Gear

Sand Ho

Your Beach Experience, Upgraded

You have T-minus 24 days until Labor Day. Which means your chances to hit the beach are running out. But before you rush off to the Rockaways or the Hamptons or the crystalline shores of East River Park, you might want to pick up this stuff...

FOR THE HOT SAND

These Dapper Woven Slippers

The standby: Burning the bottoms of your feet. (Or suffering the indignities of $2 CVS flip-flops.)
The upgrade: Draping your feet in terry cloth.
The icon: Paul Newman at Cannes. Never a bad role model.

FOR YOUR FANS

These Daring Swim Trunks

The standby: Non-daring swim trunks.
The upgrade: These immodestly cut French shorts. Because you didn’t do power squats all summer for fun.
The icon: Alain Delon. Or anyone else photographed next to a bikini-clad Brigitte Bardot in the ’60s.

FOR THE FRESH CATCH

This Legit Oyster Knife

The standby: Best case: a screwdriver. Worst case: giving up and ordering in pizza instead.
The upgrade: This thing, specifically designed to open local bivalves like Blue Points and Naked Cowboys.
The icon: Um... drawing a blank on this one. Maybe get Daniel Craig or someone to do an oyster-shucking movie? Thanks.

FOR THE WRITTEN WORD

This Seersucker Notebook

The standby: Not bringing a notebook to the beach.
The upgrade: This thing, made out of the most summery fabric imaginable by tie guru Alexander Olch.
The icon: A Southern lawyer. But in notebook form.

FOR THE RIDE HOME

This Grass Surf Mat

The standby: Sand everywhere. We mean everywhere.
The upgrade: This thing. It rolls up, feels like grass and staves off later bouts of sand-induced insanity.
The icon: Mr. Clean.

FOR CARRYING IT ALL

This Hawaiian Tote

The standby: The first bag you find when digging through your closet.
The upgrade: This tough-ass bag. More precisely: this tough-ass bag with flowers all over it.
The icon: We could totally see Gosling carrying this thing. So let’s go with Gosling.