This is the first in a new series of articles me and my good friend Patrick will be working on. Simply put, they’re a wild card. The Outfit is just about something we’ve seen that inspired us enough to want to talk about it or just something we thought up and wanted to feature. If you have something you think is inspirational attire or a style you want us to try please drop a comment.

So what I was faced with today was having a full day with no particular plans, no obligations, no work. Just a quiet relaxed day to myself. It’s also about ninety-nine degrees here. So comfort, staying cool and still not looking like a total bum were the factors that went into my outfit. But something else came to mind. How affordable could the outfit be?

With all that in mind here’s what I came up with

What exactly do we have here? Top to bottom we start with a fedora. If you’re going to wear a hat in this kind of weather it needs to be breathable and this one was made of a woven straw and it was white. My head stayed cool all day and it kept some of the sun out of my eyes. The hat was a simple pick up from JC Penny’s for about fifteen dollars. A pair of tortoise shell Wayfarers from H&M did the majority of the work when it came to making me not blind from the sun. Ten bucks.

I wanted light colors to keep me as cool as possible but I still wanted color. For any regular readers out there you’ll know already how much I enjoy having something on other than a boring spread of earth tones and navy.  So I went with white for my polo to keep things cool and to enhance the other colors I was going to wear. Polo’s always have a way of making an outfit dressier than just wearing a t-shirt. That was my intention with picking it, to go with something that managed to be both comfortable and a little put together. The polo was fourteen dollars at Target under their Merona line. The white v-neck beneath was a Macy’s offering that ran for about the same price from their INC in house brand.

The wrist watch is another Merona piece from target. The analogue vintage look watch ran about twenty dollars. It could use a band swap. What the Merona watches come with is kind of on the hideous side.

The pants are from American Living, another Penny’s brand that trends toward really comfortable and really colorful summery stuff. This particular pair I picked because the color would stand out perfectly against the rest of the outfit. It might be only one colorful piece but it dominates the outfit so strongly that anything else would have been too much. This pair cost twenty-five dollars. Penny’s is going through a major identity overhaul right now so who knows what these pants are going for at the moment but when I bought them a few months ago, twenty-five bucks.

The shoes, my overall favorite part of the outfit, are from Sperry. It’s a boat shoe. Sperry calls them topsiders but Sperry can call them whatever they want since they are more or less single handled responsible for bringing the boat shoe into the fashion world. Boat shoes have slip resistant non-marking soles. They’re breathable because of the side lacing and they are damn cool. You wear them sockless too which helps with the summer heat. I do recommend cleaning them frequently otherwise all the sweat can collect inside. The shoe market being what it is, between Zappos, Amazon and in store sales you can find these for anywhere between sixty and eighty dollars.

The glass, that’s my favorite whiskey. Twelve year aged Dewar’s. Great taste, super smooth. I love it. The 750ml was about twenty-nine dollars at the time it was purchased. And I have a very good friend to thank for that bottle.

An overall cost for this outfit is about $180. Not bad considering I estimated the shoes at the high end for that price.

So that’s the first installment of The Outfit. There will be more to come and from hopefully many people. If you have any suggestions as to what to try, what you’d of worn in this situation or anything at all worth sharing please do.