The Sunday Best

In Which The Sartorialist Gets Lost in His Own Aura Again

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:41:00 -0700

He wrote this:

My best new post ideas always come from trying to solve a personal issue.

about a recent post. What had he done? Posted a screengrab of a parka with the amazing insight “I could save time by shopping online.”

He’s basically trolling himself.

(via A Life Well Wasted – Episode Seven: Work)

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:12:08 -0700

(via A Life Well Wasted – Episode Seven: Work)

The Chapin Sisters. (via Kickstarter)

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 04:46:38 -0800

The Chapin Sisters. (via Kickstarter)

Hark! A Vagrant is universally praised and yet, still,...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:08:56 -0800

Hark! A Vagrant is universally praised and yet, still, criminally undervalued. Just a cavalcade of non-stop awesome.

1066 Quiz

Greatest Men's Style Moment of 2013 (so far): Frank Ocean at the Grammys

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:38:00 -0800

My love for Frank Ocean is well-documented (if you stalk me online). At this year’s Grammy Awards he set the bar for men dressing well in 2013.

He performed in a subtle nod to both Forrest Gump and Richie Tennenbaum.

And accepted his award in Dior Homme, managing to make a collarless jacket seem cool again.

He’s also on Instagram (of course he is) as Francis Tenenbaum. Man crush, engage!

Style. You’re born with it. Have a great Christmas...

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 11:33:09 -0800

Style. You’re born with it.

Have a great Christmas everyone.

"I am lucky, I don’t have aches and pains. I do Pilates regularly which is a series of..."

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:47:17 -0800

“

I am lucky, I don’t have aches and pains. I do Pilates regularly which is a series of stretching exercises and I recommend it to anyone of my age because the temptation is not to exercise when you get older.

Well, you should. I always walk up the escalator on the Tube and I live in a house with a lot of stairs. That’s good exercise.

”

- Ian Effing McKellen

"We have to start winning games at the major league level, and the way you develop a winning culture..."

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:19:06 -0800

““We have to start winning games at the major league level, and the way you develop a winning culture is by winning major league games,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore said. “It’s time for us to start winning at the major league level.””

- Royals Manager Dayton Moore explaining how to win Major League games at the Major League level.

Dude watching with the Brontes. From Hark! A Vagrant...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:47:36 -0800

Dude watching with the Brontes.

From Hark! A Vagrant (http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=202)

7. The Hard to Shop For Man - A Guide

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:16:00 -0800

Why are men so hard to buy for? Cosmo has asked celebs and real men what box they want to open this Christmas. So now you can purchase the perfect present for your boyfriend… - Cosmopolitan

Guys can be hard to buy gifts for, but shopping for the man in your life this holiday season shouldn’t have to be a nightmare. - Today MSNBC

Which begs the question—why is it always such a daunting challenge to shop for dear old dad? - Forbes

If your man is hard to shop for, I have some advice for you: he’s an asshole. If receiving a gift moves someone to mope, or get angry, or stare straight ahead in a tight-lipped stupor, that person isn’t “hard to shop for”. That person is an asshole.

When did this become an acceptable character trait? Being hard to shop for is a ridiculous thing to be proud of. It’s equivalent to bragging about being a picky eater, or quick to anger, or incontinent.

Handmade sweaters, pairs of socks, books that reveal a lack of knowledge about our person…sure, I guess. People pay hundreds of dollars for handmade sweaters, but by all means laugh them off. And socks. If you want an iPhone, socks are a bit disappointing. For anyone else not delusional or insane, socks represent one less thing you need to buy, and everyone is always in a perpetual state of either needing or about to be needing to buy socks.

On any other day if someone gave you a pair of socks you’d be pleased, or at least bemused. Try that move on Christmas and lives are ruined.

So, this Christmas, don’t be hard to shop for. Accept whatever is given to you with grace and humility. Be known as a person for whom buying a gift is a joyful experience. Not sure if you are? Answer this simple question - when some asks me what I want as a gift, I say _______. If your answer to that question is anything but “Whatever they want”, see preceding. Asshole.

"With Nash, there really was no way to know that a haircut would change the entire meaning of his..."

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 15:41:47 -0800

“With Nash, there really was no way to know that a haircut would change the entire meaning of his face. You’re embarrassed to notice him now. Unlike the other side parts, Nash’s seems proportional to the rest of him. Unlike the other side parts, Nash’s has a nickname. Indeed, Kobe Bryant got a load of the hair and the suit and skipped the obvious putdowns — calling him, say, a Freemans Sporting Club zombie — and dubbed Nash “Gatsby.””

- Andrew Bynum and the meaning of NBA hair - Grantland

Old fashioned.

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 10:52:19 -0800

Old fashioned.

Flashback Friday - No Diggity

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:37:47 -0800

Not the classic, but a brass band throwdown for the weekend.

<a href=”http://hackneycollieryband.bandcamp.com/track/no-diggity” data-mce-href=”http://hackneycollieryband.bandcamp.com/track/no-diggity”>No Diggity by Hackney Colliery Band</a>

"And that’s all before we get to the part where MJ might be the worst-dressed man in the..."

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:33:15 -0800

“And that’s all before we get to the part where MJ might be the worst-dressed man in the universe. The man’s style is so bad, you’d think it must be intentionally so, and the annals of bad Jordan style just got another noteworthy moment, when Michael’s choice of cargo pants on a golf course got him kicked out of a Miami Beach country club.”

- Michael Jordan’s Style: So Bad, It Gets Him Kicked out of Places: The GQ Eye: GQ on Style: GQ

"There’s a sense of curious energy here that you don’t get anywhere else in the world,..."

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:23:55 -0800

“There’s a sense of curious energy here that you don’t get anywhere else in the world, and that’s London’s most valuable asset: to never settle down and feel at ease but always push forward and explore. Another aspect that makes London unique is the mixture of craftsmanship and attitude; London is both the birthplace of punk and the home of Savile Row tailoring: I think that’s a great combination!””

- Document | Dazed Digital

This could be interesting - hope we see more projects like...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:42:15 -0800

This could be interesting - hope we see more projects like this.

MEN OF THE CLOTH - humble men who make exalted clothing by Vicki Vasilopoulos — Kickstarter

(via Vanishing Spirits: The Beautiful Dried Remains of...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:00:45 -0800

(via Vanishing Spirits: The Beautiful Dried Remains of Single-Malt Scotch by Ernie Button | Colossal)

putthison: Here’s a nice project - TieTheKnot.org is selling...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:41:50 -0800

putthison:

Here’s a nice project - TieTheKnot.org is selling bow ties to promote marriage equality. All proceeds from this collection (created by Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his fiance) go to The Human Rights Campaign. You can buy a tie (they’re cheap) on TieTheKnot.org, or just donate to the HRC and support equal rights for LGBT Americans here. A donation to promote civil rights makes a great holiday gift!

6. Why are fashion shows so irrelevant?

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:22:00 -0700

If someone wrote about fashion shows in the way good writers tackle sports or popular culture, they could attract literally tens of readers.

In September of this year, while I was living in the city, London hosted its fashion week, and, as far as I can tell, this had no bearing on my life whatsoever. There was a time when I might have cared, might even have gone through the various shows and picked out looks that I liked and, god help me, write about them, but even then it was less aspirational and more “This is something that should interest me.”

Except it doesn’t. At all.

When I was 14 I went to the Vancouver Auto Show. Even in the early 90’s when car shows were depressing I remember feeling a sense of wonder at these machines that, not a decade later, I would come to hate. I read car magazines. I understood, to a degree, what cars did. And going to a car show or, probably better, looking at pictures of the bigger shows like Detroit and Tokyo, was an important part in my understanding and finally appreciation of cars.

I don’t think I know a single man who feels that way about fashion shows. And I know some very fashion-conscious men, men who read blogs or even write them, men that care about what they wear and where they buy it and even on occasion how it’s made. But I’ve never been around a group of men anywhere at anytime and had one of them reference in any way a menswear show. Ever.

Which raises the question (but does not beg - it does NOT beg - it never, ever begs): why are menswear shows, at a time when it seems the male awareness level of style has reached a high not seen since Beau Brummell’s times, so completely irrelevant to almost all men?

It’s easy to think that, for the vast majority of men, money must be an issue - fashion shows are seen largely as a parade of things most men could never afford. But then you wouldn’t sell many issues of Motor Trend if every cover shouted about the Top 20 Most Affordable Cars. Even on GQ the fashion shows are buried deep at the bottom of the style page, a reluctant provision to their existence; by far the most interesting part of GQ’s fashion show coverage is its street-style sections, including the still legendary Yo, Your “Street Style” is Buggin’.

I haven’t looked at a runway show in years, partly because I stopped writing about style, partly because I couldn’t tell why I would bother, and, even more partly, by which I mean more and not less of the parts, I couldn’t find a site that had them viewable by anything other than a slideshow designed by sadists playing with Flash the way a young child plays with the wings of a fly. Do fashion shows not want us to look at them? Why are the pictures organized so poorly? Why is the complete show view always in 24x36 thumbnails? Why is nothing given any context other than a blurb about the existential crisis at the heart of cotton?

I think if someone took it upon themselves to create a fashion show site organized like Devour or The Verge, that men would continue to ignore it but eventually become curious, curious enough to wonder why an entire industry seems to have developed so close to them without needing their interest or wanting their concern. I think if someone wrote about fashion shows the way Grantland writers tackle sports or popular culture that such a person could attract literally tens of readers, and maybe, just maybe, draw us into contact with this thing, this preening mass of limbs and double-breasted blazers, that does its best to ignore us.

5. The Only Difference

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 04:08:00 -0700

I am the worst sort of hypocrite - every day I check The Sartorialist to look at his photos. And if all he did was take photographs, the world would be a much better place. But no. Occasionally—and, maddeningly, more than occasionally in recent years—Mr. Schuman will take the time to voice his opinion on things. And his opinion, whether of himself or young bloggers or the way one eats lunch, is always, always wrong.

How can someone’s opinion be wrong? When it’s attached to the kind of blowhardiness Donald Trump finds off-putting. In a recent interview with BlackBook he proves once again why nothing should ever come out of his mouth by comparing himself with photography legend August Sander.

Your images are rooted in fashion. Do you consider yourself a fashion photographer?

August Sander was a strict photographer but because he captured such interesting elements of life at that moment, now a 100 years later you can’t help but look at the fashion in these photographs. The only difference with me is I have a chance share a fashion experience for a contemporary audience with my photographs.

Emphasis is my own, but don’t think he wasn’t thinking those italics.

EDIT: Not really an edit, but something I thought today while in Shoreditch - Schuman photographs people because he likes what they’re wearing; Sander photographed people because he liked people. I don’t know about you, but when I look at Sander’s collections the last thing I’m thinking about is fashion.