Details Advises No Back Pocket Wallet Wearing
12 Comments Published by Joel April 2nd, 2007 in Clothes. Share This
We’re all about encouraging you towards confident style here at Dethroner, even if it means taking the occasional fashion detour that dead-ends in pimp gear or popped collars. Live and learn, right? And to that end, we’ve suggested poking through fashion magazines from time to time to try and impregnate your sense of style with new trends for later processing or purchase.
But just when we at a comfortable stalemate with the big boys, Details has to publish something so retarded that it makes me want to rip out my artfully tousled hair:
Clinging to tradition is your prerogative. Go ahead and refuse to trade in your “perfectly good” 2001 Lexus; shampoo with Pert Plus even though something in a better-looking bottle might make your hair look shinier; order the lone chicken dish on the menu at a sushi restaurant. But there’s a point at which a resistance to modernization stops being charming—especially when it leads you to do something that’s profoundly detrimental to your appearance, such as cramming a wallet in the back pocket of your pants.
Not content to attack back pocket wallet wearing by itself, Details has to grinds its stiletto heels into its readers to get its frivolous point across. You drive a seven-year-old Lexus and wash your hair with cheap shampoo? Barbarous wretch, unsuited for copulation! How do you roll off the chaise lounge every afternoon?
Aspirational “lifestyle” publishing has its place, but as soon as magazines try to attack my self-confidence using my choice in material goods and fashion—two of the very least important things in life—it raises my hackles. Not ever man has the luxury or desire to keep “a couple of $100 bills and an AmEx” in his pocket. By being snotty about something utterly unimportant they’ve lost the opportunity to offer reasonably self-assured men a bit of advice.
It’s all about context: there are certainly times when not wearing a rear-pocket wallet is appropriate (a night on the town; your finest dress clothes). In blue jeans on the way into the subway—their picture, not mine—is not one of them, you pretentious dickbags.
GET YOUR WALLET OUT OF YOUR POCKET [Men.Style.com]
12 Responses to “Details Advises No Back Pocket Wallet Wearing”
- 1 Pingback on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Actually while being cocks, they are right about back pocket wallets. They are terrible for your back and you just shouldn’t do it.
And there is plenty of scientific studies to back this up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2664615.stm
Also back pocket wallets are known pickpocket targets, while they will steer clear of front pockets most often.
I agree though, I hate when magazines are cocky about peoples choices to make a point they might not be right to make.
This is what pisses me off about high fashion…it appears arbitrary. Give me a reason not to have a wallet in the back pocket. I know if its thick its uncomfortable to sit on, I keep that as a reason to do house keeping. I know that its a target for pickpockets, so when there is that possibility, it will go in to another pocket. But this ‘do it because we say so’ mandate really pisses me off.
Besides, my front pockets already have my keys, spare change, chapstick, cell phone, and usually an mp3 player. There is no room for a wallet. If it comes down to the back pocket or an European carry-all, I’m sorry, but the back pocket wins every time…maybe thats why I’m still driving a car from the 90s.
Excellect post, I agree completely.
The pretentiousness is ridiculous.
I will myself keep my wallet in my back pocket, regardless of what the elitists mandate, however I have opted for a no-fold card wallet, because as the article suggests, you really honestly don’t need that much.
I carry about $50 in cash, 4 credit cards, 2 IDs, and a few business cards with me in the wallet…more than enough.
Maybe it’s because I live in Los Angeles and it’s fucked up car culture, but the Lexus thing is the worst part of it for me.
1) New cars, especially luxury cars, are boring. Ever been at a stop light with five silver 325is? Five fucktards trying to look cool.
2) Older cars – including 80s and 90s if you get the right thing – have so much more style. A brand new Lexus only means you’re bright enough to find a dealership and a cosigner.
3) Luxury cars do not indicate affluence. Brand new luxury cars (excepting the extreme like Bentley and Ferrari) are more likely to indicate you’re living beyond your means than anything else. I don’t generally associate with the overly wealthy, but the few I know tend to drive old Mercedes and other cars that a) have class and b) were bought, paid for, and no longer represent a drain on their resources.
Quoting Jim: “Actually while being cocks, they are right about back pocket wallets. They are terrible for your back and you just shouldn’t do it.”
Riight, but only if you sit on them. Take your wallet out of your pocket when you sit down. As I sit here typing, my keys and wallet are directly in front of me on the desk. My chiropracter read me the riot act on that one years ago and I only ever have it in my pocket when I’m standing.
you think that’s bad? try reading womens magazines. its nothing but page after page of articles and photos designed to make us feel inferior and unworthy. no wonder us girls are all so neurotic…
About a year ago I went on a quest to find a “slimmer” wallet that I could easily carry in my front pocket. I settled on a Fossil brand one that works….I carry some cash, a couple credit cards, some business cards, and a spare key in it. Ever since I started putting my wallet in my front pocket my back has hurt less while I’m at work.
Granted, it’s not as slim as I’d like, but I just can’t bring myself to face the day with only my drivers license and a single credit card. I feel *naked* without my stuff, though it is a lot less than I used to carry around. I’m putting up with the “pocket bulge” it creates, though. My left pocket gets the wallet, my right gets the cellphone and keys. I won’t take the stuff out of my pockets and sit them on the desk not only because it makes me nervous (not that anyone here would do anything, but just the same…) but also I can just see myself walking off someplace without them.
Really, ever since I stopped carrying my wallet in my back pocket, I’ve been that much more comfortable. Don’t try it for all the wrong reasons, try it for all the right ones!
Great post, Joel. I completely agree. Haute Couture often overlooks function for aesthetics. The writer of that article must either have been a complete idiot.
The article was probably just a advertising-sponsored, subliminal, marketing plug to sell more “man purses”.
The author of that article confuses “staying up to date” with “ponce.”
Actually, when I started dieting and suddenly had a reason to keep up with fashion, I moved my wallet *from* my front pocket *to* my back pocket.
I used to be of the more-I-can-fit-into-my-wallet-the-better type, which meant that I had this ugly bulging front-pocket monstrosity. The kind that makes a girl ask “Are you happy to see me or just genetically deformed?”. As I slimmed down, it needed to go. I exchanged the huge-ass wallet for a credit card wallet that has only my ATM and credit cards and some bills. Still, keeping it in my front pocket with my RAZR meant a noticeable bulge – especially on the slimfit jeans I started buying.
So now I wear my wallet in the back pocket and my RAZR in the front pocket, and it’s barely noticeable that I have anything in either pocket – which was the whole point of the exercise.
The wallet in your back pocket isn’t the problem. It’s the size of your wallet. Fix that.
“shampoo with Pert Plus even though something in a better-looking bottle might make your hair look shinier”
Shampoo with Pert Plus for a few years and you will go bald as a result. Much less hair maintenance that way anyhow. Good Riddance.