Search Results for: summer

Aside from one post on Jacques Brel, I don’t talk about music on here, largely because this site is about menswear and I assume people will just skip over music posts that don’t align with their taste (I know I do). Still, a few menswear bloggers recently had a conversation about jazz on Twitter, which prompted me to revisit some old footage of the Newport Jazz Festival on YouTube. For those unfamiliar, The Newport Jazz Festival is a summer music festival that happens every year in the small town of Newport, Rhode Island. These concerts have been the source of a countless number of great recordings - including ones by Nina Simone, Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis.

These particular videos you see here are from 1958. Eisenhower and Nixon were in office, the Cold War’s “Space Race” had just started, African Americans had not yet gained full civil rights, and two parents who just had a newborn baby decided to name him “Michael Jackson.” Of all the footage I’ve seen on the internet in the last ten years, these stand out as some of the best. The music of jazz and blues being played all day; the footage of people dancing on rooftops; the popping beer and spinning carousels; the cardigans worn loosely over t-shirts; the men in coats and ties; and the footage of oddly simple moments in what was a very complicated America. It’s all really fantastic to watch.

The last video below is of the full documentary, which is a bit long, but if you see nothing else, at least check out the very first clip above. It’s the most stylish thing I could post today.

In happy weekend news, Drake’s full spring/ summer collection is now available on their website. Included are some summer shirts made in their newly acquired Rayner & Sturges factory, as well as some ready-to-wear sunglasses from Nackymade. They’ve also expanded their colors for grenadines (now boasting many shades of green, brown, and blue) and broadened their line of shantungs. In addition, the unique fuzzy mohair tie they introduced last season seems to have been kept, and there are some basic repp stripes to satisfy their more conservative customers.

Perhaps most interesting of all is their pocket square line. There’s a handsome cotton animal print that I think would sit well in the pocket of any tropical wool or linen sport coat, as well as a spring/ summer version of their tile print design. I actually bought a couple of their tile prints last season and have found them to be incredibly useful. The print is unusual enough to not overly match any tie, but also conservative enough to not stick out too much on its own.

The best square of all might be the one honoring Josephine Baker – widely considered the “First Lady” of jazz and an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. Baker famously refused to perform for segregated audiences in the US, and had a not uncomplicated relationship with French society as a symbol of Black femininity. I’ve included a great documentary on her at the end of this post, should you want to watch some fascinating Black history. There are also some things over at The Phoenix Project dedicated to her, although those are aimed at women’s wear. 

Many thanks to Drake’s for not releasing a line of Bill Evans or Miles Davis pocket squares this season, for otherwise, I might have gone broke. 

Readers who have their suits and sport coats custom made might be interested in a special fabric run I’m putting together. The current book of J&J Minnis Fresco only has one solid dark brown, the 0518, and to my eye (as well as my tailor’s), it’s too dark for an odd jacket. So, I’m hoping to commission a special run of brown Fresco, something similar to the swatch you see above. 

Fresco, for those unfamiliar, is a trademarked term (like Kleenex) for an open weave worsted from J&J Minnis of Huddersfield. The high-twist cloth is woven to resist wrinkling and allow a lot air to pass through, thus making it ideal for summer. It’s a bit rougher to the hand than other tropical wools, such as Smith’s Finmeresco or Holland & Sherry’s Crispaire, which I think makes it exceptionally nice for suits meant to be broken up into separates, or for just sport coats themselves. Super smooth wools are for wimps anyway. 

I’m currently talking to Huddersfield Fine Worsteds to see how we can commission this run, but my guess is that we’ll need a minimum order of 60 meters. I’m currently at ~52m, which leaves just two or three more slots for people. If you’re interested, please email me. I’m hoping to get a color similar to sport coat my e-friend Voxsartoria is wearing in the first photo below, or perhaps one shade lighter than the double breasted suit he’s wearing in the second image. The weight will be 10oz. 

There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of lists at this point on how to build a basic wardrobe. Most are meant for people who are just starting out, so they include very basic things such as a blue blazer, a dozen dress shirts, two pairs of dress shoes, and a couple of grey trousers. Helpful if you’re still being introduced to this topic, but not terribly useful if you’ve been interested in clothes for a while. 

There are a few exceptions. Here are three, written by men who have a lot to say on the subject of classic men’s dress. Be forewarned: this is not a short post, and these are not short lists. These are also meant for men who are either interested in clothes or have significant means. I think they’re enjoyable to read, so long as you take them for what they are.

Michael Alden

The first comes from Michael Alden, who has posted a couple of these lists at The London Lounge. The first delineates his version of a minimalistic wardrobe.

It’s been the dog days of summer for much of the US, but here in San Francisco, the weather has been remarkably mild. I’m actually a bit disappointed by it since I’ve been wanting an excuse to wear this linen safari jacket I got from Ascot Chang last year. It started off as the first piece in my shirt jacket project, but after changing the design from a shirt collar (self-explanatory) to a Ghillie collar (what you see above), I realized I no longer had a shirt jacket on my hands, but rather a safari one.

Safari jackets became part of sporting wear during the late 19th-century, when Westerners went to Africa for safari tours and big game hunting. Since then, they’ve cycled in and out of fashion. The height of their glamour was probably around the mid-20th century, when they became associated with Ernest Hemingway, Clark Gable, and James Bond. Then, in 1968, they became a bit more chic after they appeared in one of Yves Saint Lauren’s runway shows as part of his "Saharienne" collection. The jacket died off for a little while after that, only to then be revived ten years later as a staple piece in the original incarnation of Banana Republic (back when they were a high-end, tropically-themed outfitter, rather than just a run-of-the-mill mall brand).

The one I have from is made from a slightly heavier weight, mid-blue linen by Solbiati. There are two symmetrically placed chest pockets (button flapped) and two larger patch pockets at the hips (bellowed). The back has a half belt, single vent, and an inverted box pleat to allow for greater movement in the arms. The sleeves have shirt cuffs, the buttons are dark brown horn, and the corners of the pocket flaps are fitted with small snaps, so that they can be secured down when necessary (I was afraid that the linen would curl over time). 

I really like how it turned out, and was impressed by Ascot Chang’s price. They only charged me what three or four of their basic shirts would have cost, which is much less than the other two tailors I approached, who quoted me the same as a bespoke sport coat. With the Ascot Chang price came one fitting. 

Here’s a fun little piece of Brooks Brothers history: a small pamphlet on how to dress for certain times of the day, titled Clothes and the Hour. My source at Brooks Brothers tells me they published this in 1912, but a quick Google Books search will pull up various advertisements for the pamphlet dating back as early as 1906. So who knows.

Anyway, apparently at that time, Brooks Brothers recommended that men wear bedroom slippers and dressing gowns at 8am in town (with dressing gowns costing up to $1,400(!) in today’s dollars). They also recommended negligee shirts in the morning made from lightweight silks, linens, cottons, or wools. A negligee was one of the four types of shirts men used to wear in this period - the others being the dress shirt, the work shirt, and the outing shirt. Dress shirts had bosoms, which could be plain, plaited, or tucked. As you’ll see in the “afternoon section” of this pamphlet, Brooks recommended dress shirts made entirely of white linen or ones that just had linen bosoms. These were typically starched in the laundry so that they’d set well. The other three types - the negligee, the outing, and the work shirt - were usually made without bosoms, and differed by what kind of materials were used. Either way, all shirts were made with a front-plait closing (what we might think of as “popovers” today), or a coat front (the style most of us wear, with the front of the shirt cut fully open so we can slip it on like a coat). 

For afternoon wear in the city, men were recommended something still very familiar to us: a sack suit, dress shirt, gloves, cravat, and some kind of coat. Recommended coats included Chesterfields, Mackintoshes, Ulsters, and even vicunas. What would a vicuna coat cost in the early 20th century? $950 to $1,050 in today’s dollars for ready-to-wear, or $1,300 to $1,500 for made-to-measure. That’s pretty amazing when you consider that a custom vicuna coat today would run you anywhere between $50,000 to $100,000 (a price so shocking that someone recently published a book about it, which A Suitable Wardrobe recently reviewed).

So if you were ever hoping for a vicuna coat, you might have missed your chance by a hundred years.