Blackbird just kicked off their semi-annual sale, so we thought we’d guide you through the stock in the language of the market. Here’s what to buy, what to sell, and what to hold.
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Blackbird just launched the online part of their seasonal warehouse sale, and it makes for pretty good browsing. For starters, these gray chukkas manage to match the season just about perfectly. We’d also direct you to the in-house ties, going for around $30 a pop, and this denim jacket… but really, you’ll want to explore for yourself.
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It’s a time-honored rule: If you take a sufficiently refined approach to your vices, they stop being vices. (See also: scotch and dueling gloves.) So naturally, we’re always game for a well-made pipe.
Blackbird has put together a pretty good set, including this one carved from a soapstone-y mineral called meerschaum. Even with the carrying case, it’s pretty darn country. But if you’ve already taken the leap into pipe tobacco, we have to assume you’re ready for it.
This is how a pair of undyed leather shoes looks after a year of non-stop wear.
The story is here, courtesy of the good folks at Blackbird, who seem to endorse this kind of shoe abuse, but we see it more as a cautionary tale. A scant twelve months ago, these were bright, clean loafers, full of potential. Now they’re covered with the kind of creases and raw scuffs that cause weaker souls to run out of thrift stores in tears.
There, but for the grace of shoe trees, go all of us.
So in the interest of saving any other wayward oxfords that have yet to fall into weathered perdition, we thought we’d reiterate the one central rule of wearing in shoes: don’t wear them more than two days in a row. There are others—keep them out of the rain, keep a shoe tree or some newspaper inside when you’re not wearing them—but they pale before that one cardinal dictum.
When you ignore it 364 times in a row, you end up with something like the shoes above—great color, but a cloudy patina and too much scuffing for a shoeshine to cure. Consider yourself warned.
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Now that our favorite collar-and-sweatshirt trick is inching back to seasonability, it may be time for a new sweatshirt.
Fortunately, Blackbird just rolled out a crewneck that’s just about perfect—all the way down to the $55 price tag. The heathered gray is just as flat as it should be, and there’s no other bells and whistles to distract from it. Our favorite part: they dubbed it “the Colton Harris-Moore” after the famous barefoot bandit, presumably as a tribute to the sweatshirt’s outlaw tendencies. You’ve been warned.
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The short-sleeved button-up has been getting a lot of attention now that it’s too muggy for oxford shirts, but it’s a remarkably tough shirt to wear. Play it too safe and you’ll end up looking like an accountant. Our suggestion: get adventurous.
This Native Son shirt does it just about perfectly, with oversized stripes to elevated it out of CPA territory into something a little bit riskier. The box pleat in the back and generally shrunken cut keep things slim, and the button-down collar means you’ll emerge with your preppy cred intact.
It’s the rare class of shirt you can wear under a suit or above a bathing suit, which should be a pretty useful trick once July rolls around.
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For all the emphasis on old-school production, the average shirt is still pretty homogeneous. No matter how distinctive they look on the runway, every single Band of Outsiders button-down will come out of the factory looking exactly the same. Pick one up, and there will be thousands more out there with exactly the same pattern. And, with the notable exception of raw denim, we’d guess true of every item in your closet.
But not these. In the DIY spirit, Blackbird put together a line of hand-dyed oxford shirts with know-how borrowed from a local dye shop called Earthhues. Each shirt was dyed in their Field House shop, and they’ve got watermarks and other irregularities to show for it—kind of like the distinctive wear patterns you worked so hard to cultivate on your jeans.
Blackbird’s new in-house tie line hits just about every must-have item in the neckwear canon—there’s repp-stripe, preppy graphics, chambray, madras, musty wool—but our favorite is this dark floral piece that looks like it was lifted from a Goodwill couch.
Large prints have been mostly left behind in the recent tie renaissance—probably because when they’re bad, they’re very bad—but this one’s subtle enough to slip under the radar. Our only complaint: at two inches, it’s a bit on the trendy side…but nobody’s perfect.
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Blackbird’s seasonal sale is well under way, and we couldn’t help but notice one of our favorite shoes dipping into a less-than-stratospheric price range. The shoes are Chausser’s Cordovan cap-toes—sturdy, comfortable, and just about everything you could want from a shoe. Consider it our envy of the day.
Back to the Wall: Apparently Corrine Day is a photographer to watch. [Fashion Gone Rogue]
One Last Q: Quentin Tarantino and Japanese commercials…how did it take this long? [Gawker TV]
Oh Black Water, Keep on Rolling: A longform peek at the Blackwater CEO, courtesy of Vanity Fair’s “War Watch.” [Vanity Fair]
Also, Booze: Blackbird’s latest “workaholic traveler” gift guide seems remarkably close to the plot of Up in the Air. [Blackbird Blog]
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Score one for the vintage crowd. These Florsheim brogues are currently on the block courtesy of Blackbird’s vintage division (10E, anyone?), and while you can see a few decades of wear on them, they still look better than most of the models on the shelves. The lesson: Apparently Florsheim builds them to last.
The Pompadour Rises Again: This is as threatening as Natalie Portman has ever looked, including when she was waving a pistol around. [Fashion Gone Rogue]
Just in Time for Movember: An in-depth interview with John Oates and some other guy. [A.V. Club]
Japan Wins Again: Behold the strangely transfixing trailer for a game called My Boyfriend is the President. [Gizmodo]
Take This Broken Menswear and Learn to Fly: Valet sits down with the mastermind behind our second favorite Northwestern boutique, Blackbird. [Valet]
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The scarf is probably the most versatile piece of outerwear, so we’re surprised we don’t see them popping up earlier in the year. Particularly now that we’re on the cusp between light jacket weather and arctic-level bundling, a good muffler can give you another few weeks before you have to break out the toggle coat. Which, depending on how you feel about winter, can be a lifesaver.
This wool item is from a shipment of Pria scarves recently stocked in Blackbird, and the pattern makes it a pretty good candidate for autumnal muffling. Go forth!
Style rules are made to be broken, but we expected the one about water and leather to last just a little bit longer…
The folks at Seattle’s Blackbird just turned us on to an interesting trick for turning crisp leather jackets into something a little bit more interesting. Apparently ten minutes in a bathtub followed by a few days drying out in a closet can create interesting wrinkles, rich dye patterns and a generally fascinating item of clothing.
Blackbird details the process here, but they’re also offering the jacket at left as part of an unauthorized collab with Tim Hamilton—one of the more intriguing ideas to come out of a boutique this year, if we may say so. The two thousand dollar price tag makes us more enthusiastic about taking to our bathtub, but there’s a few caveats to consider: 1) If it’s not premium leather, you’ll risk a little cracking and 2) You may be in for the weirdest tub rings you’ve ever seen.
And if you happen to like the jacket the way it is…you should probably sleep on it.
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There’s something to be said for taking a couple months to break in a pair of work boots and earning a few blisters along the way. But on the off-chance you don’t feel like putting in the hours, you may want to explore the vintage option.
Seattle’s Blackbird just reloaded their stock of vintage Red Wings, and New York’s Stock has been dealing in second-hand stompers for some time. We aren’t usually fans of the vintage shoe market, but when it’s something as durable as work boots, we’ll make an exception. No matter how beat up they look, it’s a safe bet they’ve got at least another decade in them.
You can also try digging through grandpa’s closet…assuming he’s your size.
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The world of men’s style doesn’t leave room for a lot of trinkets…but there are always a few if you’re willing to look.
This Shipley & Halmos case just landed at Seattle’s Blackbird, and it might be the most businesslike thing they’ve turned out all year. Of course, if you prefer your cases a bit more monolithic, there’s always Mr. Browne….
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This Band of Outsiders bowtie just made an early appearance at Seattle’s Blackbird, and we’re immensely pleased. Of course, after last season we already have a bowtie or two in our closet…but there’s always room for one more.
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Different clothes celebrate different states of mind, so while a suit may not make you the captain of industry you were hoping for, don’t be surprised if you’re standing a little straighter thanks to the clothes on your back. Of course, if you’re after the opposite effect…there’s always the bathrobe.
This particular model comes from Wings + Horns, and it’s the best celebration of indolence we’ve seen in some time. It was commissioned for the Ace Hotel’s New York branch, but Seattle’s Blackbird managed to get their hands on a few of them for sale. The slanted pockets are a particularly nice touch, for those times when your phone is ringing and you can’t be bothered to reach all the way over to the nightstand.
Sunday morning, here we come.
Japan’s Porter has been building steam as a cult brand for some time now, but even after a Monocle collab and a string of gushing writeups, their bags are still pretty hard to get a hold of. We were set to hype up a shipment that just landed in Seattle’s Blackbird, but the two-way briefcase we were looking for already sold out. We’re not quite up on our economic lingo, but we believe that’s referred to as “demand.”
Outside of boutique shipments, your best bet is to brave overseas shops like this one with a little help from Google Translate. And like a lot of cult goods, it’s still relatively cheap…at least before you add in shipping costs.
Cardigans have been getting slimmer lately, but we still prefer our pullovers thin and loose. Preferably with stripes.
This Lars Andersson knit just landed at Blackbird, and it does just about everything right. The fit hugs the torso but eases off around the sleeves, leaving it with a casual, drapey feeling. Meanwhile, the loose-gauge cotton makes it light enough that it’s as much t-shirt as sweater, and we can imagine breaking it out as early as September.
Andersson has a few cardigans on offer too, but this kind of fit doesn’t need buttons cluttering it up.
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West-coast boutiques are getting in on the online game too. The latest is Seattle’s Blackbird, which has brought some of our favorite brands to its new online storefront, including Opening Ceremony, Rag & Bone, and Acne Jeans. Of course, you could find most of these brands elsewhere online if you looked…but it’s always nice to have a well-chosen selection.
