Roger, Wilco, Out: StyleDash thinks Jeff Tweedy needs a style intervention due to his SNL appearance in a nudie suit. Similarly, we think Style Dash needs a music intervention due to their apparent ignorance of the Flying Burrito Brothers (video). [StyleDash]

Team Colors: An interview with sideline style leader and coach of the 5-and-11 49ers, Mike Nolan. [HuffPo]

Housing Futures: Figuring that all the collapsing real estate market needs is a fresh blazer, “Fashion Futurist Geoffrey Beane” (say whaa?) is teaming up with Century 21 (not the store) to redesign their iconic gold jacket. [Business Wire]

For Absolute Beginners: Buying into Mod style. [ModCulture via Retro to Go]

Best Men: Engineered Garments brings home the inaugural GQ/CFDA Best New Menswear Designers in America award (oh, and $50,000). [Men.Style]

Leading Lights: Luring men toward a new shaving cream is much like luring mosquitos to a high-voltage death. [NYTimes]

Historical Threads: Classic American style parsed. [A Continuous Lean]

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Kermit the Frog gets his slimy, webbed hands on Terry Richardson—or is that the other way around? [Skidknee]

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 New York’s most influential boutiques just made the leap to the internet, and we’re happy to say they’re in fine form. Eddie Chai’s Odin has had ecommerce on the mind for a while, but they finally managed to take their extremely local operation—East Village, to be specific—to a national scale.

That’s not to say we expect Iowa City to get nattier overnight, but it matters that Chai’s impeccable selections are now available to anyone who cares enough to punch in the url. And the site offers a lot more than just a box for your credit card number. In addition to lookbooks for each featured designer, the site features remarkably in-depth interviews to give you a sense of why each designer was chosen. It’s the kind of thoughtful curation that our corner of the web desperately needs.

More on our new favorite shop»

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.

Stuart Little: In this case, it’s Paul Stuart, but we will go to any store that devotes this much space to socks. [NYTimes]

Big Pharma: We still don’t like Damien Hirst. [HintBlog]

Engineering!: A chat with Engineered Garments’ Daiki Suzuki reveals a healthy obsession with flannel vests. [TimeOutNY]

The Ruling Party: Esquire’s rules for dinner party guests will not tell you which one is the fish fork. [Esquire]

It’s always nice to see an old friend…

Selectism is sharing a peek at Engineered Garments’ new Spring collection, and it’s interesting as always. The workwear pioneers have moved on from the chaplin-esque bagginess of last year’s spring line to a more modern trim, with a new set of ornate fabrics along for the ride—a few which look like they might be more at home on curtain rods.

But don’t worry: they’re still cutting jackets with an eye towards turn-of-the-century steel workers, and they still do it better than anyone else.

See a few pictures of the line»

As American as it is, workwear has always been a good deal more popular in Japan—see Engineered Garments, the endless stream of Red Wing collabs—which means in addition to the domestic stalwarts who keep producing the way they did 80 years ago, there’s a generation of designers in Tokyo trying to put a futurist spin on things.

Comme Des Garcons is hardly the most rugged label on the map, but Junya Watanabe may have brought out the outdoorsman in them. You’ll have trouble getting hold of his latest collection unless you’re passing through Hong Kong this month—hey, you never know—but it’s interesting to watch the way it blends L. L. Bean-esque fishing gear with more urban nylon vests.

At the very least, they’ll be ready for the rain.

See more of the line»

One of the nice thing about having a particular style is that it lets you turn old staples on their heads.

By now, Daiki Suzuki’s style is pretty well-known. Under the Engineered Garments label, he’s championed simple, trim workwear items from the beginning, and birthed a trend in the process. Now he’s taking on the traditionally bulky leather bomber jacket…and turning into a slim cotton twill jacket that looks like exactly what you’d expect from Suzuki.

Take notes; this is how brands are made.

See Suzuki’s bomber jacket up close»

We love Engineered Garments, so it pains us to say this, but this is a bad idea. It’s almost impossible to make a belly-side pouch attractive, even when you’re working with the most respectable fabrics in the world. You can cover it in tweed and call it a “waist bag,” but it’s still a fanny pack. Sorry gents, but we’re not buying it.

Engineered Garments’ latest line of casually rumpled elegance is definitely worth a look, and it provides some prime trendcasting fodder. The big loser? Ironing boards. The big winner? The plaid tie.

To be fair, plaid neckties have been a growing presence for some time now—not least on the racks at J.Crew—but this kind of wide, large-check neckwear is more the kind of thing you’d get from J.Press, and it rarely gets this much love from the fashion-forward crowd. Matching it with your pants like this gentleman is still a pretty advanced move, but it’s good to know Mr. Suzuki’s still got love for the preppies.

High Marks: We’re guessing this picture was taken somewhere in South America. [BModels]

Give ‘em the Boot: Mark McNairy and Engineered Garments join forces for an Alden-esque high boot. Awesome stuff. [A Continuous Lean]

The Electronic Bay: A gentleman’s guide to shopping on eBay. [Put This On]

Shiny Things: The last colorful iPhone case you will ever need. Shouldn’t they be moving onto the Nexus by now? [CoolHunting]

Corduroy is usually a little too delicate for the workwear crowd, but it looks like it’s finally getting its day in the sun.

This pair comes from Engineered Garments’ Workaday collection—the cheaper, staple-oriented diffusion line—and while there aren’t any cargo pockets or extraneous seams, it’s a lot more solid than what you’ll find at the outlet shops. And more importantly, it gets the color just right.

This shade of red might be a bit heavy for a pair of pants, but it’ll surprise you how well it goes with just about anything in your closet. It’s well on its way to becoming a staple—and we’d choose this pair over just about any of the others.

Today saw a lot of Engineered Garments gear arriving in stores, but our favorite so far is this linen boater. The madras strap gives it some sartorial heft, but mostly the draw is light, summery fabric and a design that went out of style with the telegram. Happy boating.