Buy, Bitch: Boy Edition!
In this very special guest post, My pal Corban walks us through sherpa pants, cash back hacks AND an important sneaker spreadsheet
Hello, I’m Corban, and welcome to BUY BITCH! BOY EDITION. This one is by guys, for guys! Where my guys at?! While I have you, isn’t it crazy that gender is a social construct? NOTHIN’ BUT NET!
First off! I’d like to thank Veronica for allowing me to write a guest post for her essential and incredible shopping newsletter. As a fellow buying psycho, I’m going to do my best to live up the standard she’s set.
There’s another reason I asked Veronica for this opportunity: to promote my own Substack newsletter, Streak Talk, a Kansas Jayhawk basketball-related publication where I donate all the subscription proceeds to charity. I am very bad at marketing, so I humbly ask that you check it out and consider subscribing. I swear it’s not always about Kansas or even basketball!
Before we get going, I wanted to mention the coolest the coolest part of the collab: Veronica has agreed to donate all affiliate link proceeds from this newsletter, which is fucking awesome, and we’ll be putting them toward Jane’s Due Process.
Anyway, let’s roll tape on this. Welcome to BOY BITCH. (Ed. note: Or Buy, Boy? Boy, Buy? The possibilities are endless.)
A MAN MUST HAVE A CODE
Always diligent to my daily doomscrolling, I read all about the supply chain. It’s fucked apparently! And as we approach the holidays, the amount of stock will very likely be depleted.
This is bad news for retailers, but they’re prepared to take your money now. The high-end shopping hubs know this—and as Veronica mentioned in her latest newsletter, some of them might be flush with capita — HELLO HALO EFFECT—which is why they’re pulling the discount trigger a little early.
In all my years hounding promo codes,I’ve never seen the high-end marketplaces drop codes like this. SSENSE has a 15% right now (SHOP15), as does Mr. Porter (15% as well if you’re a member). Farfetch is intermittently offering 15% as well, and there are extremely few restrictions.
Post pandemic, we’re flush with sweats and fundraiser t-shirts. All of the Nike shit we bought in March 2019 has fallen apart by now. Personally I’ve been focusing on buying fewer things, and instead investing in better things and keeping an eye out for deals. What I’ve learned as a diligent shopper is that a lot of this shit is never going to be marked down more than 15% tbh. Time to pull the trigger.
A few things I’ve got my eyes on:
Absolutely coming for the Veilance GORE-TEX bucket hat at some point, out of stock on Mr Porter, but will eventually come back. Saves you, like, $300 by avoiding the Prada bucket hat in my calculus.
Giant pants wave is not ebbing anytime soon. All of this stuff I’m listing is a bag but Evan Kinori’s canvas pants + full-leg orSlow fatigue pants (Canoe Club, Grailed) feel like safe bets for heavy usage. Flannel-lined! C’monnnnnn.
Nepenthes NY is stocking nothing but bangers right now, including these weirdly slept-on zip-up Needles track pants, at a price point way lower than what you’d get at resale.
I know about Lady White through their Evan Kinori connection, and the black Kinori hoodie is one of my favorite staples. Lady White is its own brand and the hoodie comes in more colors.
My favorite genre of crazy pants is either sherpa or down, and I’m not talking about just the liner here. You always should have been allowed to wear a blanket as pants, so this is a lifestyle trend that’s easy to gel with. I copped the Nike x Stussy collab in the dead of summer for an absolute heist but you can reliably pay $150 under retail for a pair
God DAMN I want a Prada Re-Nylon thing, and outside of trying to find a pair on Real Real (impossible if you’re above a size S), Farfetch discounts + the Rak will be my best opportunity to date. Daniel Levy says it’s worth it!!!!
If you’ve been waiting for a lower price point to cash in on big pants-wave, 18 East has 11 pairs of black Goreckis left in store and you can order over the phone 646.866.4238. I have the patchwork Goreckis and they always move the needle.
Someone’s gotta cop the Bode towel jacket on Grailed. Something to keep in mind: we are all mortals standing on a floating rock but DRIP IS ETERNAL.
AN ASIDE ABOUT FURTHER GAMIFYING
Grailed gang already knows all about Rakuten, Japan’s e-comm giant. They’re pushing for more and more e-comm real estate in the US, and they’re doing it mainly through their cash back program. Generally, if you find a product through an affiliate link, that affiliate takes the entire fee. Rakuten’s innovation is splitting that fee with you in the form of a quarterly cash back payment. Around the holidays, you can expect cash back percentages starting at around 10%. It adds up!!!! For anyone who wants to join: Use my Rakuten referral link and we’ll each get $30 cash back instantly.
The Rakuten cash back numbers are straight up bananas right now, and tend to stay that way through Thanksgiving. Always-discounted Adidas offers an additional 15% now… they need to make the DON issue Monsters Inc shoes in adult sizes tbh. That said, all the Human Made stuff is cool.
Boulder’s Canoe Club has a rewards system, and you can rack up the points quickly—if they carry your brands (orSlow, Kapital, New Balance, plenty of other good labels). Buying from them is a no brainer.
SPORTSWEAR CUZ BASKETBALL!
I realized I just trashed the swoosh but the NikeLab line is underloved. The cuts and quality are just above the standard line stuff and are usually marked down by a lot
One of my favorite looks is apres-run but without the running part. In that vein, I noticed that runner-beloved Asics gels from a few seasons ago are marked down to under $60.
I still don’t really know what to think about Pangaia from a fashion perspective (Harry Styles wore their pink hoodie recently, I suppose that counts for something) because I never trust anything selling itself as “your uniform” coupled with vague posi language. But the ethos is cool (all recycled!) and they charting the hot colors, so I’ll probably cop something eventually, also because their sign-up deals are crazy ($20 off for starters, plus additional discounts if you cart stuff and hang on for deal life).
Tennis Warehouse is a reliable purveyor of marked-down Swoosh basics. Chris Black’s Strategist column was about 70% TW links for a reason. This HyperDry crew is nice.
I’m a Patatonia boy so no critique I have holds any water, but the design and cuts are intended for function, and they seem unwilling to ever push the boundary there. Fair enough! It works. But they’ve really been performing magic with their Wornwear ReCrafted line. It’s probably not for their regular customer, but I love it. Backcountry has a bunch of good Nano colors (bury me in Patty purple plz) marked down right now.
One of my favorite self-loathing hobbies is keeping up with the sneaker discourse. So I’d be remiss not to mention a couple good silhouettes that haven’t gotten the attention they deserve, and that’s reflected in the price: the New Balance 550s (non ALD versions are arguably better?). Hard to find on the regular market but the small resale bump is agreeable), and the Nike Waffle One which is 15% off at ASOS (if it’s your first purchase) even before the Rakuten kicks in.
Matt Powell is happy to shout this at you but over the past decade, sales of pure performance shoes are down thanks to the surge of lifestyle shoe sales. It makes sense, don’t cry for performance shoes. But… markdowns! If you’re in the market for basketball shoes or training shoes for Exercise, poring through this exhaustive hoops shoe spreadsheet is a must. A lot of these models will be discounted. If you want extra assurance, cross-ref with the gods at Weartesters.
BEFORE I GO
My brother Andrew is the founder of a great PERFORMANCE INACTIVEWEAR brand called Jambys. The hoodie, the shirt and of course the canonical JAMBYS are all must-haves. If you use the promo code BUYBITCH20, you get 20% off.
Thank you all for reading and Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!!!!!!!!
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