#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.