Found Bills thanks to a guy named Franco (continued)
These khakis were otherworldly in their comfort. The cut was generous, but not excessively so. They are substantial pants (they held the crease Franco put in them for 12 days of near-constant travel), and the deep pockets kept all my essentials close at hand—cell phone, money, Charms lollipops). The pants felt great, and dare I say, I looked great in them (and not just because my legs no longer looked like denim-encased sausages dangling from my waist). Bills are a man’s khakis, built to do the work that a man must do (like write funny cable news banter) and let him do so in the classily-panted style of his Greatest Generation ancestors. In short, my new Bills M2s felt like home and I wore them every day for the rest of the tour (personal hygiene be damned--I couldn’t bear the thought of trusting them to hotel laundry).
My new Bills have not only been put into my regular wardrobe rotation, but they essentially are my regular wardrobe rotation. Along with my trusty Clark’s Wallabees and an assortment of blazers, they help me cut a more refined figure within the hallowed halls of CNN Headline News. I can easily dress them up with an oxford collar shirt and bowtie for meetings with the “brass” (the people I take orders from who are 6 years younger than me), or pick them up from the floor, shake a new morning’s life into them, toss on a v-neck sweater, and now look more like an unemployed director than actor. (I’ve arrived!)
I’ll always have Franco’s and the memory of Southern hospitality from an Italian immigrant who put me into my first pair of the Pennsylvania-branded pants named Bills. And if I ever find my back to Richmond, let’s pray I can sneak into those 38s.
And oh—my M2s (un-pressed) look great with a Kiss t-shirt. How sweet is that?