Tie Up

   Edward Sexton, also known to me as "My Favourite Tailor," presents an instructional on the four-in-hand, the only tie knot that connotes an unfussy mind when it comes to necktie styling. His dummy's name is Ben Fogle, reporting for NBC as part of a piece on morning dress:

   Thanks to Edward's assistant, Dominic Sebag-Montefiore, for sending this to the MP inbox

A Wake

   

   Popular culture is perpetually at a stage where its degradation is marked by the passing of its figureheads perhaps as much as the dwindling of the culture itself. And at this time, I'm not certain we are superseding those luminaries with anyone better

   That said, I may just be venting from having memorialised more interesting dead people than I'd like on this column over the last year. But the thought persists, nonetheless

   For the most part, I could possibly muster more energy on these performers if I spent more time with my age 18 and below relatives. But they keep asking me to pay for the MP3 downloads and sing into their hairbrushes with them. I might look like I am made out of money, but I will only ever accommodate them on one of those requests

   It's the latter, in case you were wondering

   I think that for now, I will stick with the dissections of the old school, thank you. At least the past  can still feel perpetually alive

Beastie Boys - 'Make Some Noise' (Cornelius Remix, 2011)

All I can say is, they have all made me a very happy man today. Given the influence the middle-period Beasties had on Cornelius's middle-period 69/96 album, this is a more natural pairing than one may initially be led to assume


Maestro? Some noise, please:

The Greenbrier Revisit

   Now with added video, as the hotel's leadership itself has seen fit to join with the YouTube generation. Needless to say, it is a document of a different time; a few familiar celebrity visages abound as The Greenbrier  in 1948 is shown to reassert itself as a hub of aureate activity and sybaritic sensations. We now know how long that lasted

   With thanks to Virginia S

Aquamason

  The nice thing about the word "iconic" in relation to buildings is that it lends itself much easier to styles than to the individual constructions themselves. Which is why it is quite the delight to be able to talk about the ones that endure in the increasingly blipvert-based times of our lives and the ineluctable erasure time brings to taste, memory and the prevailing view

   So, do take a moment to be charmed by Frank Lloyd Wright's famous 1935 form, Kaufmann Residence. Or as it is more famously known, Fallingwater. Not many buildings can maintain such a resonant appeal, but its lessons of simplicity scale, space and congruence with its surroundings - Man + Nature + Insight = Sui Generis Architecture - persist to this day (fun, though possibly apocryphal, fact, as related by draftsman Edgar Tafel: after weeks without the emergence of any plans or drawings from his studio workshop, Wright, with his draftsmen, Tafel and Robert Mosher, eventually, and in a bout of focused genius, created the home's plot plan within the two hours it took Edgar J. "E.J." Kaufmann, Sr. to arrive for a long-desired , albeit impromptu, discussion of the construction at Bear Run). Any look at a Taschen Architecture Now! volume will affirm that

Now, what makes this feat all the more astonishing is that Fallingwater stands, or appears to stand, not upon the solid earth of some Middlewestern prairie but upon air. Cantilevered out over Bear Run by means of almost invisible concrete supports - Wright called them "bolsters" - the house and its series of terraces seem to float in saucy defiance of gravity above the waterfall. To the south, facing the view, its walls consist almost entirely of glass; to the north, its walls are of rough sandstone, hewn from a nearby abandoned quarry. Wright said of the house, "I think you can hear the waterfall when you look at the design. At least it is there, and he [Kaufmann] lives intimately with the thing he loves." Looking over the elevations and plans with Wright, Kaufmann proved the old man's equal in coolness.

With characteristic aplomb, Wright made no effort to disguise the peculiar fact that the house as he designed it was the one place from which it would be impossible to gain a glimpse of the waterfall. On the contrary, he emphasised the peculiarity, saying, "E.J., I want you to live with the waterfall, not just to look at it"

 -- Brendan Gill, Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1987

   One other nice thing about Wright: he did not let only his work speak for him. Here, he talks about his perceptions of... well, pretty much everything. I am not in favour of every sentiment expressed, but an affirming screed that regards creativity, knowledge and Nature as our reasons for being? Hell yes:

Royal Show

George Tupou V, King of Tonga. Ever think that spats could be appealing again? This is your movement's new frontman! 


See the photographs from his coronation; classical statesman style in action

Princes Charles and William, accompanied by their wives, present for last night's festivities in black tie. And whilst Charles is always the leader, particularly in this milieu, such a potentially enduring image of a famous father and son pairing is all that really matters here

Sarah and Catherine

   My celebrations for today's Royal Wedding, which was indeed less moving though more stirring than I expected, were mostly horizontal. This is a common occurrence when one lives rather close to a 24-hour convenience shop, I candidly admit

 Via MSNBC

   Having spent the past month fielding a number of personal questions regarding the most famous nuptials on the planet since, I don't know, Michael and Lisa Marie (though I regretfully think William and Kate will not be making high comedy out of a Nightline appearance any time soon), I was prepared to affect a vaster-than-usual emotional distance from the spectacle, pomp and grandeur - diminished since 1981's Big Day, naturellement - but seeing Sarah Burton's virtuosity at play on the former Catherine Middleton's body (oooh, matron!) has fired up the prolix machine that is Mode Parade just to say, "Damn good job, woman." Between this prestigious commission and her appointment as creative director of Alexander McQueen last year after its namesake founder's unfortunate existence failure, her position in couture history may now be ironclad

Burton is pictured on the left, via Creative Minds

   Firstly, the dress is of a fittingly demure characteristic; the better to complement the decorum of the occasion and how very pretty the new Duchess of Cambridge is. Secondly, despite the archaic medieval aesthetic it seems to identify with, it is gratifyingly stylish in an intelligent way: aware, rather than subsumed by, tradition yet open. I remember when Jigsaw tended towards "cool," so it is difficult to watch a former employee circling the public eye whilst dressed as a woman ten years older with a penchant for purchases from the clothes shops of Tunbridge Wells. Thirdly, it is a balancing act, like all clever dressing is; the plunging 'V' juxtaposed to the elegant sweep of the train and the graceful embroidery on top of the pellucid lace says "I'm a blushing bride on the happiest day of my life, but this might be easier to remove than you might think, dear husband"

   Naturally, the collaboration does not end here; those of us who have already started pondering if Burton might become the Mainbocher to Kate's Royal Wife forebear, Mrs. Simpson, will be mustering additional words for the second and also rather tasteful dress the Duchess adorned for the rest of the festivities. William does indeed work fast:

Fuzzy dice for newly minted brides?

   "Damn good job" to both women, indeed. If editors, trend watchers and the middle classes the world over are very lucky, this could be the start of a beautiful something

The Mayfair Set - 'Junked' (2009)

Visit The Mayfair Set at their own little slice of Myspace

   I know little about this act, but very much expect to get to know them better in time. I think that this engaging drone-like rock ditty makes for a nice little gateway into this caliginous collaboration between the band's principals, Dee Dee and Mike Sniper. Listen

Homme Couture

   Some talents deserve better words than one can give them. So sometimes, it's best to go with the reminiscence

   At the risk of producing the sort of lazy entry that is decried by exemplars like ADG and Gaye, I cannot find any better words to proffer on today's subject, the late menswear designer and shopkeeper Roland Meledandri, than those written by his daughter Nina on the Film Noir Buff forum in 2006 (and elsewhere):

My father started in men's clothing at a store called Casual Aire (I believe it was spelled with an "e") where he met my uncle; Joseph Levine.  Together they started Men's Town and Country (which was in the 50's, I think on 3rd Ave; the shot of Marilyn Monroe over the subway grate with her skirt blowing up was in front of the store).  My father left there to start R. Meledandri Inc. at 74 East 56th St. (early '60's); a full service men's retail establishment with a custom tailoring department.  Most of his merchandise was made in Italy and my father (and mother) used to go to the factories where he would have input into the designs made specifically for him.  I would risk saying that in reaction to the prevailing "Brooks Brothers" sensibility he was responsible for bringing elegance and flair back into American men's fashion; he widened lapels, raised the armholes, nipped the waist and flared the skirt.  He brought both the influence of Italian tailoring and the British hacking jacket into his designs.  Cuffs, collars and ties also went wide, and he introduced a range of colors and textures that were previously unavailable to the American male.


Of course anyone with an artistic eye and a flair for clothes would be attracted to the "Meledandri" look and his clientele included fashion photographers, advertising directors, etc; the people who dictate what the world sees when it comes to style.  He was also an extremely charismatic person, when I was photographing his friends and clients, so many of them referred to him as "one of my closest friends".  As I said earlier, his store became a kind of salon, a hang out and one his name synonymous with elegance and success (as when the phrase "the men in their Meledandri suits" was used to describe a certain sector of hip NY in the book "Edie")

Over the years he also developed a wholesale division and had departments at both Barney's and Bloomingdales as well as other fine department stores across the country.  But he was primarily known for the exquisite design and quality of his custom tailoring department.  When he died from a massive and sudden heart attack in 1980 at 51 (quite unexpected as he was extremely fit, a runner and watching his heart) he was in the process of closing "R. Meledandri Inc." and had finally run the first sale in the history of the store.  He was a man of impeccable taste, an artist who expressed his vision through clothes.

   Meledandri was a marvel; a designer with an exacting eye for quality who is still remembered in certain circles for offering some of New York's finest tailoring. He was one of the last 20th Century Stylistics; a sobriquet that sounds hollow rather than sonorous in typical Barimanastic fashion, I suppose, until one tries to think very hard about how many subsequent menswear figures successfully hewed and crafted a diverse, piercing aesthetic vision to direct the way things might evolve or expand (Hedi Slimane, whose feeling for romantic, energetic rebellion, sense of baroque theatre and sensibility for emaciated, speed-fuelled, spoiled rent boys, is thus far the only sensible suggestion for this century's most interesting game-changer)

   Of course, menswear proceeds from the details and Meledandri was no different to his other interesting contemporaries, nor even the couturier talents to whom he may be seen, in some ways, as a counterpart (recall that the defining moments of latter-day womenswear creativity sprang from the oft calmly-dressed likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Cristobal Balenciaga). His deft switches between his intricate confluence of great fit, expressive fabric patterns and painstaking details to a still expressive, yet more tempered mode that insinuated rather than announced itself made him friendly to those who wanted to play Quiet Assassin rather than Otherworldly Rock Star. Fitting, then, that when Roy Scheider portrayed Dustin Hoffman's Quietly Assassinated sibling in 1976's classic Marathon Man, it was Meledandri - once again sticking the knife in the grey flannel suited man he nevertheless appreciated - who ensured his corpse was good looking:

 That red sculpture in the background is named Double Ascension, by artist Herbert Bayer, and you'll find it at the Arco Plaza (now known as City National Plaza) at 555 S. Flower Street, in downtown L.A. That's in the plaza between the two towers, off the west side of Flower Street (between 5th & 6th streets) 

   Meledandri's name was brought up in my recent meeting with Edward Sexton as I intend to frame part of the resultant piece around the idea of a vanguard at the Peacock Revolution's heart. For if there was an American flavour to the clothing confections that period saw in, Sexton agreed that much of that came from Meledandri's own peculiar creativity. No matter the visceral reaction the fabric surely engenders, I'd be impressed if a cogent argument against the cutting and styling could seriously be mustered; in my dreams, the nicest single breasted suits present a lot like this:

 

Like the coat further below, this 3 piece is still in the possession of Nina. They were created for The Coty's, the men's fashion awards, in the 1970s

   Sexton is becoming known for a personal credo of "romancing" the suiting one wears - be not afraid to think out the details, balance the elements and display a palpable pride in wearing clothes of distinction and tailored grace. In other words, be one's true personal stylist, for it will always be appreciated, particularly by the wearer. Dressing to enjoy life is a free action; the stealth wealthy and the reactionary class get to bitch about it because they just don't know how to smile. Meledandri makes me smile; there's the requisite foolhardiness (up, middle finger!) in donning his most extreme stuff, but if one's in such pieces, one surely knows they're in a certain company; not only the communal kind that Nina describes below, but also the kind who lived in the same world as everyone else, though not wholly interested in seeing it in the same way:

salon: the store was often thought of that way, it was definitely a gathering place, especially on Saturday afternoons and it tended to attract people connected with the movie & advertising industries (which overlapped quite a bit anyway since many art directors and photographers of that time eventually went into film).  many of the people who hung out at the store would convene later at Elaine's.  at some point i will try to post the list i was working from for my book but since that was pre-digital, it will take some time.  off the top of my head, some of the people i photographed were (in no particular order): Dan Melnick, Billy Dee Williams, Mayor John Lindsay, Richard Benjamin, Richard Meier, George Lois, Noel Behn, Carmen Capalbo, George Segal, Joel Schumacher, David Susskind, Art Kane, Steve Horn, David Z. Goodman.


my memories: well, i certainly don't have an adult perspective, the time i spent in the store was mostly during high school but i did spend a lot of time there.  it was a very comfortable place for me which is a bit surprising since i was an extremely shy kid and it was such a social environment.  i think what attracted me to it was that my father was so in his element there, he really had an incredible sense of style and here he was surrounded by people who not only appreciated his clothes but relied on his eye.  in some ways his interaction with his clients was like a performance, not that it was contrived or in any way disingenuous  but in the sense that it drew you in, watching him oversee a fitting and then accessorize the suit seemed like magic to me

 

designer/tailor: it is true that my father was a designer not a tailor nor did he have any training in that craft. but he intuitively understood clothing and what made a successful garment.  he could look at a pattern and know what was wrong with it and he was a total perfectionist when it came to the finished product, something that i think was particularly important to his clientele.  his expression manifested itself not only in the style and fit of his clothes (the proportions) but also in his choice and combinations of colors and textures.


photos: when i get to packing that box, i will try photographing the prints, again none of this is digitalized and unfortunately nobody was wearing his clothes for the photos i took (i didn't start the project until a few years after he died).  also i will try to shoot some of the press clippings that i have

 A sampling of Meledandri's pocket squares

it is actually easier for me to answer questions or comment on things raised here, since my recollections are going to run the gambit of (somewhat) objective to highly subjective.


one (possibly) little known fact: my father loved shoes and could not refrain from buying them for the store even though he always lost money on them.  he would often say of a shoe that it was "so ugly it was beautiful".(Author's note: I have seen some of his shoes. And if ever I want to recreate my primary school uniform, i will definitely scour the earth for a pair)

   So here's to Roland Meledandri. And here's to ugly beauty; the kind one should not only admire, but also the kind one works to appreciate and  should eventually, actively revel in. Because as every good and bad aesthete knows, it's definitely the fun kind