Putting the Buckle on the Rust Belt

During my recent trip to Cleveland, I stopped in to see my friend Steven Tatar, the man behind the very wonderful Ohio Knitting Mills brand. He always has lots of new projects and schemes percolating, and this time around he was eager to show me a big cache of vintage 1970s belt buckles he’d recently procured. “A lot of them are sports-themed,” he said, “Look, there’s even a Mets logo buckle — that’s got you written all over it!” Unfortunately, as I explained to Steven, I’m not really the gaudy 1970s belt buckle type, not even when a Mets logo buckle is involved. (Like, it’s not as though I’ve never seen one before. Just not my bag.) “Okay,” he said, reaching into the box of buckles, “but I think you’ll be interested in taking a look at these, even if you don’t want to wear them.” He began handing over a bunch of buckles. They were interesting. Some were cheesy, some were classy (...