Ringing Bells

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In a series of cold days, this was probably a warm spell. I didn’t have to wear a hat. 

My father had volunteered himself and a random family member to ring the bell for the Salvation Army outside the local Wal-Mart, a small kindness -- if you could even call it that; perhaps more along the lines of “not too much of an inconvenience”. I was the random family member.

When we started ringing the bells -- terrible, annoying things, really -- it was sunny and fairly warm for late November. Two years prior, my father and I were ringing in the dark, stamping our feet and breathing condensation into wool scarves. The Penn State game against Wisconsin had been on the radio and we listened as Bill Bradley limped the team to the end. Some people like to act like work is some sort of immortal creation, both to yourself and the communities you work in. That season for the local area had been a testament to that fallacy. 

Anyway, the community had moved on and the sun was shining and a girls softball team from the neighboring town was attempting to raise funds a few meters away from our red bucket. They weren’t very successful as town rivalries run deep, something fathers and mothers with ‘just the most special children’ tend to forget. They were selling Krispy Kremes, which are fuckin’ gross. A father of a team member was heckling the locals, trying to get them to buy some donuts. There’s something about overweight men in sweats, heckling shoppers, that makes people not want to buy donuts. I’m not sure if I can put my finger on it.

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Sometime in between where I could no longer hear myself think and when the fat, donut selling, man became demoralized, a black Chevy Astro van, circa ’95 so you’re probably familiar with the model, pulled up in the yellow warning paint of the Wal-Mart and was put into park. The paint on the hood was corroded as well as around the tires, so it sort of looked like the sort of vehicle that would appear in The Expendables other than the handicapped tag above the dash. A slight, orange camo-wearing guy, graying and sprite with a pornstar mustache(?), popped out of the drivers side of the car and busily hurried inside. A minute later and half-a-dozen, “Have a Merry Christmas” calls to donors from my father and I, he came back out riding a motorized scooter designated for handicaps. He did so nonchalantly; he had done it a thousand times. He parked it just outside of the passenger door of the Astro van. The passenger door opened and a feminine blob slid off the passenger seat, took two dainty steps, and slid its way onto the motorized scooter. The scooter, not aware of it’s passenger, zipped off into the store. The man got back into the vehicle and pulled into a handicapped spot where he sat and silently waited.

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Sometime later and after a few breaks to read the instructions on the back of the sign such as:

1. NO POLITICAL VIEWS SHOULD BE DISTRIBUTED OR EXPRESSED WHILE FUNDRAISING FOR THE SALVATION ARMY

and 

1. NO SMOKING OR DRINKING WHILE FUNDRAISING FOR THE SALVATION ARMY

The van moved.

It turned on, backed up, and returned to it’s spot in the yellow paint. The sprite, camouflaged man hopped out and opened his phone. I was bit busy at this point, ringing the bell and telling, “Merry Christmas,” to donors, to discern what he was doing or saying. But in less than a minute, the blob glided out of the automatic doors on her scooter, with the basket on the scooter filled above the brim, and towing, with one arm,  a cart full of frozen pizza, tomatoes, salad, milk, cereal, bread, bananas, Diet Coke, jelly, yogurt, cheese, peanut butter, and who knows what else -- maybe there were some Christmas presents hidden in there. A caravan, in a modern sense. The cart zipped around to the back of the van and the couple(?) began to load the groceries into the vehicle. The feminine blob hacked and coughed as the cold had begun to set in as the sun retreated behind a cloud and the air was dry. The scooter drove around to the passenger side after the loaded had ended, and the woman loaded herself into the passenger side, with a hephephuuuuuuurrrrrruuuuuuuupppppp and she was in. The man got into the drivers side and drove off. 

The scooter sat abandoned. 

The lousy donut salesman, with nothing better to do, walked over to the scooter, hopped on and drove it inside. 

We finished up our shift by taking off the aprons and handing the bells to the new ringers. My father bought a dozen donuts from the girls softball team because he felt bad. 

Hard work doesn’t always create great things. Often it creates very normal things, like having a bit of food for the coming week.

Sometimes people like to act like their hard work sets them apart but, since a lot of people work very hard, it’s much more likely that ideas and ideals do that.

And ideas and ideals are bullshit. 

You are perhaps set apart by bullshit.

You should be proud.

In which a Buzzfeed/Gawker/Jezebel writer writes an unintentional fiction about #menswear because they need things to conform to their world-view

Men have been dressing way better recently, right? I don’t know, maybe. People still wear Jets hoodies at the bars I go to but sometimes I see a guy wearing a blazer and jeans or maybe even a tie and shit, and I, like, totally swoon, right?

Where did this come from? How can I explain this phenomenon? It’s probably because women are earning more money so men have to gussy up a bit. I took a feminist studies course one semester so I’m an expert about changing gender identities. Yeah, that’s totally it. Woman power is causing men to up their game and not look like a goat vomited up a sweater. Once one guy discovered that wearing classy, Paul Newman-esque, things, then everyone realized it works. Guys think with their dicks so totally.

Why do #menswear writers make rules lists? I just stumbled upon #menswear blogs so I'm an expert now. Don’t they know that everything is subjective except for the things that I don’t want to be subjective? Here I say, “something really misinformed about the menswear industry.”

Men want to dress well because they’re all fuckin’ conformists. Yep, that’s it. You all wear those ties and jackets and boots and look like a clone and I hate it. I wish everyone dressed grunge because that’s how I dress and I want to be able to say, “I dressed grunge but now I dress like I’m from suburban Calgary and need to wear a parka everywhere because everyone dresses grunge now.”

Something provocative and obviously wrong to drive pageviews from #menswear acolytes leaving comments after a couple people link this article on their twitter and a Valet mention.

A run on sentence about socks.

Men dress well now because they want to be their grandfathers. This is it. I need to make statements like this because it was what I was trained to do. Make conclusions. Consider but discard other formulas. Let us simplify things because this post would be far too long. #menswear identity can be summed up in a shitty internet post. Humanity can be summed up in a shitty internet post. Do I get free coffee and maybe a daily column now?

If I'm wrong it doesn't matter because #menswear is a conversation we need to be having. Communication breaks down barriers. Just to show you that I'm right.

LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK BECAUSE WERE HAVING A CONVERSATION ABOUT THIS. COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS, I NEED PAGEVIEWS.

BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS

Big #menswear movement. They’ve been taking over “the game” and you don’t even know how to handle how they interpret style through their lenses. 

Their pictures just get you, man.

So stylish.

Brilliance.

Giving men an apex to climb to and all else is trash. 

The movement started in 2005.

This shit is 8.

What is an #influencer?

“BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographers have been presenting the best of the style world for a number of years and have plenty of published works. They make up at least half (nah, more than that) of tumblr. They’ve been featured on GQ, Esquire, and yours truly (nah, not really, might be cool though? prolly not, i hur they got ‘tude). 

The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton, Guerreisms, some other shit, I think maybe some girl’s facebook albums, and a variety of other experienced photographers have been takin’ over influence. 

“BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographers go to awesome events like Pitti Uomo, Paris Fashion Week, and NYFW and take “BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographs. 

iPhone? Nah, “BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographs take photos with the best equipment. They get to paid to take “BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographs so premium production would be expected.

There are even short films about “BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographers. It’s an art-form.

“BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographers have guided us towards what we should be and how we should act and “if you’re thinking about red then you should think about these pictures of my friends that I took.”

Logic is photos which are light and dark and texture and reblogs.

*puff*

People have written pontification pieces about “BUT-REALLY-DOE-I-JUS’-TAKE-PITCHERS-OF-MAH-FRIENDS” photographers; this piece included.

Goddamn, right?

Can’t wait to see 30 more in my Feedly. It's like I'm creepin' on y'alls facebook profiles. Which, who knows, maybe?

Shop Matters

Hippy dippy would appear to still sell well, if cool stockist are any indicator. 

I’ve written about Birkenstock’s before and return to them because they’re an interesting piece of footwear. They have a variety of contexts outside of men who write about clothes on the internet and their odd ideals of how the “piece” was worn in the past. Yet, one of those contexts that the Birkenstock clog is partaking in is men who write about clothes on the internet. The cool, hard-to-find Birkenstock model, The Maine, is carried at a number of “hip” establishments. 

They’re carried by Oi Polloi, Albam, Unionmade, and... 

Zappos?

Zappos? The Amazon hydra head? The non-hippy-dippy, non-coffee drinkin’, non-Warby Parker wearin’, non-jean tearin’, and non-cool factor sharin’ corporation that ships your mom’s walking shoes to your front stoop?

Are the hard-to-find Maine’s just a shoe that you wear to church? Have they fallen from the graces from the sartorially esoteric pantheon and down to Champs trash available to *gasp* people whose favorite restaurant is Cracker Barrel? #elimanningwear

Have they fallen to where kids whose blog posts are just made up of rhetorical questions feature them?

Either way, the question I find entertaining is the following: Does the shop matter?

Does it matter in person?

Does it matter when you're ordering on the internet?

Being a cheap-ass, my subjective answer is no.

Though I am unsure if everyone will answer exactly as I do.

Ken Burns

Watching a lot of Ken Burns requires quite the attention span. One could interrupt me a la “at a loud party style” with a loud interjection:

OH GAWD I LOVED ‘THE WAR’

I LOVED HIS BASEBALL SERIES

ASHOKAN FAREWELL

And then divert the conversation somewhere actually interesting a la “some NYT editorial about new epiphanies a new mother has because no one in the world has ever been a mother before so this is really uncharted territory.” Which will be good, because Ken Burns is boring and not a great small-talk subject.

Some people like boring, or what they would say is beauty in details only they can see. These people are (insert interest)-philes and a subsection is the targeted audience of this piece.

Well, Ken Burns likes to include photos, over a century old, of people in baggy, slightly short clothing covered in dirt in his films. The clothing sort of hangs on their short frames and you can tell it had as much wear as the photo has a century into it’s existence. There aren’t a lot of places you can get clothing that makes you look this dated. It would be silly, really, to sell it OTR. You’d look like a re-enactor, a notoriously weird group of people who spend weekends traveling to historical towns and doing things like churning butter -- which is reasonably absurd like writing about clothes. Most would have this sort of thing custom made from deadstock material or from a mill like Woolrich. Or you can buy it from Mister Freedom. It’s not cheap. It’s a bit silly. But the online store is the only place you can buy stuff like it. Unless you’re in Hollywood. 

Hacendado Jacket

Ranchero Shirt

Hacendado Trousers

Drover Blouse

Gunslinger Denim

California Blue Jeans

NOS Chambray

An experimental sartorial theorist could give you a scheme like, “wear it with all modern pieces and it’ll get incorporated into your own modern sartorial era,” which could very well work but I don’t quite know what one would do with this stuff once one gets ahold of it. Wear it in public? Pan slowly in and out with a video camera and have a haunting Ashokan Farewell piece play in the background? Get someone with out-of-date prescription glasses to talk about them on camera? 

It’s cool and Christophe Loiron’s vision appears to be boundless. It looks like really wonderful stuff to me and has for as long as he’s had a website. Each collection appears to be reasonably unique but with comparasions between them (which makes sense given that each collection takes into account different time periods). But maybe it’s best to leave sleeping dogs lie. Or “It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake.” 

The recurred past may be similar but it is never the same.

#influencer

It’s very hard being an #influencer. 

Lots of brands looking for promotion. Lots of livelihoods on the line.

#influencers determine how much brands bring in because of the campaigns we are involved in.

As #menswear bloggers have become more and more lifestyle #influencers, more and more lifestyle products are looking for #influencers to promote their products.

For example, alcohol brands know that to make any sort of money, they have to start ground roots campaigns to sell their products to the hip and #influential.

Beck’s had a marginally large campaign recently as they reached out to #menswear bloggers and gotten their endorsement. They reached out to GTBT but, since my #influence is so large, I didn’t want to rock the boat. Also, GTBT is unique. #influencers don’t follow other #influencers. #influencers don’t just reblog other #influencers.

Instead, I decided to use my #influencer weight to endorse a product that gets little screen time. Like, TIME archive photos only it’s a product that you can buy.

While they never reached out to GTBT, Banker’s Club is a brand whose message and vision is the same as GTBT. Banker’s Club is GTBT in alcohol form. 

Sam and I decided to share our favorite cocktail to make with Banker’s Club Vodka (our favorite):

12 fl oz Banker’s Club Vodka

2 Ice Cubes

It’s called Vodka and Ice.

Drink up!

Being huge #influencers, we also made a promotional video to start the #influencers campaign with Banker’s Club. 

Check out the campaign video. #influential.

Michael Bastian S/S '14

I liked Michael Bastian’s S/S ’14 show. I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t tell you if the soundtrack was appropriate. I listened to some old Hatebreed while I flipped through it, so maybe that’s the trick to creating the correct audio environment to enjoying the show but I wouldn’t know since the experience cannot be repeated. 

But regardless of what crap is going through your speakers, the clothes looked pretty cool. The pineapple pants were probably the end-all for the event as a sort of final putsch of the excessive utilitarian thing that I know I was snorting. I could continue to discuss various pieces and looks but you could probably just read some NYT writer who is more talented at conveying what exactly leopard print pants mean (masculine ferality and our general symbiosis with fleas). It’s supposed to be, like, french holidays or whatever but I think somebody else can give you a better press release.

You’ve already seen all of these looks but I’ll post the pineapple pants for reference and then tell you a subjective sense of what I got from the show. Hopefully you’ll have something to relate to it but, if not, I’m sure the next thing on the internet will be genuinely entertaining for you.

About two months ago, my brother and I were at a Holiday Inn near Hammondsport in New York. Hammondsport was built up fairly well as it was an old vacationing town surrounding a finger lake but there were few people to see. It was a large echoing shell of a town, sort of like Wildwood in November. 

They’re really nice places, Holiday Inns, if you don’t get a smoking room. My brother and I had a non-smoking room on the second floor that some folks perceived to be a smoking room so, subjective views had overruled the objective rule set in place by the corporation and it smelled of American Spirits (fancy). Despite being old, with liquid marks on the wood stain from big glasses of sweating water or just big glasses of sweating cheap gin and an AC unit that rattled just like in the movies or when you stayed at that Red Roof, the room had that youthful “fuck you” to it that you only find in kids who know they’ve got jack shit to look forward to. Perhaps that was just the cigarette smell speaking. 

At the same time as we were in the hotel, there were clowns residing on the first floor. They were there for a Rotary Wounded Veterans event. It was a community event. 

Around 6:30am one morning, we met an elderly woman, about 80, and her mentally challenged daughter who had been living at the hotel for about a year. Their house had burned down the previous fall. The hotel coffee was watery. 

One of the evenings we stayed there, I turned on the TV. The local channel was showing old French movies, with no subtitles. The TV could not change channels. The actors in the films were superb. I felt rather like a fancy cinephile, being able to interpret each eyebrow raise and excessive arm gesture. 

The next morning I rode a bike around the lake. It was the middle of July and the town wasn’t quite what you would call busy. Cars were more sparse than my small hometown. Old boats creaked in the grass of the nostalgia of probably just a decade or two ago. A bar looked like it got sort of busy at night. The town looked good. The air smelled good. You’d think the town could sell nostalgia to just about anyone. 

You’d think, right?

For some reason, when I flipped through the pictures of the show, I thought of my weekend in Hammondsport. I hadn’t thought of it in a month. The weekend didn't end well for my brother or me. The nostalgia of some other vacationing family was quirky and delightful but I’m not sure I’d go back. 

No, I wouldn't go back. I didn't have anything there. 

Endless Hobby

Hi, my name is Mark and I’m a professional hobbiest. 

Well, I do it for a living. I just do hobbies. Like model airplanes and drawing other people’s sneakers.

Nope. Nobody pays me.

My Mom sort of does with food because she loves me.

And a bed. A bunk bed.

Yeah, I read that post. I didn’t like the marketing slash business aspect of it. I think that some people try to sell out too early and end up just selling out their personal brand, right? So cashing in is really hard.

Yeah, well that always drives me nuts about some of these guys, like, shouldn’t they be concerned with telling us what is important and creating content that is authentic rather than creating content for someone else under their own name?

Well, they could always eat cold ravioli. That’s what I do. No, you don’t need money.

I think they should separate job from blog and hobby, y’know? Like, if you can be self-sufficient then you could spend free time creating content without having to sell your personal brand, right?

Well, I figure you could do like 1 post every two weeks working 40 hours a week. I guess you couldn’t have a family. Hobbies are your family, right?

You could work part-time, I think, and just live meagerly. Don’t get a hobby that requires significant funds or significant apartment space.

If you don’t have time for a post of anything just have your friends take pictures of you doing your hobby. That’s basically content.

Well cameras are cheap, right?

That much for a camera? No way.

Well, cold ravioli man. It’s what I do.

Yeah, it is spartan and generally unhappy but you gotta’ sacrifice for the good of the hobby and the authenticity of the content.

Whatever, man. No, I can’t give you the employee discount, that’s against the rules. Just get the blue-light special, it saves you like the same amount. 

I’d probably get fired if I did that. 

At least I’m authentic, right?

Sombreros

EDITOR’S NOTE: SAM AND JOHN DISCUSS “HOT TRENDZ” FOR LATE THIS SUMMER OVER EMAIL.

SF: I’ve been doin alot of reserch about cool clothes for summer what do you think r cool clothes

JL: I don’t know. Like a t-shirt, I guess.

SF: what tshirts arent cool at all u know what is cool? 

JL: This is a rhetorical question. I’m not answering this.

SF: somberos

JL: What? That’s idiotic.

SF: nop i did reserch and i know what is the coolest

cool clothes are somberos

thes photos are from the Sartorialist

JL: That’s not real.

SF: no its real i know because i asked schuman and schuman said that every1 is wering somberos on the streets i even asked bill cuninghamm and i asked jackjillblogguy and i asked tommy aton and gurrism even thugh i didnt no what he was saying becuse he has funny assent

JL: You don’t know those people.

SF: schuman knows everybody he will tell you cuse he is so smart

hes the smartest man in menwear he is even smurter than wooster ask him

JL: Whatever.

SF: John.

SF: Jon i did a product rund upt of all the best somberos you can wear in public

JL: It’s “sombrero”.

SF:

“loook at this sombero it is soo cool 

it is fur peple with lots of $

look at this sombero is soo cool

it is fur people with some $

look at this sombero is soooooo cooooollll!!!!!

is if fur ppl with very little $”

SF: see i did diffnt $ points arent you glad

TSB does ddiffnt $ points i am bes blogger along with them

SF: Was tat a good prodct rite up

JL: Sure, I’ll post it right away.

You heard it here first. Sombreros are fucking huge.

Book Review: Lost Cat

GTBT isn’t a clothing blog. It’s a terrible clothing blog. And terrible clothing blogs also happen to think they influence your lifestyle.

I’m going to tell you what to read.

You don’t like to read?

Well, I did some reading of clothing blogs that also happen to make lifestyle suggestions and guess what?

They tell me reading makes you cooler or something.

They tell you to read things like The Economist, Jonathan Franzen, Junot Diaz, and, I dunno, Ann Coulter. 

And magazines. Read a buttload of magazines.

These are all relevant things.

I think you should read comic books because they’re awesome.

Specifically, I picked up Jason’s (he apparently needs no last name) latest work, Lost Cat.

I’ve been following Jason and his work for about 8 years now. Stripping story-telling bare, he relies on no impressionism that some artists rely on. He’s almost Herge in his pacing and paneling. However, where Herge is a borderline travel novel comic book (no character development, lots of regional/issue development), who the hell knows where Jason’s stories take place. 

Jason’s stories are always black, black, horrible, hilarious jokes. Existential crisis are farces as Jason plays his minimalist art in on itself. He embraces Hemingway’s zero-ending stories and lets you fill in the blanks. 

Lost Cat is a return for Jason to the clean palette. For his past few volumes, he has used color. The color sits in his books, not doing much of anything. Whereas when he uses black and white, he simplifies the story around his characters and allows your imagination to fill in the blank -- sort of like Eisner does with his impressionism but assuming a lot more capability within the reader’s mind. I like this as it allows more assumption to take place. His anthropomorphic, and apparently clavicless, characters blank expressions convey more than you or I could get out of a couple drawings. Lost Cat, by utilizing dabs of melancholy yellow, allows Jason access to visual depth that he did not have with just a black and white palette. 

Lost Cat tells the story of an idealistic detective, sort of like whatever Owen Wilson’s character in Midnight In Paris, but less curmudgeony and backward looking. The detective gets caught up in a number different storylines which are hilarious yet probably commonplace. Jason is pretty obviously influenced by old films in this work, as always but it’s more obvious here, as he picks out old film lines and names to use for his characters. Like in an old film, a cigarette is a useful tooling for skipping words but conveying meaning.

Jason claims that he intends no hidden meaning in each story. Which is probably true but I think there are certain inexplicable things he tries to get at in each story he tells.

Lost Cat won’t make you cooler. When you’re sitting in a living room and somebody asks you what you’ve been reading and you say, “I just read Lost Cat by Jason,” they will look at you and say, “Oh.” Awkward silence will be cued and then someone will hopefully get you both a drink. "Have you listened to the new Mumford and Sons albums?" you ask. She, regretting saying "no" the first time, says "yes" and then you'll both talk about shitty music that you both hate for the next 30 minutes.

Books in general won’t make you cooler. I don’t know where people got that idea. But neither will dicking around on the internet.

What will make you “EFFORTLESSLY COOL”?

I dunno, keep doing stuff and get back to me.

Cat-Piss

Sartorial rules tend to be subjective things that one creates for oneself to make things easier in the morning when a big pile of clothes lie in front of you. They also tend to be pretty useless when espoused to others.

For example, he's a rule question.

Should you always wear clothes?

The Traditionalist: Yes. Button-downs, blazers, and chinos, please.

The Part-Time Nudist: Not when you're at the nudist beach.

The Full-Time Nudist: Clothes are an abomination and should never be touched.

These are all rules.

Take what you will from them.

But here's a rule I like: "Don't wear lots of exciting things because too much excitement causes stress for everyone. And stress isn't fun or happy."

So, I generally limit myself to one exciting thing.

Here's an amendment I made a while back.

"Don't wear exciting things on your feet because exciting things on your feet will stress everyone out including your cat and nobody likes a stressed out cat because they piss on your carpet."

Want your cat to piss on your carpet?

Here's a collaboration between Clarks and Woolrich.

Here was the marketing rule that somebody laid out during the meeting between Clarks and Woolrich:

"Let's do exciting things because we don't know what we're doing."

They're sticking to it.

And I think that's brave.

But just a little smelly.

SuitSuppy

Some Amsterdam(n) corporate show has made it to the states. You could say that it made it a while back, but NYC is an incubator for corporate retail sales as brands test the fickle (ha, that’s a joke) American preference. 

No, I’m not talking about medical marijuana, although this may encourage many of my readers to stop immediately.

I’m talking about Suit Supply (from here on out, I’ll be calling it SuitSuppy, because I can and I because I think it’s hilarious; and no, you’re not expected to laugh). Originally from Amsterdam, the company has decided that sales in the US are apparently large enough that it will expand even more into middle America. If you want to look like you stepped out of a Sartorialist photo (or whatever knockoff blog kids are following these days) but happen to live in Texarkana, you can drive down the road to Dallas and pick up your gear. 

Already set up in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, NYC, and Philly, SuitSuppy will sell you that sprezzy look for, like a paycheck or something. Cheap, right? They’re moving into Dallas, Denver, Seattle, and Houston so middle America can get theirs for cheap as well.

I suppose hipper men will dole out the cash for a sport jacket that doesn’t quite fit and is generally kinda’ shitty but will SuitSuppy’s sales translate into middle America? Lets look at what they’re selling to Americans.

Don’t mind that this suit is slightly tugging at the model, it’s denim. Americans fucking love denim. Americans get their couches upholstered with denim. They get their cars upholstered with denim. They wear denim hats. Whatever green eggs and ham was to Sam (pre-conversion -- like Saul but maybe not as extreme), denim is the antithesis of that to Americans. By posting cruddy denim suits on tumblr, I know that people will reblog the shit out of that (it’s science). I don’t know if this translates to sales but I’ll run with it.

Americans run a lot so that explains why we are so fat. 

Have you even noticed that you can’t tell if the suit fits well when the model is pseudo running? SuitSuppy has employed some sly dogs.

This jacket doesn’t fit. At all.

But most Americans don’t know that so they’ll just see a cloudy, but grand and shiny, ideal that they can purchase. Some shit about “‘bout that life” and a T.I. music video. People dreaming of being something else. SuitSuppy is selling something. 

Good product? From what I’ve heard, it’s not the best. Good ideals? Yeah, I guess.

If I’ve learned anything from looking through clothing marketing ads for 20 odd years, I’d say that good ideals are the best way to sell your product; quality product be damned.

SuitSuppy also puts sunglasses on everything. They like circular frames which is eerily like...

It’s what I take away from SuitSuppy. This stuff is Willie Wonka. All loony and mod and quirky but still wealthy because being poor is only cool when you’re in really good shape and someone who is 30 years old doesn’t have time for sit-ups and 6am runs. SuitSuppy is for the middle American man who wants to stay ahead of the curve but awkwardly so because wearing a 3-piece suit in Dallas is definitively gross. (I heard bitches love butt-sweat stains?) 

But do Americans want to buy Willie Wonka? That remains yet to be seen. 

Will the Willie Wonka collection go live in the spring?

Will you be able to buy it in Pittsburgh?

Will Cincinnati stop smelling like roast beef?

Will you stop buying Long John Silver’s to fit into those slim wool trousers?

Will you buy Willie Wonka?

Will a SuitSuppy suit last longer than a Gobstobber?

Trick question, it won’t.*

Frankenstein shoes aren’t for rhetorical questions. They’re for leaving on the shelf.

Will cheapened Neapolitan sell in middle America? Yes, because we love bad things.

*heard from multiple sources on the street. I don't own any SuitSuppy so don't look at me.

Unionfaded

Do you remember this article?

It’s Stepford Wives for men. 

And the author applauds. Or at least appears to. She might be in on a joke that we can only suspect. 

She applauds an amassment of taste, which tends to value things other than personal choice and “value” and other bullshit that I talk too much about.

Anyway, I would like to pull a quote from the article:

“This compels me to bring up the importance of proper cuffing, which, according to Kirby, is done as a one-inch two-fold. Caillouette’s wife chimes in, concerned about a friend who needs a cuffing intervention. “He thinks he’s cuffing his jeans. But he’s not cuffing them--he’s rolling them up!” she exclaims. “You’ve got to tell him,” she implores her husband. Sure, it may seem like no big deal. But in this perfectly casual fashion movement, what may seem like an insignificant detail to some might just be what separates the boys from the men.”

I think the author is laughing at this moment, but I cannot tell.

Either way, Unionmade is ruggedly precious.

And I warned you, previously, that I may just write about the Unionmade new arrivals.

Well, sorry, but I’m going to show you the new arrivals so you too can be ruggedly precious. 

Just remember to cuff your jeans right or somebody who drinks 3-too-many-iced-coffees everyday may just intervene. 

Kapital

That’s $371 for a street urchin’s shirt.

Kapital

Somebody call Jack Dawkins, I’ve got a great scam.

Birkenstock Boston

This model of clogs were not this price 12 months ago. This is not a joke. This is a fact. You can wear them with your $70 socks. That’s not a joke either. They’re there.

Laid-back surfer vibes respond to market demands, as it were.

Gitman

Unionmade bought these at the Jack Horkheimer estate sale. He had hundreds of them stored away, just waiting for humanity to take them to new frontiers. Like a fucking coffee shop.

Carhartt

This is a sweatshirt. I always get bacon grease on my sweatshirts. I really put the "work" in workwear.

Makr

We had these stools in middle school science class. Half of the stools were broken.  They weren't made by the same company but, hey, potato, tomato, some other stuff that doesn't really make sense and might be a vegetable. 

Makr

BAGS ARE FOR CARRYING IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIKE SMALLER BAGS.

Postalco

 Ok, rain ponchos are cool. I give up just tearing down everything I see. This is the sort of thing that would seem useless until it’s terrible outside and you don’t care that you look ridiculous. That, in my self-venerated opinion, is cool.

Postalco

You’ve got a lot of ideas. I get it, you’re creative. You’ve got a twitter that you’re active on. Every friendship you have is a collaboration. I collaborated with my dog when we killed a raccoon the other day. Nobody bought it.

Baxter (also happens to be the name of Ron Burgundy's dog)

Unionmade shop is about being rugged. Yeah, yeah I typed that.

Cuff your pants just so or you might freeze to death, or something whatever.

But probably you’ll just be judged by your friends wives. 

Which I suppose is the social equivalent.

Damn.

The Sartorial Relevance of Rob Zombie

I hope that most are familiar with Dragula to some extent. It's rougly 15 years old now and shows it's age. However, perhaps there are some current sartorial cues for us to take a look at in this video that may "cement" their timelessness.

Eh, probably not. But would you rather have me write about Unionmade's new arrivals?



Black leather trench coats...

Well, this is going swimmingly already. How many "timeless" people wear black leather trench coats?

*the crowd goes silent*

It looks like a current Varvatos design. I'll have to look further into this. Or you can.



Rob wears a hat for a total of 1.5 seconds in this video. Perhaps it shows a level of uncertainty and self-conciousness when he puts outdated hats on his head.

Perhaps it also shows how dumb some of you guys look wearing hats. Perhaps.

Rob has a dope car. Would he outstunt RL in a vehicle like this? Not sure if Ralph Lauren has a car like this. Maybe.



Well if Rob doesn't wear Varvatos then his bandmates certainly do.



Except for his robots. They just wear metal.



Zombie crossfades video of children in BoO over bombs blowing up. People who wear BoO aren't hard at all. They eat OJ and Nilla Wafers and still think they're in high school; a private institution where everyone wears repp ties, too short jackets, and twee collars. I concur with Rob.



Is that Sternberg though? Looks like he's jammin'.

Come over to the dark side Sternberg. BoO collab with Zombie in the spring. Please?



RL may have a car like this but RL doesn't have a buncha' demon homies to roll deep with.

Even if he does, they don't jam out like Rob Zombie and company.



Rob Zombie guest post on Ivy-Style.



This is European minimalist. Slimane.

ROB ZOMBIE WAS ALREADY THERE. Y'ALL THINK YOU'RE HILLARY AND NORGAY. DESIGNERS ARE JUST SELLING YOU NOSTALGIA.



Does RL have a buncha' witches to roll around with?

Well, he does have a wife and daughter.

So count Rob Zombie and RL even.



CONCLUSION:

Rob Zombie is just Varvatos.

Gilt always seems to have a buncha' Varvatos on the extra sale rack.

If they have Rob Zombie curate a Varvatos sale I bet they move a lot more Varvatos than they are currently. It's a one time cash-in but I figure it could be worth it. Enough kids grew up with Twisted Metal that I'm sure they could sell Varvatos on a nostalgia byline.

Gilt, get Rob Zombie to curate a sale. Do it. Do it now.

Non-Iron Shirts

He was months out from the election but the party was working hard for him early. They had brought in Portman to stump for him. Portman is a fiery guy with lots of zest and was great at getting crowds into a fervor. He’ll jump up to the stage, push the men’s and women’s buttons, get everyone going in the direction of a singular opinion. When he leaves the stage the mobocratic mothers in L. Pulitzer are always left slobbering, waiting for anyone with a semblance of diction to take the stage, telling them what cause they should support and how they should support it. Portman could really soften a crowd up. 

In the local community college gymnasium, Portman bounced up and down on the stage. The seat candidate wiped his forehead. It was hot. A geriatric complained about the current seat holder.

“Fuckin’ goddamn sonevahbitch is gonna cut everything and spend all my taxes and turn this nation into goddamn Saddy Araybia or goddamn Chaina. We gotta get that sonevahbitch outta there if it’s my last vote. Won’t leave my grandchildren that fuckin’--”

The candidate was swept away by his aide. Portman had finished.

It was now his turn to talk. To talk about what he was going to do.

As he mounted the stage, the stageboards creaked and swayed. Perhaps he should get down so some one could tighten things up. He pushed the thought from his mind and walked to the microphone. His sweat was cold and his legs felt old. This shirt he was wearing, it really didn’t breathe, did it? It locked all his body heat up which made him woozy. Well, at least he didn’t need it to be ironed.

“Fellow Americans of....”

He stopped. Coughed. Something went up and then down in his throat. Then, “Fellow residents of the great state of...”

He stopped again. Coughed again and then went to cough again. Instead of coughing, he yakked. Just a little baby yak. Yellow and milky and soupy and not too gross. It fell out of his mouth and onto his shirt. Just a dollop, really.

He looked out to the crowd.

He looked to his aide, stage left. 

He looked back out to the crowd 

And then everything went red.

And then everything went white.

And then everything went blue.

And then everything went black.

He woke up laying on the floor in the lobby. Some random woman was dabbing his forehead. She was morbidly obese, about his age, and smiling at him. The candidate’s red tie was covering up his yak stain. The yak had soaked through his undershirt and he could feel the warmth on his skin. His aide walked up to him with a washcloth full of ice cubes and pressed it to his head.

“We’ll have to get you a new shirt before you meet those contractors,” the aide told the candidate. The candidate looked at his aide, not quite able to comprehend what had just happened.

The room was silent but was next to the gym, so you could hear the noises happening within. It sounded like Portman was back on stage. Removed from the mob, the silence was awkward.

“They make non-iron shirts. They should make non-stain shirts too. We sure could use something like that,” the aide told the fat woman. Or maybe the candidate. “Heh, we could probably use something like that in one of your entrepreneurial speeches. Y’know, fostering new ideas and stuff. That’d be great. The garment industry in the southern part of the district would be all over that. God, what would the world do without us?” The aide smiled as his phone began to vibrate. The aide stood up and took the phone call.