The fellas at GQ have really done a great job covering fashion week, so much so that I really don’t feel like I have much to contribute beyond what they are doing. I did however take a little video at the Rag & Bone show this past Friday that turned out pretty nice (if I don’t say so myself). With that said, I think it would be worth seeing here on ACL. I took the video with my Leica D-Lux 4 camera and the music from the show didn’t record very well (as it was so loud), so I added in something on my own. Hope the Rag & Bone people don’t mind. The collection looked really nice and it was a lot of what we have been seeing throughout NYFW. Chunky knits, Fair Isle patterns, layers, camo, sweatpants. See for yourself.

9 Comments

The gentlemen at Spurr invited me (and you by proxy) over to the showroom to get a little advance look at the new AW10 Spurr collection. Simon took some time out of a busy Friday preparing for the brand’s first full-scale fashion show (which will take place on February 14th) to personally walk me through the collection. (That was nice of him.) At the fashion show, the company will present two different collections (also a first for the brand), the contemporary Spurr range (which is shown in the photos below), as well as the new higher-end Simon Spurr line.

In good company

10 Comments

This past Friday, Jeff Carvalho from Selectism and I went to a open table (sans table) with designers Rachel Comey, Steven Alan and Thuy Pham of United Bamboo. The question & answer session was moderated by GQ’s omnipresent style editor Mr. Adam Rapoport at the fashion week venue Mini Space.

7 Comments

Jonathan S. Paul, a friend of ACL, sent me this post card from Paris. He’s there covering women’s fashion for The Moment blog.

Hello from Paris, where women’s fashion has taken the city hostage. As a magazine editor with mostly men’s fashion on my c.v., I’ll say that I’m enjoying the experience here — and the preponderance of beautiful, decked-out girls. But after two nights of group dinners, drinks and dancing with fashion editors — where I was the only guy at the table — tonight I decided to take some time for myself. That meant: dinner alone, a bottle of Bordeaux — just me and two of my favorite men’s magazines, GQ and Men’s Vogue. I needed a shot of testosterone to clear my head of chiffon and lace. I first started thinking of A Continuous Lean when I read Michael Walker’s piece, “Anything, Anywhere, Anytime” in M.V. Somehow it managed to glamorize the work of cargo pilots (“freight dogs”). I suspect ACL’s readers would appreciate all the aviation jargon (“shooting an approach”) and factoids (shutting down a GM assembly line costs $42,000 per minute), which compensated for the piece’s overwriting and belly-flop ending.

1 Comment

I hate fashion trend stories. I hate runway photos for the most part too. I just don’t get much out of them generally. Over the past few years I have had a fixation with “The Ivy League Look” of boxy Sack suits and skinny ties. One of the first posts on A.C.L. was about the TV show Mad Men and my obsession with the style of the era. That being said, I have never really been too interested in Michael Kors. This season is different. For Autumn Winter 2008, Michael sent a bunch of guys dressed like Donald Draper and Roger Sterling down the runway and I loved it. The collection was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. While I was looking at the runway photos, I found a trend and did a trend story. I never thought I would see the day when the dusty old Sack suit crowd would be influencing designers like Michael Kors. The question is, will his fall advertising campaign carry the inspiration further? Will he feature models stepping out of a 1961 Lincoln Continental instead of the usual private jet? Only time will tell…

For complete coverage of the Michael Kors here.

Photos via Men.Style.com

1 Comment

Innovation is usually late to the fashion world. Case in point, the Fashion Calendar finally went online. This season, Amex made a “quantum leap in the game” to quote Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday. The credit-card giant set up cameras all over the tents to broadcast the buyers, editors and the people in all-black with headsets from every angle. It’s just like football coverage. The design of the website is pretty bad and the live feeds (read: security camera footage) should be embeddable, but still I love the way bankers think. Next year will it be in 1080p?

Click below to crash the tents…

Further reading er watching:

YouTube Fashion Week 360

MySpace Fashion / Refinery29 Video

Nordstrom: Town Car Chronicals

1 Comment

On Sunday, I helped organize the press for a new and very talented designer called Antonio Azzuolo. His line a. a., is made up of beautifully made men’s Bespoke tailored clothing and accoutrements. The designer took inspiration from “the elegant bespoke look popularized by the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960′s.” The guys at The Moment seemed to think Antonio was channeling Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass. The show was styled by my good friend Sally Lyndley who incidentally was being profiled by the Dallas Morning News. Sally helped Antonio bring the collection to life. I look forward to seeing a. a. receive a lot of well deserved recognition as the new company grows.

Some pictures from the presentation below.

Designer Antonio Azzuolo works the details…

Photos via Jason Frank Rothenberg

2 Comments