May 20, 2013 world of men's style / fashion / grooming RSS
“streetwear”
03/04/13
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Storefront

Your International Guide to the Newest Men’s Shops

Men's Shops

Worldliness can have its advantages and its drawbacks—knowing the time conversion for Tokyo without hesitation, for instance, isn’t going to help you when you’re in Moscow and in desperate need of a new pair of trousers. And since we’re always here to lend a helping hand, we’ve gone ahead and rounded up the newest menswear shops that have sprung up in the past few months in your regular haunts—you know, Moscow, Honolulu—as well as places you might not find yourself too often. Consider this an update to your already-dapper international rolodex of men’s shops.

Your guide to the newest men’s shop openings across the globe.»
 

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06/10/10
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Object

Far From the Tradding Crowd

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Part two in our series on adventurous short-sleeved button-ups takes us to none other than Mark McNairy, who recently dropped this playful oxford shirt at streetwear powerhouse Dave’s Quality Meats over the weekend.

It’s an odd pairing on the face of it—this is the man who resuscitated J.Press, after all—but it follows a certain kind of post-Bixby logic, and it certainly doesn’t hurt the price point. The funhouse Brooks Brothers look is pretty timely at the moment, it’ll certainly keep you clear of the accountant look, and oxford cloth is still oxford cloth. By that measure, we’d say it’s a pretty good item—even if it’s a few steps ahead of where most preppies are these days.

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03/16/10
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Good Idea

Going Dotty

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Thom Browne has been venturing away from the shrunken suit look lately, but this (hat tip) might be the first piece he’s made that counts as Kanye-esque.

The shell is a classic Americana piece, a rainwear parka that wouldn’t look too out of place on Clark Griswold, but once you add polka dots it starts to look an awful lot like streetwear. It is a hoodie, after all.

We’re certainly not complaining; it’s always good to see a designer testing the limits of their talent. We just didn’t expect there to be so much in it for Pharrell.

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08/27/09
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Object

Moon Unit

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Streetwear’s usually an all-or-nothing proposition, but if you’ve got a taste for flashy side items, it’s easy to cherrypick a wallet or a t-shirt without delving into the world of fitted caps and spaceman sneakers.

Or, in this case, a pair of sunglasses.

These come from BBC, apparently designed to match these jeans, but they should do all right on their own. The silver lenses give it an even spacier feeling—supposedly inspired by NASA—putting them worlds away from the more understated clubmasters of the world. But if you’re looking for a few edgier accents, a little astronaut flavoring might be just what you need.

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06/24/09
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Object

Kicking Off

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Maison Martin Margiela has been dipping their toes in the sneaker game for some time, but usually they favor a style of spaceman high-top that, like most avant-garde sneakers, appeals more to streetwear shops than the haute crowd.

Luckily, this season finds MMM taking that same monochrome sleakness to a soccer-shoe model, and the result is pretty envy-inspiring. The silhouette may be treading on Puma territory, but the all-leather approach and the perfectly chosen shade of blue place it a few cuts above the competition. Not that we’d expect anything less…

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06/05/09
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LinkOut

…But No More than a Quantum

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Going for Gold: The civic-minded Alicia Keys gets the Golden Note from a composers group. We’re guessing Quantum put her over the top. [Variety]

Half in the Bag: Porter tries a streetwear collab, and we are unusually conflicted. [Hypebeast]

In Control: An illustrated history of the videogame controller. [Gizmodo]

Because It’s Friday: Pick the Perp is the internet’s newest flash game, and the best use of mug shots since Conan moved to 11:30. [WBE]

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04/08/09
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LinkOut

Ms. Bundchen, Mrs. Love, and the Endangered Cork

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The Carter: Gisele spends the latest Vanity Fair shoot finding creative ways to avoid goosebumps. [FashionIndie]

Tapped Out: Wines may be ditching the cork for the spigot. Anything that nets fewer corkscrew injuries is fine with us.
[NYTimes]

All For Love: According to her publicist, Courtney Love is actually very frugal. [Luxist]

Ape Shall Not Purchase Ape: Boutique streetwear may not be the recession-proof staple we thought it was. [PSFK]

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04/03/09
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Object

Trickle Down

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Pharrell’s Billionaire Boys Club label is usually too firmly on the streetwear side of things to catch our eye, but this striped shirt caught our eye as a potential crossover piece.

It looks like something we’d pick up at A.P.C.…so much so that we scoured their back catalog looking for this exact item. But the issue isn’t sartorial plagiarism so much as a healthy exchange of ideas. This item made its way from pasty Parisians to hip-hop futurists in just a few seasons.

Does that mean streetwear is going French?

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03/24/09
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Conversation

Street Life

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The Dow may be surging, but it’s going to be quite some time before that money trickles down to the average man of style…much less the average shop-owner.

Hypebeast recently had the same idea as us, and approached some of the wiser boutique men and label owners with notebook in hand.

Streetwear isn’t exactly our scene, but the lessons are more or less the same: cut back on stock, streamline production, and try to ride the whole mess out. The most surprising takeaway is the longterm effect of all the sample sales you’ve been seeing. We aren’t usually inclined to speak ill of the occasional 80% discount, but labels and shops need high margins to keep afloat, which makes it hard to imagine what the sample sale scene will look like six months from now.

We excerpt some of the best advice»

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03/20/09
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Object

Blue on Blue

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Timberland’s been keeping a lot more current lately, even if they’ve given up workwear for more street-inspired kicks.

These denim-friendly boat shoes may be coming to the trend a little late, but they might be the first pair made to wear under baggy jeans. For a former preppy staple, that’s pretty impressive.

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03/16/09
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Current Affairs

Renaissance Man

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No sooner do we complement Kanye’s taste in denim than we hear his Yeeziness is planning a denim line of his very own.

It’ll be hard to top RRL, and the hipster/street divide is as difficult to bridge in fashion as it is in music. Then again, if anyone can bring the two camps together—possibly by sporting the perfect level of bagginess displayed in the picture at left—it’s Kanye. As legacies go, it wouldn’t be a bad one.

Let’s just hope it keeps him off the vocoder.

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02/18/09
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Object

Two Tone

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The sneaker/oxford divide isn’t what it used to be. Take Generic Man, for example. They’re one of the best sources for streetwear-ready spaceman sneakers, which carry a decent price tag but run a little low on prestige. But that doesn’t mean they can’t take on something a little more upscale.

These cap-toes aren’t exactly Alden material—there’s still no substitute for a real cobbler—but as far as avant-garde formalwear goes, it’s hard to do much better. It may be patent leather on the toes, but that just adds to the synthetic vibe created by the clever double-front and strangely clinical powder blue.

There’s also a denim-colored version, but we’re guessing you’ll want to keep things neutral.

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11/25/08
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Good Idea

The Professor

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Tweed has never been the hottest look, but it may be having its own trendlet. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to academic-chic.

This “Academia Jacket” from Visim has been making the Japanese retail rounds, and caught the eye of the streetwear tastemakers at High Snobiety and nascent King of all Media Kanye West. It’s a natural step from the accountant fetishism of Thom Browne—who, coincidentally, was just named GQ’s Designer of the Year—but we can’t help but wonder where this leads. Glasses can always get nerdier, but we imagine we’ll see library-themed nightclubs popping up next summer.

Our advice is to start snapping up hardcovers now. After all, you’ll need accessories.

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11/03/08
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Labeled

Take a Limo

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To cap off our recent Japan fixation, we’re taking a look at Limoland, a Murakami-esque line out of (you guessed it) Tokyo.

The icon this time around is Limo, a wide-mouthed cartoon head adorning various brightly colored goods from totes to parkas to laptop cases. Some of it verges into M.I.A. territory, but we like Limo himself. We’ve seen enough logos that it’s nice to see a genuinely fresh face.

A few more pictures»

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09/15/08
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Good Idea

Sidewalk Sale

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Whether it’s flash mobs or tumblrs, a good idea can only last so long before someone turns it to commerce. The Sartorialist lasted longer than most, but after last month’s Gant advert, a third party has turned Scott Schuman’s idea of street style photo-blogging into a full blown clothing store.

The British site Stitsh has a familiar look, but if you roll over any of the pictures, it’ll take you to sites where you can buy any of the items on the screen. Like a few others, we like the idea, even if it’s a little too focused on British streetwear brands for our taste. Can’t they get someone over to the West End?

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09/09/08
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Object

The Rythm Method

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These bicolor derbies come from the Japanese sneaker company Rythm Footwear (good luck with the website, unless you read katakana), and they’re may be the most traditional thing they do. This isn’t usually what formal/streetwear fusions look like, but then again, they’re usually atrocious. We may be on to something here…

(Thanks to High Snobriety for the dig.)

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04/21/08
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Bad Idea

Loose Threads: Streetwear Edition

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Despite what Kanye might tell you, the market for high-end streetwear based on sci-fi movie in-jokes is somewhat limited. And for A Bathing Ape, the Pharrell-endorsed Japanese import, time may be running out.

More on the week in synergy»

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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...

New York

Brooklyn

Williamsburg

Williamsburg, Brooklyn is home to some of the country’s best bars, 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...

On The Streets: Brooklyn

  • Carl Mateo, 32 Brand Ambassador for Silly Hats Company Lives: Greenpoint, Brooklyn
    What We Like Sed tempor tincidunt augue, nec faucibus mi mattis vitae. Donec urna massa, molestie eget facilisis nec, pellentesque a enim.

    Vivamus ipsum est, feugiat vitae commodo et, dignissim at orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam iaculis faucibus urna, sit amet pellentesque.
  • Michael Benin, 28 Frontend Developer of UrbanDaddy Lives: Greenpoint, Brooklyn
    What We Like Vivamus ipsum est, feugiat vitae commodo et, dignissim at orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam iaculis faucibus urna, sit amet pellentesque.

    Sed tempor tincidunt augue, nec faucibus mi mattis vitae. Donec urna massa, molestie eget facilisis nec, pellentesque a enim.
  • Michael Benin, 28 Frontend Developer of UrbanDaddy Lives: Greenpoint, Brooklyn
    What We Like Vivamus ipsum est, feugiat vitae commodo et, dignissim at orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam iaculis faucibus urna, sit amet pellentesque.

    Sed tempor tincidunt augue, nec faucibus mi mattis vitae. Donec urna massa, molestie eget facilisis nec, pellentesque a enim.
  • Michael Benin, 28 Frontend Developer of UrbanDaddy Lives: Greenpoint, Brooklyn
    What We Like Vivamus ipsum est, feugiat vitae commodo et, dignissim at orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam iaculis faucibus urna, sit amet pellentesque.

    Sed tempor tincidunt augue, nec faucibus mi mattis vitae. Donec urna massa, molestie eget facilisis nec, pellentesque a enim.
California

San Francisco

Mission District
May 1

Oh, and up next: we take a peak at another handsome-as-hell neighborhood, the Mission District in San Francisco. Stay tuned...

Kempt
Style Shifters
Cadillac