The Pocket Square is a the biweekly men’s style column in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Pocket Square #7 Vintage Menswear Twice as Nice, March 1st, 2009 
Vintage and secondhand shopping is anathema for many men (save for those hardy few who get a nearly electric thrill from rummaging through racks of musty overcoats and aging trousers). And yet, with the significant monetary and environmental benefits of finding a sartorial gem, perhaps the gent who quails at a half hour inside Macy’s can find a way to steel himself for a stop into the purveyors of yesteryear’s cast-offs.
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #6 A Quick Guide to Men’s Fashion Media, February 14th, 2009 
In the midst of the sky falling on print media, with magazines closing left and right – Men’s Vogue, we hardly knew ye – I decided to take a look at the state of the fashion press. Though this is by no means a comprehensive survey, I’ve been taking stock of what the newsstands and Internet have to offer by way of men’s style coverage and found a few sources that offer reliably dapper content. Call it the Pocket Square’s proper primer of the men’s fashion media landscape.
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #5 The Spit and Polish of Shiny Shoes, February 1, 2009
A friend once told me about his father, whose workaday job involved a numbing commute and thankless trips up and down the East Coast. The only thing that brought Tom Kingsley Jr. any solace was having his shoes shined in airports. “It’s the only pleasure, the only dignity left in business travel,” he told his son.
From that moment, I vowed to have a shoe shine in an airport, a tip of the hat to Mr. Kingsley’s Willy Loman-esque grumblings.
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #4 Survival Tips for the Well-Dressed Recessionist, January 11, 2009
As the slow trudge through January marches on, clearance sales and going-out-of-business closeouts drying into a paltry trickle by mid-month, the stylish gent finds himself in that vast wasteland of post-holiday shopping. The racks are depleted, the spring gear has yet to arrive, and with a light pocketbook, he starts to ask himself how best to survive as a recessionista?
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #3 San Francisco, Land of the Messenger Bag, December 28, 2008
Considering the grave threat that American-made cars in Detroit are facing, it’s reassuring to know that San Francisco has managed not only to hang on to, but expand, a local cottage industry of its own: the making and profligate consumption of messenger bags. Granted, sack stitchers contribute far less to the national GDP than the perpetually beset United Auto Workers, but if “made in America” is a platform on which both Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan can stand – while haute couturiers still send their work to Vietnam – then our city’s brisk messenger bag trade should be applauded.
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #2 Timeless Shawlneck Sweater Making a Comeback, December 7, 2008
The first time I noted the appeal of the venerable and heretofore grandfatherly shawl-neck sweater – a full-fledged trend at this point – was on a young woman. She was my waitress at Suppenküche on Laguna Street in Hayes Valley, and I was having brunch in late October of last year, the day of my wedding, as it happened. The sweater was a heather gray pullover with a button at the throat and a soft woolen ruff ringing her neck. Her casually upswept hair, coupled with the oversize sweater and tight jeans, suggested a fashionable gamine blessed with access to her stylish boyfriend’s wardrobe. I noted my envy to a couple friends, and by Christmas they had gotten me a vintage white cardigan with that coveted woven lapel.
Keep reading the column here.
The Pocket Square #1 Savvy Swiss Watch by Mondaine, November 16, 2008
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean last month, as I twisted the tiny knob on the side of my watch, physically subtracting the 17 hours between Seoul and San Francisco, I started to think about what men want from a watch.
Function, for one, a shade of individuality for two and finally, and I distinguish this from owning, say, a tony Rolex or posh Patek Philippe, some subtle display of sophistication. I perused Esquire magazine’s November issue hoping to come across what I was after, and instead discovered that though it was rife with fancy timepieces, they often cost upward of $20,000.
Keep reading the column here.