While fashion writers focus on the runway, actual fashion moments often happen on film. Marlon Brando’s smoldering look in The Wild One helped to cement the black double rider as the rebel uniform, just as the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s refashioned the black, sheath evening dress into a womenswear icon. In his 1985 book Elegance, Bruce Boyer calls these cinematic touchstones the “moments that signal or symbolize a shift in the old modus oprandi.” These scenes, as unimportant as they may seem, later become the film equivalents of the most memorable lyric in a song. And in being so, they change the ways we see clothing.

Boyer traces the moment when tassel loafers became an acceptable form of business dress to a particular scene in the 1962 film That Touch of Mink. The scene starts with Cary Grant, who plays the familiar international corporate head, walking into his wood-paneled office on Madison Avenue one average morning. “He’s wearing his familiar dark, impeccably cut business suit, white shirt, conservative tie, and black straight tip oxfords. He is the very glass of business fashion, the mold of form,” Boyer writes. Yet, upon settling in, Grant “removes his suit jacket and town shoes, and dons a discrete, but obviously very comfortable, lightweight cardigan and a pair of tassel loafers! Right there in the office!” In today’s business culture, where everyone wears jeans and sneakers, this story has a quaint ring to it. But as Boyer notes, this is just one of the many “less-than-earthshaking events that mark the road we have traveled.”

A similar moment happened for the sweatshirt, that mass-manufactured item that has none of the rock ‘n roll cool of biker jackets or the blue-collar credibility of blue jeans. Yet, when Steve McQueen wore a dusty blue sweatshirt in the film The Great Escape, particularly in that scene when “The Cooler King” raced through the mountain trails and slid into a barbed-wire barrier, the garment attained a touch of cool. The sweatshirt is as iconic as every other notable American garment – blue jeans, black double riders, sack suits, penny loafers, and button-down collars – and it symbolizes the same independent American spirit. Much of that is thanks to McQueen (or, really, his stunt double, Bud Ekins, who did the hard work in that chase scene).

It’s that time of year when I post a spat of seasonal sales. The third big one started this morning: No Man Walks Alone, where you can find select items discounted by as much as 40% off. Their sale is one of my favorites for two reasons. The first is that I get to post a photo of the shop’s founder, Greg Lellouche, and note that he is, in fact, walking alone. The second is the shop’s selection. While No Man Walks Alone is a sponsor on this site, they’re also one of my favorite online retailers. Along with some excellent tailoring, they also carry Japanese workwear, contemporary casual, and a bit of the avant-garde.

The selection here is big, but not massive. It’s reasonably easy to scroll through the entire sale selection to see if there’s anything you want, but No Man Walks Alone also has filters on their site so you can narrow in on sizes, colors, and brands. Some of my favorite makers here include Sartoria Formosa, Drake’s, and Kaptain Sunshine. If you’re looking for highlights, here are ten things that I think are notable.

Valstar’s Plaid Wool-Alpaca Topcoat

Mr. Porter is having a one-day sale today, where you can get 20% off select items with the checkout code JUNE21. The promotion only applies to items marked as “seasonal,” which you can find neatly organized under this “sun shop” section. Don’t bother trying to apply the code to other full-priced products or already-marked down sale items – I tried and it doesn’t work.

The good news is that there’s actually a bit of good stuff in the “sun shop” section. There are some handsome camp-collar shirts from Officine Generale, Gitman Vintage, AMI, and Kapital. I have an older version of that Kapital shirt and wear it all the time with ranch jackets, chore coats, and even on its own with just jeans. Additionally, there are some summer-ready shorts from Orlebar Brown and Officine Generale; mid-length swim trunks from Orlebar Brown; and my favorite chambray, which is made by Chimala. This Rubinacci “Victory” pocket square has a cream-colored background that makes it useful in just about any tailored outfit, but also a bit of pattern that keeps it looking like the solid-colored, cream squares worn by prom DJs (no offense to prom DJs). 

I also bought a vintage Lee’s 101-J trucker jacket from Wooden Sleepers yesterday (it’s pictured below). The style was introduced in the 1930s and is known as the first slim-fit denim jacket. But more than provenance, I like the design for its slanted chest pockets, zig-zag stitching, and slightly cropped fit (they’re shorter than Levi’s truckers). You can find them on Etsy for as little as $50, but if you’re looking to splurge, this Kapital trucker looks excellent. Note, Mr. Porter’s website recommends sizing up twice. 

END, a contemporary menswear shop based in the UK, always has one of the best end-of-season sales. Since they’re located in Europe, their prices are typically 20% lower than what you’d pay for the same items in the US, thanks to VAT deductions. Which means their end-of-season promotions are even better than what they seem at face value. At the moment, they’re holding their spring/ summer sale, where you can find select items discounted by as much as 60%. Once you account for VAT discounts, however, the sale is actually closer to 68% off. 

END’s online inventory is one of the few that rivals Mr. Porter’s (who, by the way, just dropped prices for the third time and are having a 70% off sale). Which means, your best bet is to browse through the sale selection by filtering for clothing categories and sizes. This way, you can stumble upon things you may not otherwise see. If you’re looking for highlights, here are some things I think are particularly worthwhile. 

Barbour: If you’re one of the few menswear guys left who doesn’t own a Barbour, END is one of the best places to score a deal. Again, since their prices are already lower than what you’d typically find stateside, their end-of-season promotions make these especially attractive. These days, I mostly wear the waxed cotton Bedale in olive, although the longer Beaufort is better for layering over sport coats. The Liddesdale is also a favorite of many people. It’s an uber affordable, quilted jacket that looks great with jeans and Shetland sweaters. At END, you can find the Liddesdale at a very low $95, while the waxed cotton models start at $209. For sizing advice, check out the Barbour buyer’s guide I wrote for Put This On. 

In the course of his American speaking tour in 1882, Oscar Wilde claimed that some silver miners tried to play a prank on him when he visited the rough, rust belt town of Leadville, Colorado. According to him, about a dozen miners led him to the bottom of a mine shaft with the intention of getting him drunk and leaving him there for a scare. But in a twist, the Dublin wit and writer regaled them with stories about the Italian goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini and Renaissance metal working. The miners asked Wilde why he didn’t bring Cellini with him, to which he explained that Cellini has been dead for quite some time. Living in a town where every man carries a revolver and no one dies of natural causes, the miners enquired: “Who shot him?” Afterward, they took Wilde to a dancing saloon, where a piano player sat in the corner with a sign over him that read: “DON’T SHOOT THE PIANIST; HE’S DOING THE BEST HE CAN.” It was, observed Wilde, “the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across.”

Wilde is one of the few Europeans to ever leave the United States with something positive to say about American style – well, sort of. ‘‘In all my journeys through the country, the only well-­dressed men that I saw were the Western miners,” he lectured to an audience. In an issue of Harper’s Bazaar published the same year, an illustrator showed Wilde’s admiration for the miners’ uniform. “Their wide-brimmed hats, which shaded their faces from the sun and protected them from the rain, and the cloak, which is by far the most beautiful piece of drapery ever invented, may be dwelt on with admiration,” Wilde said. “They wore only what was comfortable and therefore beautiful.”

Compare this to when Albert Camus sailed into a New York Harbor in March 1946 to promote the English release of his novel The Stranger. During his three-month stay in Manhattan, Camus didn’t quite know what to make of the city’s “swarming lights” and "frantic streets,” but he was staggered by how the material abundance contrasted with the depravations of post-war France. He was less impressed, however, by American neckties. “You have to see it to believe it. So much bad taste hardly seems imaginable,” he later told a journalist. Seventy years later, Noam Chomsky recounted this anecdote to Glenn Greenwald after the two were introduced to each other at the University of Arizona. Confused, Greenwald asked Chomsky if he was trying to say something about his decorative, purple satin tie. Chomsky said plainly: “Yes.”

Like a flying horde of locusts sweeping across a wheat field, Mr. Porter’s end-of-season sales are always a feeding frenzy. After all, where else can you find discounted dress shoes sitting alongside rare Japanese labels and American workwear?  Tonight, they started their summer sales event, where you can find select items discounted as much as 50% off. Before you dive in, however, there are some caveats.

First, discounts are still being rolled out, and not everything is up yet. You can expect to see the entire sale selection up by tomorrow morning, but it’s worth checking back often since the stock here moves quickly. Second, the best way to tackle their sale is by filtering for sizes – pants in size 32 or shoes in size 9. That way, you raise your chance of coming across a serendipitous find. Third, if you’re on the fence about something, I suggest buying it. You can always return things for free if they don’t work out. 

You can browse the sale on Mr. Porter’s dedicated sales page, at least for what’s currently already up, but here are some things I think are notable:

On a Sunday afternoon in May of 1955, a ragtag group of forty people crammed themselves into The Black Swan, a cozy pub in the market town of Leominster, England. They were responding to a letter published in The Bicycle magazine the previous October. Penned by W.H. Paul — a thin, bespectacled man better known to his friends as Bill — the letter asked if the cyclists of the day were only interested in replicating the road-racing feats of Tour de France competitors. Paul, an enthusiast of the great outdoors, wondered if anyone else liked using bikes to explore less trodden paths.

“I have always been a searcher of the remote, wild, and more desolate country, which is to be seen ‘off the beaten track,’” he wrote. “I wonder if the modern lightweight, with its ‘Continental this’ and ‘super that,’ prompts the rider to keep on the billard-table surfaces of modern tarmacs. Nevertheless, I believe there is still a small select circle who love the rough and high ways amongst the mountains of Wales, the Lakes, and Scotland. […] Who then, would care to become a member of The Rough-Stuff Fellowship?”

The response was immediate and positive. A year after the inaugural meeting, the club grew from 40 hardened riders to 160 scattered across the country — and today is 800 members strong, making it the oldest off-road bicycling club in the world. Riders meet on a weekly, if not daily basis to explore every corner of the British countryside and beyond. They shoulder their bikes as they climb up mountains and wade through streams, then hop on them again to ride across rocky dirty paths and through grass-covered fields. “They prefer a far less beaten track – one where no ascent is too steep, no mud too thick, no destination too distant,” Niall Flynn wrote of the group.