Freak Folk: Always on the hunt for a deep, sensitive mate, Natalie Portman is reportedly nuzzling up to Cripple Crow crooner Devandra Banhart. Yeah, we don’t know how we feel about this one either. We mean, he is wearing a woman’s jacket. [Egotastic]

Napoleon Complex: Lil’, wee plutocrat Nic Sarkozy is kicking up a press dust storm in his fierce heels. [Shoeblogs]

What Would Moz Do?: Dress like Morrissey and you’re set for life. [Style Salvage]

Spit and Polish: The geopolitics of the shoeshine. [NYT via On The Fly]

Throwing Sparks: Sharp dockside looks from Philip Sparks. [Philipsparks via Notcouture]

Blinded by the White: N.B. to African-American society partygoers - some photogs may require you use nametags. [Radar]

Environmental Hang Up: Going green starts at your dry cleaner. [Fox23]

Out of Africa: A brief history of the safari jacket. [Mercury News]

New Journalism: The Wall Street Journal is set to launch a new luxury magazine to compete with the Times’ glossy insert, T. Yes, yes - you’re right - they’re calling it WSJ. [Editor and Publisher]

Luxury Hacks: Next time you’re in Moscow, flag down a Maybach. [Autopark]

Home, Jeeves: In other auto news, The Chauffeur magazine has named its “Car of the Year.” The Chauffeur magazine? We should really get our guy a subscription for his birthday. [Autoblog]

The tie is having a rough year, and if thing keep up this way, the double-windsor may soon go the way of the cummerbund.

Last week saw the end of the Men’s Dress Furnishings Association, a trade group that took on the Lorax-like task of speaking for the tiemakers of America. Unfortunately for the MDFA, men aren’t wearing ties that much anymore, even to work. The Wall Street Journal points to a gallup poll citing a record low of 6% of men wearing ties to work, compared to 10% six years ago. The highlight of the article is the description of an annual luncheon where many MDFA members went tieless. There isn’t usually a dress code for a tie association gathering, but they probably could have figured that one out»

There may have been more life in the necktie than we thought.

A Continuous Lean weighs in on the Death of the Tie with a WSJ editorial from professional tie man Alexander Olch. Apparently Olch isn’t worried. He points to rising tie-wearing among the youth, and blames overseas production for the slump in U.S. manufacturing.

Fair enough, but we bet he was open-collared when he wrote that.