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We stopped to take a look at Suffering Moses, a store that had been dazzling visitors with its papier-mâché boxes since a century before my mother first visited, in 1941.
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The moment that upended me came one sunny morning, near the centre of Srinagar, when Bealby led me around the colourful and aromatic shops along The Bund.
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Yet no good trip plays out in only one key. Yet instead of avoiding the place that had cut his life in two, Bealby became the first foreigner to lead a tour group back to Kashmir, 16 years or so later, and now returns again and again. My British tour guide on the trip, Jonny Bealby, had come to Srinagar 25 years before and gone through the traveller’s ultimate nightmare: he awoke one morning in a houseboat named for dreams to find that his 25-year-old girlfriend of five years was dead by his side, reportedly the victim of an overnight asthma attack. That summer, 36 flights were touching down in Srinagar each day, bringing 1.3 million Indians, often on pilgrimage, to a jewelled valley that has long enchanted Mughals, British officers and backpackers.Įverywhere I turned, there were stories of rebirth. The Japanese, German and British governments had all recently lifted their travel advisories against visiting the area, and although more than half a million Indian soldiers remained – and more than 70,000 people had lost their lives in Indo-Pakistani violence there since 1989 – all official talk was of the future. It's the sort of dress shirt you pick up and look over and mutter, "They don't make 'em like this anymore." Only they do-just not here.When I stepped off the plane in Srinagar two years ago, I was eager to celebrate Kashmir’s attempts to revive itself after more than 20 years of brutal civil war. This one is cut trim and streamlined from a pinpoint Oxford cloth, with the kind of perfectly-sized point collar guys like Paul Newman used to dig. For a quarter-century now, Kamakura has been turning out top-notch, unmistakably American shirts with a price-to-quality ratio it's sometimes hard to find stateside these days. And after Ivy League style took hold in Japan, labels like Kamakura Shirts emerged to pick up the slack once the Brooks Brothers and J.Presses of the world began to wane in quality and veer from the true preppy-trad path. On the culinary side of things, they saw our greasy cheesesteaks and raised us immaculate wagyu sandos. Blue jeans became a real thing over there beginning in the postwar ‘50s now brands like Kapital are leading the pack in the denim game. The Japanese have a knack for adopting elements of American culture, obsessing over it, and then selling it back to us better and purer than we do it ourselves. That August steam-room of a wedding? You’ll stay cool. Some of our picks are 100% cotton, some have a little stretch in the mix, but all of them are designed to stay crisp and are built to breathe. They stay tucked without the ballooning mess most “regular/classic/easy/comfort” fit shirts offer above the waist line. Rule two: They’re cut the way any shirt should be cut in 2022 (or 2021, or 2020, or 2042), which is slim but not super tight. Our favorites can all support a thick knot if that’s your thing, or will stand tall on their own sans tie. Here’s your answer: The perfect white dress shirt only needs to do a couple of things, but it needs to do them perfectly. But what separates the perfect from the workaday? Pitti Uomo peacocks, red carpet heroes, and charity-dinner all-stars all have one secret weapon-besides the animal-pelt jackets and shawl-collar tuxedos and floor-through apartments. And the white dress shirt is what you need in relatively advanced fashion situations, too. Funeral? Condolences, flowers, and a white dress shirt. Bar mitzvah? Confirmation? Graduation? White dress shirt. First day of work: wear a white dress shirt. They’re what you need for every conceivable life event. But wherever you are in your suit-buying life, and no matter your suit-buying budget, this much is true: you can definitely use another white dress shirt to wear with them. Love a good coffee pod.) Or maybe you’re somewhere in between. (Congratulations, and enjoy that office with the complimentary coffee-pod machine in the corner. (Congratulations, and good luck at that interview.) Maybe you just bought your 50th. The best white dress shirts are always going to be indispensable.