What Price Glory? Sailor Staples for the City

This week, Vogue’s free-spirited champion bargain hunter tracks down another trend: nautical chic.

Though I grew up in close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, I have always held that rollicking body at arm’s length. To me, a water sport is the guy who picks up the tab for the Perrier; a rash guard is something to be stuffed in your mouth to prevent intemperate comments. But even if my knowledge of ships is limited to an affection for the Cherry Grove ferry, my enthusiasm for the gear associated with the shore is irrationally avid. I see myself, maybe, as a sort of distant Long Island cousin of Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny, bustling around a waterfront café, only instead of Marseille, we lived in Massapequa.

But enough about me. Regardless of your feelings toward kitesurfing, parasailing, hydrofoiling, flowboarding, or attendant other horrors, who says you can’t slip on a blue-and-white striped shirt, a pair of deck shoes, and carry your laptop to Starbucks in a giant beach bag?

First those ubiquitous shirts: the classic marinières, beloved of Jean Genet and Pablo Picasso, which once required a trip to France to purchase, are now available in every size, style, and permutation. A five-minute walk on lower Fifth turns up a spangled tank version at Banana Republic, a shawl-collared interpretation at J. Crew, and at least two variations at Anthropologie, both of which owe a large aesthetic debt to Sacai: One example, a cardigan, sprouts a muslin ruffle; another has a polka-dotted back and a floral breast pocket ($58).

These are all fine, but if you are determined to procure a completely authentic model, something with a real French label, you can visit the websites of Armor Lux (in business in Brittany since 1938) or Saint James (since 1889!) where, in addition to the traditional stripers, there is an irresistible version overlaid with flowers, on sale for $112. If you are obsessed with looking like you have been wearing this thing since your days at Camp Rim Rock, What Goes Around Comes Around on West Broadway (or La Brea in L.A.) has a stack of vintage examples, dating from roughly the 1960s to the 1990s, for $58 to $150.

The appropriate footwear to accompany this item (assuming you have had your fill of soggy espadrilles) is the boat shoe, available in every pattern from pink gingham to gold zebra from Sperry Top-sider. A pair decorated with anchors is marked down to $59.99. And for a tote large enough for a weekend trip (won’t your friends be sorry they invited you when it turns out you plan to spend the entire day walking up and down Jobs Lane and drinking Bloody Marys at Silver’s?), a company called Sea Bags, based in Portland, Maine, has ingeniously repurposed vintage sails as commodious carryalls (around $150). The results are decorated with such watery tropes as appliquéd anchors, bowlines, and, in at least one case, lined with Charles Darwin’s notes, a reminder that a billion or so years ago, our valiant ancestors crawled out of the deep.