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A blog dedicated to the interesting, scandalous, useful and cutting edge in the world of men’s style, fashion and grooming.
A lot of great labels are looking to California for inspiration—Trovata, for instance—but this is the first convincing sneaker we’ve seen.
The label is SeaVees, and they’re keeping production of this 01/68 down to 45 pairs, so you won’t be seeing it on shelves, but that shouldn’t stop you from basking in its glory.
The forces of design have been slow in coming to water bottles, but apparently they’re getting around to it. This bottle from Kors takes its cues from Jonathan Ive circa 1998, but they make up for it with a clever cap design and an all around . If you’re going jogging through Palo Alto, it’s probably the best there is.
It looks like the matching shirt and tie is catching on. We first spotted it in the Commonwealth Utilities line, and now the West Coast brand Howe is pulling the same move in their SS09 collection.
We don’t like to say it, but we told you so.
We love a good straight razor, and we’ve gushed before (verbally!) about the various perks of shaving with a real blade. But finding the right blade matters, and real artisans are hard to come by.
This item was put together by one Frank Warner, a family knifemaker with a garage-based razor factory on California’s central coast. He’s not the most auspicious source, but he’s handy with a grinding wheel, and he’s spent 40 years developing a perfect understanding of balance and tempering.
And if you ask nicely, you’ll get a one-of-a-kind production.
Outside of Cronicles of Never and Ksubi, Australia’s style footprint has been pretty small. But we’re always willing to take another look.
This snap (courtesy of Street Peeper) comes from the opening of Alphaville, Melbourne’s latest Godardian boutique. The jeans are from Ksubi, and look familiar enough, but the rest of his getup comes from labels we’ve never even heard of, including Alpha 60 and The Vanishing Elephant.
Judging from the getup—and the success Ksubi has had with the Soho crowd—we’d say the continent’s ripe for a larger crossover, especially in sunnier climes like California.
We’ll call it the trans-Pacific look.
With 90s culture poised to leap back into the mainstream, it’s probably time we gave skateboarding another look.
We ran across Mumble’s retrospective of skate photographer Grant Brittain and it inspired us to do just that. From a pipe-bound photo of a young Tony Hawk to surprisingly quiet contemplations of Del Mar’s concrete underbelly, there’s a lot more here than just tattoos and knee shorts.
As a subculture, skateboarding has already been coopted so many times over the past 15 years that it’s been very hard to take seriously, but we’re reaching a moment when we can see it with all the hype and glamour stripped away, as a genuine reimagining of the urban landscape. Of course, it helps if you grew up in a suburb full of smooth concrete and gentle curves. And if you take a few photographers along for the ride.
It’s not news until someone puts it on a t-shirt, so we’re hardly surprised to see this pass through our RSS feed after the Apple honcho copped to a non-life-threatening hormone imbalance. We’re sure it’ll be a big hit in the business-very-casual circles at Silicon Valley, but as zeitgeist moments go, this one rings a bit hollow.
And like any figurehead, there’s always the possibility that Jobs is using doubles.
Men.Style’s Material Interest alerted us to WWD’s latest poll ranking cities on menswear spending and the results are a little staggering. Perennially hip, Austin comes in first, closely followed by the loose thread that is Las Vegas. Southern California takes up the next three spots, while the New York area barely makes the list.
Best of all is Salt Lake City in the #7 spot, confirming our long-held theory about Mormon style. Sadly, neither of the Portlands made the cut.
Seavees is well on their way to becoming California’s finest shoe, but they’ve got more than sunshine on their mind.
The latest line (via Men.Style) is titled 9/63, in honor of the founding of color magnates Pantone. Of course, we’ve admired their work in the past, but we never thought we’d end up seeing them on a sneaker.
Unfortunately, they skip out on Mimosa in favor of seven more 60s-oriented color blends, but they’re richer choices than you usually see on footwear. It might be a bit hard to match, but this orange hue is our favorite. You’d better hurry if you like it, though: it’s a limited collection (as usual with Seavees), and only 1,963 are going on sale.
For all our gushing about ACL’s American List, we’re more interested in how things are made than where. Of course, it’s easier to keep an eye on things if they’re domestic, but really we just want to see what those factories really look like.
Patagonia is giving us the next best thing with their latest site, the Tin Shed (via Josh Spear). It’s not exactly complete transparency, but it gives a peek into the early history of the brand, which turns out to look a little different than you’d expect.
We’re on record predicting the return of the belt buckle…and we’ve finally found a more reliable source. If you happen to be in the market for a waistline trophy—and you’re in the New York area—our friends at UrbanDaddy put us onto a belt-buckle exhibition currently passing through town.
And if you happen to have a chambray shirt lying around, it might not be a bad idea.
Trovata’s been overshadowed by their former collaborators Shipley & Halmos these past few seasons, but they’re still a pretty reliable source for breezy West Coast gear. This Miro shirt, for instance, is the kind of garment they can turn out pretty reliably, a linen-weave summer shirt lined up for their Spring/Summer 2010 line.
It’s not enough to call a comeback, but if they meet January with a whole line of these items, they’ll definitely raise a few eyebrows—even more than the storytelling stunts that got them noticed in the first place. Four years in, they may finally be hitting their stride.
At the moment, flannel’s more associated with bearded mountain men than flaxen-haired Californians, but it wasn’t always so. For proof, check out this picture of the Beach Boys—erstwhile masters of summertime Americana—decked out in five matching lumberjack shirts and impeccably geeky white undertees, and somehow still channeling the endless summer.
We’re not alone in being impressed. As it happens, Hurley seized on this particular photo to turn out red and blue versions of the Pendleton flannel, which has since found its way onto racks at Bloomingdales and Fred Segal. It’s a pretty good twist on a classic item and some classic style icons.
But mostly, we’re glad no one showed them this.
