the web. Most people do this with a virtual private network (VPN), such as NordVPN, which encrypts web traffic and assigns users a virtual IP address.

This means no one can pin your internet use to a physical location.

To stay truly anonymous, you'll want to purchase the VPN service through Tor, a group of volunteer-operated servers that lets you surf the web anonymously, using a fake email account. Use a prepaid Visa card and a burner phone — preferably one bought at a garage sale with cash.

You'll also need your own Wi-Fi router, not the cheap one that your ISP rents to you monthly with your internet service plan.

Get a Linksys WRT3200ACM ($250) or ASUS AC5300 ($350) — both are fast and customizable. No matter what you choose, pay for it with cash and bolster its defenses by installing DD-WRT, an open-source, Linux-based firmware that gives you additional security options.

_BECOME A GHOST IN THE MACHINE

STEP FIVE _

Become a Nomad

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If you've completed steps one through four properly and practice good operational security, only a supremely sophisticated entity, like a nation-state's security agency, will be able to penetrate your defenses. But there is a deeper level.

To become a true nomad, untethered from any fixed position on the internet, you need to boot your computer from a USB stick carrying TAILS, or The Amnesiac Incognito Live System. This replaces default operating systems, like Microsoft Windows or macOS, ensuring your browsing activity is both anonymous and immune from forensic discovery.

Buy a USB stick with at least eight gigabytes of storage from a reliable manufacturer like SanDisk or Kingston Technology.

Still, a thorough scan of your network activity could identify a Tor browsing session — a way in. The only unassailable defense: make public internet connections in cafÊs and libraries, and never return to the same location twice.

Then and only then will you truly be a ghost in the machine.

> > >

_NEVER RETURN TO THE SAME LOCATION TWICE

_UNTETHER

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Cheap Skillets Are the Best Skillets Small-batch cast iron might look great on Instagram, but the pan you should hang on your wall is a cheapo Lodge. text by will price photo by henry phillips

A good cast-iron skillet should do two things: put a crust on just about anything and outlive its owner. But the only reason to spend upward of $100 for a 10-inch pan is if you care about aesthetics and pedigree. In terms of cooking performance, your basic $15 Lodge will hang with competitors several times the price.

Sure, it’s heavy and it feels like sandpaper. So what? It heats unevenly, just like pans made by hip indie cookware outfits across the country.

It takes seasoning well and it will outlive your house. It could put a crust on a bar of silver.

Machine-smoothed surfaces look beautiful hanging on the wall, and a bit too considered.

The best cast-iron skillets are cheap cast-iron skillets. Get a Lodge and don’t treat it nicely.

Your grandkids will still thank you.

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MAKE EVERYWHERE YOUR BACKYARD

For over 87 years, AIRSTREAM has perfected beautiful, handcrafted travel trailers that inspire you to leave the driveway. Whether it’s an audacious adventure of a lifetime or a spontaneous weekend getaway, Basecamp is there to make it feel like home. You can play harder, wander farther, and explore more knowing you’ll come home to a hot shower and a cold beer.

Stop wondering and start wandering. basecamp.airstream.com

Wish List 04 /06

Laurent Ferrier Annual Calendar Galet Montre École Opaline Dial text by oren hartov photo by hunter d. kelley

Laurent Ferrier is legendary among die-hard watch collectors and those fascinated by high-end horology, but few others are familiar with his extremely limited-production watches with eye-bulging price tags.

But if ever a Laurent Ferrier timepiece was worth the investment it’s now, with the release of the stunning Galet Montre École Opaline Dial, a complicated annual calendar with day, date and month that only needs to be adjusted once a year. The newest iteration is available with a gorgeous opaline dial in either black or white; a satin-brushed blue galvanic dial version was also released earlier this year at Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, one of the world’s premier luxury watch shows. $54 , 972 (AS S HOWN )

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W E LCO M E TO P E R F O R M A N C E S H AV I N G Y O U R FA C E W I L L F E E L T H E D I F F E R E N C E

QUICK-LOAD BLADE SYSTEM

MACHINED TO +/- 0.05MM TOLERANCE

OPTIMAL BLADE EXPOSURE AND ANGLE TEFLON COATED STAINLESS STEEL SPRING FOR OPTIMAL PIVOT AND FORGIVENESS

HIGH GRADE GERMAN STAINLESS STEEL

HAND-POLISHED FINISH

MILITARY-GRADE PVD COATING FOR EXCELLENT CORROSION RESISTANCE, CLEANABILITY, AND FEEL

O N E B L A D E S H AV E .C O M

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THE REVIEW

2020 Porsche 911 The world’s most iconic performance car enters the digital age with medieval levels of whup-ass. text by nick caruso

After 55 years of continuous improvement, the newest Porsche 911 is in almost no way the same machine as the simple, spritely, unadulterated sports car that debuted in 1964. The latest generation’s powertrain, chassis, materials, technologies and luxury would be unfathomable to the designers of the original 911, but what they would recognize immediately is that car’s now-iconic shape, all wide hips and flowing curves, as well its soul: unapologetic, unfussy, turn-key driving exhilaration.

This eighth-generation 911, internally dubbed “992,” predictably obliterates its ancestor in every measurable performance metric. It’s faster, more powerful and can handle turns in ways that would stupefy Beatlemania-era enthusiasts — as would the cost of a ticket to ride. The original 911

sold for around $6,500, roughly $53,000 in today’s money; a new 911 Carrera S, the base-level version when the 2020 model bows, will sticker for over $113,000.

The car’s size has ballooned, too. The modern 911 has evolved into a proper grand tourer, girthy and spacious and road-trip ready in a way that belies its ferocious capability. The cabin is decidedly high tech, with an expansive central display and digital gauge clusters; in lieu of the traditional shifter, drivers select gears using a futuristic toggle stick.

The future is not entirely bright. From angles both inside and out, the new car can appear uninspired. Purists (like me) may fear that Porsche’s sedans and SUVs, which have always fallen in line behind the 911’s visual direction, are now the design leaders in Stuttgart.

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The 911 has evolved into a performance-car category entirely of its own making.

But this car looks different for a reason.

The extra-wide rear flank makes room for a new and stronger braking system; wider, staggered back rubber (a 911 first); and gives the optional rear-steering system room to breathe. Plus, with the advent of the 992-chassis model, all 911s will now feature the same back-axle span, as opposed to varying the width for two- and four-wheeldrive variants as with previous iterations.

Those rear hips also house the newest version of the 911’s traditional rear-mounted

flat-six powerplant, mated to an also-new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. A sportier, seven-speed manual option is on the way, but that’s not the only change slated under the skin: Porsche says both hybrid and fully electric 911 variants are in the works. In the meantime, gas-burning buyers will enjoy the engine’s 443 horsepower, which blasts the car to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds, nearly a half-second quicker than the outgoing model.

Those are near-supercar numbers, avail-

able in the most basic 911 on offer. And since Porsche is famous for rolling out a succession of variants for every new 911 model, each more powerful than the last, it’s hard to guess just how high the performance ceiling will be set.

By design, the new 911 is comfortable, lavish, tech-laden and easy to drive — and also a face-ripping, physics-warping speed demon. It’s a compelling feat of engineering magic, a trick that endlessly amazed during our recent testing in Valencia, Spain.

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stripped-down, air-cooled Porsches of yore; modern 911 fans want, well, more — more power, more grip, more options, more bling.

But there are some things both groups can agree on: with the 911’s transformation into a proper grand tourer, the smaller, entry-level Cayman is now the true sports car in Stuttgart’s stable; the 911 has evolved into a performance-car category entirely of its own making; and the new back end is huge. Equally inarguable is this: after 55 years, the newest Porsche 911 is many things the original was not — big, monstrously fast, comfortable, tech-savvy, coddling — but in one key respect the car has never changed. It’s still an icon. It’s still a 911. And it always will be.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Engine: Twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-six Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic; 4-wheel drive Horsepower: 443 @ 6500 RPM Torque: 390 @ 2300 - 5000 RPM Curb Weight: 3487 pounds Top Speed: 190 MPH $120,600 (base MRSP)

photos courtesy of porsche

On city streets and highways and winding mountain roads, the 911 was a luxuriantly compliant and effortlessly thrilling GT car; on Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia’s home racing circuit, it became a planted and ludicrously fast performance machine, easily keeping pace with a professionally-piloted last-generation 911 GT3 RS on the hot laps.

Sure, the pro shoe was taking it (somewhat) easy on us mortals, but this car’s ability to make your average Joe feel like Jacky Ickx on the track can’t be overstated.

But outright speed is only one consideration for the Porschephile. Talk 911s with the enthusiast crowd and you’re bound to have hard opinions thrown at you like so many punches. Purists venerate the small,

Talk 911s with the enthusiast crowd and you’re bound to have hard opinions thrown at you like so many punches.

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Every year, thousands of new products pass through the Gear Patrol office. Here’s a quick look at the gear our team’s running through the wringer.

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CA L DE RA + L A B T H E GO O D

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A M ASS LOS A N GELES DRY GI N

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AGV AX9

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SA LO M O N S/ L A B U LT RA 2

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JAXJOX KE TTL E B ELLCO NNECT

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IWC P ILOT’S WATCH U TC SPI T F I R E EDI T I O N “ MJ 27 1”

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V E RM ICUL A R M USU I – KAMADO

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BOS E F RA M ES

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text by ta n n e r b o w d e n tucker bowe b r ya n c a m p b e l l justin fenner oren hartov meg lappe will price jack seemer photos by chandler bondurant hunter d. kelley

A highly effective blend of all-natural ingredients.

It’s hard to justify the price.

More guys would use nighttime serums if there were more nighttime serums like The Good, the first product from a young company called Caldera + Lab. That’s because the stuff works: our results backed up the claim that The Good has been clinically proven to improve skin tone and texture. After a month of diligent application before bed, our skin was brighter and clearer, and some dark spots had started to fade. Caldera + Lab ingredients are sourced in and around Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the brand is based, and it feels good using an all-natural solution packaged in a glass bottle. Still, there are plenty of effective serums at half The Good’s price — a fact you’re sure to notice after going through a few bottles.­­­— JF

$125, calderalab.com

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Smooth and silky, with a great backstory and handsome bottle.

Cardamom dominates the profile and the nose falls a little flat.

Amass calls itself the world’s first nomadic distillery, which means it works with different craft distillers for each expression. The brand’s first release, Los Angeles Dry Gin, comes courtesy of Morgan McLachlan, cofounder of The Spirit Guild, who used a mix of 29 botanicals in her smooth and flavorful recipe. That long list is dominated by the force of few — namely, citrus peel and cardamom — which means this gin is best sipped straight or on the rocks, rather than buried in a cocktail. If dry gins aren’t your thing — or you didn’t realize there was such a thing as a sipping gin — this release from Amass will be a pleasant surprise. — JS

$50, amass.com

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Watches.

Geneva.

Hong Kong.

New York.

Now. The team of specialists at Phillips Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service.

The global market leader in watch auctions with over $108 million in auction sales in 2018, Phillips is pleased to announce our upcoming Spring 2019 auction season led by The Geneva Watch Auction: NINE on 11 and 12 May. Enquiries watchesny@phillips.com +1 212 940 1395

Rolex. Daytona “Floating Cosmograph”, ref. 16528. An historically interesting yellow gold chronograph wristwatch with champagne dial and caseback engraving “A Angelo da Ayrton 1978”, given by Formula One driver, Ayrton Senna, to his mentor, Angelo Parrilla.

Geneva Watch Auction: NINE, 11 & 12 May Estimate CHF100,000-200,000

phillips.com/watches

Two-stage front ventilation is a welcome upgrade, as are premium interior materials.

Chin strap feels cheap and is awkward to operate with gloves.

Following a decade of iterations, AGV brings some welcome innovations to its top adventure riding helmet. The interior and neck-roll materials feel more premium than in the previous AX8 model, and the designers did a great job balancing the particulars of on- and off-road riding with a removable twostage front ventilation system. The exterior design is cleaner, too, with a larger and more efficient visor.

One source of frustration: the chin strap’s cheap, plastic snap button is difficult to secure while wearing gloves. Hardly a deal-breaker, but you’ll notice. — BC

$500, agv.com

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A polyurethane midsole keeps the shoe intact even after huge miles.

The price is prohibitive for many runners.

Salomon didn’t create the original S/Lab Ultra for casual trail runners. The brand made the shoe for French ultrarunner Francois D’Haene, who wore it while claiming the fastest known completion of California’s 211-mile John Muir Trail. That shoe was overbuilt for shorter distances, so Salomon removed one pair of its foot-cradling wings and added a lighter, more durable mesh to the upper. Given the price, the Ultra 2 probably isn’t the best choice for casual trail runners, but everything that makes it suitable for 100 miles at a go makes it great for 10, too. — TB

$180, salomon.com

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Shop the Gear Patrol Store Travelteq iPhone Case $37 Gear Patrol PATROL Tee in Grey & Navy $30 Small Gear Patrol Umbrella by Blunt $59 Gear Patrol x Miir Water Bottle $32 Large Gear Patrol Umbrella by Blunt in Navy $79 Twelve South PlugBug $49 Craighill Nocture Catch Maple $88

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Intuitive and changes between weights quickly.

Limited compatibility for activity trackers.

Gyms are getting smarter, but tech’s record in the fitness realm is spotty at best. While you might not need an intake-tracking water bottle or a shirt that measures your heart rate, an adjustable kettlebell that delivers between 12 and 42 pounds with the push of a button is clever indeed. KettlebellConnect saves major space, replacing six separate weights with a sleek package that will look (and feel) familiar to gym rats. The smart bell connects to an app for tracking workouts, but the UX is clunky and compatible activity devices are limited to the Fitbit brand. — ML

$349, jaxjox.com

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Fits most wrists and features an in-house movement.

Thick case, limited availability, expensive.

The UTC Spitfire Edition is not a brand-new design, even if the new version incorporates a fresh in-house movement, bronze case and green dial. The result of these updates is a sharp take on a unique dual-time watch. The UTC’s case is somewhat chunky at 14.2mm tall, but a moderate 41mm diameter helps it fit comfortably on a range of wrists. A jumping hour hand and 24-hour window allow easy tracking of a second time zone, making the UTC Spitfire a functional choice for the modern traveler who appreciates an old-school aesthetic with a bit of color. — OH

$8,950, iwc.com

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Looks great and you can sous-vide without the need for bags.

The precision cooker is capped at 200 degrees and the double handle can be awkward.

Prized in Japan for its do-everything functionality, Vermicular’s Musui-Kamado is a Dutch oven with an included electric heater. Its notable advantage over the competition is a lid so tight it helps transform a pile of veggies and a tablespoon of oil into a healthy stew with just 45 minutes of low heat.

The unit offers a waterless version of sous-vide cooking, and the temperature is adjustable by a single degree — but only up to 200. It would be more efficient for the Kamado to achieve browning temperatures using its built-in heating unit, but to get real color on meats and vegetables you’ll have to use the Dutch oven on a stovetop. But for a handsome, semi-analog multi-cooker with waterless sous-vide capability, the Kamado is a triumph. — WB

$670, vermicular.us

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The sound is very good and they don’t look obnoxiously techie.

The lenses aren’t polarized and you can’t (reasonably) wear them at night.

Bose is a behemoth in the world of speakers and headphones but its first experiment in eyewear, Bose Frames, is an unexpected torchbearer for the brand’s innovation. In short: they’re sunglasses — available in two frame styles, round (Rondo) or square (Aldo) — with speakers built into each arm. The sound is superb, even if there’s less bass than typical Bose headphones; they feel like a first-generation product but they’re still good enough that we mostly want more ways to wear them. More style and lens options, starting with prescriptions and clear lenses that make the Frames wearable at night. — TB

$200, bose.com

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Wish List 05/0 6

The Macallan Edition No. 4 Non-age statement (NAS) whisky is vague by definition, but transparency is what The Macallan master distiller Nick Savage wants to convey with the fourth installment of the distillery’s Edition series.

Released in tandem with the opening of The Macallan’s new distillery in Speyside, Scotland, Edition No. 4 follows in the footsteps of editions one, two and three. It’s similarly ageless, likely a blend of whiskies in the mid-to-late teens, and Savage wants drinkers to focus on something other than time in the barrel: the use of seven $ 100

text by jack seemer photo by chandler bondurant

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different casks types, each detailed on the presentation box along with their cooperage of origin.

These include a mix of American and European oak from Tevasa, Jose y Miguel Martin, Diego Martin Rosado and Vasyma, each imparting its own character. The whisky is notable in its own right, of course, a vibrant marriage of honey, toffee and citrus notes that doesn’t overwhelm. But the real appeal is broader. With this level of quality in a NAS offering, The Macallan may have finally proven that age isn’t everything.

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G

GUIDE TO LIFE

Maintain a Dive Watch text by oren hartov photo by hunter d. kelley

The dive watch is the ultimate “tool” watch — tough, purpose-built, utilitarian — even if most examples never get near a coral reef.

But while a good dive watch is resilient, it’s not invincible: even dedicated landlubbers need to keep in mind the watch’s particular features and vulnerabilities. Here’s what you need to know before you take the plunge, literally or financially.

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Screw Down the Crown Most dive watches feature crowns that screw into a tube fitted into the watch case, which, in turn, features a seal that prevents water from entering. But if the crown isn’t fully locked down when you go diving, water may find its way into the watch, possibly ruining the movement and resulting in a costly service.

Know Your Resistance Standard 6425 from the International Organization for Standardization defines a diver’s watch as “designed to withstand diving in water at depths of at least 100m.” If you’re not sure about your own timepiece, check the dial; if a watch is not rated to at least that standard, there’s a good chance it’s noted there. Under the century mark? A quick dunk in the pool is probably fine but repeated submergence is asking for trouble.

Deep Is Fine, Heat and Grease Are Not Sunscreen can damage the watch gaskets, while steam and extreme temperature fluctuations, like in a sauna or steam room, may cause them to contract or expand. When this happens, water can enter the timepiece — precisely the scenario it was designed to avoid.

Give it a Freshwater Bath While a real dive watch is designed to resist corrosion, you should always rinse it in fresh water after a dip in the sea. Turn the bezel as you do to fully flush out salt water and sunscreen, which can degrade the seals. Don’t use soap or other chemicals — the H₂O alone will suffice — and dry the watch after rinsing.

Service and Protect Plan to have your watch professionally pressure-tested every three to five years and, if necessary, have the gaskets replaced. Those tiny rubber O-rings are the only things preventing an expensive repair.

Even if you’ve inherited a vintage diver and the only bar pressure it will see is trivia night at the local pub, get it serviced anyway: the natural oils lubricating the movement may be dry.

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Secondhand Style’s Second Act text by john zientek photo by chase pellerin

eBay, beware: new enthusiasm (and venture capital) is growing the high-fashion resale economy beyond the borders of the world’s largest marketplace.

5 Sites to Bookmark

Used clothes are getting a high-touch, high-tech rebranding. Not into “secondhand,” with its whiff of musty, crowded Salvation Army racks? Maybe “archive fashion” suits you better — especially given the number of apps and services cropping up to feed the growing fashion-resale space.

The first companies to champion the idea were women’s sites ThredUp and Vestiaire Collective, essentially peer-to-peer consignment shops, which launched in 2009; DePop, Poshmark and TheRealReal followed in 2011. Menswear got its answer in 2013 with Grailed. The site was first to focus exclusively on men’s pieces, and offered a platform for buyers and sellers who were previously stuck haunting niche forums.

Two years later, sneaker resale platforms StockX and Goat gave sneakerheads the chance to shop rare and hyped styles that were previously all but untouchable.

Of all the upstarts, Grailed has wielded the deftest touch, exploring the many possibilities in men’s resale. The strictly peer-topeer marketplace (stores and brands not allowed) is shoppable via app and provides

a distinct style POV, something noticeably lacking on other platforms.

“We never want to be a faceless and voiceless company,” says Lawrence Schlossman, brand manager for Grailed. “Everyone who works here, to some degree, is a fashion enthusiast.”

Grailed might have a definitive point of view, but it’s inclusive: buyers can find everything from rare designer pieces and streetwear to vintage clothing and traditional brands, plus expertly curated sales and collections from celebrities and fashion industry insiders.

Schlossman says that Grailed’s success, and that of the fashion resale industry at large, is due in part to “secondhand being rebranded as archive fashion” — the recalibration lifted a stigma and added a premium shine. Not to mention guys were suddenly able to see economic opportunity in their well-curated closets.

“Not only do a lot of these iconic pieces within the menswear canon, regardless of genre or designer, hold their value,” Schlossman says, “they appreciate in value as well.”

Grailed

Poshmark

A peer-to-peer marketplace specializing in rare designer pieces, streetwear and vintage clothing. It curates sought-after garments that make it easy to discover hits from the past, and there’s education about top designers on the site’s blog.

The online equivalent of a flea market, with a staggering range of vintage, designer and run-of-the-mill apparel. Take advantage of the option to make an offer on any item.

Founded: 2013 Best For: Menswear aficionados

Founded: 2011 Best For: Deal hunters

StockX

TheRealReal

Etsy

A platform that allows sneakerheads to sell rare kicks, with valuation visibility to rival the stock market. StockX incorporates a social media element so buyers can showcase personal sneaker portfolios.

Unlike many peer-to-peer services, TheRealReal has inventory; it authenticates each item and prices accordingly. It’s more expensive than other platforms, but the upcharge is for peace of mind — it takes much of the guesswork out of secondhand shopping.

A favorite platform for makers, it’s also a go-to for vintage dealers specializing in everything from vintage Levi’s to rare Chimayo jackets to Fred Harvey-era jewelry.

Founded: 2015 Best For: Sneakerheads

Founded: 2011 Best For: Designer enthusiasts

Founded: 2005 Best For: Vintage buffs

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Wish List 06/0 6

Technogym Run Personal You can get away with cheap free weights or a below-par stationary bike, but treadmill quality can make or break a workout.

Your typical low-cost option has a short, stride-limiting belt and comes capped at 10 mph — that’s a six-minute-mile pace — making it useless for serious interval training among seasoned runners.

Then there’s the Technogym Run Personal, a state-of-the-art machine that can keep up with any level of athlete from hobby jogger to Galen Rupp. Bust out speed sessions at $16 ,050

text by meg lappe photo by chase pellerin

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11.2 mph or simulate proper hills at a precipitous incline radius of 15 percent (most treadmills can’t reach past 12). The large running surface has shock absorbers to reduce joint strain, while its silent motor won’t wake up the house during a late night workout. And with sleek good looks courtesy of Antonio Citterio, the Italian architect behind the Taipei Sky Tower, and Toan Nguyen, who’s penned high-design products for brands like Flos, Vitra and Kartell, you wouldn’t dream of hiding it in the garage.

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B

BULK BUY

Binder Clips photo by chase pellerin

If you’re thinking that you couldn’t possibly use more binder clips than you already have sitting in a drawer somewhere, that’s only because you’re not using nearly enough binder clips.

They’re as strong as they are cheap, come in a variety of sizes and can be used, variously, to organize cords, close a bag of chips (or a flesh wound), hold together a broken jacket and hang artwork. They work faithfully as keychains, money clips, toothpaste-tube squeezers, bookmarks, tablecloth holders, or if you wedge two together, a phone stand. Clamp a large one to the edge of a counter or table and use it to hold a spatula — or a pacifier.

Apparently they can also organize binders, if needed.

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A FISH IN THE WATER

Catch-and-release fishing has become the sport of choice for the conservation-minded outdoorsman. Obsessed angler Jacob Sotak travels to Belize to discover the experiences you bring back when the trophy is left behind. b y j . w . s o ta k photos by chandler bondurant

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brenden clarke

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Day one. The author on a tour of the Belize River.

I

am a statue gliding over a bleached flat, stiffened by salt and wind and sun. In the water ahead of me a silver knife cuts the surface and in a moment I am casting from the skiff, the fly streaking through the sharp Belize sky, the blisters on my hands forgotten. Sixty feet of line and months of preparation hang in the air. I square my shoulders and flex my knees. And I wait.

Good fishing stories ideally end with a fish. But the stories have changed in recent years, the romance of fishing evolving from brutish grappling matches on the open ocean (picture the conquered marlin, mounted in mid-leap on the wall, a reminder of the strength of the contest) to something faster, more precise, yet altogether more considered.

When you talk to a fisherman, a real fisherman, you are talking to a steward of the water. He is a lover of fish. He is angry about the vast islands of plastic poisoning the sea, and about ruinous overfishing and fishery mismanagement. Most of all, a real fisherman wants fishing to survive into the next generation and beyond. That’s partly why catch-and-release practices

have gained popularity in recent years: saltwater fly-fishing, a fast and athletic catch-and-release sport that seems more like hunting than fishing, is what fuels interest today. As with other sports, this one has its brash young talent, like Captain Will Benson, and its technical prodigies, like Maxine McCormick, who help define what angling means to a new generation of fishing enthusiasts.

The hobby has turned in a quick, kinetic and eco-minded direction, with amateur anglers setting off around the globe in pursuit of bonefish, tarpon, permit and more — but with plans to return home with no more than what they packed in, raising the question: What exactly are sportfishermen collecting if every fish is the one that got away?

Mike Heusner was born in Belize in 1939.

He grew up fishing the mangroves and keys around Belize city with his father, using cotton handlines and a small harpoon. The local fisherman taught him techniques for trolling kingfish.

After high school, Mike traveled to

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California for college, where he studied environmental management. He returned to Belize in 1970, and 10 years later was hired to manage the Belize River Lodge, then named Keller Caribbean Sports. A year later, he took another management position at a neighboring lodge, which then led him to start his own ecotourism and sport-hunting and fishing business. When Keller Caribbean Sports put itself up for sale in 1986, Mike got a call from the then-owner.

“He told me that he’d sell it to me for a good price,” Mike says as we motor up the Belize River on one of the lodge’s 23-foot fishing skiffs. “He said he’d give me thirty days to come up with the money, but then he’d have to sell to someone else.”

Mike didn’t have the money. The bank agreed to underwrite the purchase if he could come up with one-third of the funds himself. Mike started calling sportfishermen he knew, offering discounted trips.

“I offered them thousand-dollar trips for seven hundred and fifty. Thirty days later I had enough money to buy the lodge.”

Mike had sold anglers on a lodge he didn’t yet own, but he knew the rich waters would support the business. By the late ‘80s Belize River Lodge was a premier destination for adventure anglers. But the Lodge’s early success was tempered by Mike’s growing concern about the improper management of the fishery, a potential catastrophe that could destroy the fish population and capsize Mike’s business before it could truly take off.

On the water, Mike managed the guides and the guests; otherwise, he turned his attention to formalizing conservation efforts in the region. He joined the Belize Chamber of Commerce, the Tourism Industry Association and the Fisheries Advisory Board.

He lobbied relentlessly to get the three main sport fish — tarpon, permit and bonefish — legally protected from harvesting by designating them catch-and-release-only species, and brought in environmentalists and representatives from fishing gear companies to help educate his guides on best practices for hooking, handling and releasing fish.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

A 23-foot fishing skiff dockside at the Belize River Lodge; Mike Heusner, owner, Belize River Lodge; the main living room at the lodge.

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Through his advocacy, Mike Heusner joined a long line of angler-conservationists that includes Lee Wulff, who advocated catch-and-release practices as early as the 1930s, and Lefty Kreh, the fisherman, journalist and author who educated anglers and sportsmen about habitat conservation and the preservation of fish populations until his death last year at the age of 93.

It’s an idea of fishing that would have seemed as foreign to my grandfather, peacefully bobbing for catfish on the banks of Moonda Creek, as it does to the thrill-seeking suburbanite who plays out his Hemingway fantasy wrestling swordfish on a rented day boat. It’s an idea of angling that favors skill, care and craft over chest-thumping bravado, and here in the water under the hot flat sun, I will need all three.

Tarpon have been swimming the earth’s oceans for 100 million years. They’re thick, muscular fish that developed something interesting during their long evolution: lungs, of a sort. Tarpon are air-breathing fish. In the warm, low-oxygen waters of estuaries, bays and mangroves they break the surface to gulp fresh air, using their unique air bladders to flush oxygen over their gills.

This surfacing behavior is called “rolling,” and it’s one of the ways fisherman identify where the tarpon are. My guide, John Moore, has brought us to a small tarpon spot called Sugar Boat, named after the barges full of sugarcane that pass through the channel. We spend a few minutes blind casting with sinking lines and a pattern of my own making: a white Mangum tail with a white, orange and black EP fiber body and a red eye. John sights a tarpon rolling.

The fish is about 70 feet away, my max range with my current line in the 15-knot crosswind. I cast well and land in the feeding window. The tarpon turns on the fly and gives chase; I strip the fly, pulling the line hard with my fingers, mimicking the movement of the bait. The fish chases, shouldering through the waves. If it strikes it will require several hard tugs to seat the hook. In these shallow coastal waters with nowhere to dive, the tarpon may leap — up to 100 pounds of angry muscle launching out of the water, thrashing its head to loose the fly.

Instead: nothing. Gone.

A moment later the fish surfaces again, close to the same spot. I land a long cast, about 85 feet. The tarpon sees the fly, but my line has wrapped around the butt of the

ON THE WATER, MIKE MANAGED THE GUIDES AND THE GUESTS; OTHERWISE, HE TURNED HIS ATTENTION TO FORMALIZING CONSERVATION EFFORTS IN THE REGION.

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The author makes an overhead cast to a small group of bonefish.

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Tips For Adventure Fishing Trips This story was originally pitched around an entirely different ecosystem: the marlin, sailfish and swordfish off the coast of Kenya. When a terrorism high alert derailed our plans at the eleventh hour, we turned to Evan Peterson of Angler Adventures in Old Lyme, Connecticut to help plan an epic trip at the last minute.

Peterson, who arranges guides and lodging around the world’s great fishing destinations, broke down the tips and tricks anyone can use to maximize their chance for tight lines, or at least a good fishing story.

Airlines lose stuff. Always carry your fishing tackle — rods, reels, lines and flies — as well as two pairs of polarized sunglasses with different lens colors (to cover a variety of light conditions) and a day’s worth of fishing clothes. At least.

Consider getting a known traveler number, such as a TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry. It’s a small investment in advance, but can be a huge time saver when you’re traveling, especially with a bunch of gear.

An old, dirty fly line can affect your casting, so check your line before the trip. Or, better yet, buy a new one. A new fly line will be well worth the investment when you’re on the water.

Don’t waste good fishing time by showing up unprepared: study your species, practice your casting, and double-check your gear. And break in wading boots beforehand.

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THE PHYSICAL MASTERY NEEDED TO CAST A LONG, ELEGANT PRESENTATION OF THE FLY MEANS NOTHING IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE ECOSYSTEM IN WHICH THE FISH LIVES.

rod and I know if the fish strikes the line will probably break. I work quickly to unwrap the filament, but in that moment the tarpon is gone. John, an athletic, surefooted guide of thirty years who pilots the skiff like it’s an extension of his body, estimates it weighed about 85 pounds — a good fish.

Casting requires athletic coordination and efficient movement that prioritizes timing over speed and finesse over power. It took me two years before I could cast a fly with consistency, and two more before I could cast with deftness. Delivering the fly to the fish is yet another skill — hitting the target gracefully, without too much splash, 20 yards away and into the wind. To make it look natural.

The physical mastery needed to cast a long, elegant presentation of the fly means nothing if you don’t understand the ecosystem in which the fish lives: the water it prefers, where it spawns, how far it ranges, how it forages, what it hunts — and

then: the movements that its prey makes through the water and how to mimic it. The time and effort required to gain this knowledge demand a deep respect for the ocean and everything in it.

It’s not surprising that catch-and-release is more prevalent than ever. The conservation of fish populations has become a cause not just for environmentalists and the guides and outfitters whose livelihoods depend on flush waters, but for countless organizations and private companies. For many young anglers today, catch-and-release is the only practice they’ve ever known.

The long-term health of fish populations aside, it would have been nice to at least see a permit. They’re fast and skittish, the most elusive of the flats fish.

Anglers spend years, sometimes decades trying to catch one. Permit inhabit the flats, and I had a vision of sighting one coming in from the deep waters, its large black dorsal fin and sickle-shaped tail heading in with the tide to feed. Making an accurate cast with a crab pattern dropping expertly by the permit’s short flat snout before hooking one to the envy of all the old-timers at my fishing club.

But the permit, as always, remained out of reach, and on my last day, with the tarpon remaining hidden, I had just one more chance to catch something.

Bonefishing is sight fishing. The fish feed on the bottom of wide shallow flats, rummaging in soft mud for crustaceans. When bonefish feed they drop their heads, presenting an opportunity. These fish need to be stalked; they’re edgy and quick to flee.

The glint of a rod in the sun or a line flying overhead will spook them. But with their heads down, rooting around in the turtle grass, an angler has a chance to place a cast without being spotted. There is usually only one opportunity.

A strong eastern wind has been blowing for two days now, raising white-tipped waves and buffeting the skiff as we cruise.

John guides the boat around the half-sunken posts of an old dock. The wind has

The Orvis Mirage IV Reel mounted on an Orvis Helios 3D 8-Weight, 9-Foot Fly Rod.

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hemmed in the tide so the water is cloudy and deeper than usual, making the bonefish harder to spot, and a fly harder for them to notice.

The wind is whistling at 15 knots as John poles us along the lee side of the flat. He thinks the fish may have sought out these calmer waters. A large brown stingray emerges from the sand and skitters away.

We follow it, hoping perhaps it will lead us to a glint of scales.

Nothing.

I once fished with a guide in northern Canada who made an offering of tobacco at

the start of each day, breaking a cigarette and dusting the dry leaves over the water.

I have no smokes to offer and I worry I have offended the sly and capricious fishing gods. I’m sunburnt and my arms ache and my palms are swollen with blisters. I stand very still on the skiff, letting only my eyes move over the water.

John, on his perch, braces, then raises his arm and points. One hundred feet out, eight o’clock, a solitary silver torpedo cruising right at us. My nine-foot rod raises of its own accord, muscle memory ticking through its mysterious automatic math

as I factor in distance and wind, the speed of the fish, the drift of the boat.

The cast lands softly, five feet in front of the approaching bonefish. The imitation shrimp at the end of the line glides toward the floor: the fish is now a foot away.

I move the fly with short pops of the line to imitate a shrimp squirting through the water. The fish sees it, reacts, turns and accelerates. I retrieve the fly as fast as I can. The fish closes faster, tackles the fly — I yank the line, lodging the hook in the corner of its mouth. For a moment we are linked, each feeling the other register the

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facin g pa g e

A three-and-a-half-pound bonefish is released shortly after being caught.

I AM NO LONGER TIRED OR SUNBURNT. MY BLISTERS ARE GONE. IT IS ONLY ME AND THE WATER AND THE SUN AND A FISH AND A LINE THAT CONNECTS US.

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umbilical connection. The fish bolts, turning for the open sea, taking along a hundred screaming feet of line. We pull one another, jockeying for advantage, trading massive lengths of line — in and out again, and in and out. I am no longer tired or sunburnt.

My blisters are gone. It is only me and the water and the sun and a fish and the line that connects us.

I’ve spent countless hours reading fishing books, countless hours hunched over a fly-tying vise contemplating the exact colors a bonefish might find most alluring. For months ahead of this adventure I exhausted myself on rowing machine, doing deadlifts, working my forearms and my core, legs, and back. Kettlebells for my

grip. I practiced casting. I visualized the strike. And now I have a fish on the line, and the fish wants to get away but I can’t let it.

If good fishing stories end with a fish, this one is lean and silver like a wide flat blade, with an elegant curved dorsal fin. The fish is exhausted, dazed. I take the hook from its lip, lower the animal into the ocean and cradle it, letting the water flow over its gills.

The bonefish’s strength returns; it flaps its tail slowly, then with more strength.

But now, for the love of the sport, good fishing stories don’t always end with a fish. I watch this one swim away, back into the dark. I feel grateful, and I wish the fish well.

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Collecting is all about know-how, especially when it comes to cars, watches or million-dollar bongs.

We have all that covered and more in our alphabetical encyclopedia to the wide world of collectible, well, everything. The more you know, the more you know.

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AIR FORCE 1 The single most influential shoe ever made — period. There’s hardly been a moment in its 37-year history that Nike’s Air Force 1 wasn’t relevant. Introduced in 1982, the sneaker transitioned effortlessly from professional basketball courts to the runways of Milan and Paris. It’s been name-checked in the recording studio, immortalized on screens big and small and remains a perennial collectible thanks to limited-edition

color combinations, archival re-releases and collaborations with a Who’s-Who of designers and brands, including Riccardo Tisci, Sacai, Dover Street Market and Commes des Garçons Shirt. The hottest pair to cop right now? Any of the various AF1 collaborations with Off-White’s Virgil Abloh, whose signature touch, the word “AIR” (quotes and all) printed on the sole, can drive the price into the thousands.

BOX & PAPERS In watch collecting, completeness is key.

A vintage timepiece with its original box and “papers” (which can include the purchase receipt, manual and service records) is worth significantly more than just the watch alone. Collectors are interested in history and provenance, and these records tell a story about the watch — where it’s been, the sort of life it’s lived — that can help add to the piece’s total value. Word to the wise: next time you’re thinking of jettisoning the paperwork after a big watch purchase ... don’t.

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CASE KNIVES Collectible knives come in two main categories: custom jobs by revered blacksmiths, or those made with rare materials like turquoise, mother-of-pearl or wooly mammoth bone. One company in a league of its own is W.R. Case and Sons Cutlery Co., better known as Case Knives. Since 1889, the Pennsylvania brand’s creations have helped shape the definition of the American pocketknife: a smallish steel blade that folds into its handle. They’re affordable, too, which isn’t usually the case with collectibles. Case

uses tang stamps to indicate the year each knife was produced, denoted through a series of dots and Xs; these markings make a knife made in 1969 distinct from an otherwise identical blade produced a decade earlier. A community of collectors sprang up around attempts to collect complete runs of a single knife, like the Trapper, which has 73 versions of the same dual clip- and speypoint blade design. Looking for somewhere to start? We like the Texas Toothpick, with its curved handle and long, narrow blade.

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DAYTONA

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photo courtesy of phillips

The full name is the 1968 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona reference 6239, but collectors know it as the Paul Newman Daytona. Rolex’s motorsports-inspired chronograph has long been iconic, but when the model owned by the famed actor, philanthropist and (seriously talented) racing driver sold for over $17 million in 2018 — the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction — the Daytona became a certified legend and the most collectible vintage sports watch in the world. The good news: you don’t need to be a multimillionaire to own one. The model line is still in production, starting at $12,400.

EBAY The world’s largest virtual consignment-shop-meets-auction-house single-handedly changed the collecting game forever. When eBay came online, in 1995, users suddenly had unprecedented access to, well, everything. You no longer needed to “know a guy” to find a 1981 Teen Titans Marvel comic mistakenly printed with a DC cover — recently available on eBay for $1.2 million — or a coveted Barnesley Bros. mother-of-pearl pocketknife (grab one for $20,000). But the problem with having the world at your fingertips is that the world is vast and hard to curate, even when it’s all under the same digital roof. Here, three ways to add some genuine refinement to your search list.

For Fitness

For the Home

For the Wrist

Avoid the hypebeasts looking for sportswear “grails” and use the site instead to score gear originally made just for professional athletes. Use the terms “pro” and “elite” followed by the type of kit you want — shirts, shorts, leggings and more.

Or just check the Endure365 eBay store, which offers singlets, backpacks and warm-ups made for elite competitors, including some made for the Olympics.

For big-ticket furniture, stick to 1stdibs — a site that prioritizes authenticity and quality over volume — but eBay remains a great resource for collectible homewares from the mid-20th century, particularly Pyrex glassware. Rare and expensive Pyrex patterns like Lucky in Love still command top dollar (roughly $4,000 for a single piece), but you’ll find considerable value with some of the more common designs.

Search for 1964’s Terra collection, beloved for its matte, earthenware-like finish, or the humble Town & Country line in a variety of colors and shapes.

Using eBay for high-end vintage watch hunting is not advised (too much can go wrong), but American military watches from the Vietnam era are readily available and relatively affordable. Look for models with steel cases instead of plastic, and working movements. With some research and about two hundred bucks, you can get yourself not only a cool watch, but a genuine piece of history.

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FERRARI 250 GTO When is an old car worth more than a private jet? When it has a famous name, serious pedigree, scarcity — and looks like this.

At $70 million, the ‘63 Ferrari 250 GTO is the most expensive car ever sold (to David MacNeil, founder of the auto accessories brand WeatherTech, in 2018). Only 39 of the 250 GTO models were produced, between 1962 and 1964; this specific car won the ‘64 Tour de France Automobile and placed fourth at Le Mans. No, it can’t fly, but you can be sure there are more than a few billionaires willing to trade a Gulfstream (or two) for this car.

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GAMING The hyperrealism and epic open-world gameplay of titles like Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Fortnite are all well and good, but sometimes you just want to crush some Koopas in Mario Bros. Nintendo, Sony and Sega have all capitalized on this nostalgia trend with small, cheap, retro consoles with built-in games and HDMI jacks that play nice with modern TVs. But don’t throw away your vintage game collection just yet. Analogue, a third-party company from Seattle, makes beautiful, precision-fabricated machines that play

thousands of cartridges built for Nintendo’s NES, Famicom and Famicom Disk System consoles, as well as Sega’s Genesis, Mega Drive and Master System boxes, in full 1080p with zero lag and no emulation.

At about $190, it’s a more expensive proposition than the retro units, but Analogue systems also come with high-end wireless controllers and the ability to output proper hi-fi sound in 48KHz 16-bit stereo. The console wars are back, but this time, everyone wins.

H

HASSELBLAD

There are enough collectible cameras — from Leica, Nikon and Contax, to name just a few — to fill a separate magazine, but only one brand can lay claim to being the first camera used to take pictures on the moon. That brand is Hasselblad, the Swedish company that’s been making high-end medium-format camera equipment since 1841. The Hasselblad 500 that went into space with the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 was one of the few pieces of photo equipment to return to earth along with the film — most of the cameras and lenses were jettisoned for reentry due to weight concerns — and that piece of history sold at auction for over $900,000 in 2014. The company’s modern, earthbound equipment remains highly covetable: Hasselblad’s current hero model, the H6D-400c MS, retails for around $48,000.

I IPOD HI-FI

Apple released the Hi-Fi, its misguided play for serious audio consumers, at the height of its hubris, in 2006. It was gone the following year. And yet the Hi-Fi today inhabits that most rare niche: old, collectible technology.

Apple enthusiasts and collectors love it, and for good reason: it’s a sleek and well-designed all-in-one iPod speaker system that sounds great even 13 years on. Sure, the $349 price tag was

laughably high at the time (ironically, the HomePod launched at exactly that price point, in 2018) and the 30-pin Dock Connector became obsolete almost immediately when Apple switched to USB charging. But the Hi-Fi has a certain quirk and personality that modern Apple products lack — you can throw six D-cell batteries into it to make it portable — and the 3.5mm audio jack in the back was a presciently analog bit of future-proofing.

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JUNK DRAWERS

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photo by chase pellerin

Marie Kondo’s war against clutter has turned “junk” into a curse word, something that apparently has no place in the American home. But everyone needs a little place to let loose. Amid our collective organizational obsession, junk drawers may seem like defeat, but a bit of contained mess can be downright liberating, to say nothing of useful. Where else can you find a ballpoint pen, a working lighter and a bottle of aspirin, all in the same place?

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KAMCHATKA There are pow stashes, and then there’s Kamchatka. The volcanic peninsula in Russia’s Far East Region was a no-go military zone until 1989, and three decades later it’s still mostly undeveloped and nearly impossible to get to. Visas require a formal letter of invitation; travel time can top 24 hours.

That’s precisely why Kamchatka is the bucket-list destination for hardcore skiers and snowboarders, the kind who don’t mind climbing into repurposed Soviet-era Mi-8 helicopters to get to their summits. Once there, the slopes are vast, crowdless and laden with light, creamy snow. There’s so much terrain, you’ll never retrace a descent in a day — or a week.

For après: vodka, naturally.

top to b otto m

Gueuzerie Tilquin Oude Mûre Tilquin à L'ancienne Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio Jester King Brewery Spon Méthode Traditionelle

L photo by chandler bondurant

LAMBICS Aging isn’t just for wine. While the growing popularity of IPAs and session lagers might suggest fresh is always better when it comes to beer, it’s not true for lambics, a style from the Pajottenland region of Belgium brewed with wild yeast and aged for years before bottling. Traditional examples can sit for decades on the shelf, encouraging connoisseurs to trade rare bottles like Pokémon cards. Here’s what you need to know to start your own beer cellar.

Aging

Rarity

Unlike lagers and ales, lambics can flourish for decades after they’ve been bottled and corked. Store your bottles upright in a cool, dry place, and drink the fruited beers sooner — within two years past the bottle date — as those flavors flatten more quickly.

Hard to find stateside, bottles from Belgium’s most famous producers, like Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon and Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, go for hundreds of dollars on the black market. Find them on forums or online marketplaces like mybeercollectibles.com.

Type

Controversy

There are many different kinds of lambic, but the two most famous are gueuze, a blend of one-, two-, and three-year-old lambic, and kriek, which adds cherries to the mix. (Other styles incorporate black currants, peaches and raspberries.)

Sticklers argue true lambics can only be made in Belgium. But plenty of American breweries have successfully approximated the style — to some eye-rolling overseas. Notable examples include Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine, and Austin’s Jester King Brewery.

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MOTHERSHIP The sight of superfans waiting in line for high-profile drops from fashion brands like Supreme or cult craft brewers like Tree House is old hat; a queue for bongs, though, may come as a surprise. Unless you’re talking about Mothership, the high-end glass company out of Bellingham, Washington. Founded in 2012 by Scott Deppe and Jake Colito, the artists’ intricate and meticulously crafted glass creations

gained a fanatic (and well-heeled) following: in 2016, an elaborate, gold-encrusted skull version of the brand’s flagship “Fab Egg” hookah sold for $100,000 — and prices for one-off and collaboration pieces have only gone up since then. Now, collectors regularly line up outside of boutique head shops the night before shipments arrive, ready to drop between $500 and $10,000 for authentic Mothership glass.

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NATIONAL PARKS PASSPORT BOOK Fewer than half of all Americans have passports, but you don’t need to cross an international border to start compiling stamps. With the National Parks passport book, a 112-page permit the size of an address book, you can collect up to 418 imprints, one for each of the country’s federally protected reserves spanning nine different regions. Kids will look at the rainbow of stamps (they’re beautiful, by the way) and recall towering redwoods or tiedyed sunsets — and so will you. Now that’s something worth collecting.

0

Carol Lim and Humberto Leon’s friendship, sparked when they met as undergrads at UC Berkeley, has left an indelible imprint on the world of fashion. In 2002, the pair founded Opening Ceremony, a retail boutique named for the Olympic tradition that brings the entire world together at once, and began collaborating with pretty much every name brand imaginable. To date, they’ve worked with Burberry, Columbia, Marmot, Vans — even Disney. Those partnerships, and the duo’s irreverent take on design, have made OC’s four outposts — two in NYC and one each in Los Angeles and Tokyo — must-stop destinations for collectors of fashion and design, and have established the duo as two of the biggest driving forces in fashion and one of the most influential retailers in the world.

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photo courtesy of opening ceremony

OPENING CEREMONY

photo courtesy of porsche

P

PORSCHE’S SECRET STOCKPILE The Porsche Museum is the second-coolest Porsche collection in Stuttgart. Hidden in plain sight nearby is Porsche’s other repository, a drab warehouse full of historic vehicles deemed not quite ready for prime time, but infinitely more intriguing than even the sleek, polished legends on display in the museum proper: scarred old race cars; bizarre, one-off experiments; and sawedin-half display vehicles used for auto shows and press launches. We’re not suggesting you book a ticket to Germany and try to talk

your way in to see the four-seat 911 prototype from 1961, or the V8-powered 965 engineering mule (they probably won’t let you), but to consider instead that some of the best collections aren’t advertised or put on tour to be plastered across social media.

The secret hoards, the cast-off misfits, the weird little mistakes — these are often the most compelling specimens. And they’re everywhere, if you know where to look (and how to cajole).

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Q QUODDY

Few things scream “Collectible!” less than a stodgy Maine bootmaker best known for its preppy bona fides. But while a new pair of Quoddy boots is hardly a flex, a mint-condition pair of new deadstock shoes from the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s is a serious style coup. Rigorous scrolling through eBay or Etsy will only turn up a handful, so be sure to also search resale threads on StyleForum or Reddit. Look for a “Made in Brazil” stamp on the insole for authenticity — the company works with Amazonas, one of the best sole-makers in the biz — and be prepared to part with two hundred bucks or more. Play your cards right and you’ll be the first to wear them.

RED BAR

RedBar cofounder Adam Craniotes explains how a boozy get-together between friends turned into a global collectors event for watch aficionados and industry pros alike. “RedBar began over ten years ago when Dr. Jeffrey Jacques and I resolved to meet once a month to talk about our shared passion, horology, over drinks in midtown Manhattan. (Yes, the name of said watering hole was Red Bar.) That this idea might play to a larger crowd never crossed our minds, but even so, our group of two soon became three, then five, then ten. Before long, we were meeting once a week, and soon the watch brands were taking notice. But through it all we kept the focus on face-to-face interaction and, above all, fun. Today, RedBar spans the globe with fifty-five chapters, yet the vibe remains the same as when it was just the two of us sharing our thoughts over Coronas and Skittles bombs (don’t ask). We measure passion, not the size of one’s wallet, and that will never change.”

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photo courtesy of red bar

R

STEEL-FRAMED BIKES New steel-framed bikes aren’t hard to find (you can get one for cheap at your local Walmart), but one place you won’t see them is the Tour de France, where advanced materials like carbon fiber and titanium have dominated for years. But beautiful, collectible vintage steel frames — from Bianchi, Colnago, Stelbel and more — are still in demand, and the old-school style is enjoying an American-made resurgence with com-

panies like Speedvagen and Breadwinner.

Our current favorite steel-frame artisan, Koichi Yamaguchi, spent years in his native Japan making custom bikes for professional riders. Now based in Rifle, Colorado, the master builder creates his custom frames — including components like stems and time-trial bars — entirely by hand. The first step to your own Yamaguchi bike? Adding your name to the waitlist.

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TECHNICS SL-1200 USB TURNTABLES The Technics SL-1200 dates back to the early ‘70s and the turntable quickly reached icon status among DJs who liked the high-torque motor design; it was ideal for beat-mixing and scratching and offered the ability to quickly cue up and start tracks.

Audiophiles followed suit, and today the SL1200 is considered the industry standard — vintage models are highly collectible, and the fact that the series was discontinued in 2010, then resurrected six years later, only adds to its lore.

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If you’re more into hunting vinyl than geeking out over the machinery that plays it, you’ll be glad to hear there’s been an influx of entry-level all-in-one turntables with an integrated phono preamp so you just need to add speakers to start spinning. Many have another neat trick: a USB connection that lets you digitize your records into mp3 or FLAC files. In addition to backing up your stack, that means you can take your collection — in all its authentic imperfect glory — on the road with your phone or computer.

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VINCENT BLACK SHADOW Some call the Vincent Black Shadow the world’s first superbike.

When it debuted in 1948 with a top speed of 125 miles per hour, it became the fastest production motorcycle on earth — surpassing even the Talbot Lago T26 Grand Sport, the world’s speediest car at the time, by a single mph. Made in Hertfordshire, England, with an air-cooled four-stroke V-twin and hand-fitted bearings and engine parts, the Black Shadow spawned a racing version that set a motorcycle land-speed record of 150.3 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

If you’re searching for a one-bike collection that encapsulates history, speed, engineering innovation and stunning good looks, look no further.

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WHITE WHALE A “white whale” can mean many things.

It’s the impossible get; the be-all, end-all addition that finalizes or even defines a collection, whether it’s a watch or a guitar or a particular bottle of Chateau d’Yquem.

For the cast-iron collector, though, there’s only one true white whale: the Spider Skillet. In 1890, American cookware legend Griswold Manufacturing embossed a spider in its web on a No. 8 model; it was made for less than a year, and whereas some vintage cast-iron pieces can go for hundreds of dollars on eBay or at estate sales, a single Spider Skillet commands thousands. Isaac Morton, founder of Smithey Ironware Company in Charleston, South Carolina, explains the appeal of the world’s most collectible pan: “I’ve never laid eyes on a Spider Skillet. The Spider is to cast-iron collectors what the Inverted Jenny is to stamp collectors. It may be sacrilege — like mailing a letter with an Inverted Jenny — but I’m imagining what fun it would be sear a thirty-ounce tomahawk ribeye on a Spider. Utility, decadence and gluttony all in one package.”

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LEVI’S XX The seminal version of the legendary Levi’s 501 featured a single back pocket, a waist cinch, buttons for suspenders and went by the name “XX.” Introduced in 1879, the XX is the world’s oldest jean, its moniker chosen to reflect the “extra, extra heavy” weight of the material. It’s basically impossible to get your hands on an original pair — Levi’s keeps its only example sealed in a fireproof safe — but luckily the style was reintroduced in 2009, so hardcore denim-heads can sport their own little piece of blue-jean history.

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f r o m le f t , cloc k wise

YOUNGTIMERS YOUNGTIMERS

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Seventies muscle cars and mid-century luxury sedans are out. Thanks to shifting collector demographics, new-classic European and Japanese “Youngtimers” from the ‘80s and ‘90s are on the rise. Gen Xers finally have some disposable income at hand and are spending it on their childhood

poster cars — that means Nissan Zs, oldschool Supras and shark-nosed BMW 6 Series over Nixon-era Challengers and Mustangs. The best part: there are still plenty of desirable Youngtimers on the market for $25K or less. But don’t sleep on these — the appreciation is only set to grow.

p h oto c o u r t e s y o f r m s ot h e b y 's

2005 Acura NSX, 1993 Mazda RX-7, 1994 Toyota Supra Twin Turbo Targa

ZALTO GLASSWARE

photo by henry phillips

Your home bar doesn’t need a mishmash of wine glasses in all manner of shapes and sizes. It only needs one: the Zalto Denk’Art Universal, an elegant but surprisingly durable creation that’s become the go-to for wine pros pretty much everywhere.

Unlike the round edge found on industrial glasses, the lip of a Zalto is flat and incredibly thin, virtually erasing the tactile sensation of glass on your tongue; this delivers unrivaled clarity to wines red or white, cheap or expensive. And although each handblown vessel will set you back about sixty bucks, you don’t have to be precious with it. The Zalto is the perfect server both for a weeknight white or that special bottle of California cab aging in the basement.

Drink Now Keller Riesling Rheinhessen Trocken 2017

Drink Later Ridge Monte Bello 2015

White wine offers incredible value, and perhaps no grape more so than German Riesling. This example comes from Klaus-Peter Keller, the leading producer of the Rheinhessen region. It’s sharp, acidic and straight-up refreshing, with notes of stone fruit and melon.

Monte Bello is one of the world’s great cabernet sauvignon blends. The first vintage, 1962, cost just a few bucks at the time, but the wine’s unfailing reputation for intensity and elegance has made it one of the most coveted releases of the year.

Grape: Riesling Appellation: Rheinhessen, Germany Price: $20

Grapes: Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, cabernet franc Appellation: Santa Cruz Mountains, California Price: $215

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Surfing

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Surfboards

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as told to jon coen photos by mark tesi

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er ic “ bir d ” hu ffman keeps

the entire history of modern surfing in a 4,000-square-foot corrugated tin prefab structure in San Diego. Around 1,200 surfboards cover the walls and ceiling of Bird’s Surf Shed, narrating the entire evolution of the sport from 10-foot-long single-fin Balsa guns up to short, modern thrusters. Huffman, who’s been paddling out for over 50 years and working at surf shops for just as long, sees each piece as part of a larger chronicle.

Each board becomes part of the story — who shaped it, where it was ridden; how, when and where it was made.

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Jon Coen sits down with Eric “Bird” Huffman to talk about his love of surfboards, the art of not collecting and the community he’s built.

So, you’re not a collector?

I don’t consider myself a collector. All these boards have been acquired through my surfing. They’re friends’ boards, donated boards and trade-ins. I don’t go to garage sales, swap meets or collector events. I’ve never been on eBay or Craigslist. They’ve all found their way to me through other channels. Each board becomes part of the story — who shaped it, where it was ridden; how, when and where it was made.

There are a lot of collectors who get boards and just hang them. But you actually let the public borrow boards.

Even the vintage ones?

Most of them. If they’re on display, customers are welcome to come in and sample boards from different eras and different styles. Quite a few manufacturers have come in and used them as an archive where they can pull down various shapes and look at design qualities, different thicknesses, dimensions, rails and everything about

the boards. What is old can be made new again. It’s a great resource for people to use.

And I have everything that goes with it.

I’ve accumulated a great collection of wetsuits, t-shirts and magazines. Anything acquired over the past forty or fifty years is available for people to borrow, research or do what they need to do.

Although most surf shops build their reputations on surfboard selection and knowledge, the money is made selling apparel. But you seem to do a lot of business in surfboards.

My business plan is pretty different than most so-called surf shops now. When other shops moved away from boards and their minimal profit margins to focus on making money through apparel, I made a dedicated effort to go back to the way things were when I started working in shops in the late Sixties and early Seventies; I opened my shop to revive that lost art of being knowledgeable about surfboards. I got to work with some of the best surfers and shapers

FROM LEFT, CLOC KWISE Bird’s Surf Shed; a '70s egg signed by iconic shaper Skip Frye; a jacket signed by local surfer Rylen Rubens; surf trophies; Bird with a 1970s Steve Lis fish.

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through all those years. So we’re much more hard-goods oriented. We specialize in buying, selling, restoring and appraising boards. We carry essential surf goods, everything a surfer needs. If you want all the doo-dads and whatnot, there’s nothing wrong with that, but there are plenty of other places to get it. We trend more toward the nuts and bolts.

And the Shed is not just a retail location. You’ve also created something of a community space, right?

The building has 20-foot ceilings. It’s 40foot wide and 100-foot deep, so it lends itself to exactly that. I’ve installed a large screen, a rear projector and 250 chairs.

We’ve had everything from film premieres and wakes to local political meetings, book signings, shaping clinics and birthday parties. Any need for a space, something unique, the Shed’s available.

It doesn’t seem that you’re focused on pro surfing, travel or any of the peripheral aspects of the sport. Boards are really your passion.

Absolutely. I’m interested in the boards, the history of the boards and the various people that made the boards – not just the shapers, but the sanders and the people who did the color work. As far back as I can remember I was privy to all that. I was exposed to people and knowledge that has been forgotten. I have an aptitude for memorizing this stuff and it’s super important to be able to be able to tell people what’s up and why. These are the facts. You can come in here and literally see the history in the boards.

These fish-shape surfboards from Eric "Bird" Huffman's collection are based on the 1970s fish shapes by Steve Lis.

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1944

1966

1972

9’8 Planing Hull

10’0 Gordon & Smith

6’9 Hansen

The majority of boards then were made by a surfer for a surfer, and each area in California would have maybe two or three gurus that had a slightly different take on designs. Simmons was considered to be a pretty revolutionary shaper. He was a knowledgeable guy, really into hydrodynamics. This was his personal board.

It’s solid balsa, probably sixty pounds. It was designed to rise up out of the water with a hydrofoil effect. Simmons was at the forefront on design. I bought it from the guy who had purchased it from Bob himself.

This was something of a Golden Age. After the Gidget movie era of the late Fifties and Sixties, surfing pretty much took right off. Society was exposed to the cultural aspects in various ways. At first, it was friendly, fun and light. Then surfers themselves got a bit of a reputation for being kind of beatniks and eventually hippies because they lived an alternative lifestyle. Surfing was first and other responsibilities were based on them being able to surf. This board is foam and fiberglass. It has a stringer made of wood and the fins were, for the most part, permanently attached to the board.

Removable fins were just starting to come into play, mostly so [the boards] would pack easier when they were shipped, but they became a performance enhancing system. The surfing level had improved quite a bit because the equipment had improved in terms of design and material. Gordon & Smith was one of the largest producers of the time.

There was a dramatic shift from longboarding to shortboarding basically bought on by the Australians called the Shortboard Revolution. One year the boards were 9’6 to 10’2. The next year they were 9’0 and then half a year later, they were sub-seven. Surfers were building their own boards, taking the materials and getting creative for more aggressive surfing. It put a lot of companies out of business. Nobody would ride boards over a certain length. Major surf shops closed and the whole sport changed quickly. Hansen wasn’t as big a label as Hobie or Dewey Webber, but the quality was on par, if it didn’t surpass it. And, it came out of the San Diego area, which was a hotbed [for shaping] because of the diversity of waves — reef waves, sandbottom beaches and point waves. It really lends itself to developing surfboards.

Shaped by Bob Simmons

Material : Balsa Wood Fins : Single Fin

Shaped by Skip Frye

Material : Polyurethane Foam and Fiberglass Fins : Single Fin

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Shaped by Joe Roland

Material : Polyurethane Foam and Fiberglass Fins : Single Fin

1973

1986

2018

5’6 Fish

6’8 Bill Barnfield Surfboards

5’6 Firewire Evo Helium

Steve Lis was a kneeboarder. I grew up as a kneeboarder as well. We would ride waves on our knees on shorter boards. It was frowned upon by the general surfing populace and drummed up all kinds of derogatory terms, like “half-man.” But, kneeboarders pushed the limits of wave-riding; you could fit yourself into parts of the wave that had not been so accessible. Steve Lis came up with the design of a fish, which was a specific twin fin — very short, high volume, flat board with speed. It had similar width, float, stability but a much shorter length than what people were riding.

People thought it was a trend because it faded away, but it returned in the late Nineties. I put on an event called “a fish fry” where everybody got together at the beach, had tacos and rode fishes. To this day, a fish is a standard board in everybody’s quiver. This particular board has no label; Lis never had a brand. It was an underground time. A lot of the boards were garage-built and having a label was somewhat dubious, marking you as someone who didn’t have the know-how or creativity to get boards built for you on the side.

Simon Anderson was a World Tour surfer who developed the thruster setup with three fins. Bill Barnfield, a premier shaper in Hawaii all through the Seventies and Eighties, latched onto that design very quickly in the early Eighties and tweaked it a little bit to work better in Hawaiian waves and larger surf. There were major changes to surfing again later in the Eighties.

It became very style-conscious and commercialized. There was a lot of money in the industry and the integrity of surfboard-building started to suffer from the masses of people surfing. Unfortunately, the clothing, the posing, the look [of being a surfer] became more important than the function of the surfboard. But Barnfield remained dedicated to the performance and quality.

The biggest change in the last fifteen years has been revisiting designs and trying to further them. There’s a wide variety of different shapes of boards and, most importantly now, variety of materials. Surfboards are not earth-friendly. Everything about them is petroleum-based. Now, finally, people are working toward a more sustainable board. Firewire is using plant-based epoxy and wood and their EPS foam — while still foam — is stronger. These boards are not hand-shaped, but built off templates with a computer overseas. Daniel Thomson, who goes by “Tomo,” created this board. He’s the most innovative shaper that I’ve dealt with, harkening all the way back to Bob Simmons. He’s studied hydrodynamics and incorporated formulas into building boards. The [boards are] unorthodox looking in terms of the outlines, designs and bottom contours. But there’s performance benefits. All boards flex nose to tail, but these actually flex rail to rail as well. They have a parabolic wooden rail built around the perimeter of the board that gives a whole other dimension. The Evo Helium is the Swiss Army knife of surfboards. You can ride it in two-foot to solid overhead waves. You have to have the fundamentals of surfing down because the board is somewhat technical.

Shaped by Steve Lis

Material : Polyurethane Foam and Fiberglass Fins : Twin Fin

Shaped by Bill Barnfield

Material : Polyurethane Foam and Fiberglass Fins : Thruster

Designed by Daniel Thomson

Material : Paulownia Wood, Polystyrene Foam and Epoxy Bioresin Fins : Convertible, Three or Four Fin Set Up

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WAY THE The slim, curved shape of a Laguiole knife is instantly recognizable, which is why there are so many companies stamping the name on cheap blades. The French government says standards don't matter when it comes to cutlery — Forge de Laguiole, the world's only Laguiole knife maker based in the tiny French village of the same name, begs to differ.

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text by will price photos by chandler bondurant

THE

KNIFE

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Horns from the Aubrac cow were among the first materials used to fit the handles of Laguiole knives. They are still used today.

he village of Laguiole is perched high on a plateau in France’s Massif Central range, in the heart of the Aubrac countryside. It is filled with stone houses with gray-shingled roofs that are blanketed with snow in the winters and overlook colorful fields of wildflowers in summer. According to the official census, some 1,200 people live in Laguiole, but one local put the number closer to 500; a single walk through the quiet, picturesque cattle town is enough to believe it. Bakery windows are painted with bulls’ horns, and the brawny silhouette of the local Aubrac cow appears on much of the town’s signage. A large brass bull stands in the town square.

Milk from the Aubrac cow is used to make the local unpasteurized blue cheese, Tome de Laguiole, which is certified by the French government with a designation of appellation d'origine contrôlée, or AOC. This official stamp guarantees specific

quality standards and geographic proximity, and acts as a certificate of authenticity for well-known French products — wines, butters, cheeses — both inside and outside France. But Tome de Laguiole is, at best, the region’s second-best-known export.

Laguiole’s most famous product by far is the distinctive slender knife of the same name. Originally a multitool for peasants of the Aubrac Plateau, Laguiole knives are found in the world’s greatest restaurants — and also in cheap faux-French cafés, small-town steakhouses and bargain homegoods stores. You can buy a set of eight on Amazon for $21.99, with the option for next-day shipping, or a single handcrafted piece made over the course of two days for several hundred dollars.

This is because there are relatively few limits on who can use the Laguiole name.

Officially speaking, there is no such thing as an authentic Laguiole knife.

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ACCORDING TO THE OFFICIAL CENSUS, SOME 1,200 PEOPLE LIVE IN LAGUIOLE, BUT ONE LOCAL PUT THE NUMBER CLOSER TO 500; A SINGLE WALK THROUGH THE QUIET, PICTURESQUE CATTLE TOWN IS ENOUGH TO BELIEVE IT. T H E CO L L ECT IN G ISSU E G E A R PATROL

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Laguiole knives come in one, two and three-piece variants. Tools typically include an awl or a sommelier corkscrew.

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The left and right plate of the knife's interior hold the spring in place, and the knife together.

Three pins punch through the handle and bolstered plates, fastening wood, bone and horn.

Blade and spring are forged together — the last large parts added during assembly.

Pierre Jean Calmels invented the Laguiole droit (“straight Laguiole”) knife in 1829 while working as the village blacksmith. It was a basic design meant for farmers; the handle was carved from the Aubrac cow's black-tipped horn or ivory, and the blade came to a central point. Later, Calmels updated his design, adding a fold-out trocar, a slim surgical awl used to puncture a cow’s rumen to relieve bloat. The blade was lean and slightly curved.

When the Industrial Revolution drove local farmers into the cities of Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille and Paris, they carried their Laguiole knives with them. As the design gained popularity, it picked up other distinctive embellishments: forged handle bolsters; designs chiseled along the spine; a Shepherd’s Cross hammered into the handle; and a hand-engraved bee fitted atop the spring. A corkscrew, for sommeliers and picnickers. Today, all are hallmarks of the iconic French folding-knife style. But the Laguiole knife is just that — a style.

Although widely recognized, neither the Laguiole design nor the construction is protected by the French government, European Union, or any other entity. Numerous companies around the world — in China, Pakistan, even other parts of France — churn out cut-rate versions stamped with

the same name, and there’s no one to say that they can’t. Those knives, the kind you buy as a wedding gift for your cousin, are imprinted with the Laguiole name but not its soul.

Virgilio Muñoz is one of the best craftsmen in France. This is not simply hometown bravado: Muñoz, a master bladesmith at Forge de Laguiole, is one of few to hold the title of Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, or “one of the best craftsmen in France.”

He has been making knives for nearly five decades, and when I meet him on a snowy January day, his hands are covered in oil and metal rubbings. Ebony, mammoth ivory and reef coral line his workbench, set to be transformed into handles. When asked about the importance of making knives in France, he corrects me. “Not made in France,” Muñoz says. “Made in Laguiole.”

Later, in the scorching, oily heat of the Pit, the name for the downstairs level of the Laguiole plant, another man in a burnt apron is shouting over the incessant crashing, telling me to stand back.

“Very hot!” he yells.

The cheap Laguiole-style knives sold in big-box stores are mass produced, punched from sheets of low-hardness steel and then sharpened and assembled in bulk. Forge de Laguiole, as the name suggests, owns and

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The blade starts its journey rounded and dull.

Then it's cut, forged and tempered.

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operates its own forge, a massive furnace used to melt and shape metal.

The Pit is removed from the quiet, finesse-driven work of the craftspeople upstairs. This is where Laguiole blades are cut from sheets of bespoke T12 steel, sourced from the French steelworks Bonpertuis, then blasted in an induction oven at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the crude blades are glowing red with heat, a three-man team uses a large mechanical hammer to drop 600,000 pounds of pressure onto the metal, a process that seals cracks and breaks apart impurities.

To harden the steel, blades are dipped by the basketful into a hot oil bath. I watch the man in the burnt apron use a long, hooked pole to open the door of a large box, unleashing a searing blast of heat. Inside sits a basket stuffed with knife blades, everything glowing the same lava-red; the man uses the hook to pull the basket over the vat of super-heated oil and 10-foot flames shoot up, engulfing the metal.

“Makes them strong!” he yells.

After the blades are cooled in a separate quenchant oil, they’re sharpened and polished by hand. Then, Muñoz and his team

of handle-makers, engraving artists and smithies go to work.

In a long room, workers in chainmail aprons cut bone, horn and wood to handle length and work them into shape on leather wheels. Each handle is punched with tiny pinholes that will be fitted with the rivets that hold the knife together; the ancient symbol of the Shepherd’s Cross is added to the wood by hand. The hardware — springs, rivets and liners — is crafted from the same premium steel as the blade, unlike lesser models which opt for cheaper metal or plastic.

From there, the knife is passed off to one of five engravers who will hand-chisel the spine with ornamental decorations, a process that takes a half-hour for each knife; each engraver will finish just a dozen or so knives per day. The blade is then leather-polished hilt to tip, re-sharpened and presented to the inspection team, who check the weight balance, folding action and polish. Rejected knives will go back for more work. In a typical day, Forge de Laguiole produces around 400 finished knives.

Despite its old-world craftsmanship,

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“MODERNISM HAS NOT YET INVADED THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY AND CHANGED THE WAY WE DO THINGS, AND LIVE.”

le f t

Yves, forge manager for more than 30 years, holds the blade spring before and after pressing and engraving.

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Forge de Laguiole is not an ancient company born in a time immemorial; the brand was founded in 1987. But this was not an attempt to capitalize on a famous name. It was a bid to preserve it.

Forge de Laguiole is the only coutelier that makes, machines, finishes and assembles every piece of a Laguiole-style knife in its place of origin. It employs more than 100 knife-makers, metalworkers, sales people and support staff in Laguiole. Thierry Moysset, the brand’s CEO, speaks grandly of the Forge’s mission. “It is cutlery, yes.

But it's also culture, it's heritage and it's history,” he says.

All types of manufactured goods can be protected by governments and also the World Intellectual Property Organization, which issues “Geographic Indications (GI)” based on a location’s historical relationship to and reputation for the things that are made there. Forge de Laguiole knives do not have GI protection, but the brand is attempting to obtain it; Moysset says such designation would not only allow custom-

ers to buy knives backed by a certified quality guarantee — as with the local cheese — it would recognize history and help preserve it.

But among the world’s best chefs, particularly French chefs, true Laguiole knives need no higher recommendation. Michelin-starred cooks like Eric Ripert, Gérald Passédat, Sébastien Bras, Alain Ducasse, Guy Savoy, Pierre Gagnaire, Anne-Sophie Pic and Jean-Georges Vongerichten have all used the cutlery in their restaurants, and Laguiole has produced custom orders for clients such as Montblanc, David Yurman and the New York Yankees. The company is not looking to gobble market share or triple its output. The forge is running hot.

On a quiet snowy day in a mountain town with as many cows as people, it is easy to recognize what Laguiole is trying to preserve and export: a slower, more considered, more lasting view of the world.

“Modernism has not yet invaded this part of the country,” says Moysset, “and changed the way we do things, and live.”

More than 50 engravings are used throughout Forge de Laguiole's catalog, all of which are done by hand.

The chiseling of the springs is done by a five-man team situated in the heart of the forge's assembly hall. The job takes six years to learn.

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Timekeeper text by justin fenner portrait by alex teuscher for phillips

The most influential man in watch collecting doesn’t consider himself a collector — even though he owns more timepieces than he can count.

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Over the past three decades, the 48-year-old Aurel Bacs has worked in or consulted for the watch departments of the world's biggest auction houses. And though the Zurich native won't take credit for the market's meteoric rise during that time, he remains an important witness to its radical growth.

Since 2013, Bacs and Livia Russo, the equally formidable auctioneer who happens to be his wife, have led Bacs & Russo, an independent consultancy that curates auctions for Phillips. Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona, which took the record for the most expensive wristwatch ever sold when it went for close to $18 million in 2017, is just one of the lots in the many sales they've worked together.

But despite having a hand in building some of the world's most important collections, and owning more watches than he knows what to do with, Bacs doesn't consider himself a collector. Instead, he refers to his hunt for the perfect watch as more of an addiction — one he hopes to never truly satisfy.

This interview has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

Let's start with something a little philosophical. How do you define being a watch collector? And do you consider yourself one?

I'm delighted that you asked me this, because if you hadn't I would have thrown in a rhetorical question and said, "Who says that I am a watch collector?"

Let's throw out some definitions. Is a watch collection defined by its size? No, because I know people who have a hundred watches, and it's done without intellectual and emotional involvement. It's simply somebody who has a high credit limit on his Black or Platinum card, and he just goes out buying randomly. He's not a collector.

But somebody with ten pieces can be a collector. It can feature all those elements I mentioned, the emotional and intellectual aspect.

[To describe someone like me], I think "addict" is probably more appropriate. He can never get enough, both privately and professionally. He remains on the hunt. It's the hunt that is the big portion of the fun and the stimulation and the satisfaction.

I'm glad you brought up a quantitative consideration, because I'm interested in how many watches are in your personal collection right now.

I beg you and your readers not to judge me when I provide you my answer. This is sincere: I don't know. I've never taken the trouble to count them. One fair answer is: more than I need, from a practical aspect. And a collection, by the way, is not something frozen, static. A collection is like a garden, it is dynamic, it evolves, it changes because your taste, your interests, your focus can also evolve and change.

What would you say, then, are the hero watches among your personal collection? The ones you'd never part with?

I think for sure I would not like to associate a price tag as a criterion to what makes a watch a hero watch.

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That's understandable. Which ones do you love the most?

Without hesitation, my answer is the pieces that have a personal story. They're much more important and meaningful to me than pieces that may be more valuable but that a nice cheque could replace next week.

One of the least valuable watches that I own is one of the most relevant to me. That was a watch that this last Christmas I was offered by my twelve-year-old daughter. It is a Tissot Visodate Seastar PR516. It's the very [same] model as the first mechanical watch that I bought with my own savings when I was probably twelve or thirteen years old.

How did she find it?

She decided that she wanted to offer her dad for Christmas a watch to add to his collection. Maybe a week or so before the holidays, I was in a watch shop with my wife and saw that watch and said, "Wow, this is the very watch that I had." I haven't seen a nice one since then, and I always wanted to reacquire that model.

I asked if it was for sale, and the shop owner said no. I couldn't understand why. And I didn't realize that my wife very quickly gave him a kick underneath the table influencing him to say that. A little later on, I had to take a phone call. They connected with our daughter via FaceTime, and the three of them conspired that that watch would eventually become my Christmas gift.

Today, this is one of my most prized possessions. It wouldn't qualify to go into an auction catalog, but to me it's a very important watch.

As you scour the globe curating an auction, or even just talking with collectors, does seeing great watches inspire your appetite for buying something new?

Collecting is a very social activity. I think the saddest collector in the world is probably the one who cannot share his journey with other like-minded fellow collectors. Being surrounded by hundreds of collectors, dealers and fellow auction-house specialists, I'm exposed to amazing, fascinating, beautiful pieces.

Now, there are limits to what I can do myself. There are limits in terms of my wallet, because I cannot go and spend all our money on watches. Second, we — and I think most if not all auction houses — have strict rules when and where a specialist can purchase a piece.

We can only buy watches that are accessible to the public, where we do not have any advantage over anyone else in the public who could also look in that shop window or go on eBay.

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The reverse of Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona has a simple engraving: "Drive Carefully, Me", a message from his wife Joanne, who gave the racing enthusiast the watch as a gift. Bacs was the auctioneer who sold it for a stunning $17.8 million in October 2018. To date, it's the highest price ever paid for a wristwatch.

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That was actually my next question: have you ever scooped a house on something that could have gone to auction? But that rule makes great sense.

Of course, I've seen many, many things that I truly desired. But if I can't have it myself because of these restrictions I've just mentioned, I can still have it by bringing it to Philips, doing a beautiful presentation in the catalog, touring with the piece for months, around the world, presenting it to potential bidders and achieving the best possible results at auction for that piece. That association for a few months gives us so much pleasure and satisfaction that often I overcome any frustration that the piece cannot be mine.

But you consider it still, in a way, a part of your collection?

I'll give you an example. In 2016, Phillips sold a Patek Philippe stainless steel 1518 for $11 million. That remains the highest price ever paid for a Patek Philippe wristwatch. If I had unlimited means, if I was blessed with hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, yes, I would have offered myself that watch.

But what's really flattering is when today people talk about the stainless steel 1518, and somebody says, "Which one?" it's, "Well, you know, Aurel's steel 1518." They refer to it either as the Phillips steel 1518, or Aurel's 1518 in steel. Because it was, for a period of time, quote-unquote, "ours."

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What's the watch that's truly been yours the longest?

A watch that my father — at one point he said, "Now, it's your ..."

Well, I don't know what it is, the word in English. It's not the First Communion, it's what comes afterwards.

Confirmation?

Confirmation, yes. He said, "Son, it's really time you have a proper watch." That watch is a mechanical IWC in stainless steel, and that watch is still with me. It's very, very meaningful, because it gave me that sensation of heirloom, tradition, a human association.

There is absolutely no amount of money that would make me ever want to part with it.

What's your most recent personal acquisition?

I fell in love with a new launch at the most recent SIHH — the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie — made by François-Paul Journe. It radically ruptures with all or many things that people broadly associate with him. It's potentially the least costly watch of his entire production line. It is not a complicated watch. It's called Élégante. It has a funny cushion shape. I just couldn't resist.

Let's put it this way: I was just seduced on the spot.

“You know, I’ve never come across the perfect watch. That makes me a very desperate hunter for perfection, and I hope I will never find it. Because the day I find it, the quest, the adventure, is over.

The journey is over.”

What attracted you to it?

I have nothing similar. Nothing comparable in terms of shape, in terms of the functioning, the design. It has a rubber strap — how provocative is that?

You know, I've never come across the perfect watch. That makes me a very desperate hunter for perfection, and I hope I will never find it. Because the day I find it, the quest, the adventure, is over.

The journey is over.

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“Collecting is a very social activity. I think the saddest collector in the world is probably the one who cannot share his journey with other like-minded fellow collectors.�

Why does that worry you?

I know people who read books who are scared of the last page. People who watch Grey's Anatomy and are scared that the last season, or last episode is behind them. I would probably fall into some terrible emptiness. Of course I have other things in my life, I have a family, I have friends. I don't eat and breathe watches. I eat food and breathe air. But what would I do if watches were no longer a part of my life that would make me get up in the morning?

Do you give yourself any credit for how this market has grown and changed in the past three decades?

[A long silence] I'll try to be as frank and sincere as I possibly can.

Of course.

The field has indeed seen unprecedented growth in the last twenty, thirty years. Have auction houses played a role? Fair enough, yes, they did. Because if you have a stainless steel Rolex Daytona formerly worn by Paul Newman, that dominates the headlines and TV stations around the world.

But you cannot just be lucky for twenty-five years. Well, there are some footballers in Europe who just stand in front of the goal at the right moment. The goalkeeper's in the wrong corner, the ball's in front of you and you just have to score. Then you can say, "Why are some football players always in the right place at the right time?"

Well ... very philosophical question.

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photos courtesy of phillips

The fact that I was in the incredibly privileged situation to be the auctioneer and to have handled that watch is wonderful. But did it make $17 million because of me? I don't think so. I think I was lucky to be part of this history, and I feel wonderful that some of the most memorable moments happened very close to me. Maybe I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Bacs & Russo holds the record for the most paid for a Patek Philippe: this stainless steel 1518 went for $11 million in 2016.

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INTEL

RAIN, MAN A little water never hurt anyone.

With plenty of tough and technical rain-ready gear on the market, you don’t need to let the wet slow you down at all. photos by chandler bondurant

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FAC I N G PAG E , C LO CKW I S E FROM TO P L EF T

AQUATALIA ADRIAN BOOT $450 HEYMAT STRA DOORMAT $180 ISOFRANE WATCH STRAP $139 MONTA OCEANKING WATCH $1,925 NIKWAX NUBUCK & SUEDE PROOF $9 NIKE ODYSSEY REACT SHIELD WATERREPELLENT $130 DAVEK ALERT UMBRELLA $135

T H I S PAG E

VEILANCE MONITOR SL COAT $750 BLACK EMBER WPRT MODULAR BACKPACK $255 BLUNT XL UMBRELLAS $99 SAITO WOOD CO. UMBRELLA STAND $185 (AT NALATANALATA.COM)

BLUNT METRO UMBRELLA $59 HUNTER MEN'S ORIGINAL SHORT SEATON RAIN BOOTS $185

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH TOPS text by alex french i l l u s t r at i o n b y e m m a n u e l p o l a n c o

Booming sneaker resale platforms like Goat, StockX and Flight Club make grails available to everyday obsessives who lack insider access. Now, the secondary market is poised to become the industry’s primary mover.

Early on the morning of February 11, 2019, the Instagram account for the sneaker news aggregator Sole Collector posted a photo of the new Air Jordan 1 Defiant Couture, a limited edition update of a silhouette immortalized by Michael Jordan himself. According to a dubious (but persistent) legend, he insisted on wearing the sneakers during games even though the NBA had banned the red-andblack high tops for violating team uniform policy, and had threatened Jordan personally with a $5,000 fine every time he laced them up. Thirty-four years later, the AJ1 Couture offered a bold, postmodern variation on the “banned” colorway of lore.

I wanted a pair, so I plotted the Couture’s journey from factory to foot: the entire run would sell out in minutes thanks to shopping bots and opportunistic profiteers purchasing units en masse; precious inventory would be pipelined directly to secondary market stalwarts like Goat, Flight Club and StockX, where sellers name their price — and where my size 12s would be listed at a hefty markup.

It's been a long time since landing a coveted pair of kicks was as easy as being first in line at the store. And that's because the secondary sneaker market is starting to act more like the primary market.

According to data provided by StockX, the leading secondary-market site, the current global resale market for sneakers is valued at $6 billion. The site functions as a sort of Nasdaq for kicks — its tagline is “The Stock Market of Things” — as well as other products it sells, like pre-owned watches and streetwear. Products like the AJ1 Couture are assigned ticker symbols (AJ1HD-C), sellers assign value (one sale rang up for $265) and buyers bid ($450 for a size 6.5).

Users have access to sales figures, price volatility and 52-week highs and lows. When a shopper makes a bid that matches a seller’s asking price, a sale transacts automatically.

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“Sneakers are commodities,” says Josh Luber, CEO and cofounder of StockX. “[Sneakers] are standardized assets that have real values that are a function of supply and demand,” he says, and suggests sneaker prices are a purer metric of this economic principle than even traditional stocks.

“This is ECON 101 … The price of any share of stock is ultimately a function of the performance of that company,” Luber says. “With sneakers, there's no underlying company driving that. It is just pure supply and demand.”

Unlike gold or coffee, the value of collectible sneakers is emotional, more subjective than rational. The market is steeped in decades of mythic cool, legendary athleticism and the stylish allure of one of the most visible subcultures in the world. In his canonical sneaker text Where’d You Get Those?, Bobbito Garcia locates the genesis of “sneaker culture” on the basketball courts of the early 1970s, writing that “the best ballplayers in the city wore the rarest sneakers, cuz a scout or coach often hit them off with a color that wasn’t available at retail.” By the mid-'70s, street life and the emergence of hip-hop culture triggered a shift. The look morphed from court-scarred to “fresh out the box,” and the people who bought them began to get older, richer or both.

“When I started selling shoes at Foot Locker as a kid there was no such thing as sneaker culture,” said Todd Krinsky, a Reebok executive, when I asked him about this transition for the 2017 book Sneakers, which I coauthored with Howie Kahn and Rodrigo Corral. “Now it’s all affluent

suburban kids. Then it was the drug dealers, the rappers, the wealthiest guys on the block who had all the access. Sneakers became one of the levers that you used to show that you were making it.”

It was also largely underground, at least for a time. But as the world became more connected, what felt like a local community was revealed to be global. By the time Instagram debuted, sneakerheads had been vaulted from the fringes of culture into the mainstream.

For a long time, eBay was the dominant secondary marketplace. In 2012, Luber — a lifelong sneaker freak and at the time an IBM strategy consultant — created Campless, a blog where he posted analysis of millions of eBay auctions for thousands of different kinds of sneakers. He estimated that in 2013, eBay’s sneaker business totaled $338 million in sales, up 31 percent from the year before. It dawned on him that there was a lot of money to be made in the sneaker space.

He wasn’t the only one. Well-known consignment stores like Flight Club took off and a crowded market of highly evolved resale platforms — Stadium Goods, Goat, StockX and the European site Klekt — emerged. In their wake, more traditional retailers started to buy in. The digital retailer Farfetch acquired the New York-based sneaker store Stadium Goods for $250 million, less than a year after the shop sold a minority stake to luxury goods behemoth LVMH for an undisclosed amount. In June 2018, StockX, which already had the back-

ing of Luber’s cofounder, Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, plus investment backing from celebrities like Mark Wahlberg and Eminem, accepted $44 million in new funding. And early this February, after making a $100-million investment in Goat, Foot Locker announced plans to use its brick-and-mortar locations to sell products from the secondary market.

“There's a lot of money being made here, and if you're a retailer like Foot Locker and you see this new area of resale that you’re not [a player in], you’ve got to either start

by Straye and released into the market exclusively on StockX. Buyers ended up paying more than the retail price would have been, but likely less than if the shoes had come to the site after being first released to the primary market.

Watching an unboxing video of the AJ1 Couture on Instagram, I took note of how buttery the leather looked — how the pale, sail-yellow sole complemented the redand-black color blocking; how the tag on the tongue tag was leather instead of canvas like they were made by Gucci instead

your own [platform] or buy your way in,” said Aaron Levant, founder of the influential street-culture trade shows ComplexCon and Agenda. “Part of the long-term sustainability of their business model is how they continue to stay in an ecosystem where direct-to-consumer exists. Where do they live in that consumer space?”

There’s more evidence that secondary and primary market forces are merging. In January, Highsnobiety reported that Goat, which boasts 11 million users, lists about 25 percent of its 750,000-unit inventory at or below retail price. In the same month, StockX launched its first “IPO,” offering an exclusive pair of slides created by celebrity jeweler Ben Baller, manufactured

of Nike. The Coutures felt like the sort of shoe that I wouldn't forgive myself for not buying.

I pulled a trump card. I skipped the markets altogether, calling in a favor from a friend who owns a chain of high-end sneaker boutiques. I paid retail: $175.

On February 23, I logged onto Nike’s SNKRS app and watched the Coutures sell out in minutes. Then I watched as the first pairs hit StockX, where they sold, on average, for $229 — 31 percent over retail. Nike set one price; the secondary market set another. What's more, I think the aftermarket set it correctly. I would have paid $229 for the Coutures without a doubt.

At that price, in fact, they’re a steal.

“Sneakers are commodities: standardized assets that have real values that are a function of supply and demand. This is ECON 101.”

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KILLER CROSSOVER

NIKE’S HIGH-FASHION COLLABORATIONS Once upon a time, Nike employees regarded "fashion" as a true F-word. But after years partnering with designers like Undercover's Jun Takahashi, Rei Kawakubo, Riccardo Tisci and Virgil Abloh, the athletic brand has become a runway staple. Here, 10 key (and still highly collectible) collabs that helped turn Nike into fashion’s franchise player.

Jordan 1 Retro High Off White Air Force 1 High Supreme World Famous Red

2015

2017

Public School Jordan 12 Retro PSNY

Riccardo Tisci Air Force 1 High NikeLab Vandal High x John Elliott 168

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photo courtesy of stockx

2014

Nike Air Presto Mid x Acronym

Nike VaporMax for Comme des Garรงons

Nike Element React 87 x Undercover

2018

Nike Air Fear of God 1

Union x Air Jordan 1

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Talk Shop

COMMANDO BRIGADE In an unassuming shop in Jersey City, New Jersey, Kenny Cummings restores classic Norton motorcycles to their former glory under his NYC Norton brand. Making them fast as hell and taking them racing?

That part’s just for fun. t e x t b y b r ya n c a m p b e l l photos by chase pellerin

By the mid-1990s, Norton Motorcycle Company, pride of the Midlands and one of Britain's most famous bike brands, was all but dead. Fast forward a couple decades — through financial crises, factory closures and a string of ownership changes — and Norton is alive and well producing modern scramblers, superbikes and TT racers from its Donington Hall headquarters in North West Leicestershire. But Norton's modern machines are a far cry from the beefy, highchrome, mid-century masterpieces that made the marque famous. If you want a better look at those, you need to step into NYC

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Norton, a 4,400-square-foot shop in Jersey City, N.J. NYC Norton started as an eight-person coop space in 2009, filled with racers and mechanics who lovingly referred to it as Spanner Land (in the U.K., a "spanner" is another name for a wrench). Kenny Cummings, owner of NYC Norton and one of the original Spanner Land denizens, now has the space mostly to himself. The gradual departure of his comrades tracked fortuitously with NYC Norton's growth, and while some limited floor space remains devoted to a small private motorcycle collection, the expansive area is Cum-

mings's to do with as he pleases.

What Cummings likes to do is build fast bikes and take them racing. It's what kicked off the business a decade ago, almost by accident, after he won four Historic Racing Motorcycle Association national championships on a '60s-era Norton 750 Commando with the famous Colin Seeley-designed frame that Cummings had rebuilt himself.

"I got a call from a guy who said, 'I know you won a championship on your Norton race bike, can you build me one, too?'" Cummings says. "I thought, 'Sure, I can build another bike.' Then I got another call for one, and

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Kenny Cummings, the owner of NYC Norton.

“I’m still a fast old dude,” Cummings says, “and I’ll go out and kick anyone’s ass who challenges me.”

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another call and little by little I started NYC Norton."

Racing remains in the company's blood. "Fifty percent of what NYC Norton does is racing," Cummings says. "We race our own bikes, ourselves." Cummings says NYC Norton was the first U.S. shop to make the Seeley frame a successful vintage racing platform, and that knowledge has paid dividends even as the shop expanded to include restorations, rebuilds and restomods.

"We specialize not just in building Norton motorcycles and making them go fast, but [making them] reliable," Cummings says. "And that translates to the street bikes." The quirks and vagaries of old British bikes being what they are, it's no surprise that rebuilds and restomods make up the bread and butter of NYC Norton's current business: "Nortons have a reputation for making mechanics out of good men," Cummings says. "Our whole goal is to take that out of the equation."

But don't call NYC Norton a repair shop, even with the series of four lifts lined up behind enormous plate-glass windows. "People don't ride their bikes here and change the oil, or put chains on," Cummings says. "We take these old bikes and make them as bulletproof as possible." That typically takes six to nine months of work fabricating, tinkering and fine-tuning, and can run between $30,000 and $75,000, depending on what you want — and not including whatever you originally paid for the bike you're having rebuilt.

Spend an hour at NYC Norton and Cummings's love for the brand is obvious. His father, Bruce, owned one in the '70s — something Cummings wasn't aware of until after he had purchased his own first Norton. "Sometimes I stop and look at an original Commando or a Manx Norton and say, 'This is what drew me in the first place,'" he says.

But Cummings also exudes a deep competitive streak, a need to be the best, that plays out in the meticulous craftsmanship and ferocious power with which he surrounds himself. He's a racer, after all.

"I'm still a fast old dude," Cummings says, "and I'll go out and kick anyone's ass who challenges me."

“Nortons have a reputation for making mechanics out of good men. Our whole goal is to take that out of the equation.”

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Tool Kit

ROZE TRAORE text by justin fenner photos by chandler bondurant

Some chefs wait decades for the invitation to prepare dinner at James Beard House, the historic home of the influential late cook, author and television personality.

In January 2019, the 27-year-old wunderkind Roze Traore — already a veteran of kitchens led by James Beard Award-winners Daniel Humm and Eric Ziebold — became one of the youngest people ever to earn that distinction.

When Traore's not in a restaurant — or pursuing his side gig as a male model (seriously) — you'll find him working as a personal chef for the likes of designer Rick Owens and actor Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire). Here, the five tools Traore always has on hand so he can stay sharp no matter where he’s cooking.

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GRAY KUNZ SAUCE SP OON $12

TAKAMURA HSP S GYUTO KNIFE $180

ECCOLO WORLD TRAVELER P OCKET JOURNAL $15

J.B. PRINCE FINE TIP STRAIGHT TWEEZERS $10

GOTTI SWITZERL AND ADAN GL ASSES $728

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ROAD TRIP INTO SPRING styled by john zientek photos by chase pellerin and chandler bondurant

At Classic Car Club Manhattan, we discovered a fleet of vintage vehicles that paired perfectly with the season’s lighter tones, brighter moods and all its bold, unexpected color.

this pa g e

Jacques Marie Mage Fitzgerald Sunglasses, $595; A.P.C. Denim Jacket, $290; Etro Linen Shirt, $470 facin g pa g e

1969 Ford Bronco

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1989 BMW E30 M3 GRP A facin g pa g e

Todd Snyder Tipped Cotton Silk Polo Shirt, $198; Unis Davis Chinos, $198; Crescent Belt Manufacturers Alligator Belt, $495; Rolex Datejust 41, $12,700; Rancourt Beefroll Penny Loafers, $295

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1966 Ford GT40 facin g pa g e

Vince Indigo Stripe T-Shirt, $125; Unis Davis Chinos, $198; Heshí Thin Stripe Socks, $15; Koio Capri Sneakers, $248

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this pa g e

Barbour x Engineered Garments Jacket, $499; Double RL Waffle Knit Henley, $145; Outerknown S.E.A. Legs Chinos, $98 facin g pa g e

1994 Land Rover Defender 90

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The Elder Statesman Fleece Jacket, $615; Jungmaven Hemp T-Shirt, $94; Isaia Saracino Wrap Bracelet, worn as necklace, $415; Simon Miller M001 Jeans, $290; NN07 Socks, $20; Maine Mountain Moccasin Bluchers, $290 facin g pa g e

1972 Datsun 240Z

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2015 Lamborghini Huracan facin g pa g e

Todd Snyder Italian Suede Dylan Jacket, $998; Sunspel Riviera T-Shirt, $90; KikaNY No. 8 Belt, $125; Unis Davis Chinos, $198

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Counterpoint

IN PRAISE OF THE ONE-WATCH COLLECTION More stuff doesn’t equal more fun.

text by josh condon photo by henry phillips

Wolf 1834 15-Piece Watch Box $219 Rolex Explorer, author’s own

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Recently I realized I am surrounded by collectors. They are everywhere and nothing is off-limits: sneakers, cast-iron skillets, small-batch soju, comic books, vintage bikes, vintage Prada, cameras, wine, motorcycles, vinyl, Linotype fonts, classic arcade games. There is no way to duck these conversations, which are as interesting as a slideshow of someone else's vacation, even though I've learned to spot them coming.

Collectors, at least the ones itching to talk about themselves, all have the same tell: a delighted little nod of feigned modesty. This immediately precedes a long monologue about their cars or watches or bourbons or once, bafflingly, Crocs.

"Well, you see" — and here comes the nod and a conspiratorial tone like they're finally revealing the dark secret of just how interesting they are — "I'm a bit of a collector." Ah, yes, well. You don't say. Tell me more.

To be fair, collecting can be a fine pursuit.

Noble, even. The best collections arrange history into still life, the specific details and composition revealing odd little tidbits about ourselves as a species. The proper selection of objects arranged just so can tell a story — how Cubism evolved to express the anxiety of a rapidly modernizing world, for example, or how much '70s car designers loved cocaine.

But collecting mostly seems exhausting. I know a man who keeps his tweed collection across state lines, piles of the stuff in a rented storage container in New Jersey, which he never sees because he's too busy buying more tweed. A photographer friend once insisted I get myself "some real glass" (by which he meant vintage and blindingly expensive) if I planned to keep posting to Instagram; only a collector could figure out how to make a free app require several thousand dollars and the regular use of a darkroom.

Not long ago collecting was the purview of the leisure class and nerds. So where do they come from, these teeming hordes with all their stuff?

I say social media is driving the frenzy — platforms that let users feed themselves content of their choosing. As Hannibal

“Collecting mostly seems exhausting.

I know a man who keeps his tweed collection across state lines in a rented storage container, which he never sees because he’s too busy buying more tweed.”

Lecter explained to Clarice, we begin by coveting what we see every day. Now consider the average watch enthusiast and the boundless array of Instagram accounts, Facebook groups, forums and enthusiast sites available in his pocket at every moment — the sheer staggering volume of horological pornography consumed in a given day, each example caressing the prefrontal cortex, stimulating arousal. The mind boggles. Then it yearns. Then it starts making demands.

There's a better, not to say easier, way.

First, find one thing you like more than everything else; something that fits you perfectly.

If we're talking watches, pick something you can wear every day, that works with a suit or jeans. Something that can take a licking and makes you happy every time you look at it.

Take your time, don't rush, do research. Buy it in person even if you have to travel. Spend money on it, even a lot of money if necessary, because the last part is the toughest and it might sting: unfollow all the Instagram accounts, bail on the forums, stop reading the magazines and don't buy another damn example, for years or possibly ever.

Let your brain settle on the new thing. Contemplate it until the newness wears off, then just wear it. I keep on my wrist a weighty steel chunk of Swiss engineering, understated and unkillable and stamped with a logo that passes for alternate currency in every country on earth. It took me a long time to scratch up enough to buy it and just as long to get used

to wearing something worth the cost of a decent motorcycle. Now I almost never think about it, but when I do it makes me happy; in that way, and because it will last forever, it's an excellent value. As soon as I buy another watch, that value diminishes.

I'm not immune to the yearning. A new Patek Phillippe Aquanaut Chrono or a perfect old Cartier Tortue still occasionally pops into my feed, giving my brain an unwelcome tickle and riling up the imagination. Does that watch better represent who I am as a person? Or maybe a "weekend watch" really is a necessity like the magazines tell me.

Certainly, in any case, a gentleman is not expected to wear the same watch in summer heat and winter chill?

But this is a capitulation to marketers insisting wristwatches are somehow more relevant the less necessary they become — despite having become, basically, jewelry: functionally unnecessary but good for an accepted form of adult dress-up. (Now I'm a pilot! Now I'm a diver! Now I'm James Bond!) In endlessly obsessing over the various movements, manufactures, fonts and complications, or deliberating which timepiece goes just so with your blazer, you're ignoring the only pure function a wristwatch still provides: it's a memento mori, a reminder that the time, not the watch, is what matters. Because that time can be spent only once, no matter how many watches you buy.

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At Work

JIMMY GORECKI Jimmy Gorecki rode a skateboard professionally through the late ‘90s and early aughts as part of the vibrant skate scene in his native Philadelphia. Now living with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles, where he manages the sweats label JSP and the basics line Standard Issue, he's lucky to squeeze in a ride a few times a month.

But Gorecki keeps his roots close at hand.

His boards line the walls of his pared-down

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office, where he and partner Jarod Lee make essential, well-crafted clothes that speak to skaters and civilians alike. It’s also where he puts in hours marketing and selling the luxury sneaker company No.One, and as the heritage ambassador for DC shoes.

As for his minimalist, function-first space, Gorecki says a distraction-free work area helps him focus on creating things that are truly original.

t e x t b y j . d . d i g i o va n n i photos by sung han

Magazines + Photo Books “Printed material is pretty important to have around here. It helps level out the digital influence you get every day.”

Granite “A piece of broken tile from Love Park in Philadelphia, an infamous skate spot in Philly that was closed down and remodeled. During the remodel I had a friend grab a piece of the granite and ship it out to Los Angeles for me as a keepsake.”

Table “Jarod was the one that suggested the table. It was an original cutting board I pulled upstairs from the Standard Issue Tees/JSP production floor. Super heavy-duty, oldschool. It has a good feel. And you can get dirty on it.”

No.One Sneakers “What I love about each of these sneakers is that they’re made start to finish under one roof in Venice by three incredibly talented shoemakers. Seeing these gentlemen pour their blood, sweat and tears into crafting each and every portion of these silhouettes is something very unique. Essentially made from scratch. Very original artisan style of craftsmanship, applied to items that are very fashion-forward.”

Samples “Whether it’s JSP samples, [samples from] Standard Issue, No.One, DC or just other weird shit that we like, it’s cool to just have around and talk about. You get a certain something from having these things laying around.”

Computer “Simple silver MacBook Air. I actually need to get something new. For whatever reason, it won’t let me update the software.”

Boards “Skateboards are the root of everything I’ve been able to be a part of. Some are brands I skated for, others are models from individuals who have inspired me, like the late, great Matt Reason, or Javier Nunez’s Supreme board, which shows Jav’s scene from the movie Kids. They’ve all served as inspiration over the years.”

Newspaper “The Wall Street Journal’s fashion section did an article called ‘The Great Tee Rivalry’ in August of 2018, and included commentary from both myself and Standard Issue Tee founder Jarod Lee using SIT pieces as part of the dialogue on what makes a good shirt.

Was honored to see my name printed in such a distinguished media outlet.”

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TURN YOUR CLOSET INTO A FUNCTIONAL COLLECTION text by john zientek

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p h o t o c o u r t e s y o f t h e c o n ta i n e r s t o r e

Your clothes are a highly personal collection and deserve to be treated that way. Here, a few extra tips on transforming your closet into your own mini showroom.

photo courtesy of string

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EDIT

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OPTIMIZE

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STORE

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CLEAN

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GEAR UP

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C U R AT E

"If you're investing in your wardrobe, whether or not we're talking about custom suits or even sports equipment and gear, you have to take care of it if you want it to last," says Julie Ann Clauss (née Orsini), who’s stored some of the world’s most beautiful clothes as an archivist for Tom Ford. "That includes being diligent about cleaning and storing the right way."

Clauss has advised clients such as Calvin Klein, Jason Wu and Marc Jacobs, among others, and now runs The Wardrobe, a private archival consultancy that offers museum-quality conservation and restoration. Here, she recommends a few simple steps to assure your sartorial investments (big or small) are well protected.

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1.

EDIT Before investing in new garments — or launching a full-scale reorganization — consider selling or donating items you haven’t put on in a while. "If you haven't worn it in a year, you're not wearing it again," Clauss says. Exceptions to this rule: custom tuxedos or other timeless special-occasion garments.

2.

Organize your closet in a logical, functional manner.

"I like to keep things of like types together," Clauss says. Consider grouping shirts from short sleeves to long sleeves, and color coordinating everything from light to dark. If you only have one closet, adjust your storage for ease of use. "The things that you wear most often should be front and center," Clauss says.

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photos courtesy of vitsoe, string, vitsoe

OPTIMIZE

3.

STORE

photos courtesy of usm, string

The way you store your clothing will not only preserve how it looks, it will also extend its life.

Most importantly, don't overcrowd your closet. Clauss avoids space-saving hangers, since storing clothes too close together damages clothing and can attract moths. (Clauss’s handy hack for storing neckties: just drape them over the bar of a standard hanger.)

SUITS "Clothing is meant to be worn on a threedimensional body," Clauss says. "So storing [suits] is usually a challenge because a really thin, flimsy hanger doesn't allow the garment to take the shape it was intended to have."

Choose a hanger with a fuller shoulder to support the garment's natural silhouette.

PA NTS Folding pants and hanging them over a hanger bar can lead to unwanted creases.

"The best thing to do is to clip the hem of the pants and hang them that way," Clauss says.

To prevent clamp marks, Clauss recommends cutting a small piece of tissue paper to use as a barrier between the clip and pant.

S HIRTS Thinner hangers are more appropriate for button-ups, but Clauss prefers plastic over wood, which can release gasses over time.

"We use polypropylene hangers because they're considered chemically stable," Clauss says.

SWE AT ERS Knits should be folded so that they don't stretch over time. When you fold a sweater for storage, Clauss advises using a layer of tissue paper to protect against wrinkles.

"That way, as you stack sweaters on top of each other, the weight won't push down [into the] crease and make a permanent wrinkle," she says.

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4.

CLEAN

Keeping your clothes clean is the most important thing you can do for their longevity — and that means really clean. Even items that aren't visibly dirty can attract moths.

"If you put something back that's been worn, [moths are] attracted to this," Clauss says. Moths will eat through clothing and lay eggs in fabric, potentially ruining an entire closet. If you sweat or spill anything except water, wash the item before putting it back in your closet.

Clauss recommends hand washing knits and button-ups at home, or using the services of a hand laundry, which is cheaper than dry cleaning and also better for the garments. "You'll see that your cashmere stays really soft," Clauss says. "It keeps it in better shape than sending it to the dry cleaner."

Plus, the gentle cleaning helps preserve color.

One exception to constant cleaning? Suits.

If you've only worn a suit once, "leave it on a hanger in an area that's well ventilated in your home for a day or two before you put it away," says Clauss. You should only take it to the dry cleaner when it's visibly soiled.

GEAR UP Though there aren't too many tools necessary for keeping a man's closet in top condition, Clauss recommends having a basic iron and a $20 Secura steamer, both of which should be kept dry between uses. "The important thing is to change the water," Clauss says. If you don't empty the water after each use, you could spread mildew to your clothes the next time.

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photo courtesy of string

5.

6.

CURATE

photos courtesy of vitsoe

An organized and well-maintained closet need not be stagnant. If you want to buy something new and have limited space, consider making room by donating items that have fallen out of favor. "One in, one out is a great rule," Clauss says. If storage space isn't a concern, Clauss gives the same advice as any investment professional: diversify.

"Just try not to buy the same thing over and over again," she says.

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In Conversation

MAKER & COLLECTOR photos by chandler bondurant and courtesy of blu dot

Twenty-two years ago, Maurice Blanks and John Christakos started Blu Dot with their college friend Charlie Lazor, in Minneapolis; late in 2018, Jared Blake and Edward Be opened Lichen, a Brooklyn vintage furniture shop that's sold more than a few of Blu Dot's wares. We asked Blanks, Christakos, Blake and Be to discuss the best way to find vintage pieces, what makes new furniture great and why creators never see their own bestsellers coming.

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LICHEN

Edward Be Jared Blake BLU DOT

Maurice Blanks John Christakos

This interview has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

Maurice Blanks (Blu Dot): How did you guys meet and start a business together?

Jared Blake (Lichen): Funny enough, we actually met on Craigslist. I sold Ed a Herman Miller chair and I asked how he planned to use it. He said he was going to sell it, so basically I’m like, “Well, I’m selling it to you and you’re going to sell it anyway, so we might as well combine resources.” He wanted to open a brick-and-mortar store, and I had a lot of social media and editorial background that just went hand-in-hand. It was a perfect partnership.

MB: Where are you finding the pieces that you sell, and what makes the cut?

JB: Estate sales, eBay — if there’s furniture for sale on it, we’re on it. It’s really listening to the people. It’s nice to have a space to work out of because people, in so many words, will tell you exactly what they’re looking for.

Like, “Oh, I’m looking for something that’s comfortable but also metal, that also stacks, that also does this. Do you have anything like that?”

MB: What’s sort of hot right now?

JB: Chains.

Edward Be (Lichen): Chains anything. We don’t buy based on what’s trending, necessarily, but people definitely request that a lot.

JB: When we first opened the store, Ed brought this bamboo divider from home to hide our WiFi router and electrical cords. After enough people asked about it, we decided to get them in multiples and they’ve become our best seller. And that’s not something that we anticipated whatsoever.

MB: That’s cool.

JB: What’s your best-selling piece?

John Christakos (Blu Dot): I don’t know if we know. Some of the better-selling ones are our copper Real Good Chair — just a bent-metal, copper-plated dining chair or side chair — and the Field Lounge Chair, I think, is also one of the better ones.

JB: It’s actually funny because a question that we get asked a lot is if we have the Blu Dot Real Good Chair.

JC: Have you had any come through your shop?

JB: We have one in red, we have one in white.

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We’ve sold a set of four in navy. We had a copper one as well.

EB: They do really well and people ask about them a lot. I think what’s also nice about them is they’re pretty interchangeable, so you don’t always need a full color-set.

JB: Did you anticipate it being as popular as it is?

JC: I don’t think we ever anticipated it being that popular. When we introduced it, it was ninety-nine dollars retail. At the time there weren’t many options for a really unique chair under a hundred bucks. It was significantly more expensive [in copper] and we thought that we’d sell a few of those. We initially did it as a limited edition, but I think that’s one of the better-selling finishes.

JB: Can you talk a little bit about your no-hero-designer philosophy?

JC: No capes, no Yoko Ono glasses?

[Laughter] MB: The idea of collaboration has always been important to us. We started literally sitting at a table with butcher paper, just sketching out the first assortment that we introduced when we launched the company.

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It was impossible to tease apart which elements John designed and which elements I designed, and what did Charlie do? It was all intertwined, so as the company grew that continued. It became unrealistic that you would say, “Oh, so-and-so designed this and so-and-so is responsible for this,” because there are so many people involved.

EB: What design are you guys most proud of?

MB: The next one.

JB: I like that.

MB: That’s so hard. That’s like picking your favorite child.

JB: Are there any things that you guys buy vintage?

JC: Oh, for sure. My house has very little Blu Dot in it. It’s here and there because it helps me afford the more expensive stuff. I also like the vintage stuff that’s not attributable sometimes. Like, I’ve got two chairs that I got at Wright Auction House in Chicago that were relatively inexpensive. But I don’t know who designed them. I don’t really care.

It doesn’t lessen their value, let’s put it that way.

“I like the vintage stuff that’s not attributable sometimes. I’ve got two chairs that I got at Wright Auction House in Chicago that were relatively inexpensive. But I don’t know who designed them. I don’t really care.”

this pa g e , cloc k wise f r o m top le f t

The interior of Lichen's Brooklyn store. A small-scale prototype of Blu Dot's Modu-licious Dresser. Lichen's storefront. facin g pa g e

Blu Dot's Neat Lounge Chair in miniature.

“We started literally sitting at a table with butcher paper, just sketching out the first assortment that we introduced when we launched the company.�

JB: And no hero designers.

JC: I mean, I sit in an Eames lounge chair and ottoman every day.

And there’s not a better lounge chair made. As far as vintage goes it’s probably the most iconic chair, right? It’s a gateway drug.

MB: How do you guys position yourselves? The internet has enabled a whole world of being able to buy pre-owned everything, basically.

How do you guys differentiate yourselves?

JB: We come from a similar point of view that you guys do. We don’t take ourselves that seriously. We like what we like, and kind of leave it at that.

JC: Right. It’s not about convincing people to buy anything.

JB: Absolutely. I really don’t think we’ve ever tried to sell anything.

If it sits for a week or two, if people aren’t into it, then we get rid of it. That’s the fun thing about buying vintage: we never know what’s going to be here tomorrow.

JC: Have you thought about carrying more new pieces?

JB: Absolutely. We’re trying to make some of our own pieces, seeing if that’s something we can scale a little bit.

JC: Where would you make it? How would you make it?

JB: Right now the plan is to go to Home Depot.

MB: That’s where we started.

JB: It’s just figuring out the simplest way to put four points together and call it a desk, you know?

MB: There’s nothing wrong with that. One of our first designs was the Chicago 8-Box, this big shelving system. And it was completely designed around the [standard] 4x8 sheet of material. Sometimes those kind of constraints are good. I think that results in really fresh ideas and fresh forms.

JC: I love hearing stories like yours, where you’re totally psyched to get this going but you’re figuring it out as you go and recognize that you’re figuring it out as you go. We were the same way. We didn’t know anything about this business. You start doing it, and you start making mistakes, and you try to make fewer mistakes, and you find your way. That’s what makes it so exciting though.

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One of two green marble chairs available at Lichen.

A miniature version of Blu Dot's Real Good Chair in copper. A Blu Dot employee working on a Nonesuch Lounge Chair. A bamboo screen that's become a Lichen bestseller. facin g pa g e

A mirrored coffee table in the Lichen store.

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Futurism

Makr Shakr, a pair of whirring, spinning robotic arms with access to 130 bottles of booze overhead, will do most of the basic tasks of a human bartender: clean the cup; assemble a cocktail (one of 2,000 preprogrammed drinks or a custom order made from 100 available ingredients) and give it shake; add garnish; and serve.

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All interaction from the ordering to service is done via app. Some may mourn those “What’ll it be, pal?” moments at the local pub, but human conversation won’t be the only casualty. In our dystopian automated future, there’s nobody across the wood ready to slide a buyback your way. The future is cold and terrifying, indeed.

photo courtesy of makr shakr

ROBOT BARTENDERS