The Handbook - How To Guides
 
 
 
31 Days: Style Tips and Tricks
 
Volume 1
 

All the tips and tricks needed to shape up for 2009. Each day brings new, expert advice on how to look your best and live life to the fullest, while having a little fun doing it.

Clothes
Day
26

Buy American

Michael Williams, partner at PR firm Paul+Williams and the prolific blogger behind A Continuous Lean, is also a champion of goods made stateside. Here's his reasoning for such patriotic sartorial pride.

 
 

Hiking boots, $255,
by Danner

 
 

In Japan, consumers want English things to be from England, French things to be from France and American things to be made in America. It's a quality that I believe is derived from a devotion to authenticity. Portland, Oregan-based Danner is a perfect example of the type of company the Japanese love to support. Danner, which is often over-looked by the newly minted throngs of Red Wing admirers, has been making quality boots in America since the early 1930s. It's about time we as Americans hold companies that shun domestic manufacturing to as high of standards as our Japanese friends.

- Michael Williams
 
 
112

The number of brands on ACL's The American List, a regularly updated listing of companies that can still claim to be "Made in the USA."

 
 
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A Month of Tips