Let’s talk about Fashion Week. While we try to steer clear of the capital-F-ness of it all, there’s plenty of worthwhile menswear happening. So, to recap it all, we’ve scoured the usual boots-on-the-ground suspects to bring you a compendium of everything you need to know about what happened (and what you’ll be wearing in six months). Just the facts.
Without further ado, Kempt presents: your Fashion Week Digest.»
Not to belabor the point, but it’s still spring. Hence, we’re not into the sockless, throw-caution-to-the-warm-breeze weather quite yet. Odds are, you’re still spending some time in socks, but much like you’ve done with your sweaters, you should be ditching the wool for lighter, airier cotton knits. So we dug up the six finest cotton-blended specimens on the market right now, ranging from outrageously colorful to Breton-striped to linen-woven.
Swashbuckling never goes out of style.
We’re thinking of Corto Maltese, the hero of a famous Italian comics series that swept through Europe alongside Fellini and Serge Gainsbourg. He’s basically an older, more rakish Tintin, dashing through the Pacific circa WWI, stirring up trouble.
The series never quite reached our side of the Atlantic, but between the nautical vibe and his easy continental charm, he’s inspired more than a few designers in his time. And more importantly, he’s mounting a comeback in the states. Maltese’s most famous book, The Ballad of the Salt Sea, gets a new edition from Rizzoli on Tuesday, complete with a fresh translation.
Fair warning: there will be male earrings.
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This SNS Herning sweater is the perfect example of anti-fashion—a timeless item that pops back up year after year as one of the menswear scene’s favorite items. So we were impressed that this lookbook managed to nail down the appeal so perfectly. That’s how you do it, right down to the wet-look hair. Take notes, gentlemen.
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Here’s another face of well-dressed winter, courtesy of the UK’s Buttery store. Time to grow a beard, buy a nautical sweater and tattoo the word “fashion” on your neck.
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Monitaly’s best known for Italophile suiting, but it turns out they know their way around a winter coat.
This peacoat puts five hazy stripes across the middle of the classic nautical jacket—along with yoked shoulders and a few moto-style collar snaps. It’s flashy, sure, but the colors aren’t too different from what you’d see on a Pendleton blanket, and it brings the nautical, motorcycle and Western styles together a lot better than you might expect.
Think of it as wearing your three favorite jackets at once.
This handsome snap comes from a Brooks Brothers ad circa 1987 (yes, 1987), demonstrating the proper form for the homecoming sailor. Coincidentally, it’s also one of the cheekier ways to pull off white jeans. The hat is optional.
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Nowadays, going collarless tends to be a sign of schlubbiness—the first step on a long road towards sweatpants—but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you choose your crewnecks with enough care, and wear them with enough verve, it becomes a style all its own. Exhibit A: Pablo Picasso…
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Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Selectism’s Nick Shonberger and Garbstore’s Ian Paley have come together for a reissue of the British Baseball Team jersey from 1938. The sleeves are enormous. [Cool Hunting]
Race Issues: John Lopez offers a sober-headed assessment of the Oscar campaigns, and incidentally threatens to kill Andrew Garfield. [Vanity Fair]
The Boot, Given: Another day, another line of hiking boots. [SlamxHype]
The Nautilus: Nautical strips continue to pop up everywhere, including a neckerchief or two. [Trendhunter]
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via Stil in BerlinThis week’s MOTH comes from an unlikely place: an unknown artist, casually dressed, resting on a stoop in Toronto of all places.
It’s not a complicated look—or even a particularly cutting edge one—but around this time of year it’s hard to top a cable-knit sweater, Red Wings, and a pair of ruggedly autumnal pants. None of the items are particularly unusual, but that deep navy makes the sweater one of the better cable-knits we’ve seen all year, and we could say the same thing about those pants.
It just goes to show: sometimes simple works.
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We never would have pegged Rogues Gallery as a furniture brand in the making…but it’s a better fit than we expected. These treated canvas floor coverings take after naval flags, but they’re large enough to cover the back porches of the world pretty handily—and since they’re built to be seaworthy, rain and snow shouldn’t put much of a dent in them. At the moment, you can only find them at John Derian or their RG shop in Provincetown, but they should be coming to eCommerce before too long. Hopefully your deck can survive until then.
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It’s a tried-and-true principle: people like warm things. Hence, the holiday sweater, both as a staple of holiday party style and as a gift.
Fair Isle is still the classic, but we’d there’s room under the tree/bush for something new—in particular, this snap cardigan from SNS Herning circa 1971. It’s more of a Zissou vibe than you usually get during Bing Crosby season, but that just means the lucky giftee can wear it through to March.
And if, for some reason, he decides to join up with the merchant marine…
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The nautical trend has been around for a while, but this is the first time we’ve seen it branch into the world of home décor.
This Royal Master Sealight is an exact replica of an old marine lamp, which means you’ll be able to adjust the shutters if you want things a little dimmer. It might be a bit too industrial for some places, but if you don’t mind a chrome stand in the corner, it could be just the kind of rough, functional gear that’s in vogue around now. If you’re feeling particularly handy, you could even use it to send Morse Code to the apartment across the street.
We snuck in for an exclusive peek at Rogues Gallery’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection, and the words “more of the same” have never sounded so sweet. The biggest surprise is the madras suit, which looks like it would be more at home at the fairgrounds than a fishing boat, but the rest of the gear shows off the same faded, loose-knit, maritime, worn-in vibe that’s made Rogues a favorite. Some pics after the jump of their new Fair Isle sweaters, t shirt goodness and a showstopping cotton navy sweater.
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Hiroshi Awai’s Creep label was last seen with heavy flannels, work boots and toggle coats, but it looks like he’s getting back into the yachting scene.
His S/S 2010 collection has a few nautical sweaters for the rugged at heard, but mostly its liberty print shorts, deck-ready button-ups and some of the better cut three-button suits we’ve seen in a while. The most interesting item might be this high-cropped denim jacket, which uses a bit of tailoring know-how to give even the most rugged item in the American wardrobe a touch of twee. Just don’t take it on deck.
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This coat might look a lot more familiar to French comics buffs, but on the off chance you aren’t a Corto Maltese fan, here’s a quick refresher course. Over the course of twelve graphic novels, he made a swashbuckling tour of the 20th century’s more exciting European wars, wearing an appropriately dashing series of nautical coats. And, thanks to his avid European readership, a few of those jackets are finally making it onto shelves.
Colette just offered up this nautical number on the heels of a Maltese-themed exhibition at the Museé National De La Marine. It’s not exactly seasonal, but we can never turn down a good nautical coat, and the gold stripe on the left cuff is the kind of detail that usually flourishes in fiction. Hopefully you can wear it in a suitably adventurous fashion.
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The Loose Knit Sweaters of the People: DVMan turns in a vaguely socialist ode to the nautical life. [Hypebeast]
In Essence: The perpetually sartorial Mark Ronson weighs in with his Ten Essentials. Tie bars are conspicuously absent. [Men.Style]
Close to the Chest: The paisley waistcoat is much, much cooler than you thought. [A Suitable Wardrobe]
In the Past: Woodstock’s 40th birthday prompts hazy recollections, indecision, and drug use. Shine on… [NYTimes]
The knit belt isn’t for everyone, but as the knit gets tighter, it gets a whole lot easier to pull off.
This (via acquire) is one of the smoother ones we’ve seen. It comes courtesy of Billykirk, who stepped out of the leather shop for just long enough to dip their toe in the nautical style.
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The nautical sweater has been kicking around for a while, but the knits keep getting looser, which is leading us to some surprising places.
Our Legacy’s latest collection adds a bit of fuel to the club collar resurgence, but the item that caught our eye was this cardigan. Aside from the tighter stripes, the mesh is so loose you can see through it. We’d recommend a light dress shirt underneath to make the most of it…but that’s just the beginner move.
Layering just got a whole new dimension.
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The big black raincoat has fallen out of favor lately, but it only takes a few well-placed tweaks to bring it back into style. In this case, it’s a few extra pockets and few sashlike tweaks around the shoulders.
We recently got a look at Endovanera’s upcoming A/W line and we thought we’d pass along a few of the better items, including this black Mafia Trench. On the heels of an Urban Outfitters collab, the label seems to be growing out of its black-on-black inclinations and into a broader range of styles, including a few nautical pieces.
Who knows; by next season they may even give Pantone a call.
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Chinese Democracy: Complex surveys the female talents of the Middle Kingdom. [Complex]
Tally Ho: We can never get enough nautical ephemera. [Selectism]
Bennesquire: Esquire struggles valiantly to make Ben Affleck interesting, and succeeds. If you only read one celebrity profile this week… [Esquire]
The Pack: Packing a suitcase is now a spectator sport, and Mismo comes out looking pretty good. [h(y)r collective]
We managed to get our hands on an advanced copy of next month’s T Magazine—courtesy of Friend Of Kempt, PR guru and devil-about-town Steve Rojas—and we couldn’t help but notice one of our favorite labels getting the star treatment. Actually, make that three of our favorite labels.
T’s designer spotlight features old favorites Commonwealth Utilities and Seavees, but the big surprise is Corpus, a weatherproofed nautical line that landed at Barneys this month, and is just starting to show up in glossy mags. Of course, it’s well-timed with the nautical trend, and we’re building up our raingear supply just like everyone else—but it’s still pretty impressive that they nabbed the pole position.
Naturally, if T had asked us, we might have had a few more suggestions…but there’s always next issue.
It’s hard for more wearable collections to break through, but Corpus seems to have what it takes.
The raingear-heavy line won this year’s Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award for it’s Spring/Summer collection and should be getting a higher profile in due time. It may seem a bit tame for an award winner, but look closer and you’ll see smart nautical touches like buttons below the beltline on the pants, or the way they’ve cuffed the full-length pants just shy of clam-digging levels.
And as always, a good two-tone shoe can really take you places.
Publishing a set of influences nine months before the line comes out runs the risk of being pretentious—after all, who needs labels showing you three more pictures of Steve McQueen; that’s our job—but done right, it can be genuinely exciting.
For instance, the latest “research pics” from Stansfield. Apparently they’re leaving the hunting look behind in favor of a more nautical vibe—like the jaunty-looking fellow on the left here. While we don’t love the tossed back quasi-lapel, we’re willing to wait and see how it turns out.
Of course, it looks they’ve done a bit of hand-wringing about airing their creative laundry, but we wouldn’t be too worried. If the only secret is that the navy had good taste in fabric, we’d say the secret was already out.
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The Beardless Leading the Beardless: The recently shaven Bill Richardson stops by to offer some life lessons. [Esquire]
Naval Gazing: Military research finally pays off. In the form of toggle coats. [Selectism]
Bows and Arrows: If you have lived this long without knowing how to tie a bowtie, all hope is not yet lost. [The Pursuit Aesthetic]
Sloppy Suspensions: Sean Avery proves himself to be less than a gentleman. The NHL disapproves. [Gawker]
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Style: some people have it, and some neighborhoods really have it. To show you what we mean, we’ve partnered with Cadillac to present Style Shifters—a five-part, in-depth look at what the hippest gents in some of the country’s coolest neighborhoods are wearing now. Our intrepid photographers have roamed the streets in search of the most stylish guys around. Herewith, a few photos of what they found...
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is home to some of the country’s best bars and coolest restaurants—and, of course, some of the best menswear shops in the world. Naturally, you’ll find more than a few stylish individuals perched outside those locations (and no, not all of them are Billyburg hipsters). See what we mean below...
Style. The Mission’s got it. Union Square’s got it. But each of them goes about having it in a different way—the Mission rocking a more bohemian coffee shop vibe, Union Square hosting some of the best higher-fashion shops (and shoppers) on the West Coast. We rounded up a few of the most stylish folks from both. Have yourself a gander below…
Forget everything you know about Miami style. Today’s Miamian is more LeBron James than Crockett and Tubbs—as you’ll soon see in our next edition of Style Shifters…
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