
I must admit that I am struggling this morning after a work jolly where the drinks were flowing free but I'm excited because I've packed my bag and will be leaving for Manchester when the clock strikes five. In an ideal world though my day before I leave London would involve me lying on my sofa watching a film in my darkened living room instead of pretending to work in a hot, loud office. After reading the Mr Peacock interview with Style Salvage favourite, Kwannum Chu yesterday if I were at home, I would be watching the wonderfully stylish and weird Savage Grace. I talked about the film soon after watching it last summer but if you've not had a chance to see it for yourself it is well worth it for its style alone! The film is a tale of money and madness, incest and matricide and tells the saga of Brooks and Barbara Baekeland - heirs to the Bakelite plastics fortune - and their son Anthony, unfolding against a glamorous international background. The blue denim chambray button down polo shirt with patchwork paneled pocket fits in nicely in my softly tailored Spring/Summer wardrobe. The latest issue of h(r)r collective (fast becoming one of my favourite online reads) take material interest in chambray and rightfully so. Did you know that it is now most common in shirts but was first designed for sunbonnets in Northern France? The natural soft tone of the fabric is what got me hooked and I can vouch that this button down polo feels damn good to the touch and feels even better on. Whilst wearing it I feel I should be strolling down the promenade with a fast melting 99 in hand, oh I do like to be beside the seaside...
RCA's MA graduate show is one of the most exciting places to discover the fashion stars of the future and Dazed Digital recently previewed the RCA's Class of 2009. The thirty six MA students, in menswear, womenswear, footwear and accessories are hoping to follow in the footsteps of fellow alumni, including Ossie Clark, Philip Treacy and Christopher Bailey. More recent graduates who are making an impact on the fashion world right now include Erdem, Holly Fulton, milliners Justin Smith and Soren Bach, and most importantly for us, menswear designers Aitor Throup, James Long and Katie Eary.
Alex Mattson: "This collection is my fantastical vision and of a gang called ‘The Sixth Sun’. The Sixth Sun gang is a Mexican biker gang that has reverted to ancient Mayan/Aztec beliefs and rituals after realizing that their ancestors had predicted the future."
Charlie Ross: "This collection embodies the rebirth of a destroyed civilisation - playing on the moral - 'to continue living the way we do will ultimately lead to our undoing'." All the fabrics and materials used in the collection are recycled, reclaimed, by-products or are eco-friendly.
Mason Jung: "Sartorial Burden - My inspiration is based on the antipathy towards formal wear for its fossilised forms and attributes of restricting individuality."
Jasper Sinchai Chaprajong: "This is the journey of my past-present-future of love. Ideas come from relationships, the first feeling of love and the colours associated with it, blue for man, yellow for woman, mix the two you get purple, but then what happens after love when a relationship breaks down? Is loving really that simple?"
Mathew Miller: "The collection 'Masculinity and his jovial approach to the macabre', was born, laser cut polka dot bombs, dancing skeleton pique bibs, cute cable knitted skulls, unexploded pom poms, and engineered army boy digital prints, aesthetically cute with dark undertones."
Kimchoong Wilkins: "Referencing both the anatomical drawings of Vesalius and the eroticism of Hokusai, the collection revolves around skin, sinew, muscle, and bone. It pumps sex back into a craft that has become lust-less, prompting arousal and addiction for men's knitwear by examining the relationship between seduction and repulsion."
Bronwen Marshall: "I was inspired by the horrific facial injuries of World War I, where recognisable features were distorted and made abstract. I have taken other beautiful and natural forms like horses and birds and combined their organic shapes with geometric futuristic patterning. I wanted to create a collection that captured the aggression and sadness felt by these men."
For those of you who are a little worried that the blog has turned in to some kind of Royal style propaganda machine I thought I'd best serve up something a little different and what could be more different than some American work wear. I encountered look book images from Engineered Garments AW09 line over on h(y)r daily and as the sun has vanished this morning and been replaced by a damp, grey sky I didn't think it was too perverse to share them with you.
The looks are styled precisely to my taste. I am not a huge follower of this classic American sportswear, the rebirth of which was a big surprise to many (me included) and even to Engineered Garments' very own Daiki Suzuki but his label (along with his Woolrich Woolen Mills) have continued to lead the way and managing to turn my head in the process. Daiki coveted American sportswear whilst growing up in Japan because to him, clothing which came out of the US was an interesting blend of design innovation and the latest in industrial manufacturing. Daiki makes clothes which are meant to survive with the wearer which are designed to become a second skin, to me this is worth celebrating.
”I was in fact produced as a leader of fashion, with the clothiers as my showmen and the world as my audience.” The Duke of Windsor.”Not since his forebear King George IV in the 1820’s had a monarch lavished so much care and expense on his own personal appearance,” Ms. Taylor, the Sotheby’s specialist who spent seven years preparing for this sale. ” He bought clothes of the finest quality and expected them to last a lifetime, which in fairness, many of them did.” The Duke used the same tailor, Scholte of Savile Row in London, to make his jackets from 1919 to 1959.
The Duke’s wardrobe spans 60 years, because he never lost his trim figure (his waist went from 29 inches to 31 inches over a half century) and he certainly championed the art of wardrobe building. A 1960 inventory of the Duke of Windsor’s closet recorded fifteen evening suits, fifty five lounge suits and three formal suits (with two pairs of trousers for each), along with more than one hundred pairs of shoes including a superb collection of velvet slippers by Peal & Co.
Diana Vreeland, the former editor of Vogue, had strong views about the Duke. ''Did he have style?'' Vreeland once asked rhetorically. ''The Duke of Windsor had style in every buckle on his kilt, every check of his country suits.''
In light of the above (unfair) sartorial criticism throughout his adult life it is somewhat remarkable that Prince Charles could be considered as the most stylish man on the planet. You might recall that the April issue of Esquire declared Prince Charles as the worlds best dressed man. Esquire described him as "perfectly turned out", adding that "admirably, the prince keeps his wardrobe in appropriate style and we're told he has a room laid out like a tailor's shop. Of course, the prince comes from a significant family line of royal clothes horses, but where his great uncle, the dapper Duke of Windsor, played with bright colour, flirted with fashion, and even started the odd trend, the current heir to the throne is a dab hand at solid yet fully accessorized classic English style. His image riffs on a quintessentially perky British look, which is essentially based around smart tailoring with dapper touches.
His classic English style which has not always had its plaudits has been custom made for him by a mouth watering list of fine British craftsmen including Anderson and Sheppard, Gieves and Hawkes on Savile Row, and veteran custom shirt-makers Budd and Turnbull and Asser on Jermyn Street. The Prince certainly has good taste and is not afraid to invest in quality.
When we spoke to Patrick Grant during the launch of E. Tautz we discussed the art of wardrobe building and Charles (Can I even call him that? I can't keep writing the Prince...) is certainly a practitioner of this idea. There is something very charming about building a collection of clothes, where every piece has a position in your wardrobe. If any item requires attention and repairs then these alterations are made, the item is not thrown to the bottom of the wardrobe and forgotten about. The below paragraph demonstrates that the prince believes in the art of wardrobe building:
Clothes that never went out of fashion because they were never in fashion. Clothes that are over and above fashion - and which he is thus happy to wear for decades on end, repairing them as and when necessary.
Charles embarked on his art of wardrobe building in his early 20s. The collection of clothes and accessories has aged with him and he has continued to buy well throughout his adult life. As he has bought well made, crafted pieces then he can still wear them at sixty years old. I have no interest in a royal biography because his wardrobe will almost tell the story of his life. Just look at his shoes.
The Prince bought his first pair of Lobb shoes when he was twenty years old and is no doubt still wearing them today.
The Prince is shown wooden lasts by cobbler John Lobb during a visit to his workshop in London on January 23, 2009.
Clarence House said that the Prince had had shoes made there in the past, and still sends shoes in for repair. For the visit, he wore a pair of black Oxfords made by Lobb 40 years ago – as the Prince said: “Quality will always count.” Of course we all might not be as privileged as the future King of England but we can certainly learn a thing or two from him about investing in quality, supporting craftsmanship and in building and maintaining a wardrobe to be proud of. 
Fifty five outfits and accessories from twenty seven designers are displayed in four sections - Concept, Form, Technique and Detail. Each section will explore the design stages the students go through to create their final collection from their inspiration to the finished garment, and will include preparatory drawings, design boards and photographs. It is worth repeating that this is a free exhibition and will be run in the Fashion Room right through to January 31st 2010.
The first to host The Shop is Robin Schulié, head-buyer of Maria Luisa store in Paris and Unit F, the Austrian Association for Contemporary fashion. Diane Pernet (A Shaded View On Fashion) has been announced as the host in July. Each month thereafter the store will be headed by another leading industry figure. This is certainly one store to keep an eye on...online window shopping just got that bit more interesting!
The Fashionisto scanned a selection of awe inspiring images from DVMAN International from the 'Young Men at Sea' editorial and it has been picked up by a few fellow bloggers (most notably Dapper Kid). Photographer Kalle Gustafsson and stylist Oscar Arrsjo certainly captured my imagination because the spread is so different to what I've been used to seeing in recent months. My eyes have been somewhat conditioned by gaunt teenagers in pretty clothes so this editorial came as a refreshing change, like being splashed in the face with salty water. We have touched upon the interplay with men's style and social constructs of masculinity and how fashion often challenges the hegemonic ideas but this editorial with its rugged, bearded models harks back to a different time.
Pink Suit Jacket by Samantha Edwards
Light Blue Jacket, White Shirt with Neck Tie, Light Blue Checked Trousers all by Lou Dalton
White Suit by Marc Jacobs, available at Liberty, Checked Vest by Lou Dalton
Silver Fringed Jacket and Black Fringed Trousers both by Dimitri Stavrou.
Day Six: back in Wales
Day Seven: Hard at work back at the shop
Day Seven: Shot from a night out.
Mattias (left) wears a suit and shirt by Gucci, Tie by Ermenegildo Zegna, shoes by Jil Sander and vintage hat from What Comes Around Goes Around. Mattias wears a suit by Bottega Veneta, shirt by J.Presss, shoes by Emporio Armani and hat by Burberry Prorsum.
Leyendecker is best known for his creation of the archetype of the fashionable American male with his advertisements for Arrow Collar. Leyendecker’s Arrow Collar Man—a mascot for the menswear company Cluett, Peabody & Co.—became one of first real advertising campaigns and produced the first sex symbol of either gender. In a campaign lasting twenty-five years, Leyendecker portrayed an archetypal American masculinity that was equal parts football hero and urbane man-about-town.
Whether clutching a briar pipe or guiding a winsome debutante across the dance floor, the Arrow Collar Man embodied a vision of American manhood that was both rugged and refined—every woman’s dream. The VMAN shoot as styled by the wonderful Jay Massacret and shot by Largerfeld certainly taps in to this same vision of American masculinity. If these images were being used to try and sell me something then I have no doubt they would succeed. I will leave you with the rest of the delightful editorial to savour and enjoy...
Brian (left) wears sweater by Adam Kimmel, socks by Polo Ralph Lauren, baseball pants, boots and helmut all vintage from What Comes Around Goes Around. Travis wears jackets and hat by DSquared, trousers by Woolrich Woolen Mills, shoes Bottega Veneta and socks by Polo Ralph Lauren.