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Shopping Naples: Gutteridge.
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A chat with Will Boehlke of A Suitable Wardrobe
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Shopping Naples: Milord.
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Chicago shopping guide, part II.
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Chicago shopping guide, part I.
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A visit to Cilento, Naples.
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Superlative socks from Bresciani
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A visit to Rubinacci, Naples.
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A visit to E. Marinella, Naples.
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Robert Geller fall 2012–interview and collection
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Pitti Uomo: A Buyer’s Perspective
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Sartoria Partenopea at Pitti.
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Street photography and street style–is it dead?
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Liverano and Liverano, Florence.
All posts
Shopping Naples: Gutteridge.
Should you ever find yourself in Italy and in need of the most affordable wardrobe possible, you can begin at Gutteridge. The prices at this store—which has locations across Italy, including Naples, Florence, and Milan—are near the proverbial rock bottom. For example, when I stopped by during their end-of-the-season sale, they were selling scarves for ...
A chat with Will Boehlke of A Suitable Wardrobe
On November 27, 2006, Will Boehlke posted the first entry at his blog, A Suitable Wardrobe (to a smattering of applause). Today it’s recognized as one of the first blogs to cover classic menswear, influencing many to follow suit and spawning a store specializing in hard-to-find men’s accessories. It’s hard to imagine that Will’s modest ...
Shopping Naples: Milord.
Most of the good shopping in Naples is done in the seaside district of Chiaia. Here are your bespoke tailors, high-end tie makers, and ready-to-wear luxury brand shops. As you can imagine, most of this stuff is pretty expensive. There are a few affordable spots, however. One of them is Milord, which has been in ...
Chicago shopping guide, part II.
Our first look at men’s shopping in Chicago covered the venerable Oxxford Clothes, hatmaker Optimo and others. Part two has the goods on a #menswear specialist and some more old-school purveyors. Haberdash 607 N. State St. 312-624-8551 info@haberdashmen.com One of a bunch of new haberdashers that have emerged onto the scene in the last few ...
Chicago shopping guide, part I.
Chicago is a pretty classic city. Not classic like London, with its tailoring trade and aristocratic propriety. And not like Florence, where every cobblestone and sport coat is imbued with history and tradition. It’s classic in a way that’s equal parts rugged Americana and serious business. At the turn of the twentieth century, Chicago was ...
Chausser shoes at Pitti
I can’t say I know how you go about staking your claim on real estate at Pitti Uomo, but I would think that “smack dab in front of the Cucinelli space” seems like a good spot to be, trafficwise. Nonetheless, Yoichi Maeda, the guy behind Chausser shoes, seemed a little bored as buyers and other ...
A visit to Cilento, Naples.
Cilento is the oldest men’s store in Naples, possibly even all of Italy. Like many good things in Naples, it’s not something you’d easily come across unless you knew what you were looking for. It’s outside of the main shopping districts and close to some government buildings. Nonetheless, it’s quite well known to the ...
Superlative socks from Bresciani
As Mike from Epaulet mentioned in his post on visiting Pitti Uomo as a buyer, the sheer number of vendors, from small batch manufacturers to industry giants, is enough to drive a blogger crazy. As a visitor rather than a buyer, I had even less incentive to stay focused, especially when it came to the ...
A visit to Rubinacci, Naples.
Mention Rubinacci to any tailor in Italy and proper deference is paid, which is impressive given how much petty sniping there can be in the trade. Gennaro Rubinacci founded the company in 1932. “It actually began as a joke,” Mariano Rubinacci told me on my recent visit to Naples. “But of course, we take our ...
A visit to E. Marinella, Naples.
By Derek Guy, correspondent at large E. Marinella’s shop is quite small. It looks out across the park towards the waterfront and its entrance is framed with imported English wood and Calabrian green marble. As soon as you walk in, there is a wrought-iron Liberty-style chandelier that hangs above your head and wooden display ...
Robert Geller fall 2012–interview and collection
For his fall 2012 collection, the eleventh for his namesake label, Robert Geller looked to England for inspiration. Models layered with sturdy wools, rain-repellent waxed cottons, and that most British of fabrics, tweed, walked a dirt runway that seemed to lead from an English garden. Gray, brown, and olive dominated the palette, while a few ...
Pitti Uomo: A Buyer’s Perspective
At this point you guys have probably read a hundred Pitti Uomo recaps. But I figured that I’m chime in with somewhat a different perspective: what it’s like to visit as a buyer, and a first-time Pitti attendant at that. It’s huge. Good lord. I’ve been to plenty of trade shows in my time, ...
Sartoria Partenopea at Pitti.
Sartoria Partenopea is one of the Italian tailored lines we’d like to see more of in the United States. The company has a roots in the celebrated sartorial tradition of Naples and a reputation for quality, but with a lower profile than the Kitons and Attolinis of the world. Constructed in factory near Naples by ...
Street photography and street style–is it dead?
Tom Albo argues over at Esquire that what passes for street style these days is too self conscious and preening to mean anything. The case can be made that the current crop of street style camera jockeys are fashion photographers more than documentarians of “what’s really going on,” but the case that true street style ...
Liverano and Liverano, Florence.
Thank the lord of #menswear that Pitti Uomo isn’t held at a godforsaken hotel conference center somewhere in the vastness of middle America. As hip as it’s become to whine about the strutting dandies and trade show circus at Pitti, it’s still an event crammed with eye candy and the low hum of new things ...
Yuketen fall/winter 2012.
Yuki Matsuda and his team at Meg Company have carved themselves such a distinct niche with Yuketen that it’s impressive, season after season, to see how creative they can be while remaining within that niche. Like Willard Wigan, they’re designing on the head of a pin. Yuketen takes American-made classic shoe shapes and applies unusual ...
ts(s) fall 2012.
The philosophy of ts(s) and designer Takuji Suzuki is… in between. Does he make military influenced sportswear? Sportswear influenced militaria? The answer is in between. For the 2012 collection, no piece is wholly in one world or another. A military jacket can flip down its collar and become a seemingly straightforward tailored sportcoat. A weighty ...
To guard or not: Nick V. weighs in
The debate—whether it’s advisable to add sole guards to your shoes—has been raised many times on the forum. I wanted to share my insight on the topic from years of experience. There are several angles to consider. First, many people refer to sole guards as “Topys.” Topy is a brand that makes sole guards and ...
Want les Essentiels de la Vie.
Want les Essentiels de la Vie wants you to travel in comfort and style. Their accessories are neither over nor underdesigned, with helpful details where you want them but without utilitarian excesses. Want chooses to be excessive instead with luxury materials and construction. At Pitti, Dexter Peart showed me what Want has planned for their ...
Cheaney shoes at Pitti.
All the English shoemakers at Pitti seemed to be putting their countriest feet forward–Edward Green and Crockett and Jones, associated with sculpted lasts and top drawer finishing, proved they could indeed make beefy, lug soled shoes. However, I was perhaps more surprised by the elegance on hand at Cheaney, which makes for many private labels ...
Takahiro Miyashita’s The SoloIst at IF
The exclusive collection of Takahiro Miyashita’s The SoloIst at New York’s IF boutique is an homage to wandering. “Keep Walking,” a phrase repeated on The SoloIst site and on Miyashita’s blog, neatly distills the essence of the pieces at IF. Jackets and shirts seem patched from whatever fabric happened to be on hand, and nearly ...
Finamore at Pitti.
Finamore could rest on its old-world shirtmaker laurels (second oldest shirtmaker in Naples; more handsewing than Betsy Ross [more in the black labeled classica line than in sportier models]; renowned MTM program, fabric from top mills, etc., etc.) but at Pitti 81 chose instead to highlight its innovative side, with look-at-me fabrics and treatments, quilted ...
Nick V. talks with Peter Agati, Paul Stuart’s Director of Footwear
Paul Stuart has a sterling reputation as a provider of fine footwear, carrying both ideal business classics and charmingly offbeat models, made in England and Italy. Nick V. of B. Nelson Shoes talks with Peter Agati about his three decades in the footwear trade, sourcing, styling, and Paul Stuart’s current offerings. Nick V.: Tell us ...
Coffee with Mariano Rubinacci, Redux.
As Pete wrote earlier, one of the calmer moments we had at Pitti Uomo was our morning coffee with Mariano Rubinacci. Mariano met us at the Westin Excelsior on the Thursday morning, the last busy day of Pitti Uomo before people start packing it up on Friday in preparation for the long season ahead. Milan, ...
More street style from the Grungy Gentleman.
Styleforum did not send any contributors to Milan this season. Fortunately Jace, a.k.a. Grungy Gentleman, agreed to pick up the slack. More instagrammatic style via Grungy.
Our Legacy fall/winter 2012.
With a handful of seasons now in the rear view, Our Legacy doesn’t need much of an intro. Since 2008, OL has put out eight collections of arty, northern European casual wear with diminishing hints of prep (nothing too cute or go-to-hell, more like chinos and button-down-collar shirts) and more and more use of unusual ...
Grungy Gentleman’s Milan street style.
Styleforum did not send any contributors to Milan this season. Fortunately Jace, a.k.a. Grungy Gentleman, agreed to pick up the slack. More to come from Paris as well. If you look up the word impeccable in the dictionary, this is what you find @NickWooster Mario Boglioli at his presentation (great guy) Complete honor ...
“Black, or brown?” “No.”
An unusual, impractical daub of color is one way to grab the attention of casual passersby at Pitti, where orders, after all, are still dominated by tones of navy, black, khaki, and gray. But it seemed maker after maker had at least a pair of shoes (mostly brogues) that were emphatically not in compliance with ...
Pane e Panno Casentino at Isaia
One of the standout pieces for FW 2012 season was Isaia’s peaked lapel, camel topcoat in Panno Casentino fabric, the yarn of which, as was explained to me, is roughly brushed before looming, so that the dense woven fabric comes off the loom with a rough, pre-pilled, look. The mark of Isaia The Isaia crew ...
Coffee with Sig. Rubinacci.
It’s hard to stay cynical in Florence. I arrived prepared to look down my nose at Pitti’s tradeshow circus and the inevitable sartorial showmanship from attendees, to see through the veil of #menswear and tell the unvarnished truth about what I saw. Which, of course, I will. But as a longtime fan of makers like ...