Suiting from Corneliani Spring/Summer 2011 – Ralph Lauren should take some notes (though everything else was pretty boring).
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During the late 19th century, illustrator Frederic Remington documented and painted life as he experienced it in the wild west when the prairies were still untouched and U.S. cavalries were still fighting Indian tribes.
Over the foot-hills.
Riding the range – winter.
The punchers.
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Watch how they’re made in the factory in Sweden. Thanks to Susan Perdok for uploading these.
And a clip of their museum:
Florence Reasserts Itself as a Fashion City-State
Guy Trebay has a writeup in the NYTimes on the atmosphere of Pitti Uomo and goes over Raf Simons, Haider Ackermann, and Mark McNairy.
“There is a big obsession all over the world with heritage brands right now,” Valeria Caffagni, the marketing director of WP Lavori in Corso, which licenses Woolrich globally, said at the Milky Pig party.
“Like all obsessions, it will be done in a year,” she added, but that judgment may be premature.
Done in a year? It seems like they’ve been saying that for the past several years.
“The young customers we have now are, like, really hip kids,” Mr. McNairy once told The New York Times, referring to a new generation of J. Press customers, the same ones he presumably plans to attract in his new job as Mr. Suzuki’s successor at Woolrich.
Did J.Press really get new young customers? I would have guessed that they were shopping at J.Crew instead. Continue reading more.
Sporty Takes Over Traditional Menswear
Suzy Menkes also discusses some of the new colorful trends in the menswear that were shown:
Colorful, casual and cash-driven were the three “high Cs” of the menswear summer 2011 season. Or make that “high seas,” for marine influences were abundant, from striped seersucker pants competing with denim to the blazer as the No. 1 jacket.
While Pitti has always had areas of its vast trade fair dedicated to casual clothes and street wear, this invasion of Italy’s heartland of tailoring is symbolic both of the struggles of the last difficult year of faltering sales and the collapse of the U.S. market, and of the new feeling that fresh energy is emerging.
Continue reading more.
Update: Bruce Pask also gives his take on Pitti on the T Magazine blog today.
The rest of the show followed suit with the casual-classic theme. Vivid blue chambrays appeared in everything from casual pants from the revived ’80s brand Closed to casual shirts from Gitman Bros., shorts from Our Legacy, and even an unconstructed three-piece suit from Nigel Cabourn. White buck shoes stood out from their basic brown-and-black brethren as the footwear to have for spring. There were traditional takes from Church’s and New England’s Alden and Walk Over. Mark McNairy, the newly tapped designer for Woolrich Woolen Mills, gave the white bucks in his New Amsterdam line eye-popping soles in bright blue, green, yellow and red.
Suiting from Nigel Cabourn? Sounds interesting. Continue reading more.
Update 2: Why was it that only the NYTimes did any sort of decent coverage of Pitti this season? GQ and Esquire both did a horrible job.
These awesome bags just showed up on Yoox today. Expensive yes, but compared to their normal retail prices they’re a bargain.
When I’m old I will grow a white beard and will wear loud British tweeds and worn in felt fedoras. My lapel will always have a flower on it and my jeans will be cuffed like trousers. If I need to use a cane, it will be made from dark rosewood and sterling silver. My gloves will be kept in the chest pocket of my overcoat. I will unbutton my jacket sleeve cuffs when I feel like it and on some days I will not button down my shirt collar. And there’s nothing that you can do about it.
Images from The Sartorialist.
Nick Carr of Scouting New York has some amazing pictures up of a building on 5 Beekman Street in NYC that has been boarded up for decades. The current owners hope to convert it into a hotel.
Here is the original NYTimes article from 1988 that he makes a reference too:
LIKE many New Yorkers, Rena M. Shulsky journeyed vicariously to the 1880’s through Jack Finney’s novel ”Time and Again,” whose climactic scene is set near City Hall, at Beekman and Nassau Streets.
She never imagined making the journey in person — to the same corner and the same era. Then one day, her father invited her to squeeze through an unmarked, child-sized doorway in a corridor of the 19th-century Temple Court office building, 5 Beekman Street, which the Shulsky family has owned for three generations.
On the other side of the threshold, entombed behind plaster walls from the 1950’s, was a nine-story atrium soaring up to a pyramidal skylight, ringed at every floor by delicate Victorian iron balustrades ornamented with flowers, wings, sunbursts, spikes and arabesques.
”I had no idea it existed,” Ms. Shulsky recalled. ”I crawled under and went back in time. For me, who’s this giant Jack Finney fan — you can imagine.” She hopes to reopen the atrium as part of a long-term renovation.
More coverage on City Room and Daily Intel. I wonder if Seattle has anything like this hiding around the downtown area.
The new Warehouse jeans made for J.Crew are finally available for sale and come in two versions, Lot 484 (a slim tapered model) and Lot 700J (a traditional straight leg model with a cinch back buckle). Unlike the usual raw states that you find them in, these look like have already gone through a rinsing process to take the initial shrinkage out.
I was originally looking forward to getting a pair of the 484 version back when they were due to arrive in spring, but with fall/winter shipments starting in just a few weeks I will probably wait until next year before buying any more jeans.
Pitti Uomo has kicked off today and news about the Spring/Summer 2011 collections are already starting to come in. Khabi Mirza, who runs Fashion Buyer UK, posted a short interview with Daiki Suzuki on what we can expect for next year:
Q. TELL US ABOUT THE OVERALL DIRECTION OF THE SPRING 2011 COLLECTION.
A. I’ve combined military themes with a folky look in places. There are aslo references to the 1980s through cotton dobbie patterns on shirts and ties, alongside floral prints and ethnic patterns. At Engineered Garments we like to combine contrasting patterns and this season we have tonal blue ethnic embroidered jackets over dobbie patterned shirts combined with checked ties. You can put conflicting patterns together as long as there is a sense of balance.Q. HOW HAVE YOUR SILHOUETTES EVOLVED FOR THE NEW SEASON?
A.Shapes are still slim fitting on jackets although the lengths are just slightly longer than usual. Leg shapes on trousers are not super slim and neither are they too wide. And, on shirts our styling remains narrow and slim-fitting.
Continue reading more.