Laced Up
We’ve had Rules and Exits, but one rule seems to bother many more than others: no sneakers.
“What’s the problem with sneakers?”, your guest asks. This is usually after showing up in a pair of sneakers — usually costing hundreds (or even thousands!) of dollars — even after you’ve told them to refrain from doing do.
Ishaan Jajodia explains that it all boils down to leather. Furthermore, he encourages readers to assume the position of elegance that leather brings. After all, you can tell plenty about someone by their shoes.
Clubland USA hopes that our readers are enjoying their summers — inside and outside of the clubhouse. To make it even better, Leonard Robinson brings this week’s Dispatches from Clubland. - BK
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It’s All About the Leather
Why Tennis Shoes Don’t Make The Cut
By: Ishaan Jajodia
There are lots of things that irk me—I’m a curmudgeon at heart—but there are few things that irk me more than the proud display of sports shoes and sneakers outside of sports facilities.
There’s really only one rule to remember with your shoes, men: it’s all about the leather.
Many clubs ban sneakers outside their sports facilities; some by rules and regulations, others by norm and a quiet look of disapproval. But the intention behind both is the prevention of slobbification.
The invertebrate slob is a creature worthy only of shame and disgust, and shouldn’t be let in through the front doors of a club at any cost. Clubland, remember, is for club rats—not for gelatinous cretins.
Tradition rules the roost here. Clubs have always been formal, and learning to dress appropriately has always been part and parcel of club life. While no-one expects members today to dress in tails or coats, there’s still a vast gully between the sweatpant-and-tracksuit-attired slobs and clubrats, who must present themselves with better style.
And while you may think that the least conspicuous part of your outfit are your shoes, you’re decidedly wrong in thinking that. When someone sees you for the first time, your shoes are extremely noticeable: they bookend your dress, your attire, your personality even.
But the overbearing brunt of tradition shouldn’t forestall attempts at creative dressing. Remember, the colour of your shoes should match your belt, but never be afraid of texture through suede or even colour, or of exploring different styles, from loafers to boat shoes to camp mocs to espadrilles to venetian slippers and everything in between.
There is purpose behind this dictum, for we must preserve the sanctity of the leisure that club life provides for us. We take leisure seriously, but are not hedonists, in the pursuit of pleasure at all costs. The clubrat knows that leisure properly understood is a state that enables us to socialise. There is an insurmountable gulf between the epicurean, the hedonist, and the clubrat. Thus the distinction between shoes for play and shoes for leisure is fundamental to the idea of clublife.
The preservation of a modicum of formality, of dressing purposively and intentionally, to do something, makes for a special occasion, and the aesthetic dimension of club life differentiates it from other similar places that those without passports to clubland might mistake it for: high-end hotels, boutique cafes, and the like, all of which are the sorts of things non-Anglosphere countries have to make do with in the absence of real club culture. But here we’ve got the real deal.
And, like we’ve said of dress codes (and of liberal democracies), the rule of law is infinitely superior to the rule of man. Forgive the precision demanded by boarding school brats who then make their way into clubland, but the exact and precise definition of rules and regulations and their uniform imposition makes for consistent, clear, and responsible messaging. Furthermore, which schoolboy, which clubrat, doesn’t like pushing the boundaries of rules to see how far they can get, coming up with creative solutions to the problem of ingeniously disobeying authority?
It is not that leather shoes have to be uncomfortable, sweaty, hard to take care of, or simply old-fashioned. Leather is immensely durable, and the more you invest in it, the longer it’ll last you. Polishing your shoes and cleaning your suede is like learning to string your own racquets—it gives you a sense of ownership and responsibility over something, something that’s uniquely your own.
With the advent of Cole Haans and other memory-foam-soled leather shoes that marry the comfort of sneakers to leather uppers, there’s no reason to not get comfortable. J’approuve.
Members Only
Grand Exit | Leonard Robinson
Clubland, this One’s on You | Benjamin Kahn
Ask Yourself This Before Club Elections | Leonard Robinson
Dispatches from Clubland:
Democracy at the Bar? New York’s Union League Club, mere days before the city’s mayoral primary election, hosted a soiree to pick the rose that will be served in the clubhouse for the rest of the summer. Clubland USA was present, but was too imbibed to remember which bottle won. This seems to be democracy at its finest.
Summer date idea. Find a nearby yacht club that offers sailing lessons for two. The Manhattan Yacht Club, based in Jersey City, NJ nonetheless, offers these. If you’re interested after the lesson, maybe you can schmooze in the clubhouse for an application.
Mergers and martinis. The Club at New Seabury, a Cape Cod staple, has been sold to a larger consortium of private clubs, the Concert Golf Partners. The purchase represents the largest acquisition ever for the Concert Golf portfolio. Other clubs that have joined the portfolio over the past year include Boise’s The Club at SpurWing, Athens’ The Georgia Club, Naples, FL’s Golf Club of the Everglades and Princeton’s TPC Jasna Polana.
Clubs Just Aren’t Clubs Anymore? Allison Schrager of Bloomberg Opinion, a friend of Clubland USA, writes about what’s made club life so different. It’s become too commodified, or as we say here at Clubland USA, “nickel and dime-ing”.