When I was trawling through the untidy racks at TopMan during a recent sale, I saw a suit in a fabric I had not seen since I had ventured into the loft at the old homestead many years ago when I was searching through my parents disused clothing for items of curiosity. Among the items of forgotten fashion I found, ransacking the hampers of garments from the last four decades of the twentieth century, was a suit in flecked wool; a dark grey with a … [Read more...]
One of the highest compliments one can pay a man of style is to say he wears his clothes well; that is, however tasteful and interesting each individual item he is wearing might be per se, the overall effect is that much greater for his having worn them with such panache. It is interesting therefore to consider certain men who have attained lofty cultural status and are recognized as style icons despite – or perhaps because of?!? – sloppy … [Read more...]
You wouldn’t necessarily pick a former English teacher and a former PR executive both with a love of Radio 4 as revolutionaries, but that is the impression I got of Deborah Carré and James Ducker. Perhaps it would be better to call them small ‘s’ subversives. Other than an obvious dedication to the artistry and craft of English shoe making in its purist form, nothing about Deborah and James is what you’d expect from bespoke … [Read more...]
While most clothing enthusiasts are familiar with the “usual suspects” in the shirt making industry, e.g., Barba, Finamore, Borrelli, the list can go on and on, there are plenty of smaller camicerias all over Italy that have been crafting handmade shirts to rival and even supersede the aforementioned brands. Let’s add Mazzarelli to that list. Mazzarelli was started by Marino Mazzarelli in 1951 as a cobblery shop. In 1960, Marino made a … [Read more...]
It’s inevitable that a child, quite demonstrably informed by an adult not to do ‘something’, will eventually do ‘something.’ It should also come as no surprise that another adult, demonstrably informed by another adult not to do something, will rekindle that childlike curiosity and reaction to authority by doing the very thing they had been instructed not to do. Temptation wields a mighty force. For centuries, man has always sought to … [Read more...]
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