It takes something special for me to get excited about a closed bar! The new J. Crew men’s shop in TriBeCa is finally open (well, it is open tomorrow anyway) and as expected it is toast worthy. Since I have been anticipating the opening for some time now, I’m going to break with normal protocol and join Men.Style.com and Kempt, Racked and Urban Daddy in coverage of the Mickey Drexler / Andy Spade extravaganza, making the J. Crew men’s store the Rusty Knot of store openings.
It seems to me that American menswear is at the peak of its popularity. Maybe it is the weak dollar or all of the interest workwear or just all of the raw talent that is being flushed out of New York right now. Any way you look at it, this fall is the season of American style. Look at D&G from AW08, that collection surprisingly looks like it would work well in New England, in the sixties. Going through the September DETAILS I was loving all of the classic American style in the issue. It started out with a great still-life feature called Born in the USA — which basically epitomizes my personal style. The front of book continued with a few pages on “How to Pull Off American Style” which is pictured below. The issue also highlights the ongoing, and very successful Gant and Jeffrey partnership and there is a page on new designers which features two of ACL’s very talented friends Antonio Azzuolo and Richard Chai.
Flickr Find is a weekly column of interesting things found on the amazing and inspiring photo sharing website Flickr.
While a student at the Hartford Art School, Brittny Badger wanted to show everyday household appliances from an otherwise unseen perspective. She set to work meticulously disassembled each piece and “arranged their interior parts very systematically on a white sheet of Bristol board” to expose the appliance’s “brains.” The arrangements and subsequent photographs give a completely unique look at something regularly ignored. The resulting images are stunning, futuristic and would be the perfect kitchen decor.
Fall is coming, fall is coming. I keep saying it and last week another meteorological sign of autumn appeared, the September issue of GQ. The fall fashion issue — with one James Franco on the cover — features copious amounts of tweeds, wools, corduroy, suits, cashmere, not to mention loads of football coverage. My favorite section of the issue is the four page chunky knit story. I’m counting the minutes until sweater / football season is upon us…
Lots of quirky American brands have borderline-ridiculous yet endearing websites. The Santa Ana, California board shorts company Birdwell Beach Britches is a perfect example. I love that the site is goofy, low tech and distinctly American. You can tell by looking at it that Birdwell spared no expense on Windows 95 clip art. The company does make the best board shorts around though — so who cares! Bruce Pask’s post on The Moment got me thinking about great white jeans and the first thing that popped into my head was Jean Shop.
Kit homes and mail order architecture is a different sort of homogenization than what is happening in suburban America today. During the period of the early 1900s to the 1960s, America was a beautiful hodgepodge of architecture styles, from the midwest’s Prairie school to the beautiful American Craftsman homes of the west coast. The era was also influenced by a series of different mail order architecture from companies like Sears, Bilt-Well Homes, Bennett Better Built, Aladdin and a variety of others. While I am not an architectural expert, I am a known seeker of nostalgia and it is easy to appreciate the American residential landscape from a more simple time.
An interesting and informative reference of 20th century American residential architecture can be seen at Antique Home.
Below: A 1920s Bennett Kit Bungalow, The Lancaster Model near Buffalo, NY.
From the Desk of… is a window into the world and workspace of some of ACL’s most stylish friends.
Aside from being the first woman featured in this space, Brett Lally is a talented designer, artist, muscle car enthusiast and all around great gal. Ms. Lally spends her days working in design at Supreme.
That’s what Reference Library likes to say and I think it is appropriate just for today. There are lots of things other than ACL demanding my attention this stormy day. I should be back up and running tomorrow.
One general objective of A Continuous Lean is to try to avoid the reblog. With ACL I try to bring a unique perspective, to cover new and different products, companies, things, objects, interweb destinations. That said, I couldn’t avoid posting something on the superb Men.Style.com Fall 2008 trend reports. As I toggled through I saw favorite thing after favorite thing and made some new discoveries along the way. The only change I would have made in the whole feature was Schlitz being listed as the working man’s beer — in my book that honor is held by none other than the “Champagne of Beers” Miller High Life or even Rolling Rock.
All in all, kudos to team Men.Style.com for putting together a killer feature.
Click the image to go to the Men.Style.com page | ACL’s COVERAGE: Workers // Stronghold
It has been a good music week for me, I saw Cincinnati’s finest The National on Monday at SummerStage, L trained it to Brooklyn last night to see the The Black Keys (Akron, Ohio represent!) at McCarren and this Saturday I have tickets to see Kings of Leon / Radiohead at All Points West.
It is going to be hard for anyone at APW to top The Black Keys last night. How just two guys can create such a powerful and insanely rich (read: fucking loud) sound is baffling to me. Especially considering Dan Auerbach doesn’t use a pick. The performance was one of the best I have seen in a long long time. My photos and videos below.
The Black Keys at McCarren Park Pool | [ACL Flickr]
I would never miss an opportunity to print a business card. Yesterday my new ACL cards were delivered and I could not resist the urge to share them with you. The cards feature the new ACL logo and give hint to the pending site redesign. Mr. Benjamin Ferencz over at The Design Cooperative took care of the creative and everything turned out amazing. Thanks Ben! I’m sure Tim Bryce and Van Patten would prefer my card to Bateman’s.
Flickr Find is a weekly column of interesting things found on the amazing and inspiring photo sharing website Flickr.
Texas is hugely intriguing to me. The state is such a diverse and unique place with a distinctly American personality. My recent fixation with No Country for Old Men got me searching for old hotel signs on Flickr which ultimately lead me to this terrific photoset of old Fort Worth signs.
If you were to start an online store, what would you sell? How about a pair of beautiful leather white-on-white sneakers for $245 (available only in the designer’s shoe size of 44), American Optical plastic and metal framed eyeglasses for $164 and a bottle of Pledge furniture wax? That is exactly what the Sweden based designer Erik Schedin has just launched, and somehow, strangely, it works for me. The 29-year-old designer told me that in the coming months he plans to add a baseball cap, a canvas bag and “some other stuff.” Judging from Mr. Schedin’s classically designed footwear, the canvas bag should prove to be terrific and go perfectly with a nice can of Comet.
Jared Flint, a friend of ACL, devised a brilliant battle plan and stylish guide to summer concerts at Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool. Jared spends his days as the editor of Nylon Guys.
There is perhaps no more perilous ground for anyone with the least bit of sensibility than the summer concert. Exposed to the elements and at the liberty of beer lines and confounding fellow concertgoers, it’s difficult to find a balance between comfort, utility, and style while still enjoying the music and it’s environs. The McCarren Park Pool concert series adds a specific twist to this volatile mix, being that they take place in the epicenter of clichéd hipsterdom, for better or for worse. What follows is a super official DO’s and DON’Ts list for traversing the emptied pool with as much class as Lorimer and Driggs allows.
Over the past few years it has become fashionable to carry iconic American bags from companies like LL Bean, Filson and Klein Tools and more contemporary brands like Billykirk and Rogues Gallery. Much like the Wayfarer trend, you see Filson bags everywhere on stylish guys that range from preppy, to hipster, to financier. A great alternative to the more widely seen options is the sleepy Union City, Georgia based Estex Manufacturing Company. The 108 year old brand started out making “horse collars, saddles, bridles, and other companion items in heavy use during the horse and buggy days.” Today Estex employs 125 people at their factory in Fulton County, Georgia making simple and sturdy bags for government, utilities and the aerospace industry.
While I’m not clear as to the exact price of the bags shown below, considering what companies like Klein are charging, an Estex bag won’t break the bank. Plus buying Estex products makes you a friend to the American worker, which is a good thing.
Matthew Weiner, Jon Hamm and John Slattery stopped by Charlie Rose this past week for a discussion about the comings and goings of one of the best shows on television. The lead-in to the segment featured some Mad Men influences like Gentleman’s Agreement, The Apartment, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Classics, all of them. The conversation with Weiner (the show’s creator) and the two lead actors was interesting and insightful. Seeing Hamm and Slattery out of character is always strange to my eyes, but the discussion offered good insight into where season two is heading. Rose never fails to amuse me with his constant paper shuffling and magazine touting — never missing a chance to show off a good periodical and give an actor a good ribbing.
Flickr Find is a weekly column of interesting things found on the amazing and inspiring photo sharing website Flickr.
Living in New York City we are blessed with the privilege of rail travel. While Metro North is not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the old timey trains pictured below, it still creates a connection to an older time. The typographic elements exemplified on these trains are easily recognizable, but still new and fresh. The disappearance of this type of great American design is what leads patriotic gentlemen like Aaron Draplin to declare “America fucked“…at least from a design perspective.
A few months ago I dedicated a week’s worth of coverage to “The NAVY-ism” issue of the ingenious Japanese magazine Free & Easy. Along the way (and with help from a friend in LA) I discovered Mister Freedom. The vintage military inspired collection is the brainchild of designer Christophe Loiron, who is clearly operating on a higher level. In addition to designing and manufacturing a line of Navy inspired men’s clothing, Mister Freedom is also a well edited vintage military clothing store. The premise behind the brand is to create “historically plausible clothing”, which basically means that the items in the Mister Freedom collection might not have been documented exactly as such, but the details and elements that make up the garments are things that historically existed during the era. The attention to detail, from the hardware to the fabrics, is on a level that I have never seen. In a word, amazing!
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