New Eastland blucher mocs...kind of

Tonight I had some time to kill so I swung by the Ross in Decatur to see if I could find some socks (over-the-calf socks are hard to track down). While I was there, I saw a couple of pairs of these Eastland blucher mocs on the shoe rack and went in for a closer look.

They seemed to be at least comparable to the pair of Bean blucher mocs I was wearing at the time, if not a little better. "Made in China"--disappointing but not a dealbreaker. They were labeled size 10 and since I usually wear a 9 or 9.5, I figured they were worth a try. I was surprised at how snug they seemed, but I chalked it up to the pair of socks I was wearing, and for $17, I figured it was worth it.

Well, upon getting home, I removed the tag and tried them on again. Really, they were pretty snug, so I looked at the tag again. It did indeed read "10M"...."WOMEN'S." Oops. Chalk that one up to the androgynous nature of preppy clothing. So they won't seem to work with socks, but without socks I think that they will actually be alright. I'm going to give them a shot at least.

25% Off at Traditional State

You may have seen my post last week about the Southern states flag belts being sold by Traditional State. Well, company founder Mason Jones emailed me yesterday to pass along a 25% off code that you can use on any orders placed now through the end of the holidays (I don't know if that means until December 25th or December 31st). When you place an order through the website, enter the code "christmas09" in the Apply Promo Code box. With the code, belts come out to around $22, which is a steal. I believe that Greg from Manifold Destiny already took advantage of this yesterday.

Unfortunately, Mason did confirm for me that there are no plans for a Virginia belt in the foreseeable future, but hopefully they'll get to it someday.

For the rest of you, I hope that "Santa" is able to take advantage of this deal.

Regimental NATO straps on the cheap

Inspired by a post on a time to get, I Googled "nato regimental straps" and was rewarded gnomonwatches.com where they are offering NATO straps in regimental patterns, in both 18 and 20 mm, for $14 a piece. This is a steal when you considering that J. Press sells them for $30 ($21.75 when on sale) and RLT Watches sells them for significantly more when you factor in shipping and pounds to dollars conversion rate. This is really a great deal; I can't wait to pick some up myself.