Today’s must-reads from around the Internet.
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Road Range: Mr. Impossible Cool shares some road-trip wisdom and hits the road in a vintage Benz with an impossible amount of Ghurka luggage.
Funny Business: Twitter’s most successful quipster @MeganAmram shares her secrets for being a funny tweeter.
Going Full-Hipster: The Times has outdone themselves on their Brooklyn coverage, as a middle-aged “avowed Manhattanite” goes in-country for a long weekend of fixies and straight-razor shaves.
Pass the Bar: For the shower-gel averse, here are a few new bar soaps to consider that don’t have the word “Irish” or “Spring” stamped into them.
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The Shoe Fits: Celebrating a legendary cobbler who’s been making and repairing shoes in his Brooklyn shop since 1945.
Mustache-Have: You can win a mustache comb made by Ron Swanson (of Parks and Rec fame).
Doing It Right: Ivy Style gets a sneak peek at the new American-made Bass Weejuns.
What’s in a Wheel: Gear Patrol dispels the confusion between four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive.
To celebrate their latest collaboration with artist Hugo Guinness, famous for his quirky linocut prints (think: Japanese woodcuts of squiggly paper airplanes and friendly rhinoceroses), Coach has made this equally charming video of the London-born artist in his Brooklyn home/workshop. What’s more, the collection isn’t just all bags and wallets—there are some interesting additions, like a pocket multi-tool (in a leather pouch) or a valet tray (with the rhino on it). It’s all in a rich, glove-tanned leather and so should age like an old baseball mitt.
via Très Brooklyn: The Cut talks with the French founders of Brooklyn We Go Hard about the mysticism of their namesake borough and their take on Parisian-Brooklyn style. [The Cut]
I’m on a Boat: A white-knuckle account of a reporter aboard a racing yacht during the America’s Cup. [NY Times]
Say Yas: Catching up with Yasuto Kamoshita, the jetsetting creative director of culty brand United Arrows. [The Window]
Swaggy Swag: Our pals over at Driven get a head start on the giving season with this slick gift guide—you might want to do some self-gifting as well. [Driven]
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It’s October (yes, already) and that means one thing: a new crop of magazines has hit the shelves. September was the big rallying point for the fall menswear transition, so now it’s less about how fall looks and more about how fall feels: there’s tweed, the upcoming elections and awards season jockeying (coincidentally, each cover featured an A-list actor). So, let’s get into it.
Digging through the October issues, one perfumed page at a time.»
via The LibertineBe on the Pale: The Midwestyle makes the case for white jeans (and why you shouldn’t fuss over keeping them that way). [The Midwestyle]
Bonsai Tea: Dispelling seven misconceptions about the enigmatic Japanese booze, sake. (It’s more like beer than wine.) [SharpMen]
Friendly Skies: CNN takes us back to a simpler time, when flying on airplanes was glamorous—especially the stewardesses. [CNN]
Surfin’ NYC: The Moment takes us into the newest beach bum outpost in… Brooklyn. [T Magazine]
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Our latest smell test comes from Brooklyn Dry Goods, inspired by the musk of an antique rifle found in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. As you might expect, it’s an offbeat scent, full of tobacco, pepper and unplaceable industrial notes.
But enough of the perfume lingo: it’s time to find out what the pitiless men and ladies (mostly ladies) of the office think. Here are their unvarnished appraisals.
We’d like to apologize in advance…
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via The Fashion SpotBringing Back the Old Drake: A long interview with Michael Hill of Drake’s. It turns out the grenadine and shantung ties are their best sellers—and, coincidentally, also our favorites. [StyleForum]
Ad Rock: Creative Review’s best ads of the year include both Ice Cube’s Eames mash note and that little Vader kid. A great way to spend five minutes. [Creative Review]
At the Caff: The cafeterias of ’50s London were pretty stylish places. [Archival Clothing]
It Is Joined: A walking tour of Brooklyn’s newest boutique, complete with Hill Side ties and Left Field jeans. [Secret Forts]
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This Wednesday, Shipley & Halmos launched their first cologne, a piney concoction brewed up by Brooklyn’s D.S. & Durga.
They only made 99 bottles of the stuff, but somehow we managed to get our hands on one of them. It’s big on lavender, with a few touches of suntan oil—but let’s face it, you don’t care about the parfumerie lingo. You want to know what it really smells like—so we enlisted a few of our most verbose female acquaintances to take a whiff of the stuff and tell us how it smells.
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Home bars in the ’60s had all sorts of goodies that didn’t make it into the modern age—crème de menthe, anyone?—but here’s one that’s due for a revival: old school seltzer.
Forget those store bought twist-top versions. Next to this, they’re practically Evian. A real bottled seltzer is so carbonated it shoots out of the bottle like a rocket, and stings your throat on the way down. More importantly, it does amazing things to scotch and it’s the only proper way to make an egg cream.
You can usually pick some up for around two bucks a bottle…but finding a bottler is easier said than done. In the age of supermarket twist-offs, they’re a dying breed—which makes a good one that much more of a gem. Brooklyn’s Gomberg Seltzer Works is one of the last in New York, but if you’re out of range you may have some legwork in your future. Trust us: it’s worth it.
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This tabletop from Avoid Pi made its debut last night at the Mighty Tanaka gallery with accents from genuine gold leaf and hardware-store nails. As for that O…think of it as the mother of all water rings.
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The gentlemen at Trustocorp decided to take Brooklyn’s hipster population down a peg with this sign, bolted up guerilla-style in the heart of Williamsburg. We don’t think they’re kidding.
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In the interest of livening up an otherwise uneventful Tuesday morning, we’re bringing you a few snaps and a video from the fourth issue of Jacques, a pleasantly retro erotic quarterly out of Brooklyn. (Think Vargas girls and vintage Hef.) We wanted to keep things SFW above the fold so you’ll have to click through for the good stuff. Enjoy yourselves…
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It’s time for somethin, at least according to this chunk of wood from Brooklyn’s Avoid Pi. We’re not sure what that somethin is, but it definitely looks shiny.
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Here’s one last piece of gift guidance before we call it a year: You can’t go wrong with chocolate. And rawer is always better.
CoolHunting rounds up a pretty good set here, but they leave off our favorite of the bunch, the famous Mast Brothers of Brooklyn. Known for their impressive beards and faculty with the chocolate arts, they’ve been one of the highlights of Williamsburg’s culinary scene for a while. Pick up a fleur de sal bar (possibly as a stocking stuffer) and you should be set.
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The Times Style section has been pretty light on fluffy trend pieces of late, but it looks like they were saving them up for when the honchos went on vacation. The latest hot look: the pot belly. Does this mean James Gandolfini’s due for a comeback?
There’s a teeming collage of pleasantly tubby Brooklynites for the unimpressed, but the bellies are all more likely to be the result of lapsed gym memberships than a new avant-garde style statement. And naturally, no style piece would be complete without a reference to the president, via the speculation that Obama’s flat stomach has inspired the hipster’s contrarian streak. (Doesn’t Barack have enough on his plate without having to answer for Williamsburg’s paunch?)
The overall gist seems to be that hipsters have been letting themselves go. It’s good to know, but alongside a fat-baiting JC Penney tirade, perhaps a little inconsistent. Maybe bellies are fine as long as they’re in Brooklyn?
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If your bike’s a little less Bavarian, there’s always strength in numbers. This group is known throughout Brooklyn as the Hell’s Satans, the world’s least threatening biker gang.
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This bifurcated gentleman is currently residing at Brooklyn’s English Kills, as part of a gallery-wide collaboration between two artists known as J & J. They each contributed half their face, along with a fair amount of woodworking know-how, and ended up with a remarkably unsettling sculpture. Call it an ode to the creative process?
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The world of hipsters runs on an intricate, almost Victorian code, so it was only a matter of time before someone pulled a Barry Lyndon. And, somewhat predictably, that person was an Asian girl who pretended to work for Vice.
Ah, Brooklyn…
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Since the bicycle was invented, bike clothes have been uniformly embarrassing, and with bikes and scooters on the rise, it seems like material-minded designers have their work cut out for them.
These aren’t perfect, but they meet the challenge of producing a good biking pant better than anything else we’ve seen. They come from Outliers, a brand-new Brooklyn marque devoted to performance over form. In this case, that means pants that repel water, grease and stains and can stand up to the grinding gears of the average bike commute. It’s mountain climber stuff, but they’ve managed to fashion it into a slim pant that won’t look out of place at the office. It’s hardly a triumph of style, but as far as bike-safe clothing goes, it’s a big leap forward
Now that we’ve set you up with a moped, you may need a tougher jacket to get you through the occasional wipeout. After all, even the briefest brush with the pavement will leave your peacoat well and truly tattered.
Our friends at UrbanDaddy tipped us off Smith & Butler, a biker-inspired shop in Brooklyn that happens to have some of the best gear in the borough. Old favorites like Barbour and Belstaff should keep you protected while you’re riding, but there’s plenty else to check out while you’re here.
Brands like Filson, Pendleton and Pointer make up one of the best workwear collections you’ll find anywhere, alongside nautical sweaters from Saint James and some choice photography books from Rin Tanaka. Add in a few well-chosen vintage items, and you’ve got one of our favorite new stores.
Hopefully your moped makes it to Brooklyn.
Students of American style should take note: the upper class isn’t quite as old as you’d think. Only a few centuries ago, even New York was a rugged frontier town, with an upper-crust populated by shysters and remittance men. Brooklyn was still farmland and Wall Street still had a wall around it. The clothes may have been dirtier, but we’re sure you could pick up a few things.
One of our favorite publishers just came out with a book that immerses you in just that era. It’s called *High Society*, from British historian and noted dandy Nick Foulkes. It may be the beginning of a new historical obsession for us.
They really knew how to wear a hat back then.
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There are a lot of oddball inspirations out there, but the post office is easily the strangest. It’s the perfect example of the workaday drabness most designers go out of their way to avoid. As a general rule, there’s nothing less glamorous than spending twenty minutes in a cordoned line. (That goes for modern air travel too, if you were wondering.)
But after this envelope/briefcase, we may have to think again. It comes from Postalco, a Brooklyn-meets-Japan marque that takes inspiration from the international transport industry. This particular item subs calfskin in for the usual manila paper for a handleless briefcase that’s both innovative and completely low key. After all, who looks twice at a man carrying a manila envelope?
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