Rakuten and Yahoo Auctions Japan can turn up some real gems on occasion if you watch them long enough. Like this for example: a vintage Engineered Garments parka/fishing smock. It’s always fun to see these earlier pieces show up as it was very difficult to find this stuff back then (North America distribution for Engineered Garments did not really pick up until 2007/2008).
These white canvas boots from Grenson showed up on ebay this last week, coincidentally right after my recent cricket post. Of course they’re not in my size.
Just officially announced – Mark McNairy will succeed Daiki Suzuki as creative director for Woolrich Woolen Mills. Source: WWD and WoolrichInc.
The Spring/Summer 2011 collection will be the last one that Daiki works on, as previously reported by WWD.
Thoughts: Mark McNairy was a good choice and potentially some great pieces could come out of this. Questions: Will he keep the line true to its roots, or will he take it in his own direction? Will signature designs like the upland or Maine guide jackets be scrapped?
Mark McNairy, in Free & Easy September 2009
If you missed it, tintin recently got to sit down with G. Bruce Boyer and Robert Bryan to judge a selection of chinos from a few different companies including LL Bean, Bills Khakis, Brooks Brothers, and J.Press.
A recap:
Personally when I’m looking for chinos for myself, the main two qualities that I care about are fit and fabric. Though nice to have, details such as pocket flaps or button flys are unimportant, and authenticity even less. Just give me simple, slim, and sturdy chinos. That’s it. The best I’ve ever tried on that met this criteria was a pair from RRL; I passed on these however, as they came with the usual RRL price tag (which was somewhere north of $300).
A vintage Lee ad from 1953. “Steel foreman and his family demonstrate the good looks and comfort of America’s most modern work clothes.”
The worst of the worst or the best of the best? Not many stores are selling patchwork versions these days besides Ralph Lauren (coincidentally, there is a good one on sale now), but J.Crew and Rugby both have some slightly safer non-patchwork versions available. I only have one in my wardrobe, which is probably one too many.
Originally there were matching shorts that were sold alongside it, but I thought that might have been taking it too far. The jacket is unstructured and unlined, which is really how they should be.
A background on the fabric, from an essay written for Land’s End in 1989:
The bleeding Madras fad of the 1950’s and ’60’s, brought the world’s attention to Madras, both the cloth and the city. And in the cloth’s heyday, over 150,000 new plaid patterns were fashioned, using homemade vegetable dyes that bled, ran and blended to create a stunning effect. (“Cool” was the word we used, way back then.) Today, of course, Madras no longer bleeds, because it is dyed with man-made, color-fast dyes.
But this, really, is the only difference, between then and now, in the making of the cloth.
Continue reading more.
Alan Flusser and Off the Cuff have put together a great little iPhone application called BeSpeak, which helps in picking out colors and patterns to wear with your complexion and body type.
Hit the refresh button on the bottom to auto-generate new combos, or customize and save existing ones. I’ve seen a couple of bugs so far (it recommended a solid white tie on one of it’s auto-matches?) but overall it’s a decent tool.
For more matching ideas, here are some older scans from Men’s Ex that I posted last year: Combining Patterns
From Men’s File, issue 2. Check out the vintage boots.
J.Crew just updated its website with new arrivals, some of which is already available in their stores. My favorites are the utility shirts and the shawl collar fleece deck jacket, and other interesting items include the King of Vintage book (see my previous post), an inexpensive canvas tote, and this nautical inspired tie bar.
The catalog cover for June is also pretty good for once, and it has a sort of Monocle style photoshoot look to it.
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