Thursday 3 June 2010
Tuesday 1 June 2010
On the Nose
Monsieur Guerlain shares some of the currency of his memory bank:
That the lines are bedded down within the British retail jungle (and good luck to those braving the thick Fragrance Fog of "The Cornershop's" Perfume Department) is of untimely comfort whilst I'm displaced from it. I take little more than a mild interest in fragrances, yet knowing a wearer of the Vétiver made me keen to diversify beyond the scent selections of Hermés, Chanel and Dior
The House has produced 790 fragrances in less than 200 years; the scale of which rapidly makes me feel younger
Labels:
fragrances,
Maison Guerlain,
Style
Monday 31 May 2010
The Yellow Tie "No"
Neckwear of such hues has been a longtime plaything of mine and yet the odd comments on its ensemble incompatibility and its limited use amongst the iGentry and iDandies would make me the iconoclast that others consider me as
Since the colour of my skin obviates the dreaded washout effect, the only Don't working against me is which garment shades to avoid, which takes care of itself through pure pragmatism
Whilst I wouldn't recommend, say, a navy suit of any stripe on the grounds that the inevitable white shirt would create a strange mix of shiny and washing, my odd pinstriped waistcoat is fair use because it doesn't envelop my arms, thus leaving space on the colour wheel for my grey-brown topcoat. Not pictured is the pair of olive trousers I wore, which, in tandem with the other muted colours and the obscuring effect of the waistcoat, creates a restrained palette that flatters the tie. As long as one is aesthetically skilled, the navy top with a different coloured lower half is rather sensible, as my good friend Winston Chesterfield thoughtfully exemplifies
For the blues adherents, I’d suggest settling in the ranges of medium, ocean or grey-blue and nothing stronger or deeper than the most moderate of that French hue
I rather think the yellow tie has more of a habitat in the land of the lighter coloured suit - your khakis and tans and off-whites are very much its friends - but it appears as comfortable in the darker kingdom of the grey. Then you have the browns - I can see one bringing a showman's dash to a chocolate coloured double-breasted or a lighter shaded tweed. Rust jackets seem almost mandatory
The plain yellow silk or knit should be the preserve of the experts who can deploy it with a yellow shirt and the necessary impunity. For those not so inclined, stronger hues and tasteful prints are the idyllic entry point to toy with this not unappealing aspect of the palette kingdom
Perhaps it's time to say "yes"
Friday 28 May 2010
Gainsbourg x Houston: Naked Conversation
Straightforwardness' retirement may be traced to this excerpt from the last years of this Master of Uncontrite Provocation
Needless to say, this is mildly unsafe for work
Labels:
serge gainsbourg,
television
Thursday 27 May 2010
Peregrination, Or, By the Time I Get to Everywhere
Peripatetics of the World Unite! Let's get on the Open Road
Men will always talk of escape but today, they omit to be escapist in practice. And yet we still nurture an ideal of a common language of travel: the donning of a mode that combined perambulatory-centric practicality with pure and polite gentility
With no obviously rational reason in the world but for staunch refinement, my father yesterday left the 30 degrees+ environs of Accra on a flight to The World, clad in a double breasted, gilt buttoned blazer, a striped shirt, dark slacks and comfortable loafers and was easily the most dégagé and elegant human on board. And his self-possession remained steadfast in the face of a many hours-long check-in disarray, with its concomitant, envious griping of a ruffled economy class uncomprehending of, and unused to preferential dealings with this - or any other - airline, and a further confluence of errors that saw his arrival time gain an extra eight hours
But travel has always had the capacity for metaphorical, as well as actual rectal distress; when arrangements disintegrate, it's a challenge to avoid bending, let alone breaking
Good dress places some of the pleasure directly in the traveler's hands. Most Britishers' - amongst others - idea of comfortable journeywear is my idea of pyjamas, and if I'm to fall asleep on long haul transport, I'd rather not present as if I'd planned to do so since the night before embarkation
In these post-jet set days, we have much to contend with where aesthetically unpleasant visuals are concerned - trashy "ass logo'd" casuals that overemphasise the "bottom" in "tracksuit;" nauseatingly displayed spray tans masquerading as the results of natural solar communing and jiggly flesh whose owners seem to wear it as proudly as one would a military medal or an attractive girlfriend. And that's only the staff
It is its own reward to be a man for all locations; think of the leeway offered for mercuriality or for unexpected juxtapositions and the odd defining statement
'Sentimental Journey,' the 2009 Spring/Summer offering by Junya Watanabe Man, grounded the romantically chimerical notions of colonials and jet-setters past in the preoccupations of today's cropped clothes-donning, judiciously economising male, albeit of the kind suited to its pricing. Centered amidst the designs that spanned the gentlemen and farmhands of the 20th century, the enticing Tricker's collaborations and the ornamental, illustrative use of Globe Trotter cases was the collection's pivot: reversible jackets that sensibly doubled one's investment. Indeed, the craft was more revelatory in person; these doubled garments suffered no surfeit of bulk from inside-out transformation and the disparate fusions readily elicit protean usage and ensemble
And where Watanabe favoured the Western World Wise Vagabond, Kean Etro dreamed of Bottled Bohemia and Marrakesh:
Let's get out!But travel has always had the capacity for metaphorical, as well as actual rectal distress; when arrangements disintegrate, it's a challenge to avoid bending, let alone breaking
Good dress places some of the pleasure directly in the traveler's hands. Most Britishers' - amongst others - idea of comfortable journeywear is my idea of pyjamas, and if I'm to fall asleep on long haul transport, I'd rather not present as if I'd planned to do so since the night before embarkation
In these post-jet set days, we have much to contend with where aesthetically unpleasant visuals are concerned - trashy "ass logo'd" casuals that overemphasise the "bottom" in "tracksuit;" nauseatingly displayed spray tans masquerading as the results of natural solar communing and jiggly flesh whose owners seem to wear it as proudly as one would a military medal or an attractive girlfriend. And that's only the staff
It is its own reward to be a man for all locations; think of the leeway offered for mercuriality or for unexpected juxtapositions and the odd defining statement
Leavened with globetrotting aplomb, we have: Coward Leaving a Plane! Coward in Havana! Coward in Las Vegas!
'Sentimental Journey,' the 2009 Spring/Summer offering by Junya Watanabe Man, grounded the romantically chimerical notions of colonials and jet-setters past in the preoccupations of today's cropped clothes-donning, judiciously economising male, albeit of the kind suited to its pricing. Centered amidst the designs that spanned the gentlemen and farmhands of the 20th century, the enticing Tricker's collaborations and the ornamental, illustrative use of Globe Trotter cases was the collection's pivot: reversible jackets that sensibly doubled one's investment. Indeed, the craft was more revelatory in person; these doubled garments suffered no surfeit of bulk from inside-out transformation and the disparate fusions readily elicit protean usage and ensemble
And where Watanabe favoured the Western World Wise Vagabond, Kean Etro dreamed of Bottled Bohemia and Marrakesh:
An itinerant urge also emerged amongst Ralph Lauren's looks for the season in 2007; this was cultivated according to that Old World milieu that remains the stuff of bathtime fantasy for RL and his ardent adherents:
I'm uncertain as to how the sandals found themselves here
As for Bottega Veneta, leisurewear is functionally its Printemps-Été raison d'etre:
Runway photography: GQ
Labels:
article,
bottega veneta,
etro,
fashion,
Junya Watanabe,
menswear,
ralph lauren,
Style,
travel
Wednesday 26 May 2010
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
I once met a Nigerian gentleman at the Crockett & Jones factory in Northampton and got talking to him since he offered me a ride to A&G Martinstone in London. He worked half his time in London and half in Lagos, and he told me he simply gave up on wearing his nice clothes in Nigeria. He told me how a dry cleaner took one of his Savile Row suits, kept it for several weeks, and eventually he tracked it down... and found the owner had washed it in a bathtub in his apartment
-- Fidel Cashflow, 25/05/2010, StyleForvm
Labels:
menswear,
nigeria,
pathos,
styleforum
Saturday 22 May 2010
Print Run
A sampling of our market-sold fabrics; these prints are intrinsic to the Ghanaian style of dress and cloth wear
In more finely wrought materials, one could use these to great effect as idiosyncratic upholstery. There's a drawing room in need of these, somewhere:
In more finely wrought materials, one could use these to great effect as idiosyncratic upholstery. There's a drawing room in need of these, somewhere:
Friday 21 May 2010
Kahimi Karie - 'A Fantastic Moment' (1995)
The charm of following a polymathic musician is in the phases they experience, always casting off their previous manifestations as definitive statements on their transitory fancies
In 1995, Mari 'Kahimi Karie (カヒミ・カリィ)' Hiki and Keigo 'Cornelius (コーネリアス)' Oyamada were in something of a shared romantique nostalgia, or a relationship, to you and I. The Girlfriend was something of a sylph with a singing voice more incisively described as an airless, tranquil whisper, whose luminescent face, stoic demeanour and protean imagery that included Rococo opulence, French Mod Sex Kitten and Tokyo demureness made her a star; The Woman of a Thousand Fantasies, if you will
The Boyfriend was running one of the trendiest yet most substantive record labels in the world - Trattoria Records - touring, remixing, producing and playing when he could and collaborating on portable record players, G-Shock models and other playthings that bore his brand. His latest incarnation at that time was an idiosyncratic bouillabaisse of 1960s psychedelia, 1970s heavy metal (he was a self-taught guitarist who developed through playing Kiss records), 1980s hip hop and 1990s electronic noise; at once the classic Japanese refiner of Western developments and the alien refractor of cultural traditions that he interacted with from afar
Today's selection shows them in a very deliberate Gainsbourg and Birkin-like reverie; aside from their romantic status at the time, Karie can also speak French and English, and the 1960s and 1970s were rather a la mode in the Shibuya-Kei landscape of foreign musical history made modern day blended pop. Oyamada has long been an arbiter at home; his diverse musical knowledge threaded itself through every record he was involved in, no matter what year it was
In either flavour, 'A Fantastic Moment' is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of music either has released. You barely even notice the Lou Reed sample
A translation:
The Boyfriend was running one of the trendiest yet most substantive record labels in the world - Trattoria Records - touring, remixing, producing and playing when he could and collaborating on portable record players, G-Shock models and other playthings that bore his brand. His latest incarnation at that time was an idiosyncratic bouillabaisse of 1960s psychedelia, 1970s heavy metal (he was a self-taught guitarist who developed through playing Kiss records), 1980s hip hop and 1990s electronic noise; at once the classic Japanese refiner of Western developments and the alien refractor of cultural traditions that he interacted with from afar
Today's selection shows them in a very deliberate Gainsbourg and Birkin-like reverie; aside from their romantic status at the time, Karie can also speak French and English, and the 1960s and 1970s were rather a la mode in the Shibuya-Kei landscape of foreign musical history made modern day blended pop. Oyamada has long been an arbiter at home; his diverse musical knowledge threaded itself through every record he was involved in, no matter what year it was
In either flavour, 'A Fantastic Moment' is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of music either has released. You barely even notice the Lou Reed sample
A translation:
We run, cutting straight through the wind
Nothing can stop us as we head straight for hope
We might find it over on that hill maybe, I hope...
La la la when you gently take my hand
Everything around us changes to perfection
All of the world's sunlight shining just for me and you
...And the bugs, they laugh...
...Melting into the ground...
The two of us can do anything. Right?
See, we can even jump over that rainbow.
...And the time stands still...
...The flowers are waving...
The two of us are laughing high above the clouds
Our laughter leaking down as sun beams in the forest
Just now the rain of sadness is turning into a rainbow
Away with the gloom
The grass gently waves
And the birds peacefully fall to sleep
One day...everything...I hope...
Labels:
broken ipod blues,
Cornelius,
Japan,
Kahimi Karie,
music,
pop,
Shibuya-kei
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