I've made a friend named Justice who works at Neiman Marcus.
He sells me things. But somewhere along the way, he stopped being the person I buy from and just became a friend. I'm loyal to him. I'm clear about what I want. And I try never to walk in asking, what can I get out of this.
I spent forty years on the other side of that counter, so I learned something early. The best clients were almost never the ones who spent the most. They were the ones you enjoyed taking care of. They were loyal. They were clear. And they treated you like a person.
Every Christmas I send the Neiman Marcus cookies to family and friends. I've done it for fifteen years now. Last year, Justice made the list. Not because I want anything. Because he's my friend, and that's what I do for the people I care about.
I send the cookies.
It's a small thing, and it has never once been about getting something back.
Yesterday I stopped by just to say hello. That's all. No list, no mission. Justice mentioned they'd found some aged inventory in the stockroom. Marked down. Asked if I wanted to see it.
A few minutes later he came back with three pieces, all of them four-ply cashmere, all of them things that would have slipped right into my fall lineup, at a fraction of what they cost new. Eight hundred dollars down to two hundred.
I'll be honest with you.
I wanted all three.
I could have justified all three, too. At that price, justification would have been easy. But I didn't need three. I needed to decide which one deserved a place in my closet.
So I chose one.
Here is where it gets interesting, because the one I kept almost didn't make it out of the store. It was a taupe cashmere hoodie. And I have a thing about dressing my age. I said it to Justice, right there on the floor.
I'm sixty-eight. I don't wear hoodies. Hoodies are for my son, not for me.
I have a reason for the rule.
A few years ago in Milan I spent twelve hundred dollars on a Moncler hoodie. It hangs in my closet and I have never worn it. Not once. Because the truth is I didn't buy it for the man I am. I bought it for a younger man I used to be, and every time I see it, it stings a little. That is what chasing your lost youth costs. Twelve hundred dollars and a closet you can't quite look at.
So when Justice held up the taupe cashmere, my first instinct was the rule.
Not me. Too young for me.
And Justice, who can be a little cheeky when he wants to be, just shrugged and said, so what. Don't wear it out then. Wear it around the house. But it does look good with those camel jeans you just bought.
He was right.
It did. And that is the whole thing, right there.
The Moncler was me reaching backward for something I'd lost. The taupe cashmere was just a good piece that fit the man I actually am, worn with a pair of camel jeans I'd found that I just purchased for almost nothing.
One was a costume.
The other was a decision.
Same category. Completely different purchase. Maybe the rule was never dress your age. Maybe the rule should have been: don't dress in pursuit of an age you've already lived.
So I bought the one.
And a few minutes later I walked out, having gone in only to say hello, with a beautiful piece of cashmere for two hundred dollars that looks, if I'm honest, pretty damn good with those jeans.
But the cashmere isn't really the story.
The story is what happened first.
Justice didn't have to go back into that stockroom. He did it because somewhere along the way, a transaction became a relationship. The cookies didn't create that relationship. They're simply what I do when someone has become part of my life. Relationships have a funny way of giving something back, exactly when you weren't keeping score.
And the hoodie taught me the other half.
Because this is what I mean when I say most men don't need more clothes.
They need better decisions.
It was never about spending less. It's about knowing the difference between dressing the man you are and dressing the man you wish you still were. One of those fills your closet with things you love and wear. The other fills it with twelve-hundred-dollar ghosts.
I try to practice what I preach. I don't always get it right. There's a hoodie in Milan money hanging in my closet that proves it.
But I'm learning.
Buy from people you'd be proud to call friends. Give more than you take, and don't keep score.
And when you reach for something, be honest about who you're buying it for.
As I see it, this time, I think I did.
Until next time,
