Q & A: Episode 1

Transcription

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison, and here at The Hanger Project, we love to help the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. As part of a new series, I'm going to give a shout out to five people that have either made a comment or asked a question on our YouTube comments. We appreciate all of our subscribers and especially your comments. Each of these individuals will receive a complimentary pair of our Kirby Allison Sovereign Grade shoelaces as a way of us showing our appreciation for their engagement in our channel. If you have any questions or comments during this video, please ask them in the comments section below and remember that I get back to all your questions and comments on this channel personally.

Our first question this week is from Andreas on our video on how to wash dress socks. Andreas' question was: "Great video! Would you also use hand washing for pure silk socks, or can they go in the machine? And maybe a weird question, but do you wash Hanger Project's socks after every day of wear or is it okay to wear them for like 2 days in a row?". This is a great question. So first off, silk is actually one of the strongest fibers. So a pair of silk socks can easily be washed out a machine cycle with the rest of your dress socks. Great question on how often to wash dress socks. I honestly will wear a pair of socks several times before I wash them. Personally, my feet don't sweat profusely, and I don't live in a walking city where I spend a lot of time every day walking, so I'm probably a little bit more gentle on my dress socks than most people but I'm easily able to get several wears out of a pair of dress socks before they need to be washed. The fewer times you can launder anything, the better. If you have any doubt give your socks a quick sniff, you'll know immediately whether or not they need to be washed. I honestly even wear my dress shirts more than once if at the end of the day they're not terribly wrinkled or soiled. There is a truism with fine clothing and that is that you can measure the lifetime of a garment by how many times it's been laundered. So the fewer times you can send something to be laundered or dry cleaned the better.

Our next question was from Geoffrey Archer on our video on the complete shoe shine routine. "Hey Kirby, loved the videos, and I've officially found a new hobby. A question though: After applying a mirror shine to a shoe, how often should I be polishing, and should I still follow the normal steps of the Renovateur polish and wax?" After you've created a mirror shine to the to or heel, you can simply touch it up using a little bit of Pate de Luxe, and that's what I find works the best. Now just through natural wear, you'll see that you might get a little bit of small cracking, or you might lose it's shine. And so just a little bit of Pate de Luxe shoe polish with the high shine chamois will help re-elevate that shine. Now if you get to the point where there's cracking or chipping, then what you'll have to do is to completely remove all the hard waxes using the Saphir Renomat and start over. As far as the rest of the shoe is concerned, you just would polish that as normal.So, you would just use the Renovateur or the Renovateur and a Pommadier cream polish and wax as often as the shoe looks like it needs to be polished. We often get this question of how often or when should I polish a pair of shoes, and really the best question for a pair of shoes that you're wearing regularly, is that you should polish the shoe whenever it looks like it used to be polished. I know that's an oversimplification, but once you begin polishing your shoes, you'll notice immediately whenever your shoes need to be shined. Thanks Jeffrey for your question, we look forward to seeing you a pair of Wellington Sovereign Grace shoelaces.

Our next question was from JohnNathanShopper on our video on dress shirt collars and stays. "I respect the great care gentlemen like Kirby take with their wardrobe, but these ultra - lux collar stays seem to me like the equivalent of mood lighting in a car. Can't deny they work, but it's such a subtle effect and so fiddly to implement that spending so much money on them is mischevious". Thanks John. I do agree that you don't have to have expensive collar stays, but on the other hand I do enjoy some mood lighting in a car. These are some of the things that we do or invest in just for the sake of her own pleasure, like a beautiful wallet or a fountain pen. Other people don't see them, but you know they're there. That said, there are certainly better options than plastic collar stays, and the reason I don't like plastic is that if you forget to remove them at the end of the day and send your shirt to the dry cleaners, the hot pressing can actually melt the plastic into the shirt collar and ruin a shirt. You also have to be careful with the sharp edges of metal collar stays, because those, if they're not polished, can easily tear through the end of your collar stays sleeve and completely ruin your ability to use a collar stay on that shirt. So I definitely at a minimum, recommend using some type of collar stay and if you're careful to remember to remove these at the end of each day, you should easily be able to hang onto these for a long time. Our Hanger Project horn collar stays are some of our most affordable, and honestly they're my favorite. They are absolutely beautiful with the natural marbling you get with the horn, and the soft rounded edges will ensure that they never tear through the end of your collar stay sleeve. And thank you so much for your comment John, we look forward to sending you a pair of our Sovereign Grade shoelaces.

Our next question is from BornToRunBarefoot on our How to Tie the Berluti Knot video. He says "Couldn't you make the introduction any longer? I didn't quite die from boredom". So you're not the only one that has accused me from time to time of possibly being a little bit long winded, but I wanted to share this story with everyone watching the video because it was special to me and I thought that people might find that interesting. We genuinely appreciate your comments, thank you. I look forward to sending you a pair of our Sovereign Grade Shoelaces.

Our next question was from Ian Medium on one of our Lee Miller videos. He says: "I'm really enjoying this series, Kirby, thank you for taking the time to make these. You are really capturing tradition and craftsmanship and preserving it for future generations with these types of videos. So few nowadays even know this type of craftsmanship still exists". Thank you for this comment. I really enjoy hearing feedback from our subscribers on our videos, especially these longer form videos that we spend so much time and energy trying to film. One of the core values of our brand is handmade and artisanship, and I really enjoy spotlighting these artisans that so passionately craft these items. Thanks, Ian. As a token of our appreciation for your comment, I look forward to seeing you a pair of our Wellington Sovereign Grade luxury shoelaces.

So in today's video, I'm wearing my first pair of bespoke George Cleverley Baron de Rede buckskin loafers. This is in a dark antique Brown. And I've got a pair of green Sovereign Grade socks, and I'm wearing a, I guess what would be a sand suit from Chris Despos, which is a bespoke tailor out of Chicago who does all my pieces, a Sovereign Grade tie, this is a white Charvet shirt, and then a Simonnot Godard pocket square. I believe this is called their "Opera", I'm not quite sure, but a beautiful nice casual pocket square. I love the browns and the blues in this, and it really goes perfectly with what I'm wearing today. You know the pocket square, the tie, and the socks, of course can be found on hangerproject.com

Thank you for joining me on our first installment on what is our new series on shout outs to YouTube comments and questions. Remember if you ask any questions or comments on one of our videos, I try to get back to all those questions personally. If you like this video, give us the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications by clicking the small bell in the upper right hand corner so that you can learn whenever we release new videos. And of course, please take a moment to visit hangerproject.com where we have the largest and most comprehensive collection of luxury garment care and shoe care accessories in the world, as well as other products for the well-dressed. While you're there, please subscribe to our newsletter so that you can learn whenever we release new products, run promotions as well as receive our weekly digest of videos that we publish here on this YouTube channel. I'm Kirby Allison and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Thanks for joining me.