An Ode to the Knockaround Shoe
High-end, long-haul footwear is great and all, but there’s no substitute for canvas kicks built for wearin and tearin . Jeffrey Westbrook
My grandmother was an unrepentant clotheshorse. No stranger to the thrilling sensation of showing off a new cop, she reveled in cheffing up A1 fits and in complimenting her grandchildren on theirs. Whenever I’d show up at her house for a surprise visit in some freshly unwrapped purchase, she’d say the same thing: “Wear it and tear it.” Whatever new item I bought (or, in true grandmotherly fashion, she’d given to me) wasn’t meant to sit on a shelf. It was meant to be used. Loved. Worn until it was quite literally worn out.
Welcome to The Esquire Endorsement. Heavily researched. Thoroughly vetted. These picks are the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.
Before you read this, take a glance outside. (Go on. I ll wait.) If the street directly below your bedroom window isn t blanketed in a foot of snow, consider yourself lucky. Because a historically bad winter storm dumped a metric fuckton of slush across the Northeast earlier this week, and conditions outside are still brutal. It s cold. It s blustery. It s damn near unbearable.
All of which means you need a beanie, STAT. The right beanie will make everything a little less cold, less blustery, less damn-near-unbearable. And when it comes to beanies, no style reigns more supreme than Carhartt s acrylic watch hat, the iconic everyman option the workwear brand has been churning out for decades on end. If you re looking for a hat that ll see you through the worst of winter, and then some, look no further. Here it is.