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A blog dedicated to the interesting, scandalous, useful and cutting edge in the world of men’s style, fashion and grooming.
As any dedicated man of style can tell you, it’s the little choices that matter. Spread or point collar? Jeans or slacks? Two or three-button?
For the record, this month’s answer is two.
Today, H(y)r collective faces down a similar question for the ages: leather or red brick soles? It’s a tough call, and an otherwise versatile pair of suede bucks hangs in the balance.
With the downturn getting serious, we knew we were going to see fewer big ticket items, but we didn’t expect to run out of places to wear a suit.
Maybe we should have. Desperate to draw in more clientele, the New York institution 21 has relaxed its dress code. In their words, “Ties are still preferred and greatly appreciated, but they are no longer a must.”
We’ve written similar words, but under very different circumstances, and despite it all, we’re sad to see the jacket-and-tie requirement go. The trad life is a noble one, and it’s worth preserving. We’re sure there are other ultra-formal restaurants in the city…but we can’t actually name another. Until now, we’ve never needed to.
At least the market for bejeweled iPhone cases is still going strong.
There are a lot of sources for style advice, but if we had our choice, we’d skip the glossy mags, style sections, and even the blogs, and go straight for the sartorial wisdom of medieval parchments. They’re a little hard to find these days, but the advice therein is timeless.
This guide to pants may be a bit feminine for our uses, but the advice about acid-washed jeans is as true today as when it was written.
We’ve updated our must-haves—that’s the line of well-chosen items on your left—to bring in a new fall feeling and a helping hand for those of you scrambling for a good pipe. Add in some stomping boots, a classic holiday sweater and this rag & bone overcoat, and you should have enough swag to last you through the winter.
Consider your wishlists officially filled.
Photographed by our fearless lensman, Patrick McMullan.
Seems we were way out ahead of the curve when we praised Julian Schnabel pajama clad magnificence back in January and handed him an unexpected MOTH. Some of you scoffed at the time, but several months later Schnabel’s signature style is all the rage in menswear circles, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The paper reports that designers including Michael Bastian, Bottega Veneta, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani and Prada are now all flogging various versions of haute sleepwear made to worn in public. (Schnabel’s own, by the way, are made by his wife. So what does this all mean for the man on the street? Will we soon be able to go straight from bed to the office?
That eternally classic item of military-inspired menswear, the peacoat, has been interpreted in myriad different ways and fabrics over the years since it was first adopted by European navies some 250 years ago. Leave it to Hermes, however, to blow it out of the water.
For Fall, the famed house’s menswear designer Véronique Nichanian made a peacoat entirely of top-grade crocodile skin that will set you back a cool $150,000 and change, which gets our vote for the season’s most extravagant men’s item. The Hermes flagship on the Upper East Side just got in two of them, we’re told, in classic navy. You might be able to special order it another color—safety orange, say—if you’re willing to wait a few months and further decimate the crocodile population.
Frankly, we can see multiple-MOTH Cameron Silver sporting one of these for a sojourn on Valentino’s yacht or somesuch, but ordinary mortals will probably want to stick with the $120 version they sell at The Gap.
Apparently we’re ahead of our time.
Seven months after we warned against the dangers of the v-neck, it’s blossomed into a full-fledged trend. If only they’d listened…
Today, Radar printed a call-to-arms against the rising tide of club-goers in deep V-necks. According to the article, which had the good grace to mention us as a source, the deep-V has replaced the striped shirt as the go-to outfit for the huddled masses crowding the door at the clubs everywhere. And if the bouncer reads Radar, God help you.
You wouldn’t know it from Tom Ford’s entourage, but apparently the fashion industry saw a downturn in the past few months, with sales flagging well into the holidays. But thank heaven for the financial press. Fortune has figured out the problem and help is on the way in the form of a trend piece. The headline? Boring Fashion Hurts Economy.
Of course, the fashion industry has always been the engine of America’s prosperity, so there’s only one conclusion to draw: your deep v-neck tee is a threat to our nation.
Other ways in which style developments menace our national character »
We’ve often wondered where impeccably-tailored restaurateur Jack Lamb gets his togs; naturally we assumed he zips over to London to patronize one of the hipper Savile Row offshoots. The extra flair in his ensembles should have tipped us off however to the hand of New York’s own Duncan Quinn, whose clothes are “constructed to celebrate days of glory and nights of excess.”
Photography: Patrick McMullan
Curiously-coiffed Vanity Fair editor E. Graydon Carter has finally revealed the secret to Spy magazine’s success—and no, it wasn’t the invention of snark.
As we might have guessed, the key lay in looking the part. “Because we were small and because we were scrappy, I made a very conscious effort to wear a suit and tie to work every day,” Carter tells the London Guardian in a just-published profile. “You can get away with a lot more if you look like a junior part of the establishment than if you look like a renegade.”
What is a “Trad”? Maybe you’ve heard the term referring to those sartorial adventurers who, ah…, hmmm…um… Perhaps some definitions are best left to experts and participants—in this case, Kempt turned an authority of no little esteem, his eminence, Lord Whimsy. Sayith the Lord—
I’ve heard the term “trad” bandied about here and there, but it seems to be a slippery definition. For some it seems merely an aesthetic preference, while for others it is more of an ideology. Although it can be a bit predictable, trad’s ethic of prizing refinement over innovation can yield very subtle, dignified options. The trad sensibility seems more interested in style than fashion, which to many is an appealing alternative.
Ever since the recent debut of venerable Madison Avenue clothier Paul Stuart’s dandified, crypto-modern Phineas Cole line, we’ve been trying to place the clothes—and the name. Where had we come across such a combination before…?
Photo by Patrick McMullan
Kempt Kudos to Paul Sevigny, dapper DJ brother of Chloe and proprietor of the secretly swank Beatrice Inn for turning away a shabbily-dressed patron on purely aesthetic grounds the other night. The rejectee as it turns out was Google co-founder Larry Page, who could buy and sell a city full of Beatrice Inns with his $18.5 billion. But Sevigny was acting in the grand tradition of the ‘21’ Club, which once turned away Bill Gates for wearing sneakers…Read More…
