Links: Creased Jeans, Labels and Logos, Paris Picks…

Creased jeans: A fad or a style quirk?

Labels and logos: Mortal or minor sins?

Paris fall ‘08 picks: All check-worthy looks on one place.

Global warming, local chilling: Dressing for the weather.

Reinventing a classic: Appeal of corduroy.

WASP 101: Another lover of classic style started blog.

If you only have…: Five items from the closet StyleForumers cherish the most.

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The Future of Men’s Style Blogs

As a magazine editor myself, I have always felt frustrated that there is no newsstand magazine catering to me or anyone with a similar interest in men’s style.

Magazines that claim to do so either stray too far into lad’s mag territory (filled with sex columns and guff about cars or lifestyle – GQ, Arena, Esquire) or focus on the seasonal rotation of men’s fashion (GQ Style, Arena Homme Plus. But how many men do you know that change their clothes every six months?).

What is needed is a men’s magazine with features like a women’s magazine. It needs information on the history and traditions of menswear, together with tips on combinations and shops, and a little on fashion trends thrown in.

Until a year ago, I thought nothing came close to filling this gap in the market. Then I discovered blogs.

The more blogs I find on men’s style, the more there seem to be. Each mentions a few of his favourites as recommended links, and so you are sent off on another two or three forks of discovery.

Blogs have disadvantages. Without the editors or quality control that you would have on a magazine, some are poorly written or poorly researched. At their worst, they are empty musings by bored students, and each sentence is so long it gives you a headache.

But many show greater knowledge and greater clarity. My first discovery was The Sartorialist, which has become extremely popular and features the photos of Scott Schuman. His real talent as a photographer and real passion for men’s clothes – particularly as regards colour – is clear in almost every photo. Others with real knowledge include Andy, at askandyaboutclothes.com, and Will at A Suitable Wardrobe. I would also include the blogs featured on this website as among the best.

Discussion forums are very popular – and this proves to me the size of the audience for writing on men’s style. Among the biggest are styleforum.net and thelondonlounge.net. Andy also features forums on his site. But forums too have their disadvantages: without any quality control, you can find yourself reading page after page of comments that do not provide anything original.

In my opinion, the future of men’s style blogs will be in collections of columns and features, much like a magazine. This could happen through new sites, like mensflair.com, or through the extension of existing magazines.

By collating writers onto one site, Men’s Flair enables you to read different viewpoints and different types of writers in one place. Magazine sites such as men.style.com (which publishes GQ and Details in the US) have begun to collate blogs (such as The Sartorialist and In Her Eyes) as well as trying to start their own style forums.

This is the future. Blogs have filled a gap in the market, but there are so many that people find themselves reading the few that show real talent – as both writers and stylists. Those few will consolidate leaving the reader, hopefully, with the men’s style read they need.

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Links: Dandyism of Chesterfield, Stylish Doctor Who, Etro Love…

Who’s the dandy?: Sperelli vs. Chesterfield.

Doctor without a white coat: Turn to Doctor Who for style inspiration.

Etro: More love for Etro after Simon, Winston and Simon again.

Interview of the week: Chesterfield in the leading role again; this time being interviewed.

2008, a year made for dandies: Apparently, dandies are hot right now.

Paris runway: ’90s revivial!? I’m sure Drew Fiedler is thrilled (sarcasm).

Fresh Ferré: Ferré true to itself with Lars Nilsson on helm.

Esquire September 1939: Check out images and the discussion on vintage publications following.

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So, You Want to Be the President?

Here in the States, there is a big job interview going on right now. It’s for a particularly high profile position; the pay is alright but nothing stellar. Lots of travel required and an unusually large amount of stress because it’s one of those 24/7 jobs; you just can’t seem to escape the office. That being said, the perks are pretty good: a fleet of aircraft, including two jumbo jets, at your disposal; your own executive mansion and mountain retreat; an army of highly trained body guards; the kind of power that most eight year-olds only dream about; and you don’t have to wait for red lights.

Did I mention the private staff and world class tailors fighting over whom get to dress you head to toe?

While that sounds attractive, and though I have a real love of politics, you couldn’t pay me enough to be president of the United States. The interview process alone would kill most of us – or at the least hasten along coronary heart disease or something equally unpleasant.

On top of the grueling multiyear campaigning, required glad handing, backslapping, baby kissing, money raising and stump speeching, there is the never ending scrutiny. Everything from the shoes on your feet to your choice in ties is picked apart every day by thousands of journalists across the world.

I mean, what exactly does one wear when standing on a hay bale in Iowa? Should the shirt sleeves be rolled or unrolled? More than that, what kind of shirt should you wear? Should it be a dress shirt to show that bit of the executive-down-in-the-ditches thing? Maybe a flannel work shirt, appropriately worn-in by a devoted staffer so it doesn’t look like it just came out of the shopping bag (which it did) to indicate that you are a man of the earth?

Most importantly, you need to constantly maintain your image-consultant-defined “presidential persona.” So much to remember about yourself; so, who are we today?

• Tough on Defense Guy (Usually found speaking at some type of veteran’s gathering: dark suit/white shirt/primary color tie for inside speech or leather flight jacket and work boots if outside)
• Mr. Education (Often located in a sea of mildly interested children: blue blazer/open collared shirt/friendly earth tones)
• Dr. Health Care (Two words for you – nursing home: CEO look with dark or medium grey suit/blue tie/cufflinks)
• Captain Environment (usually shown outside in a national park or near an endangered lake: hiking boots/ jeans /pale blue work shirt/field coat)

And you think you have a hard time getting dressed in the morning. I’m not even getting into the stuff you have to deal with if actually elected president. Think about it. The president – and I’m talking about a man here, though it’s likely we’ll have a female one any minute – pretty much just wears a suit. That means any derivation from that uniform is noticed and analyzed.

The difficulty is that in The United States we want two things at once. Our president can never take on the trappings of a king but should always look “presidential.” That is, he should always be dressed better than the average CEO, but not too much better. At the same time, he cannot have airs. Citizens always want to feel that on some level the president is just like us.

The candidates know all this and constantly fight for the right balance. Democratic candidate John Edwards is a good example of this duality. He always wears a Timex Ironman wrist watch. It’s inexpensive, not particularly attractive but very functional. Every chance he gets, that watch is visible and obvious. From Jeans and a too-new looking work coat to a hand tailored presidential debate suit, it’s always there.

Why is that, you might ask? The man is a multimillionaire with a custom built sprawling low country estate. He gets $400 haircuts. You really think when this former senator gets dressed each day there is no Rolex or Cartier patiently waiting its turn in the dresser drawer? I’d bet money on it.

He prominently displays his Timex Ironman because he wants us to understand that he’s a man of the people; just a guy fighting the system on our behalf. This is the watch of Middle America, it says; of the working guy, and don’t you forget it.

That Edwards’ entire campaign can be represented in a watch shows the power of perception and the importance of detail. Every candidate no matter the party or even country focuses on these things because they matter. We say they don’t but when it comes time to pull that lever, someone, somewhere is thinking about John Edward’s watch.

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The Future of Tailoring?

“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor;” quipped George Bernard Shaw “he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go by with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

Tailoring, as Bernard Shaw’s witticism attests, is one of the most personal and rewarding experiences and the relationship a man has with his stab-rag can be a fruitful one; for no one appreciates your individuality more than a tailor. Tailors exist to perfect the practice of enveloping ourselves in garments. The fact that we desire this perfection is essential to the tailor; our vanity is the mother of the practice. And arguably, tailors need clients, especially in these luxurious days of mass machine-production, a lot more than clients need tailors.

Tailoring, though very much a profitable craft, has taken a few substantial hits in recent years. The designer suit is one of the culprits for the bruising. Offered at lower prices than tailored garments; marketed and packaged to the hilt, designer suits have been a success for brands such as Armani, Dior and Gucci. Brandishing the Italian and French credentials is sometimes more important to buyers than material and construction, and while getting a suit personally tailored from scratch remains a status symbol, more and more people are being drawn away from the dimly lit and rather homely establishments lining Savile Row.

Harrods and Selfridges; brash, lavish emporiums that excel in attracting new customers, offer free adjustments for suits bought from ‘superbrands’ such as Dior Homme and Burberry Prorsum and to the buying public, they are getting what is, to them, the ultimate package; a designer name and ‘tailoring’, all in one.

Suit buyers are far more demanding than they have ever been and they are, by all accounts, far more fickle than they used to be. The Row just hasn’t kept up with the rest of the pack. It has old and faithful clients (with a distinct emphasis on ‘old’) and internationally it is respected, but it is without a doubt experiencing a jolly rough time.

The 21st century is the age of the hotel-tailor; a quick lunchtime visit to a just-landed Hong Kong tailor in a London hotel room, and a suit made at a fraction of the price. Modern tailoring is also about using available technology; sending measurements via email and getting a suit delivered by UPS.

Clearly, the tailoring industry today is a very different thing to what it was before and it will probably be a greatly different thing in the future.

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