Search Results for: sale

Fashion is often criticized for its creative destruction. Trends are constantly coming and going; new brands are always emerging. What some see as a pointless field, I see as a subject where there’s always something fresh, something engaging, something different to talk about. For the past few years, I’ve been doing annual roundups about new brands I’m watching. To be sure, not all of them are actually new — some have been around for a while. But they’re new to me and, hopefully, you. This year, I have so many brands on my list that I decided to break this post into two parts. The first part was published two weeks ago. This is part two.

HUSBANDS

The lines on Husbands' tailoring are as strong and well-defined as the facial features of the company's founder, Nicolas Gabard. Gabard is a strikingly handsome Frenchman who wears suits and sport coats with Cuban-heeled side-zip boots. In a previous life, he worked as a lawyer to please his father but soon found himself rummaging through flea markets on weekends in search of vintage clothes. Now he has his own clothing label, Husbands, which is headquartered in the affluent 2nd arrondissement of Paris, a stone's throw from Palais-Royal. Husbands' tailoring is youthful, sleek, and above everything else, sexy. Their suits have defined shoulders, wide lapels, and a dropped buttoning point, giving the wearer strong, architectural lines. Yet, there's also a natural elegance to everything, as the full-bodied jackets have leafy skirts that sway like fronds. The high-waisted pants have long, slightly flared legs shaped like ringing bells, hinting at movement even when the wearer is standing still. "Husbands' style is about getting off the beaten track -- risk-taking," founder Nicolas Gabard tells me. "In that respect, the Husbands' style borrows its boldness from the Italians, which is then counterbalanced by the rigor of the English line. Husbands' style is therefore resolutely French: at the crossroads of these two territories."

Getting something from Community Bookstore felt more like spelunking than shopping. The second-hand bookstore, located on a street corner in Brooklyn, was a dark, cavernous space filled with worn paperbacks, dusty toys, and vintage records. The shop's owner, John Scioli, was a self-described hoarder unable to turn away book donations. Inside of his shop, piles of musty books stood waist-high, some half toppled, and items were stacked on top of each other at awkward angles, making a trip down an aisle feel like "high-stakes Jenga." The shop was so densely packed that light from the buzzing fluorescent tubes overhead never penetrated to all corners. Scattered books underfoot buried the worn grey carpeting underneath. It was impossible to find anything here — you had to aimlessly browse or ask Scioli for assistance. He had a Dewey Decimal System inside his head that allowed him to find anything. Just don't ask for a recommendation. In a crotchety interview with Gothamist, the white-whiskered bookseller dryly said: "I hate [when people ask for book recommendations]. 'What should I get my father for Father's Day?' I don't know your father."

In an era of minimalist shopping spaces and customer-centric service, Community Bookstore was a strangely beloved institution. It had no traditional storefront or signage, and the only worker, the owner, kept unpredictable hours. Yet, it was a fixture of the community, cherished by "regulars, neighbors, dinner dates, bookworms, French transplants, Spanish tourists, Italian grandmothers, and authors acclaimed or otherwise." Like an old-school tailor or barber, Scioli saw generations of people grow up in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Those who initially stopped by as children to play with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures later came in as adults to buy bedtime storybooks for their children. When Scioli closed his business and retired in 2015, the store generated an outsized amount of press. The New York Times wistfully wrote of it: "The Community Bookstore is not the kind of place one goes for the latest bestsellers, literary magazines, a coffee, or an author talk. It is a place to rummage and ruminate, a place for treasure hunters and lost souls as much as bibliophiles."

Americans hold the idea of bookstores near and dear to their hearts, although independent booksellers have seen better days. Around the turn of the 20th century, New York City's Fourth Avenue was home to nearly fifty bookstores, many with used hardbacks stuffed into rollable carts displayed outside of their front windows. There were once so many bookstores located between Union Square and Astor Place, the district was nicknamed Book Row. But after the Great Depression, skyrocketing rents, and those original booksellers retiring and then dying (with no one to take their places), the bookstores that used to be a fixture of literary Manhattan faded away. Today, only one bookstore from Book Row is still standing — The Strand, now headquartered on Broadway in the East Village, where it moved in 1957 to escape high rents. Insiders say that The Strand has only survived because it's a family's passion project. "[T]he Strand is, when you get down to it, a real-estate business, fronted by a bookstore subsidized by its own below-market lease and the office tenants upstairs," Christopher Bonanos wrote in New York Magazine. "The ground floor of 828 Broadway is worth more as a Trader Joe's than it is selling Tom Wolfe. When a business continues to exist mostly because its owners like it, the next generation has to like it just as much. Otherwise, they'll cash out. If Nancy stays, the Strand stays. If her kids do, too, it stays longer. Simple as that."

Shortly after the loud roar of New Year's celebrations quieted in 1955, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher flew into New York City on his way to Rangoon. He had been to the United States before. In the 1930s, he attended Columbia University as a student of economics and even took a year-long post as a lecturer at Columbia's School of Banking. But if the city's bright lights spellbound him as a young man, he saw them differently now. At the time, he had just been appointed as an economic advisor to the newly independent Burma, and was required to attend a series of United Nations briefings before his trip. Each day, when he came out of his Midtown Manhattan hotel, he felt a vague sense of disgust for the crisscrossing roads and oversized vehicles he saw everywhere. "One gets the impression that the primary preoccupation of the American people is with motor cars," he wrote to his wife back home, "you see nothing but cars everywhere you look, cars moving, cars shopping, cars parking, cars for sale, cars required and unrequired, all enormous and ugly." Schumacher, who had dedicated his life to promoting growth, started to question his role as an economist.

Born in Bonn, Germany in 1911, as the second son of a political economy professor, Schumacher grew up in the ivory tower of academia. He attended the best schools — The London School of Economics, Oxford, Cambridge, and Columbia University — and studied under some of the great British intellectuals of his day, including John Maynard Keynes, Arthur Cecil Pigou, and Dennis Robertson. Upon finishing his studies, he returned to Germany in April 1934. Two months later, Hitler, then Chancellor, purged his party of disloyalists and, shortly after, declared himself Führer of the German people. Appalled by the Nazis, Schumacher fled to London the following year. When the war broke out at the dawn of September 1939, Schumacher and his wife remained separated from their German family for the duration of the conflict.

Life for Schumacher was not easy during the war, even as he took refuge in Britain. At the outset, he was labeled as an "enemy alien" and interred at the Prees Heath camp in the Shropshire countryside. After several months, he was given an early release by the government, thanks partly to his connections to a network of influential British figures. Schumacher then moved to Eydon Hall, an isolated Northamptonshire estate located not more than twenty-five miles from where John Lobb and Crockett & Jones produce their shoes today. While there, he toiled in the fields, repaired fences, and brought in the harvest by day, and then wrote papers about international economics by night. Always a voracious reader, Schumacher also consumed a mountain of books. He pored over the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, essays by J. B. S. Haldane, J. D. Bernal's The Social Function of Science, Seebohm Rowntree's Poverty and Progress, and C. H. Waddington's The Scientific Attitude. By the end of his time at Eydon Hall, Schumacher, an erstwhile liberal, became a cocksure socialist and strident atheist. He would later recall his time at the farm as his "real education."

When The Armoury started putting together their spring lookbook a couple of months ago, they knew they couldn't travel abroad. The company's team members were stuck in their respective home cities, Hong Kong and New York City, and could only communicate with each other via phone and email. Yet, they also wanted to create a lookbook that was hopeful, an encouraging reminder that better days are ahead. "We love traveling, and we miss visiting Florence, Italy," Mark Cho told me over the phone. "So we wanted to make something that would be a celebration of our time there."

After drumming up some ideas, The Armoury's co-founders Mark Cho and Alan See dug through their holiday photos, and the company's team shot one or two people at a time in a studio, following masking rules. They then had to figure out a way to put the images together. At first, they used a green screen, but Mark says the resulting images were so terrible, a viewer would never be able to suspend their disbelief ("they were not good enough to be believable, but also not so bad that the images were funny. They were just bad."). Eventually, they landed on this cutout sticker design. "We had a colleague illustrate things, handwrite things, and then photograph crumpled paper to give everything some texture. There are also small paint drops on the collages, echoing the colors in the clothes, which helps bring everything together." The result is a virtual destination lookbook that feels reminiscent of a travelog.

Over the years, The Armoury's collections have gotten noticeably more casual. Along with their suits and sport coats, they also sell sporty knitwear, holiday shirts, and workwear from The Real McCoys. Mark says he expects this to continue in a post-vaccine world. "I think things will get more casual," he says, "which means tailoring also has to be more casual. This year's spring tailoring can be worn in the office, but the clothes come into their own when they're worn casually. When you show a collection like this, I think people become more comfortable with the idea of wearing tailored clothing." If you, like me, are eager to get back into a suit or sport coat, here are some suggestions on how to wear tailoring this spring, using images from The Armoury's new lookbook and various social media feeds.

By many accounts, life in the United States is supposed to start feeling more normal sometime this year. It's unclear what "normality" will look like in a post-vaccine world — who knows when we'll return to crowded bars, restaurants, and offices — but we may have small gatherings by summer. Which, of course, means the ability to dress again.

In the last year, many people have become sharply aware of the pleasure that clothes can bring to their daily routine. Yet, without the ability to move through the world and be seen, few people truly get dressed. These days, I mostly wear things that sit somewhere between loungewear and tailored clothing. I don’t like the feeling of wearing shapeless sweats all day, but I also don’t feel motivated to put on a tie. So, I wear comfy flannel shirts, raw denim jeans, and five-pocket cords, sometimes with a sweatshirt that I can easily launder at home. At the same time, when going out in public, I want to feel good about my outfit without having to fully change. This at-home uniform then serves as a base layer for outerwear with structure, texture, and weight, reminding me that brief moments outside are special.

I imagine many people will be dressed in some version of this for much of this year, as they balance comfort, presentability, and ease of cleaning. If you're in that position, here are some things I'm excited to wear this spring, either in this in-between mode or as easy get-ups that don't require special care.

In the storybook tale of how clothing is made, there are three tiers of production, each ascending a luxury pyramid. At the bottom-most level, you have ready-to-wear, which are those clothes we see hanging on racks and in stores, ready to be tried on, coveted, and perhaps even purchased. The next level up is made-to-measure, where a block pattern is adjusted using a client's measurements, and then, we assume, a whizzing, thumping machine somewhere shoots out a custom-tailored garment. Finally, at the capstone of this pyramid, there's bespoke, the highest expression of craft. In the popular imagination, bespoke is about the hush-hush, wood paneled rooms on Savile Row, where tailors work diligently around ancient tables stacked high with heavy bolts of worsteds, flannels, and tweeds. For many, bespoke is "the dream."

That's the story anyway. Men who are just getting into tailored clothing often think they should climb as high up on this pyramid as their wallet allows. But in reality, clothing production systems are much more complicated, and there are good and bad examples of clothes in each tier — quality ready-to-wear, bad bespoke, and everything in between. Rather than being stacked on a pyramid, these systems overlap with each other in meaningful ways. To understand how clothing is made, we have to go back to the early 19th century, when the development of the ready-to-wear industry coincided with the industrial revolution, the emergence of modernism, and the American Civil War.

There was a time when nearly all men wore bespoke clothes. Before the Civil War, most men had their clothes custom made by a tailor, if they could afford one, or by women in their home. The only ready-made clothing at this time was crudely sewn workwear, often produced for sailors, miners, and slaves. It wasn't until 1849 that Brooks Brothers debuted the first ready-made suit in meaningful quantities, and even then, the quality of these clothes paled when compared to bespoke garments.

In the social science literature, the term "critical juncture" is used to describe a moment when significant changes can occur rapidly, knocking institutions and culture onto a new developmental course. In the last year, many have debated whether the coronavirus pandemic is such a moment. Is remote work morphing into a more permanent reality? Will we be wearing coffee stained t-shirts and elasticated pajama bottoms forever? Are we witnessing the death of hype culture and the emergence of a more thoughtful fashion consumer? In a recent New York Times interview, Raf Simons expressed skepticism over whether liberal market economies can be permanently bent and reshaped. "The one lesson I think fashion will not learn from this, which is the one it should learn, if I am brutally honest, is that it should be less greedy," he said. "It became too much this economic machine. For the majority, the first desire is economic growth. […] And you can't do that with only one or two collections a year."

It's been one year since the first case of coronavirus was reported in the United States. Since then, some things have changed, although their permanence is yet to be determined. After J. Crew filed for Chapter 11 protection in May of last year, other corporate giants toppled like dominoes — Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, J.C Penney, Men's Wearhouse, Aldos, and John Varvatos among them. That has sent shockwaves throughout the global supply chain, affecting heritage producers such as Vanners Silk Weavers. The Gap and H&M, two mainstays in high-street retailing, announced plans to shutter hundreds of stores in this coming year. And for every one of these headlines about big industry names, countless small businesses don't get nearly enough attention. Last year, New York City lost over 500 small businesses alone. The Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, estimates that about a third of the city's 240,000 small businesses "may not make it to see the post-vaccine promised land."

Last December, as the year was drawing to a close, I wondered "what are some of the year's most defining themes?" (Yes, this is a "year in review" post, which comes a month late, but please cut me some slack, as I've been dealing with a pandemic, a recession, and an insurrection.) Some of the things that have transpired were many years in the making, just accelerated and taken to the extreme. The Casual Friday movement that started in the 1990s has now ended with all of us in sweatsuits and t-shirts. The decline of suburban malls, department stores, and other general merchandise stores has morphed into a total brick-and-mortar meltdown, threatening to reshape the American landscape. Online shopping is at an all-time high, which has created a new demand for shipping supplies. Environmentalists are now bracing themselves for all the corrugated containers, plastic packaging, shrink wrap, bouncy air pillows, and bubble mailers that will wind up in our landfills, incinerators, and natural environment. To be sure, these are the real themes of last year. But along with these very obvious concerns, what else defined fashion in 2020?

Shots were fired in the late summer of 1777, a year after the United States declared independence, as some 15,000 British soldiers descended onto Philadelphia, then the seat of the rebellious Second Continental Congress. After some hard-fought battles that resulted in over a thousand Continental Army deaths, the British marched into Philadelphia unopposed. The Continental Congress first relocated to Lancaster and then York, leaving civilians behind in Philly. One of those civilians was Molly Rinker.

Molly Rinker, also known to friends as Old Mom Rinker, was a matronly woman who ran a Philadelphia tavern. While George Washington and his troops were encamped just a few miles outside of the city, Mom Rinker closely tended to British soldiers and Tories, keeping their plates full, their beer pitchers flowing, and the conversation animated. But her intentions went beyond just providing good service. While drunken redcoats chatted away, Mom Rinker picked up bits and pieces of information, which she then covertly jotted down in the backroom. Each night, she wrapped her notes around tiny stones, and then hid those stones inside large balls of yarn. And on the following day, she took her knitting needles and yarn to the outskirts of town, where she’d climb high atop of a rocky ridge. From this vantage, Mom Rinker could easily survey the area. She would then sit down and proceed to innocently knit.

With yarn strewn around her and knitting needles in her hand, Mom Rinker was a portrait of tranquil domesticity. British soldiers who may have seen her from afar suspected nothing. But from this position, Mom Rinker could see when a Continental soldier emerged from the brush below. When she did, she’d gently nudge a ball of yarn over the brink, causing it to tumble to the ground, and the soldier would then scoop up, pocket, and carry her priceless message to George Washington. Old Mom Rinker, who never dropped a stitch, was America’s first and perhaps only sweater-making spy. She turned cloak-and-dagger techniques into yarn and knitting needles.

On a warm afternoon in April 2009, the machines at the Southwick factory briefly stopped humming, as workers took a break from sewing fine men's suits and naval officers' uniforms so they could listen to two distinguished guests speak. The guests were Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Brooks Brothers CEO Claudio Del Vecchio, who were visiting that day to congratulate workers on their new facility. Just a year prior, Southwick, which was then located in Lawrence, Massachusetts, was on the verge of closing and having its operations moved to Thailand. It was then narrowly rescued by its largest customer, Brooks Brothers, who purchased the factory and relocated it just ten miles north to Haverhill.

Compared to its old location, the new Southwick factory had countless upgrades, including air conditioning and about $10 million in new manufacturing equipment. Instead of rolling out large, heavy bolts of cloth by hand, as workers used to do, this Haverhill factory had a computer-guided machine that effortlessly skimmed across a cutting table. When Del Vecchio promised in a speech that "Southwick's best days are still to come," hundreds of workers erupted with applause. "If it weren't for him, we'd be in the unemployment line," Regina Parisi, a stitcher, told The Eagle-Tribune.

Earlier this year, news leaked that Brooks Brothers was planning to close all three of its US factories — the suit factory in Haverhill, MA; shirt factory in Garland, NC; and necktie factory in Queens, NY — which spurred concerns about the brand's future and its identity as a "made in America" label. As it turned out, Brooks Brothers was trimming its cost structure and preparing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By the end of summer, Southwick's equipment was sold off, and a Japanese company acquired the rights to its name. Meanwhile, the Garland shirt factory has been sold to a company specializing in manufacturing personal protective equipment. Such has been the long decline of Brooks Brothers' American footprint. Forty years ago, nearly all of Brooks Brothers' clothing was manufactured in the United States. Before their closure, these three remaining US facilities produced just 20 percent of Brooks Brothers' inventory, which has mostly shifted to sportswear.

There's a wonderful photo of a grey-haired Ralph Lauren sitting at home, lounging in his leather armchair while looking pensively out the window. He's wearing coral orange trousers, likely made from corduroy, a pair of black velvet Prince Albert slippers, and a green cable-knit layered over a white dress shirt. Lauren, who's a master orchestrator when it comes to image making, knew precisely how to tell a story through the objects that surrounded him. He omitted the stuffed animal heads traditionally used to decorate rich men's hunting lodges at the turn of the last century. However, he included the books, sculptures, paintings, pillows, and throws traditionally associated with hominess and Old World domesticity. The photo says one thing: this man is comfortable.  

As many of us are spending more time at home these days, I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorite domestic items, which are now part of various Black Friday promotions. Over at Put This On, you can find a full list of every worthwhile Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal for the next few days (I will be updating the list periodically). But this one focuses on just those things that I think make life at home more comfortable. For me, that means wearing chunky shawl collar cardigans with five-pocket cords, leather slippers, and flannel shirts. It also means rediscovering old hobbies, listening to forgotten records, and cooking up something delicious to eat. 

If you're looking to do some Black Friday shopping this weekend, here are ten things that can make life at home more comfortable. Hopefully, you can find something here that works for you.