The Yeti Solution
Practical Aesthetics in Housewares
Last fall I did something that I hadn’t done in about 30 years. I bought a new set of silverware. It looks very much like the few pieces I have remaining of my old silverware, but it’s thinner and more lightweight, in a bad way. There is something sumptuous about having a thick spoon with a deep bowl in your mouth; that a flat spoon just doesn’t cut it. The knives in the new set are sharper and pointier so that kind of makes up for it. I just have to say that Crate & Barrel ain’t what it used to be.
Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, have often thought of myself as a Neo Victorian. I’m the kind of person who would rather know somebody who could handcraft stuff than buy it off the shelf. That’s different than having expensive taste, which is what I used to have when I couldn’t imagine the value of a new Honda over an old BMW. Yeah, I was yuppie scum. But all of a sudden after 2008, I got seriously utilitarian.
Neo Victorians
After that, Mom swore off men for a while, but after a couple of months she met a guy named Brad who was actually nice. He had a real job as a blacksmith in the New Atlantis Clave, and one day he took Nell to work with him and showed her how he nailed iron shoes onto the hooves of the horses. This was the first time Nell had actually seen a horse, and so she did not pay much attention to Brad and his hammers and nails. Brad's employers had a giant house with vast green fields, and they had four kids, all bigger than Nell, who would come out in fancy clothes and ride those horses. But Mom broke up with Brad; she didn't like craftsmen, she said, because they were too much like actual Victorians, always spouting all kinds of crap about how one thing was better than another thing, which eventually led, she explained, to the belief that some people were better than others.
Stephenson, Neal. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book) (p. 185). (Function). Kindle Edition.
FJ
I remember living in Atlanta in the late 90s when people went mad for SUVs. I mean there was literally an Eddie Bauer Edition of the Ford Explorer. Having been to Europe, I joined the brown shoe collective. So I was some of the way towards serious practicality. There was a moment when I considered getting an H2, but I really didn’t get off the BMW mindset until the electric windows on my 7 series stopped working and I found it cost $800 to fix one. In due time, I went for the Toyota FJ.
This truck says a lot about me. AWS, Apple, Blue Star, EFF, CalGuns, TNP, TKD and of course US of fucking A. The machine is an original 2007, now with about 160k miles and fully loaded without the 4 wheel drive. I’ve gotten used to the obnoxious color, but it just works. I have a different set of stickers now, but 2/3 of them are the same. But the most important thing is I don’t have to baby this machine. It’s 18 years old and it doesn’t rattle. Maybe I ought to wash it.
Moreover it’s on the verge of overkill, especially considering the fact that I work at home. It has a measure of the urban assault vehicle. It’s secure. It has three dashcams and LoJack. I have a first-aid kit, a jumper battery and a k-bar in there. The glove compartment has actual gloves. I keep a windbreaker in the back, just in case.
Yeti
Every morning, I prepare a large mug of tea for the Spousal Unit. She likes Constant Comment with regular C&H. Myself, I prefer Earl Grey (Taylors of Harrowgate) with raw turbinado. Since we are all big water drinkers, we have those trendy water carriers. The other day, she didn’t bring down her regular insulated container and I poured hers into an olive green Yeti 26oz insulated tumbler. I just checked Amazon, and that one goes for $99
Yeti is overpriced, overthought, over-engineered adventure gear. It’s all way too heavy for actual backpacking, but it has the aesthetic right. Yeti is more about boats anyway and unlike the Thermos brand, this rugged stuff actually works. I have every expectation that these things are going to work for 20 years, so long as we don’t lose the lids.
Like many of the most creative artsy-craftsy Neo Victorian brands out there, Yeti outsources their manufacturing. And while it took me a minute to navigate behind the curtains of their splashy website, they do actually provide the kind of transparency I like, in fact probably the best I’ve seen. They list their suppliers. They have a Modern Slavery Statement.
Yeti also has fish stories. The more I look, the more I’m starting to admire what they’re doing. They speak deeply to my California upbringing. But I knew that coming in before I wrote the first sentence.
American Giant
Every once in a while I find myself wearing everything American Giant, pants, shirts and jacket. For a long time, I’ve been saying this is my favorite company. They did something truly innovative which is bring back old school heavy duty sweats without running sweatshops. Unlike Forever 21 or A&F or even Oakley, they never put footprints in specialty mall spaces. They sold direct over the internet at their inception and eliminated the costs of real estate, trucking, distributed inventory & sales staff. They took that money and paid American workers, and rebuilt a domestic cotton supply chain.
While I have few hopes invested in American politics, and while the country is in a lather over what may or may not become a trade war over the Administration’s shock & awe tactics, AG has done it the organic way. Not to punish an adversary, but to build domestic skills and business. So I’m always ready to pay extra for the quality, and quite frankly it makes no sense for any other nation to make the best hoodies and sweatshirts. I say this as someone whose grandmother was a master cutter. The cotton industry is ours to lose and I’ve met Chinese and Nigerians in that business. Are they laughing behind our backs? Nah. In our faces. But we Neo Victorians don’t buy from Red Bubble, do we?
Dickies & Ducks
A habit I’ve had most of my life, but forgot somewhere between 2005 and 2015 was that I bought a good faction of my wardrobe from my local Army surplus store. I actually know and appreciate the difference between tac pants and cargo pants. I have rediscovered that place, partially because of my martial education, partially because ‘Murica and partially because I’m desiring to be a cheap bastard. I’m really pleased with having discovered their table of socks, which are the most rugged and comfortable I’ve ever worn and they go for $2 a pair. I mean just look at these beauties.
They’re thick enough to give me an extra half shoe size, which is very convenient for boots, but most of all just walking around in the house. How did I not know these existed? As much as I’ve been spending on these generic $25 bags of Nike branded crap. I never knew Army surplus could be so plush. I hear Hegseth is getting rid of a lot of Army surplus these days. I could accept some more of that kind of socialist rebate.