The Four Pins Guide To Fall Shopping

Image via Complex Original

Buy One Seasonal Thing Before It’s Appropriate

If men are like women, they see a bunch of cashmere sweaters and flannel pants and wool bras and think, “Got 2 have it!” even when it remains a roasty-toasty eight thousand degrees outside. But if you wait until it’s actually time to wear that junk, you’ll wake up on that suddenly cold October day so underdressed that you’ll end up buying a hundred glen plaid pants you saw in that ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger Family campaign. So whether it’s a sweater thick as Texas toast, a vest filled with down feathers and bitcoins or some big, bad boots, allow yourself one fall thing before it’s truly fall. Consider it the kick-off!

Make A Budget

Take your monthly paycheck, multiply by four, divide by six, then type “7734” and turn your calculator upside down. Now clear and press the COS button. That is your budget.

Clean Out Your Closet

Look at your cold weather clothing. Just look at it. Are you really going to wear that flea market plaid thing that smells like plaid flea market things? Those drop crotch cargo pants you ordered from some Spanish department store for yer BloogGGz? That leather jacket that is the color of Howard Hughes’s ashtray after a therapy appointment? Probably not! Except maybe. Who am I to judge? I am but a lowly internet writer. Throw out anything that is legit dirty or stained or ruined or from that ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger family campaign. And keep those drop crotch cargo pants. They're awesome.

Dry Clean The Stuff You Already Have

Your cold weather clothing has probably been sitting in some godforsaken corner of your closet gathering mothballs and gold dust, so dry clean it. It will make all of it feel new. Dry clean everything: sweaters, pants, shirts, that Audrey Hepburn poster your ex-girlfriend left there. Now you have a poisonous poster. Send to your ex-girlfriend, even if you haven’t spoken in months. Include a card: “It’s POOooOOoiiiSoooon!!!!"

Decide What You Need In Your Closet

Now that you’ve thrown out all your grosseries, assess your closet. Step back, put your hand on your chin, and say audibly, “Hmmm?!” This will help you realize that you don’t have any sneakers to wear with those EvEryDaY track pants you just bought. And also, can you get in trouble for that poison poster thing?

Make A List

Make a list of all that is missing. You may not buy it all, but you need a plan because people without plans end up making too many jokes about that ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger Family campaign. Doodle in the margins to get your creativity flowing. Like, maybe draw a penguin looking mournful with a speech bubble that says: “My curse is that I'm always overdressed.” Keep the list in your wallet and carry the list everywhere—you never know when you might pass a store that sells clothing! If a woman sees it in your wallet because women are always looking through guys’ wallets—“OoOOhmYGooddDD is this DrIVER’S LICENSE really YOU??!?! What is this thing, a CREDIT CARD?!”—get all protective. She’ll think you’re writing a novel, and women love novelists because women hate money.

Patience

Now that you have that list and know you need the perfect suspenders to wear with your newsboy dog socks or whatever men’s fashion is, I bet you’re thinking, “I GOTTA GET IN THERE NOW.” Why are you yelling? What are you, a writer for Four Pins? Be patient. It’s still 70 degrees out and most of the things you want are going to go on sale anyways.

Buy One Weird Thing

Now that you have the list, identify the weirdest thing. Shoes that look like cockroaches? A bowtie made of pheasant feathers? A floral scarf that’s also a tube top because men’s tube tops are so next? Get that. It will spruce out all of your freshly dry cleaned, boring clothing, which is starting to look old again.

Buy One Splurgey Thing

*Takes drag on cigarette holder that is shaped like a dragon smoking a smaller cigarette* Do you boys like luuuuxuuury? Whatever the most luxurious thing on your list is—a leather jacket that is as soft as I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, cashmere sweatpants, a camera strap made out of real plastic—get that. You will feel like a thousandaire.

Determine What Will Go On Sale

Wait a minute! Before you plow through the rest of that list like me with this bag of Breakfast Cheetos, you need to get savvy. There are certain things that will always go on sale. Pants, for example, particularly if they are made of an unusual material or cut in a strange way. Also, if there is something that is really popular, no one will ever buy the alternate color way. Ever. When shopping, really look at something (even if you buy it online, look at it, or a similar item by that designer, in the store first) and be like, “Who’s going to buy this for $1200?” Chances are no one until it is $990 and then you will be buying it because you put your ear to the pavement and listened and the pavement said, “Honey, don’t. Not quite yet.”

The Great Late October Re-Assessment

Now it’s October and it’s actually cold. Look at everything you bought. Just look at it, you sick capitalist chump. You’ve just spent a giant wad of your hard earned cash, and on what? Not one of those giant plastic sticks filled with M&Ms? IDIOT. There’s nothing you can do about it now, except buy more. Look at the holes in your purchases. Did you get a warm hat? Did you get a good flannel shirt for layering in that in-between-fall-and-winter time? Did you get a tobacco-lined vest with shearling pleats? Make sure you’re following along with your list because this will guide you through those big bad sales! Let that ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger Family campaign hang over you like a fucking guillotine!

Learn How To Stop (For A Minute)

It’s early November now. The air is crisp and your ex-girlfriend is leaving you more and more messages about how her chihuahua Suzanne ate that poster and died and MAYBE you could at least CALL AND APOLOGIZE? But you just can’t. You’re filled with ennui as you live through this time, impatient for the sales to begin so you can buy the rest of your clothing and have the Best Wardrobe Evah. Yes, it’s cold, and you have no gloves, but just remember, Tina Turner performs onstage all the time without gloves and is beloved around the world. I’ve never asked her, but I bet it’s because she knows as soon as she gets offstage, she can put on gloves.

How To Shop Sales

It’s Thanksgiving, which means Grammaw’s Fancy Feast Cat Food Pie and SALES!!! Start with the the things you need the most: the necessities, the Fall Must-Haves, as my favorite coin collecting magazines says. Like, pants, very warm things, etc. Anything that’s really weird, like pearl-encrusted dad jeans, you can wait on. Just wait. I’m serious! Wait it out. If it gets really hard, just chant, “That ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger Family campaign.” Once it’s January or, better yet, FEBRUARY!!!!, unleash those final dollars on all that weird junk.

Have It All

It's early March. There you sit at a memorial service for Suzanne you got guilted into attending and you are looking SHARP! Yes, you are wearing a flannel Purple Label suit you got for $1500 last week with a Bastian cashmere shacket you scored for $350 at Barneys and sweating so much it looks like your hair is sobbing because it is now 60 degrees outside. But you look amazing—the opposite of that ridiculous Tommy Hilfiger Family campaign.