Kempt - Shelf Life

February 7, 2012 world of men's style / fashion / grooming RSS

“Shelf Life”

01/05/12

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The Wisdom of George Lois

George Lois’s brain is an interesting place.

Over the past 50 years, he’s spawned too many pop culture flash points to count—everything from the iconic ’60s Esquire covers to “I Want My MTV.” Now he’s pouring out a lifetime of hard-ass wisdom (including an unusually vicious attack on Don Draper) in a 192-page tome titled Damn Good Advice. And since the book won’t be out until March, we thought we’d pass along some of the best lines. Get inspired, gentlemen…

Hear the wisdom of George Lois»

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10/20/11

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The Private Collection

As object connoisseurs, we’re a sucker for a good collection. Apparently we’re not alone. On her blog, Lisa Congdon put together impeccable photos of her favorite collections for 365 days in a row—interesting, obscure stuff like vintage Russian passports, sewing machine parts and (perhaps the strangest one) baby doll hands. For her labors, she’s been rewarded with a book deal, giving you the chance to put it all on your coffee table. (You can also check out the blog here.) Our favorite so far, perhaps predictably, is the vintage boxer photos.

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10/12/11

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The Rules of Etiquette Circa 1866

Being a gentleman is complicated business, but at some point in the last few decades, people got squeamish about explaining how to do it. So in search of a proper etiquette guide, we had to go all the way back to 1866, with Martine’s Hand-Book of Etiquette, and Guide to True Politeness.

It’s a single guide to every situation a gentleman might face—from dressing well to encountering unattended ladies in the street (a novel experience at the time). And since you’re too busy to peruse the full 163 pages, we’ve pulled out 30 of the most useful tidbits. Here’s a taste:

An unassuming simplicity in dress should always be preferred, as it prepossesses everyone in favor of the wearer.

The modest man is seldom the object of envy.

Think like the wise; but talk like ordinary people.

It is a great and difficult talent to be a good listener, but it is one which the well-bred man has to acquire, at whatever pains.

There is a graceful manner of holding a hat, which every well-bred man understands.

There is so much more…»

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09/22/11

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Gentlemanly Stain Removal Circa 1905

Edwardian Gentleman

The gentlemen of Edwardian England really knew how to act.

So in a fit of nostalgia, we recently picked up A Bachelor’s Cupboard (published in 1905) for a few tips on gentlemanly etiquette in the days of yore. It’s pretty fantastic. Of course, we can’t show you the whole thing here, but we thought we’d pass along the laundry chapter, which covers vital, everyday topics like how to remove blood from your waistcoat after being wounded in a duel.

If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s only a matter of time.

A few timeless tips on garment-cleansing, below…»

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08/16/11

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Pistols at Dawn

Duel

We love a good duel. Specifically, the kind involving honor, intrigue and (if possible) flintlock pistols.

So we were pleased to see a new duel-centric anthology coming down the transom from Melville House. It’s a box set of five novellas—each titled “The Duel”—from authors like Chekhov, Joseph Conrad and Giacomo Casanova, who knew a thing or two about escaping angry spouses. It’s machismo at its most restrained and idealistic—and a Dusting Off waiting to happen. Let us know if you need a good dueling glove…

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02/17/11

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That’s My Shirt

There’s a proud tradition of women looking damn good in menswear, from Marlene Dietrich to the current flood of “borrowed” Barbour jackets. It’s outdoorsy anti-fashion, a poke at gender roles, and generally the most excited you’ve ever been to see an oxford shirt. Naturally, we approve.

Tomboy Style has been rounding up the best instances for more than a year now, and all that toil has finally landed them a book deal with Rizzoli to round up the best tomboys the world has ever seen. It won’t be out until Spring ’12, but we’d like to put in an early request for more Chan Marshall.

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01/11/11

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The Wild Swiss

We’ve found a new subculture of the week: Swiss greasers. Through the late 50s and 60s, they were terrorizing the country with greased pompadours, biker jackets and oversized belt buckles with pictures of Elvis on them—almost all of which looks pretty awesome in retrospect. Rebel Youth, a new book from Rizzoli New York (out February 8), takes a look at what the rockabillies of Switzerland were up to during those years. It turns out to have a lot more in common with punk than you might think. And being European, they naturally knew how to pull off a neckerchief.

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01/05/11

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The Other L.A. Noir

As it happens, one of our New Year’s resolutions was to read more noir. And while we weren’t looking, the clever folks at Vintage Crime have obliged us.

Back in December, they let loose a crop of four previously out-of-print Ross MacDonald novels that will be enough to keep us busy well into February. He’s not as literary as Chandler, but he casts the same eye towards an even stranger West Coast scene—roughly speaking, hippies and runaways instead of oil men and gangsters.

In other words, they’re the detective-novel equivalent of a Neil Young album, dressed up in a winding plot and a pulpy cover. Count us in.

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12/17/10

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Reasons to Buy Keith Richards’ Life for Your Aging Relatives

Cross-generational gifts are often the hardest to choose, but we’ve found the perfect one: Keith Richards’ Life.

It sounds unlikely, we know, but if you’ve got any grandparents with a deep interest in history and/or chemistry, they might get more out of it than you think. Here’s why:

Reasons your grandfather might take a liking to Keith»

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12/14/10

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Word Life

Dictionaries tend to be pretty dry, but that leaves plenty of room for improvement. For starters, it could use a few more Aubrey Beardsley references.

Shipley & Halmos just published this Visual Dictionary as part of their newly launched “Things” section. The book covers A through C with as many oddball treasures as possible, and lets their quirk flag fly in a way they haven’t since the Trovata days. That means it won’t tell you what “chthonic” means, but it will introduce you an armillary sphere and a caricature of Teddy Roosevelt as a moose.

Sounds like a fair trade-off to us.

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12/03/10

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The Little Black Book

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re strongly in favor of real live, glue-and-paper books. As gifts and otherwise. We just wish they’d put a little more effort into being cool.

Fortunately, an LES shop called Occulter is doing their part, with a line of classic titles conveniently encased in black rubber. The result is a batmobile version of some more intriguing titles history has to offer.

Take particular note of those dangling tabs on the edges. The book is sealed shut when you buy it, so the giftee will have to tear it open if they want to start reading—kind of like a book with unopened pages, if you’re into that sort of thing.

And we are.

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10/20/10

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City of Wonders

Vegas has had a tough couple of years, but it’s still a leading contender for the most interesting place in America…and it still makes for some great pictures. This one shows Interstate 15, just outside the city, and it comes from Strip Search, a photographic journey through everything Vegas has to offer, from pink Cadillacs to packed boxing arenas.

More importantly, it’s got a reprint of one of the best essays ever written about the city, Tom Wolfe’s early-60s opus, “Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can’t hear you! Too noisy) Las Vegas!!!!”—you know, the one that begins with a paragraph-long repetition of the word “hernia.” You can read part of it here if you’re intrigued, or just wait for the book in full.

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10/07/10

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Street Of Many Colors

Here’s your daily dose of Anglophilia: a coffee table-ready history of the sartorial wormhole known as Carnaby Street. The book is Boutique London by Richard Lester, and it profiles 30 different shops navigating one of the strangest cycles men’s style has ever seen.

Sadly, the author’s not that Richard Lester, but instead of hanging out with Beatles, he got his chops serving time with classic British marques like Liberty of London—so it’s safe to say he knows his stuff. If you were looking to check on the historical accuracy of your cravat (or possibly your Halloween costume), this would be the place.

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09/28/10

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Man at Work

Hemingway Days are well in the past, but we thought we’d check in with Ernest one last time. The occasion is the opening of Paris Review’s massive archive of interviews—great news if you want to hear Jack Kerouac talk about “Yeatsian semi-trance,” but also great news if you want to pick up a few of Hemingway’s drinkin’-and-writin’ stories.

Our favorite finds the great man in full myth-making mode, detailing how he wrote The Sun Also Rises, and giving the story of a one-night binge that produced three of his best shorts.

Hear the story, as Ernest tells it»

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·ernest hemingway
·paris review

09/20/10

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The People’s Champ

This snap comes from the soon-to-be-released Fashionisto, an illustrated rundown of the century’s style icons. Cocker makes it in under the “Rock Stars” designation…which might be the first time he’s ever shared a page spread with Mick Jagger.

This outfit is circa 2007 (in case you couldn’t tell from the Campers), but the layering is just about timeless. The colors are perfect for Fall, right down to the eggplant cardigan, but most impressively, everything except the jeans looks like it could have come from an unusually clean thrift store. We doubt if any of it actually did, but that’s hardly the point. Unlike most of the looks you see on style icons, this one’s completely within reach, right down to the DHS glasses. Common people is right.

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09/15/10

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The Belgian

Detective style usually refers to rumpled trench coats or impromptu rhinoplasty, but in honor of Agatha Christie’s 120th birthday we thought we’d honor one of literature’s best-dressed detectives: a Belgian trad by the name of Hercule Poirot.

There have been disheveled variations from Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov, but the recent ITV series has managed to present Christie’s detective as an impressively well-kept gentleman, complete with period bow ties and lapel pins. (His mustache has been an influence to hipsters everywhere.) More than the Marlowes and Holmeses of the world, Poirot makes crime-solving seem like a function of personal style— fastidious, idiosyncratic, and ultimately undeniable. As far as the books go, we’d mark these two as good places to start—but there’s plenty more where that came from.

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·Detectives
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09/13/10

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Mr. Fry, We Presume

The celebrity memoir’s a little creaky under the best of circumstances, but Stephen Fry can always be counted on to provide a shakeup.

Along with the British wit’s newly released The Fry Chronicles, Mr. Fry is offering a tricked-out iPod/iPad version that might be the best thing web publishing’s produced so far. The trick is a visual index that lets you skim through 112 different self-contained chunks of the book, according to whatever you’re looking for.

So if you want to track down every last reference to Fry’s days in a comedy duo with House, all you have to do is highlight the “Hugh Laurie” tag and skim through the highlighted sections. For his musings on comedy…well, there’s a tag for that too. It’s how a lot of people were likely to read the book anyway. The new tech just makes it easier, with a little credit down to Fry for not making the world read his tome cover-to-cover.

Although if you did, we’re sure he’d be appropriately grateful.

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08/24/10

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She Seems Cool

© Horst A. Friedrichs, see it full size

Snagged from the new rocker compendium Or Glory, this picture shows Brad, Pete, Emma, Brian, Stuart, Steve, Dave in London circa 2001—demonstrating the timeless cool of the cuffed jean, the authority of the leather jacket, and the most dangerous possible situation in which to approach a woman. Be brave, gentlemen.

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07/26/10

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Idea Man

As you may have noticed, we’re big fans of the book-as -art-object—so it’s worth taking notice whenever publishers happen to agree.

Penguin just finished up a run of 99 bound essays dubbed the Great Ideas series, ranging from a Winston Churchill speech to a Machiavelli b-side titled “On Conspiracies.” We don’t vouch for every last idea, but the covers are uniformly perfect, both handsome in their own right and conveying the gist of the text before you even crack the cover. Consider it your bookshelf fodder for the day.

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·Books
·Penguin

07/20/10

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A Young Man in the World

This is the latest installment in our heroically gruff series on Hemingway Days, examining the charms of spare prose, sport fishing and all things Ernest.

The novels get most of the attention, but our favorite book from Papa is something with a slightly smaller scale: a collection of posthumously compiled short works called The Nick Adams Stories.

Taken together the two dozen stories lead the eponymous hero from boyhood to manhood, with a war, a murder, and a lot of fear-soaked wanderlust lying in between. It’s Hemingway at his quickest, with some of the stories lasting no longer than a paragraph. It’s also Hemingway at his loosest, which means half-formed sketches sitting alongside more polished gems, adding up to an impressionistic portrait of a young man adrift in a turbulent world.

If you’re really sold, we suggest a vintage hardcover copy…but only if you don’t plan on taking it to the beach.

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06/30/10

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Bloodsuckers

At the risk of being hopelessly behind the times, there’s something to be said for vampires that actually scare people.

Here’s a starting point: Michael Sims curated a collection of some of the best vampire lit ever written, dubbed Dracula’s Guest. (You can hear him gushing about it here, if you need more convincing.)

It’s all 19th century stuff, which means brittle Victorian morays, long craggy sentences and some genuinely terrified peasantry from heavy-hitters like Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant. It’s a little stuffy in places, but if you’re going to make a turn through the bloodsucker backstory, this is the best ways to do it. And presumably you’ve already seen what the movies have to offer.

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04/28/10

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The New Pulp

One of the nice things about the rise of highbrow comics is the how many genuinely lurid entertainments a gentleman can get away with adding to his library.

For starters, we’d suggest Tim Lane’s Abandoned Cars. It’s the modern equivalent of the Raymond Chandler yarns that fill up the more exciting portion of your bookshelf—a string of police chases and back-alley fist fights with a surprisingly introspective thread running in the background. (Spoiler alert: it’s about America.) It might be a bit heavy for beach reading, but we’re always happy to spend a Sunday afternoon walking the line between art and pulp.

And as of next week, it won’t be that hard to find. After a hardcover run in ’08 that sold out almost immediately, the paperback version should be hitting shelves any day now.

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03/18/10

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The Watery Part of the World

If you’re busy designing clothes all day, it can be hard to keep up your nautical cred. Which is why it pays to make friends with a nature writer or two.

The fine folks at Rogues Gallery have brought the British writer Philip Hoare on as their “foreign correspondent,” stocked his most recent tome on whales and printed a set of whale-themed tees to match the occasion.

By all accounts, it’s quite a book and bringing him in to talk is the kind of polymath move that got Opening Ceremony where it is. We just hope Hoare doesn’t tempt any impressionable youths into the whaling life.

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·whales

02/12/10

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The Art of the Bootleg

The band t-shirt’s always been a contentious item—and it’s only gotten worse in the age of Pitchfork—but we’ve still got a soft spot for a good screenprinted tee. Especially if it comes with a few smudges and a good story.

These tees come from Cesar Padilla’s latest tome Ripped: T-Shirts from the Underground, an ode to the bootlegged t-shirts of the 70s and 80s, and they’re some of the better punk artifacts out there. Padilla’s also the man behind Cherry, one of New York’s better vintage shops, so he’s had plenty of time to cull the best of the best. For your own wardrobe, we’d suggest something a little more recent and a little less historical—just so you don’t have to borrow someone else’s story—but there’s no harm in looking.

See some of our favorite band shirts»

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·tees

10/26/09

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Wearing the Wobbly Boots

In honor of your busy weekend, here’s five of our favorite new terms for the state of intoxication, as gleaned from Paul Dickson’s Drunk: A Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary.

Whipcat
Fish Eyed

Vulcanized
Nimptopsical
Merle Haggard

Use them in good health.

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