#073 ✰ Half year through thoughts
SoaO: Clayton's pour over kettle • your new fashion pieces in 2023
Hey there 👋 I’m Mathilde. We are Objet. We explore the intersection of consumerism, myth, satisfaction, desire, taste, joy, meaning and pride. Not specifically in that order. To brag at your next dinner, Objet is the french word for 'object' and should be pronounced 'OB-JEH'.
If you’re new here, welcome 👋
In today’s Objet journal:
Our mission 👉 Wait, what are they onto again?
Soul of an Objet 👉 Clayton’s pour over kettle
What’s up on the app & website
Cool reads, ‘cause it’s always cool to read cool stuff
About Objet
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Soul of an Objet | Clayton Chambers
Sublime possessions have soul and meaning. Meet Clayton’s Fellow Stagg electric pour over kettle.
Clayton is behind Sprezza, a weekly newsletter exploring WTF men’s style is. It’s a mix of curation, education, and discovery. He talks about independent brands, creates seasonal style guides, covers new drops, reviews products, deep dives on subcultures and style movements, and the business of retail. It's also an active community on Geneva where men talk style and share their fits. Good vibes only.
Clayton’s Objet profile | Sprezza: his menswear newsletter
Hi Clayton! So what's the backstory of this object?
I’m somewhat of a Coffeehead. I drink far too much, but I love it. I’ve slowly upgraded my at-home setup over the years, going from boiling water in a standard tea kettle to a pour-over kettle, and it’s changed everything. The precision you get with a pour-over kettle with your coffee does make a difference, so I believe in its power. Plus, I like my morning routine.
What object’s been your best investment?
I’m very into cooking food. I make meals every day for myself and the family, so having high-quality products is worth the investment. And the product I’ve gotten the most mileage from (so far) is my Traeger grill. It’s an electric pellet grill that was quite expensive, but it’s been worth every penny to have a product as versatile as the Traeger. You can grill, smoke, or roast anything you want.
Where does your passion for menswear come from?
I’ve loved clothes since before I can remember. My earliest memories of clothing were of mom dressing me and my six older brothers for church every Sunday. The weekly outfit was always the same; we’d rock a navy blazer, a tie, oxford shirt, khakis, and a pair of penny loafers.
Looking back, it was very Take Ivy vibes, but it made me proud to wear clothing as a form of self-expression rather than seeing clothes as purely utilitarian (though there’s nothing wrong with that either).
Over the years, I’ve become obsessed with understanding clothing from a cultural and educational perspective, and learning how style influences who we are and what we do in this world.
What's the next purchase you're currently contemplating?
The next mid-to-long-term purchase I’m meditating on is a proper expresso machine. It’s the kind of product that you’d see in a beautiful café wishfully think, “I’ll have to sell my car for that.”
And you probably will. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need it!
I probably don’t need it, truth be told. But, for as much as I cook food and drink for other people in my home and host others regularly, the machine is more of a “people” investment.
And what does pick your curiosity the most these days re: menswear?
There are a few things I’m interested in. One rabbit hole that’s endless for me is the rise of early hip-hop music and its connection to a lot of the fashion and style that drives what we wear today, i.e. sneakers, North Face puffer jackets, Carhartt WIP, and so on.
Another is how we’ve slowly inched towards this era in fashion where there’s no dominant genre, but rather so much of what we wear nowadays is genreless; it’s a mix of many genres together. This is a societal reflection of how we view ourselves, I think, as fluid people when it comes to taste and preference, as well as style ideas.
Thank you!
👀 Did you know? Once you onboard on the app, you can respond to and engage with cool people like Clayton in one click.
A more explicit website
and a couple changes on the app:
✅ straight-forward onboarding, bounties become recommendations
🚧 WIP: your notification dashboard
Cool reads
🧥 A new era for thrift stores: from finding gems to browsing rags?
Very interesting take on the overall decline of quality of clothes being made. And what it could mean further down the road for the whole second-hand market.
In the fall of 2006, I hit the newly opened Uniqlo flagship store in Soho, and picked up 12 cotton v-neck undershirts to wear beneath button-ups. I don’t think they cost more than $9.90 a piece. In the 17 (!!) intervening years I’ve done several Full Overhauls of my “jawn infrastructural” holdings [...] But those 12 undershirts? Tees I’ve probably worn, washed and dried upwards of ~400 to ~500 times each? Not only are they still in rotation, they look like I bought them 2 months ago. No holes, no split seams, no rattiness whatsoever. Recently, though, I was out to drinks with friends & met someone who works for Uniqlo. (…) Without missing a beat, this person replied, “There’s no way the tees we make today would hold up that long.”
***
5️⃣🛍 2023 fashion challenge: no more than 5 new pieces
"a small but growing number of people are pledging to radically reduce the number of new fashion products they buy"
Although I did not join the challenge - I recently discover its existence - I could probably still sign in haha. Tiffanie’s article made me take a step back: mid-through the year, how about me, where do I stand?
Here’s what I purchased new, ‘fashion’-wise:
socks | 5 months in | 🙁
‘s take on Uniqlo WTF ☝️🤷🏻♀️
Intentionally bought the exact same pairs I had worn for years but ironically these turned out to be thiner, already showing signs of fatigue… cfpyjama | 2 weeks in | 😕
Didn’t really choose, instead I swapped a gift I had received. Oh, gifts [sigh].summer sandals | -1 week in | 😃
Failed to order the right size. I technically bought them, still haven’t receive them…
I do keep a list of all the things I want to buy. I like coming back and forth to check if it is still accurate. Regularly, I get rid of what’s in there. It is a very relaxing exercise to annotate, without buying. Highly recommend!
Mid-June, where do YOU stand? Come on, let’s share your new wardrobe pieces in the comments!
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Til next time,
Mathilde 🧦