Search Results for: winter

Mr. Porter just started their end-of-season sale, where you can find select items discounted by as much as 50% off. Note, the actual sales section isn’t up yet — and things will be added to the promotion as the night rolls on. But if you add things to your cart now, you may see some discounted prices. 

For those unfamiliar, Mr. Porter’s seasonal sale rolls out in waves. By the end of tonight, you’ll see the official sales section up. And by tomorrow morning, you’ll see the full scope of their sale. If you want to get the best size selection, however, now is a good time to browse. Add things to your cart to see if they’ve already been discounted. If not, leave them in your cart and check back to see if they’re included in the promotion. If you see multiple items you want, checkout now with the discounted pieces you like. Things tend to move quickly at Mr. Porter and your size may not be around by tomorrow. 

I think the best way to browse the sale is by searching through the product categories and filtering by sizes. That way, you increase your chance of stumbling upon something serendipitously. Mr. Porter also has a page on their site listing all their brands. If you’re looking for suggestions, however, here are ten items I think are particularly good. 

In the early 1980s, when prep and power dressing dominated the American landscape, a few Japanese designers were preparing for a revolution. In the West, many of our trends in literature, architecture, and fashion derive from the Regency era. We wear navy suits because, in the early 19th century, British men of means paired navy coats with cream-colored breeches. About a generation later, Regency blue gave way to Victorian black when Queen Victoria decided everyone should look somber. Nearly 200 years later, these norms remain. Most men today wear navy, black, grey, and white — following in the steps of those early-19th-century traditions — and pair navy coats with lighter colored trousers because of Beau Brummell.

For a select few, this all changed in 1983 when Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto debuted their now-legendary spring/ summer collections in Paris. Thoughtlessly dubbed the “beggar’s look” by critics, these so-called rags were quite calculated in their design. Their asymmetric, deconstructed, and artfully ripped clothes enshrouded their wearers in mystery. As Yves Saint Laurent noted, fashion in the early 1980s was all about color and lots of it. These Japanese artists, on the other hand, deliberately avoided vivid color and made heavy use of a monochromatic palette, from “strong and varied hues of black to the simplicity and crispness of shades of white.”

“Kawakubo’s and Yamotmo’s black was often an unassuming, harmonious shade, reminiscent of Japanese ink painting,” wrote the authors of Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion. “Their expressive use of a black palette also partook of the qualities celebrated in Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s book In Praise of Shadows (1933), which finds in shadow the essence of the Japanese aesthetic and speaks of the Japanese skill with light and shade. The designers’ choice of color, unfettered by any Western paradigm, was perceptively singled out by The Washington Post as the distinguishing feature of their style, along with the purity of their aesthetic. The French newspaper Libération likened Kawakubo’s and Yamamoto’s creations to their intense black-and-white films of Kenji Mizoguchi, while French Vogue compared them to calligraphy scrolls, which symbolize a beauty devoid of color.“

No Man Walks Alone is a sponsor on this site, but they’re also one of my favorite online retailers. The shop’s founder, Greg – who can be clearly seen above walking alone – simply has great taste. He knows his way around a coat-and-tie rig, but also has a good eye for casualwear. For guys who love Italian tailoring and want to build a weekend wardrobe, No Man Walks Alone is a great one-stop shop. 

This morning, they started their end-of-season sale, where you can find select items marked down by as much as 40%. Some of my favorite brands here include Sartoria Formosa, which is wonderful for high-end Neapolitan tailoring, and Kaptain Sunshine, which offers slightly quirky and offbeat takes on Americana and workwear (they’re like LL Bean with a sense of humor and a lot more style). Few stores capture my personal interest in clothing as well as NMWA, especially in the way they mix tailoring with workwear and contemporary styles. Here are ten favorites right now from their sale.

The best sales event of every season is always at Mr. Porter. Where else, after all, can you find discounted Edward Green shoes and Drake’s accessories sitting alongside niche Japanese labels and American workwear? Tonight, they started their end-of-season promotion, where you can find select fall/ winter stock on sale for about 50% off. 

The selection here is huge, and things tend to move quickly, so there are three good rules of thumbs to follow. First, if you’re on the fence about something, it’s almost always worth buying now and trying the item in-person. Mr. Porter has a hassle-free return policy, with free delivery both ways, so you risk little. Relatedly, since other shoppers are often operating with the same logic, you may want to check back often. Throughout the next couple of weeks, new sizes will pop in and out as customers return items. Thirdly, since the inventory here is so large, I find it’s often best to hit the sale section and sort by categories and sizes. This way, you may come across a serendipitous deal that you would have otherwise missed if you were just looking for brands. 

That said, there are some notable brands here. Inis Meain’s sweaters are expensive, even with the discount, but absolutely exquisite and a joy to wear. Engineered Garments, Blue Blue Japan, and Kapital are personal favorites for workwear; SNS Herning is great textured knitwear you can layer under heavy coats (be sure to size up). I’m also pleasantly surprised to see how many footwear brands are included in the promotion – RM Williams, Common Projects, John Lobb, George Cleverley, and Visvim among them. Here are ten things I think are especially worth highlighting. 

What to wear when this winter has been unusually cold? I recently got back from a trip to Vancouver, and while the weather wasn’t that much cooler than evenings in San Francisco, my family and I took a trip up to Whistler – one of the local ski resort towns. Here in the Bay, I can usually get by with a thick cashmere sweater, tweed sport coat, and some kind of outerwear (although this year, I’ve been pining for some heavier dress coats given the falling temps). In Whistler, things were downright freezing.

There ought to be a saying about how 90% of your body heat escapes from your neck, because a chunky turtleneck sweater is one of the warmest things you can own. So warm that you may find yourself uncomfortable indoors, depending on the heating. I wore the one above from Asprey, which is no longer available, but you can find similar pieces this season from Scott & Charters, Inis Meain, Orvis, Thomas Maier, and Montgomery.

Thick turtlenecks are often too warm to layer over anything but t-shirts, but I like baselayers for my legs. I find tailored trousers don’t wear that much warmer than mid-weight denim, and I prefer the latter when the weather is particularly nasty (if only because I don’t have to fuss over jeans). Smartwool’s 250 baselayers are nice. Being made from pure merino wool, they’re more delicate than wool blends and synthetics, but also more insulating. 

End-of-season sales can be a great time to nab something nice, but there are so many good stores nowadays that it can feel overwhelming to sort through everyone’s inventory. Since there are dozens of winter sales going on right now, I thought I’d round up some of my favorites. Most notable are megastores such as Mr. Porter and End, both of which start their promotions today, but there are also tons of great deals at smaller boutiques. 

Mr. Porter: Mr. Porter is always the highlight of every sale season. Discounts tend to start around 30% to 50% off, and then go deeper over the next few weeks. The problem is that things tend to move fast, and very little is left after a few days. On the upside, the selection is amazing. 

To get through the inventory quickly, make use of the site’s navigation filters, where you can hone-in on things by brand and size. If you need suggestions, I think Nigel Cabourn, Engineered Garments, and Chimala are particularly good for workwear; Eidos and Margaret Howell for contemporary casualwear (those Howell duffle coats and fishtail parkas look amazing); and William Lockie for cashmere knits. 

Fabrics are my favorite part of fall/ winter wardrobes. Heavy tweeds, corduroys, and flannels for tailored clothing. Then sturdy wools and leathers for casualwear, as well as spongy alpacas and Shetlands for knits. Everything just looks and feels so cozy. 

The same goes for ties. Although few men need more than a handful of ties nowadays – some striped rep silks, solid-colored grenadines, and basic knits – seasonal neckwear is a great way to add joy to a wardrobe. Alan Cornett put it well recently when he said: “some purchases flavor a wardrobe, though their proportions are small.” A well-chosen tie, pocket square, or scarf is a great way to give a nod to a certain season or occasion, “changing the tenor of an ensemble.” A wool tie can complement the cold-weather feel of a tweed jacket, or add an autumnal touch to a navy worsted suit. 

There are thousands of fall/ winter ties out there, but broadly speaking, you’re looking at five categories:

I don’t know how they do it, but Drake’s seems to get better and better every season. They started as a small scarf company nearly forty years ago, before turning into the tie manufacturer we all know and love. Then in 2013, they bought Rayner & Sturges, the go-to shirt-making factory for brands such as Paul Smith and Ede & Ravenscroft. That factory still produces for other brands today, but the acquisition has also allowed Drake’s to develop their own line of made-in-UK shirts. 

This fall, Drake’s is inching ever-so-closer to becoming a full menswear brand. Along with their sport coats, tailored trousers, and knits – which they’ve carried for a while now – they’re adding raw, selvedge denim jeans and a larger selection of outerwear to their offerings. You can see the difference in this lookbook, which feels really well-rounded. There are tailored clothes for guys who want to look a little sharper during the work week, but also lots of off-duty pieces for the weekend. 

Michael Hill, the company’s Creative Director, tells me he has a lot of favorites in this collection, but thinks the sport coats are a stand-out. “I especially like the linen-cashmere-and-wool gun club,” he tells me. “It’s one of the easiest-to-wear tweeds we’ve done. People wouldn’t think that, with all the color and texture in the jacket, but it pairs so easily with other things.”