February 9, 2012 world of men's style / fashion / grooming RSS
“Germany”
12/23/11
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High and Tight

Test Driving Klaus Kinski’s Cologne

Ladies and gentlemen, Klaus Kinski has a cologne.

Twenty years after his death, the intense German actor’s estate has unveiled Kinski the Fragrance, an olfactory tribute to the star of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo and For a Few Dollars More.

There are a number of red flags here—including the fact that the url is on the box, is apparently still available for purchase—but in the name of journalism, we offered our female friends and colleagues a whiff of Kinski and polled them to see if the estate had produced a scent as erotically powerful as the man himself.

The results were troubling, to say the least…»

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12/15/11
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LinkOut

Dempsey Stewart Disagrees With Your Opinion of Drake

Dempsey Stewartvia Fashion Gone Rogue, Christopher Ferguson

Making Time: Jason Heaton digs into the best German watch brands out there, raising questions of whether Pforzheim is too silly of a name to be a real place. [Gear Patrol]

Business Attire: A serious-minded collection of menswear tips, including the following wisdom on office parties: “always dress well enough to be promoted but not so well that they wouldn’t feel bad about firing you.” [The Onion]

”Whatever, Drake Sucks”: An irreverent commentary on 25 of the year’s best tracks. Highly recommended. [Self-Titled]

The History of Iggy: Amateur snaps from a Stooges show at a Michigan high school in 1970. Those kids have no idea what they’re seeing. [Retronaut]

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12/05/11
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What's What

The Reentry: December 5

Vladimir Putin

It’s been a busy few days, so you might have been distracted from some of the recent news—like the newly discovered spy software in your phone, the Russian elections and the enormous WWII-era bomb being dug out of a river in Germany. Luckily, we’re here to catch you up…

Here’s what you missed over the weekend»
 

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06/09/10
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Big Picture

Camera Man

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This picture from Europhotoblogger Markus Schwarze proves the old rule: A good camera can make up for a lot of frumpiness. And the suspenders don’t hurt either.

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05/20/10
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Object

The New Briefcase

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If you’ve been adventurous enough to join in for Bike to Work Week, you may have noticed a slight problem: it’s damn hard to bring a briefcase along on one of those things. Most baskets aren’t large or deep enough to accommodate one, and keeping it strapped to your torso is asking for a wreck. Luckily, it’s a problem Europeans have been dealing with for a while now, and they’ve come up with a handsome leather solution.

It’s called a frame bag, courtesy of a German shop called Retrovelo (hat tip). It’s perfectly sized to hold a laptop, and still small enough to dangle between bike wheels. More importantly, it’s got a handle on the top, so you can unclip it when you reach the office and treat it like a briefcase for the rest of the day. Consider us sold.

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11/19/09
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Speed Freak

Eastern Promises

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Not all German cars are created equal.

To anyone weathering the sea change after the wall fell, the Trabant was the brightest symbol of clunky East German industrialism. It boasted a ridiculously complex refueling process, a ten year waitlist, and a two-stroke engine that did 0-60 in a blistering 21 seconds. In short, quite possibly the worst car ever made. So naturally it’s due for a revival.

The new Trabbi, currently hunting for investors, swaps out the moped engine for a gas-free electric motor that should give the notoriously smoky vehicle a fresh green face, but the basic question remains: Why not give it a new name? The Trabbi’s boxy silhouette’s as reviled as it is beloved, so it might have been worth just starting from scratch. Unless the GDR’s coming back into style…

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07/08/09
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Gadgetry

Meanwhile, Back at the Lab

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Edison-style inventing keeps a pretty low profile these days, but there’s still a lot of would-be Qs out there, and they’ve got some ideas to show you.

The James Dyson Awards (hat tip to The Awl are going on right now, gathering thousands of engineers and inventors to compete for a chunk of sweet vacuum-cleaner money by sketching up personal railway systems and inventing new ways for doors to open. There’s a few days left to vote, but we’ve already found a favorite.

This German heads-up windshield display is called the Bionic Cockpit, and it brings augmented reality into the automotive world, along with a pleasantly botanical design motif and a lot of downright useful information conveyed in a simple and effective way. Detroit’s in no condition to buy them out…but maybe Munich’s interested?

See a demonstration»

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06/09/09
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Bad Idea/Good Idea

Mad World

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The 1960s advertising world may be taking a temporary vacation from the zeitgeist, but we couldn’t help noticing a familiar item in the latest catalog from Germany’s aptly named Wormland label.

That’s right. They’re selling Pete Campbell’s suit.

Granted, the lapels are thinner, the blue is deeper, and the whole thing is a good deal shinier—all of which makes it less desirable than the genuine article—but it’s rare to see an item jump from screen to page this quickly. Maybe they were trolling for inspiration and ran across a re-broadcast on BBC2?

August can’t get here soon enough…

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05/12/09
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Scandals

A Very Bad Man

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Ladies and Gentlemen, this man is an asshole.

Our old friend Jared Paul Stern just filed this dispatch from the world of unimaginable wealth. He’s tasked with the world’s richest asshole, and we have to hand it to him: he made a pretty good choice. Introducing Mr. Marcus von Anhalt…

We detail the crimes of Mr. von Anhalt»

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05/08/09
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Art Threat

The Streets is Watchin’

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Street art has always been a bit too politically prickly to fit in with the web 2.0 crowd…but that’s no reason to stop trying. After all, populism is populism, and if street artists managed to make nice with auction houses, who’s to say they can’t fit a few iPhones into their repertoire?

Adidas’s new Urban Art Guide (via NotCot) is one of the first tries, and it handles it as well as could be hoped…at least, if you live in Berlin.

More on the Urban Art Guide»

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03/05/09
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The Past

The Ghost of Colas Past

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As Pepsi recently discovered, the world of soda bottle design can get pretty contentious, so it’s worth remembering what it looks like when it’s done right.

Afri Cola was a German, Jolt-style caffeine bomb popular in the ‘60s and ‘70s—and briefly, Seattle in the ‘90s—and while the taste didn’t catch on quite the way you’d expect, the design may be the best we’ve ever seen. As far as vintage colas go, this one seems ripe for a revival—and the more caffeine the better.

Ladies and gentlemen, the soda of the past»

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01/09/09
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Object

Left of the Dial

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We’ve had a love/hate relationship with the radio for about ten years now, but it’s still one of the best ways to tap into the musical zeitgeist. If only the FM dial were a little less crappy…

The internet’s teaming with great audio channels—including stations broadcast too far away for you to tune in—but so far it’s been hard to tune in without going through tinny computer speakers. But where there’s a market, there’s someone looking to tap into it, so CES has been full of companies jousting for what’s been called “iRadio.”

Our favorite, so far is Sonoro’s entry, a discreet plastic brick that lets you search by title, genre or location. It should be coming out stateside around April, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

Until then…there’s always the occasional mp3 blog.

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01/02/09
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Ad Rock

Grab Hold

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If you were wondering about the legacy of those Tom Ford ads…we might have something.

The German exotica shop Condomi must have decided their old bags weren’t eye-catching enough, so they designed totes depicting thong-clad crotches, with a particularly well-placed handle. It’s a good way to spread word of mouth, but we can’t help but wonder how many of their more timid customers are turning down bags at the register.

And if this is what they do with a bag, we’d hate to think what they do with a billboard…

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12/31/08
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Scandals

Clearing the Mind

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Doping has been a known staple of Soviet sports since the famous Drago-Balboa fight, but lately even chess has come under suspicion.

Der Spiegel (via Neatorama) is seizing on Grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk’s refusal to take a drug test at the recent Chess Olympiad as reason to suspect the chess world of being driven by something more sinister than just caffeine and neurosis. They even have a picture of him suspiciously fingering his nose!

Why we aren’t worried»

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12/18/08
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Object

The Art Boom

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The latest in our series of things that will get you arrested when you pick them up from the post office, this German-made porcelain grenade is intended as a Christmas ornament, but the political undertones seem less than festive, to say the least.

Then again, maybe it’ll scare the kids into asking Santa for world peace again.

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12/16/08
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Ad Rock

Keeping it Surreal

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We ran across this highbrow Volkswagen spot from the same dour German ad house that brought you the suicidal calorie. The tagline is “Absurdly low consumption,” but again, we didn’t expect things to get quite this bleak.

This time around, it’s more of an existential bleakness. Gas station attendants leave empty, headless lives while (in the Dalí version) pumpmen cry glass tears into a desert pond. See the nightmarish dreamscape that fuel efficiency has created! SUV ads always seemed to resemble sitcom interstitials, so VW is going the opposite way, creating a world with no cars, people, or even buildings.

Then again, we always love a good Magritte homage.

See their take on Dalí»

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12/02/08
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Ad Rock

Marketing the Void

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Advertising tends to traffic in generically comforting scenes—a sun-dappled Dr. Pepper-equipped picnic, for instance—but you can’t stay on the bright side forever, and occasionally things get genuinely dark. Usually in Germany.

This ad, from Berlin’s BBDO, emphasizes Pepsi Max’s one calorie by illustrating the bleak, soul-deadening isolation of the one remaining calorie. (The caption reads, “One very very very lonely calorie.”) By printing the ad on what looks like the outside of a paper bag, they also manage to pin down the “eccentric loner” demographic, something Pepsi usually struggles with.

We assume it’s the same firm that brought you the Home Depot slogan: “Because she’s never coming back.”

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11/25/08
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Object

Tall Boys

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It’s hard to overstate the appeal of a very tall beer glass. It’ll help you master your pouring and you won’t have to suffer through foamless pilsners anymore, but the real fun is bringing a bit of Bavaria to your coffee table. Or, in this case, a bit of Switzerland.

Just pour down the middle and you should be fine.

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11/12/08
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Art Threat

The Wild Side

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Whether it’s Africa or flight attendant training school, the subject often makes the photographer. And as subjects go, brothels are a pretty good one…as long as you keep the kids away from the coffee table.

Prostitution has been legal since 2001 in Germany, and lensman Patric Fouad recently made a tour of the small-scale dens of iniquity that have popped up in the seven years since, resulting in his monograph, *Brothels in Germany*. They alternate between sterile hotel rooms and fantastical holdovers from old-world courtesanship, managing to be both exotic and bleak. It might be a place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

A few more interiors»

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08/05/08
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Dept. of Corrections

A Few of Our Favorite Things

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London-based Monocle (which, we hasten to add, is not a lifestyle magazine) has posted a front-of-the-book-style roundup that bears no resemblance to lifestyle journalism whatsoever.

Titled “Things to improve your life,” the multinational list includes Italian bathing clubs (pictured), an austere German day bed and Ambassador’s foot-hugging leather trainers. We’re all for self-improvement—we’re even willing to tolerate the dubious inclusion of Monocle’s local newsstand—but is this really what the good life looks like? We’ve taken our own crack at it with the must-haves on the left here, but we can’t help but think there’s something missing…

Maybe something to help put on all those shoes.

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04/22/08
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LinkOut

Bloody Butchers, Bad Dogs and Model Prisoners

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Fresh Meat: These gory Eva Herzigova shots by Mario Testino have us hot, hungry and a little bit scared. [The
Photography Link]

Curb Your Dog: Some horrid pooch went and peed on our beloved Natalie Portman while she was traipsing about the part with Freak-Folk
boytoy Devendra Banhart. Gentlemen that we are, we already have a contract out on the hairy mutt (and the dog as well). [NYPost]

Drawers Raise a Stink: The latest banned ads in Europe aren’t by Tom Ford, but rather the product of Hanes’
anti-racism, anti-subtleness marketing department. [DNR]

Car-Port Chic: Ksubi, Maison
Martin Margiela and Adam
Kimmel create couture car covers for Intersection Magazine. [Intersection]

Designs from the Pokey: Germans are buying up prisoner-made clothes. The prisoners, predictably, not so much. [CNN]

Street Talk: Izzy points us in the direction of Times fashion photog Bill Cunningham’s new audio slideshow.
[Manolo
for the Men]

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