Chain-smoking and dusting off the shelves

It’s been awhile.

When we last checked in, #menswear was reaching some sort of plateau. Or as best as one would describe a plateau. Having thrown off the victorianism of heritage and the bacchanalism of tailor-made stuff (specifically canned Italian food equivalents), menswear was reaching and going… somewhere. It’s not entirely clear where.

One could say we were approaching supernova. More likely, one would say that the IKEA shelving in our closets was snapping, collapsing, crashing under weight of it all.

Regardless, there was never that much money in menswear to begin with. And growth is not persistent. And media is only as valuable as the sales.

It’s funny now, checking in with menswear writing as we now know it, to see some writers working media for a site that resells the spewing regurgitation and vomit from overconsumptive males -- men too quick to jump on PTO links of sales.

Others writers still sit at corporate offices writing about menswear while their cubicle mates mutter dayquil laden phrases into their coffees, “read my lips: no new taxes….. NO NEW TAXES….. NO GODDAMN FUCKING NEW TAXES….” Trump now being their man through no choice of their own.

“The people have spoken. The bastards.” exclaim the editors of those publications, through the eyes of ad sales telling modern man to be beholden to nothing other than modern man’s own corporation -- with, of course, corporate partnerships with Ford, Brooks Brothers, some local brewery, twitter.com, some liquor owned by a european subsidiary, and their own AmEx card. And we wonder at how we got here, eating taco bowls in some shitty Brioni. If you age gracefully, you’ll be boring. If you don’t, you’ll be wrestling Vince McMahon.

Some writers now work in marketing. Schilling was always their strong suite. Usually via camera lens.

Others work in retail. lol.

#menswear guy has been subsumed into the modern male, which was inevitable. Some have taken the progression well. Some have not. The subsumation was appropriate and necessary. You were, after all, going to be a modern male at some point. It was just a matter of becoming a majority. How are the kids doing, anyway?

Best,

JL

We were men once... and casual.

There's something about pre-re-appreciation that gets me; the calm before the eminent bullshittery that is marketing and repackaging.

There were men once. The greatest of casual men. They were post-"90s what is now being called norm-core" and pre-"skinny ties, Interpol, and resold authenticity". They wore the greatest of casual sneakers.



Like crap you got at Pay-Less and cost $25 because, "who is this tasteless, even?" Which is great that they got those shoes so cheap they could shell out for the latest Nokia and cell-phone holster; the real testament to virtue, wealth, and social standing.

*stands over gas grill, not charcoal like the Baptists next door, and proclaims the day won*

"YEP GOT THIS NOKIA HERE, SEE HERE TELLS THE TIME HERE. AND WHEN YOU PRESS THIS BUTTON IT TELLS YOU ALL THE NUMBERS YOU SAVED. Y'KNOW WHAT ELSE IT DOES?

TAKES PITCHERS. TOOK A PITCHER OF WHEN SOMEONE BUMPED INTO MY REAR BUMPER AND SENT IT TO MY INSURANCE AGENT AND I MADE SURE I GOT REIMBURSED. FUCKING KID DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE DAMN STICK TOOK MY CAR FIVE DAYS TO GET THE DENT POUNDING OUT BY THE BODY SHOP.

YEAH, I GOT A NINETY-NINE MUSTANG QUITE THE CAR BUT INSURANCE RATES ARE HIGH. STILL LOOKS PRETTY GOOD EVEN WITH THE BUMPER PAINT A LITTLE OFF. THE BODY SHOP DID A PRETTY GOOD JOB HERE BUT THE PAINT TEXTURE AINT QUITE ON BUT IT'S PRETTY CLOSE DUNCHA THINK?"

*drinks Bud. NASCAR, a well followed and interesting sport at the time (this would've been in proximity to Earnhardt's death) zips and buzzes in the background*

They were casual ubermenschen. Their likes will never be seen again.

Well, that's not entirely true. We'll see their corrupted spirits in hip-bars, manifested as young men.

We Will Meet Again

If you're here, I assume you’ve taken a break from the rightful rabble at the door of Mr. Freedom — reminding the owner that you cannot be a designer first and historian second. You cannot be an amateur in cultural awareness and sell clothes. Or, you can, you’ll just piss a lot of people off with your bumbling.

If you’re here, you also managed to keep GTBT in your RSS feed. 

With that, I bring up a bit of classic melodrama that I’ve taken a bit of time on.

Bill Evans is just one of many jazz tragedies. So if you’ve been here before, you can continue on.

His story could be told as a family story — as his brother Harry's story is intertwined — but Harry never played with Miles Davis so it’s not.

Heroin ended up getting the best of Bill Evans. 

After Harry’s tragedy (schizophrenia and suicide), Bill recorded We Will Meet Again and I Will Say Goodbye. Those two albums, in my opinion, are his best works*.

Either way, this is a clothes blog and I should probably talk about Bill Evan’s style and subsequent decent into the 1970s and final days. While he recorded We Will Meet Again and I Will Say Goodbye in the 70s, many of his laudable sartorial days are in years prior — indicating the fallibility of man just through his sartorial decisions. 

He’s got a couple classic looks. 

Y’know, dark shirt/dark jacket.

Invisible tie.

Phallic cigarette.

JCrew skinny tie clone.

Questionable aging.

Are there lessons to take away from this? Sartorially, none that you don’t already know.

Maybe it’s that you shouldn’t abuse heroin. Maybe it’s that you should get so cut up inside when you go through a family tragedy. Maybe it’s that if you never beat yourself up, you won’t be remembered as a jazz great or just great in general. Maybe it’s that if you never beat yourself up, you’ll never go down a path of heroin, depression, and a decade long suicide.

Maybe it’s that the impulsive jazz of life is up, down, happy, sad, and that man isn’t consistent. You could be remembered for great things. They’ll remember your “fuck ups” too, though.

Heck, maybe it’ll be that your “fuck ups” are what help you craft great things. Maybe you’ll be dressed terribly while doing it. 

*Of course this is a subjective opinion. There are a lot of Jazz Heads who would disagree and be able to formulate a more cohesive argument than I ever could.

Best Made Co.

Stumbling on the internet late at night, SF found an odd piece of writing on a website he apparently trolls. He sent it my way and we decided to share it with you all.

Either way, given that Best Made Co. is a brand familiar with #menswear heads, I figured that it was worth a share.

"There are different ways to create an axe. There’s the homegrown, hardware store, classic oak handle, with cheap, sticky lacquer, that sticks on your hands when you chop, axe that you can pick up for $15.  Then, there are axes where the creator takes the idea of an axe, makes it sophisticated like a fine whiskey or wine, creates it out of the best materials for your money, with a sharp that stays sharp many uses after, handles that is smooth and allows you to make swift strokes, and will always look inconspicuous in your car so that you’re never read your Miranda’s. Those are the axes we’re looking for. The top of the barrel. From the first time I swung this axe crafted by Best Made Co., I knew that I’d be writing about it. 

I selected a Best Made Co. axe with a 4lb Dayton pattern head made out of 5160 alloy steel hardened to 54-56 HRS, allowing for reach and swiftness -- both necessities in our business. I gave it a few swings in store -- it felt appropriate and even people around me were a bit frightened; the perfect reaction. The American Felling Axe is the heavier model and recommended. When hewering limbs, small axes never do the job.

The detailing on the head of the axe is a nice touch, with an unpolished nature being a nod to axe murderers of old. The details are inconspicuous, yet you can’t help but stare at it. It’s the sort of thing your victims will see but never think, “Gee, that’s an awful fancy axe. I wonder if he’s going to swing it at my head. It’d be a shame, he probably spent a fortune on it,” -- anything other than absolute terror in henosis and imminence. The hickory is the sort of weight that’d you’d expect in an old folk tale -- just right in the most sinister sense. There is almost an ancient feel to the axe, even though it’s brand new, giving life to old arms and the opposite to some young souls. 

On the first test run, I caught a young man in an alley -- urinating behind a dumpster of a bar. Snagging him by his collar, I drug him deeper into the depths of dark. With a hefty swing, I sent his conscious into kenosis -- head splattering, spewing, and peppering blood, bile, and bits of the trachea and esophagus onto the pavement and old chinese take-out boxes. The first swing felt right. The motion was fluid and well-balance, much unlike anything you’d buy at ACE Hardware or the like. I hewered a few more limbs off the frame and disposed of the body, leaving what looked to be vomited pasta sauce on the wall. Finishing cleaning up the mess, I wiped the blade down with a towel that would be burnt. 

It was after this that I realized that I was holding a penultimate blade -- something only to be beaten by a craftsmen yet to be born. Great art would be produced with Best Made Co. axes.  I, at least, would see to it. 

The Best Made Co. American Felling Axe retails at $350 USD."

How to sell the unsellable

Knowing a total of 0 things about marketing, I thought I'd lend a generous (and very free) hand to a large menswear shop and figure out how to sell the product that hasn't moved since last season.

Mr. Porter tends to stock its shop full of elusive and hard-to-find products -- usually they're hard to find for a reason but I digress -- then is stuck trying to move Milwakee Buck mascot costumes made out of 40% Alpaca, 20% Gold, 10% Snow Leopard feces, and 30% Lycra. Y'see, there's just not a big enough market for that sort of thing.

But, on the edges, in the corners of society, there are people who must want these products, right?

One's man's unsold product is another man's severely discounted steal.

40 year old men who work in puppetry for Nick Jr.

The men who work in the Amazon warehouses and never leave -- vestigal eyes and all.

Upper-middle-class juggalos.

Men who are children's librarians.

Raffi.

These are the men to whom the products must be marketable.



Upon development of a time machine, Mr. Porter should take trip back to the early 20th century and sell these on the streets of where-ever boat races occur.

 While paper currency will be reasonably useless, there are many current day coin collectors who pay sums of money for the $2 of coins these jackets would collect. This requires a second step, but moving goods is the most important part -- amount of steps taken is a trifling concern.



Used car salesmen who specialize in late 80s Chryslers.



On the streets of NYFW. That's an odd and useless crew if I've ever seen one. They would eat this shit up.

Too bad they've never been to a site like Mr. Porter. OHWAIT....



Sell this product to men who run Street Fighter console tournaments as prize support.

It would be an interesting way to 1. increase attendance for these things because people love competing for dumb things and 2. move these hoodies because the real world is not an anime (somebody tell that to Rick Owens though? Maybe? Nah? Ok.).



Donate to the Island of Bill Cosby clones. No hope of selling this product -- cut your losses and run.

Waves and Wine

New Gant Rugger products hurr.

Waves is apparently a theme -- a sort of surfing, melancholy vibe that is possibly tangible through the copyright. You guys have read Ginny Woolf or whatever since you went to Sewanee or Haverford or BU or whatever, so you probably understand. Or whatever.



It's a bit Gap Kids in three figures but you've got dreams and plans of being a surfer, so go forth...



What this really needs...

What this really needs is a big bag of Franzia. Red, sugar laced, and staining.

The kind you drink with a tie as you tell others what losers they are because they're not wearing a tie.

Isn't that #menswear?

Your "being" in sartorial supremacy while drinking wine that'll get fucking all over you.

This is just a reminder that everyone is drinking the same Franzia. You should try some.

Waves is nice, I guess.

I don't know. I only looked at a couple pictures.

Edit: It's also post-Memorial Day Weekend so, "YAHHHH GO WHITE CLOTHING THINGS" obligatory post.

GOP Socks

HW and I are on a first name basis, or so my email would tell me.

Anyway, I got an emessage from him a few days ago -- he's pretty hip these days -- concerning a new venture of his:

John,

I don’t know what your guilty pleasures are in life, but one of mine is socks.

I’m a self-proclaimed sock man. The louder, the brighter, the crazier the pattern -- the better! It’s usually the first thing people notice I’m wearing whenever I’m out in public and that’s the way I like it.

So when Chairman Reince Priebus asked me to write to you on behalf of the Republican National Committee (RNC), I told him I’d be happy to do it. But on one condition: my letter to you had to involve socks.

I’m proud to say the RNC has commissioned a limited-edition pair of socks in my honor. Embroidered with the Republican elephant and my signature on them, they’re sure to get you noticed.

You can get your own pair today or as a gift for your favorite Republican by sending a special campaign contribution of $35 or more to the RNC now. And if you donate $35 or more to the RNC now, your gift will be matched by a group of donors. 

(the rest is edited out for brevities sake)

So, following other sock brand kickstarters selling subpar socks, the GOP has gotten on that band wagon.  

You can wear these as a way to ensure that you'll never be ganked by a CIA spook and as a way to support the right-wing oligarchy.  

The left-wing oligarchy hasn't caught on yet but I'd expect them to be selling Jimmy Carter peanut crafts on kickstarter within the week. 

-------------------

I understand that HW is a big sock guy but you'd think that they'd at least be over-the-calf.

Regardless, this GOP funding campaign looks no different than a "BRAND NEW SOCK BRAND COMPANY ABOUT COOL DESIGNS". Perhaps this campaign doesn't speak to how crap a political party is but to how crap crowd-sourced clothing brands are. If political party can do it, can't we all?