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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.
The Tom Ford/Thom Browne divide has been deepening for some time, but it seems like DNR wants to turn it into a full-fledged national conflict.
Mr. Ford’s British tendencies have been well-documented (think Get Carter not Pete Doherty), and apparently his fall collection is full of the large checks and cutaway collars that more fashionable Britons have been donning for some time.
Ah, 1962. Drink it in.
A Continuous Lean has posted a handful of J. Press catalogs from back in the day, offering a firsthand peek into a style more than a few designers are currently chasing. Apparently the early 60s preppy look didn’t play out quite the way you imagined. For instance, cable-knit sweaters were much, much bigger than you think»
With Labor Day weekend on the horizon, it’s almost time to trade those madras shorts for sweaters, toggle coats and the infamous flannel. You’ve still got a week to bare your calves, but a little preemptive shopping never hurt anyone.
Landing this week at East Village mainstay DEN, Engineered Garments is a throwback to early 20th Century workwear of the type you may be used to seeing elsewhere. Think coalminers and railroad workers…but well-dressed ones, wearing selvage denim, collarless oxford shirts and thermal-lined hoodies. (A little anachronism never hurt anyone either.)
And, if you’re the patient type, you can catch their capsule collection with Levi’s, the result of their GQ / CFDA award earlier this year. Highlights include 501s circa 1947 and a historically authentic army shirt of the type worn by prisoners in Alcatraz at the turn of the century.
Which should be enough to keep you warm when you’re swimming for freedom.
One of the quintessential masculine movies is getting a Blu-Ray enhancement, complete with a restored print, a set of somewhat off-the-wall appreciations (Sara Vowell?), and the usual commentary tracks and deleted scenes.
A lot’s been written about The Godfather, but so many elements of it seem worth their own film, from the corrosive effects of power, the decaying family unit, and the increasing paranoia of postwar America. The unflinching brutality of the killings still strikes a chord, even after twenty years of horror-movie densitization, and the cinematography is still some of the best in American film.
And, in case you’d forgotten, Part III still sucks.
We’ve sifted through a lot of advice, but it’s rare that you find anything approaching real wisdom in a magazine. To get the good stuff, we recommend going to a slightly smellier, more grizzled source.
We’re talking about the Hobo Code.
Inscribed in the Annual Convention Congress of the Hoboes of America in 1894 (we hear the buffet was amazing), the Hobo Code has stood as the gold standard of vagrant ethics for more than a century, guiding famous vagabonds like Fry Pan Jack, Stormin’ Norman and Waterbed Lou as they rode the rails through the country. It holds up surprisingly well, especially if you ever find yourself in Hobo Court…
The American auto industry hasn’t been doing so well the last few decades, but we’re sure it’ll pull through. After all, it’s got American ingenuity on its side.
Take this bubble-top hot rod, for instance. There isn’t much in the way of trunkspace or a backseat, and we shudder to think of the fuel efficiency, but we’d take it in a drag race any day. According to eBay, it’s currently on the block for $71,000, but that’s a small price to pay for a piece of history.
If they hurry, we bet Ford could get this lined up for 2010.
We draw from a lot of sartorial wells, but it’s easy to lose touch and, if we’re really honest, it’s been a while since most urbanites saw buffalo check in its natural habitat.
If you were wondering, this is what it looks like. (And yes, that’s a Kalashnikov she’s carrying.)
Rogues Gallery pointed us to these local Maine characters. The woman is Carolyn Chute, an occasional militia leader who has just written a novel about “living off the grid in rural polygamist Maine.” Her well-bearded husband is an illiterate gravedigger.
Welcome to New England.
Things have been pretty rough for the American car industry over the last few decades, but we never thought the solution would be sculpting hubcaps into decorative bowls. Isn’t this the sort of thing you’d usually buy from impoverished villages in Mexico?
American manufacturing has been hit pretty hard lately, but boutique brands have a little more flexibility…and at least some of them are staying put.
Of course, it’s hard to know for sure, so A Continuous Lean has put together The American List, a handy guide to which brands are manufactured stateside, and it’s required reading for anyone interested in modern Americana. It’s also a surprisingly short list.
Our favorites are Red Wing, Billykirk, and Engineered Garments, but it’s striking how much they all have in common. There’s a lot of denim, a lot of flannel, and a lot of weathered fabrics; it’s what you might call the American style.
At least, the part of it that isn’t made in China.
We were scanning over ACL’s American List when we ran across this Portland-made notebook. We’ve gushed about notebooks before, but this one has the added advantage of fitting in your back pocket…particularly useful for capturing those occasional flashes of brilliance.
And everything looks better on graph paper.
Of all the boots we’ve talked about, this is pretty near the top of our list. From New England’s own L. L. Bean (American List-approved!), this Maine Hunting Shoe is one of the original creek-walkers, and the basis for a small mail order empire.
And if you know someone’s shoe size well enough, it might not be a bad thing to leave on their doorstep in a month or two…
The two Portlands have gotten a lot of attention in the past year or so, so it was inevitable that a rivalry would pop up. And when a food site like Epicurious slips an item titled “Portland (Maine) is the New Portland (Oregon)” into its yearly trend roundup…it’s officially on.
Country music has had a rough time for the past twenty years or so, but once upon a time it was still raw, exciting, and entirely pure. Musicians came together at outdoor music parks, playing for whoever drove by. Regional sounds from Nashville, Tennessee; Bakersfield, California; and Lubbock, Texas mixed together to create a uniquely American sound that changed from state to state.
Some of it got recorded, but the vast majority of the acts were lost forever, aside from a few memories and a few old photographs.
Leon Kagarise recorded more than 4000 hours of it, but he also took more than a few pictures, and he’s put the snaps together into a photo-primer on the style of the time, called Pure Country. Anyone who’s ever looked up to Johnny Cash or George Jones could learn a thing or two from it. These were the original rock stars.
We focus on big-name designers so much that it’s easy to forget how many different pieces go into making a clothing line. For instance, if you’ve ever bought a shirt from Thom Browne, it actually came from the shirtmakers at Gitman Brothers, an American List-approved firm out of Ashland, P.A..
They’ve gotten where they are through impeccable craftsmanship—extra touches like handmade plackets, tight stitching and hand turned, stitchless pockets—but they haven’t flexed their design muscles more than they needed to…until now.
They recently made a splash reintroducing old fabrics under the name Gitman Original Vintage. We haven’t seen the shirts yet—they’re debuting at the AW09 capsule shows—but judging by their reputation, we’re in for quite a collection.
Oregon’s really on a roll lately. Winn Perry—previously known as the northwestern source for Sovereign Beck ties—just reminded us that they’re also the northwestern source for Alden shoes, one of the best cobblers still producing shoes in America.
Naturally, the best work comes from the custom shop, but anyone passing through Oregon should stop by if they want to see what modern American leatherworking looks like. Of course, if you’re closer to New York, we know a place there too.
Two States: If you needed a map of all 50 state mottos, here you go. A lot of them are really strange. [Cartophilia]
Clapped in Irons: Kempt favorite Scott Schuman ponders the ideal ironing technique. [The Sartorialist]
Going Mad: The threat of Mad Men without show creator Matthew Weiner is apparently real. Zombie Mad Men? Get worried. [Vulture]
Hair of the Dog: An annotated history of the mustache trend piece. [Gawker]
The dig on Thom Browne has always been that he’s all business—compared to his polar opposite Tom Ford, who seems to just comb his chest hair all day—so it’s no surprise that Browne would turn his eye to business accessories at some point.
The attaché case has been a standard of white collar American workers for going on fifty years now, but it’s hard to name a designer who’s paid it more attention than Mr. Browne. This one may be one of his more important creations this year. It’s all black leather on the outside, but if you open it up you’ll see where his head’s at: the lining is red, white, and blue.
Agent of Change: Agent Provocateur still makes steamy web videos, but this time around they swap the gothic castle for a Valentine’s Day bondage theme. Ok, maybe it’s not that big a change. [My Fashion Life]
Marxists: Hartmarx is on shaky ground…which is bad news for anyone who wants a suit made in America. [A Continuous Lean]
Free Dov: American Apparel is just making pornography at this point. But we have no complaints. [TrendHunter]
Science!: A new female sexuality study gets the feminist blogosphere riled up. To be fair, it was already riled up. [Jezebel]
Speaking of web retail, our old friends at Billykirk just put this leather-and-canvas overnighter for sale online. It’s American List-approved, naturally, but this is the first Billykirk item that seems like a complete item, rather than making the best of some amazing materials. From the pitch-perfect stripe of the canvas to the smaller rivets closing up the top, the usual industrial style is toned down just enough to stay under the radar.
The result is the only engineer-style bag we could imagine taking to the beach.
As your RSS feed can testify, Blue-collar nostalgia has gotten pretty hot lately. But while actual domestic production may be restricted to a smaller clique of labels, the iconography can still take you places.
Exhibit A: the latest line from BBlessing, a set of henleyed pullovers, dour pea coats, and appropriately gritty fingerless gloves. The sweaters especially bring out the spirit of declinist angst, but on a few items—the plaid dress shirts and tweed-y pants in particular—the BBlessing boys give away their twee origins. Not that we’re complaining; in fact, they’re to be some of the collection’s strongest pieces.
As for the industrial setting, it makes for a pretty striking photoset, but we doubt they’ll be cornering the dockworker demographic any time soon.
Animal Safety: Sienna Miller has fallen into a tiger pit. [SwipeLife]
Ryantown City Limits: Earnest Sewn’s new shop-within-a-shop confuses us to no end. Apparently Americana is involved? [Material Interest]
The Last Stand: Apparently they couldn’t keep the unreleased Wolverine movie locked down, much like Wolverine himself. [Vulture]
Ich Bin Bruno: Kanye gets his hands on the new Bruno trailer, in the rare exclamation-point-free post. [Kanye’s Blog]
Andy Spade & Anthony Sperduti of Partners & SpadeAmerica’s in need of a new image…but come to think of it, so is advertising. So mixing a little patriotism and a little PR magic is just good business.
This month’s PAPER Magazine (via WBE)mixes the two in just the right proportion, with a series of editorial images promoting a kinder, gentler image of America. This “Sorry” banner comes courtesy of Andy Spade & Anthony Sperduti—known to some as Partners & Spade—and Shepard Fairey pops in for a Soviet-styled ode to wind power, but the real muscle here comes directly from Madison Ave.
Naturally, there are a lot more doves than hawks, but the real question isn’t what this means for America but what it means for advertising. Once ad men start unleashing their inner RFKs, who knows what kind of full-pagers we’ll start seeing.
Now that Navajo patterns are finding their way into a few collections, it’s nice to see the style first hand. Even if it’s from a distance.
This snap comes from MoMA’s current exhibit on photography in the American west, courtesy of a typically brainy Slate slideshow. It’s required reading for any aspiring Westerners out there. And there are plenty more pics where this came from.
The Navajo look has been building steam for a while now, even if you won’t be able to get your hands on most of it before Fall ’09. These jackets from April77 and Rogues Gallery are only the beginning.
The occasionally cantankerous A.P.C. honcho Jean Touitou just sat down with Hypebeast’s Eugene Kan to expound on the state of modern clothiers. But when the conversation turns to America, he gets a little carried away and moves towards nationalist body snark. We’ll forgive him for choosing Serge Gainsbourg over the Ramones, but this requires an explanation»
We’re not usually much for coin collecting, but the latest plans for the penny just caught our eye.
Starting this year, you’ll start to see pennies with this symbol on their back half, thanks to some timely nostalgia at the U.S. Mint—and we couldn’t be happier. The symbol in the middle, far and away our favorite part, is called the Union Shield. It dates back to the 1780s, and you can see a few of them around the frescoes of the Capitol if you’re the touring kind, making it one of the cooler retro revivals of the year so far.
We’ve never been thrilled about the flag pin revival of the 00s, but if everyone threw these on their lapels (this one, for instance), we would definitely be game.
