Mo Kim

Why is it that I love ships so much? There are so many reasons. Ships, from the ocean liners of yesteryear to the cruise ships of today, are marvels of engineering and design: giant floating hotels that can accommodate thousands of people across the seas. (Cruises are also shockingly cheap sometimes – and as a Korean American immigrant, I will always love a good deal.) They’re fascinating from a historical standpoint as artifacts of their time, whether the heyday of American immigration in the early 20th century or the emergence of recreational tourism post-World War II. And above all, they’re vehicles for juicy human drama. Stories of maritime disasters may expose the fragility of life at sea, but they often also reveal our human potential to act with courage and conviction in the face of disaster – that narrative friction between adverse circumstances and ordinary heroism keeps me returning to stories, old and new, about voyages gone wrong.

Besides, there’s no feeling like breathing in crisp ocean air, looking around you only to find miles and miles of water in every direction.

So when my friend Amanda dropped the suggestion of a “nautical” day in my Instagram messages, I was thrilled. I had just one problem: for all my love of boats, I had very few shirts, pants, or garments that didn’t make me look like a Carnival tourist. Would I be able to pull this theme off?

Though my outfit may not be 100% shipshape, I hope it captures the adventure and energy of a day at sea! You want to have nice, sturdy pants that can weather the winds and waves, so I decided that corduroys would be my best bet; I paired them with the closest thing to boat shoes I have in my collection (they are still quite comfortable, which I think you’d want if you were walking on a wet, wobbly surface). On top, I went with a simple flannel shirt and an ocean-blue mariner jacket. The jacket felt nice, but I couldn’t figure out whether it looked better buttoned or not. In the end, I left it loose, just to give my outfit a little more variety in color and texture! Finally, I went with a baseball hat that really made me feel like I was ready to captain my ship, in the alternate reality where I am rich enough to afford such a thing.

Overall, the outfit came together wonderfully. It made me feel like I was ready for a long day of touring apartments (my partner and I are moving in together – eeee!), catching up on work tasks, and seeing friends for dinner. That’s the power of a good outfit: even when you feel swamped, it can give you the confidence you need to forge through the waters ahead.

Steal the look:

• Baseball hat, cream (Or any hat that makes you feel like you’re the master of your own ship.)
• Banana Republic mariner jacket, indigo (Such a cozy fit. Definitely wearing it again!)
• J. Crew flannel shirt, green and white (One thing that’s hard about working out is finding out how many of my old clothes now feel too tight for me – my shoulders, in particular, are getting so big that I fear I’ll need to buy new dress shirts soon. But I’ll enjoy wearing the shirts in my closet as long as I can fit in them.)
• GAP Straight Corduroy Pants with Washwell, bright brown (It’s taken me a long time to get back to corduroy after years of wearing my Korean cousins’ corduroy hand-me-downs as a kid – in the middle of hot-ass Los Angeles, no less. Now I love it, though: it feels like such an earthy yet velvety fabric and adds a lot of character to any outfit I work it into!)
• Navy blue loafers (“You can wear these all the time when you’re in California,” my mom said as she insisted on buying me these shoes. You were right, mom. Thank you.)

Coming tomorrow: I try to figure out what the kids these days are wearin’…