Steven Alan Fall 2013 : Big Girl's Blouses

I'm seriously thinking of making some changes at The Trad

Todd Snyder's "Badass"

A while back I met with a blog editor.  His boss asked him to take me to lunch to discuss working with him.  The editor, 25,  took me to a sandwich joint, grabbed a tray and proceeded through the line where he paid for his lunch leaving me to pay for mine.  Not a big deal, I thought. It's tough everywhere, but...  if this was the companies idea of being taken to lunch...I'm grateful they didn't invite me to dinner.

I joined him at a table where he was typing on his phone.  Without looking up, he smiled and said, "I'm tweeting that I'm having lunch with the Trad."  I told him I didn't really think a lot of people should know that when he announced, "Finished!" and put his phone away.  We unwrapped our sandwiches, he popped a straw in his drink and I asked what he wanted me to write for the blog. "Uh, you're too old to write for our blog," he said.

Todd Snyder's "Rebel Gentlemen" is younger but it's also like trying to kick start a motorcycle on a cold November morning.  Despite macho goods of shaved beaver, throat latches, pony hair peacoat, horsehide and thermal cashmere, this show needed an electric starter.  Not that anyone has to see you press the starter button. 

Sometimes, if it's a real cold morning, that kick starter kicks back.  You look around to see if anyone's watching and if it's clear, you just push the button and she starts right up.  Simple really.  But some folks just kick and kick and kick. 

Snyder went for beaver in big way. The shawl shape reminds me of Uncle Fester's collar...the kind you'd attach a leash to.  Not sure it adds anything  -- like the tilted breast pocket.  That's an interesting Moto jacket next door with quilted shoulder but the tuxedo pants look they came from a Citadel winter uniform.

But it's the young  who  "...bring the bravado to the ballroom" by wearing tuxedo pants with a motorcycle jacket.

In real life, this looks even more like split pea soup.  All of the models were channeling a "badass" attitude.  "Outlaw" is also used to describe the collection along with, vintage shop, iconic, forward-leaning, re-engineered, Dylan, straight Americana, midnight blue, bravado and Serge Gainsbourg.  Sounds like a Tumbler.

Up close and at a distance, it's mostly flat with little warmth.  Geez, it looked like a Tumbler.

Split pea again but an elegant look where the starter button looks to have been pushed. A shame the jacket doesn't cover the bulge -- Maybe Bruce likes it that way.

Pitti Uomo sneaked in.

I'm too old for Todd Snyder.  I'm too old for anyone who would use, "Badass" in anything.  I once worked for a guy who blurted out that he'd never cheat on his wife.  Right outta the blue.  "I'd never cheat on my wife," he said.  Know what?  He was cheating on his wife.  If someone tells you they're honest?  Chances are good they're not.  Anytime a man has to tell you what he is...chances are...he isn't. Think about that the next time you wanna wear a motorcycle jacket and tuxedo pants. 

You Can Beat Douchebaggery!

If you can't afford Unpretentiousil because you blew your book advance on a Rolex Sub, Mark McNairy could care less. 

I Collect: Polaroid, Vinyl, Viewmaster, Vintage Paperbacks...

Definitive, hilarious, genius. 

Boast: Walking the Line

It isn't a mystery that a reborn tennis brand like Boast is able to do what so many others have failed at.  That is, taking preppy and making it adult.  Brands, many with solid credentials like Brooks Brothers and J Press, vie for the youth market by dumbing down classics -- the very classics that attracted the kids in the first place. 

I remember we used tennis ball cans in college to drink water.  I never did get used to the taste, and I never understood why Brooks Brothers knocked off Rugby knocking off Brooks Brothers in the Flatiron store.  Or why J Press, who has consistently partnered with all the wrong people, created York Street.   A line that looks like it was slapped together in two weeks.

What happens is the classic core, the guts if you will, slide off the table and are replaced with a tweaking notion of 'edge.'  Edge is just another word for bad taste.  Like Nascar, country music and tattoos... Frankly, I'm not so sure looking like you stepped off the infield of the Charlotte Firecracker 500 is a good idea. 

Boast has come up with classic and understated apparel that harkens back to its roots.  Back in the early '80s, the Japanese Maple Leaf was the ultimate of cool but not trendy. Sophisticated and reserved.  Hell, damned near invisible if you didn't frequent tennis courts. 

I'm not above admitting this collection hit dead center of my nostalgic center lobe.  That little wrinkle in my brain where grits, banana pudding and country ham all hang out together waiting to be nudged...

Along with my college women's tennis team of 1981... in their short white tennis dresses, Tretorns and thin gold necklaces drooping into their sweaty and freckled cleavage. 

Back to this century, Todd Snyder (coming soon)  presented his "Rebel Gentlemen" collection earlier in the day at Lincoln Center.  A stone faced and somber show that will be praised by all the wrong people as "edgy." And all the wrong people will wear it.    

Boast stuck to bright colors and mined the '70s and early '80s with respect, a lotta thought and I like to think some maturity.  Easily wearable today and I'll bet 20 years from now.  Designers like to tweak classics so they can call it their own.  It's almost always a bad idea. 

This stuff is simple.  Rugbys, jackets, tennis shorts, it's what American designers have been known for - what we do better than anyone.  Nothing here is fake.  Well, maybe it is.  I dunno.  But it doesn't look fake or phony or wrong.  In short, it works.

I don't know if anyone else thinks so.

I mean, here's a guy who looks like the Paul Stuart logo.

I did ask a photographer (not this one) what he thought of the line. He told me he didn't know much less care. He was there to do his job.  And I remembered that despite all the crap I've seen in menswear, my passion is still here.  I don't like much, but what I like is what I love.

I was in an interview for an insurance job not long ago.  HR had Googled my name and I was asked by a confused 20+ year insurance man, "What the hell are you doing blogging?"  I replied, "I don't play golf." 

Despite the hipsters and the tools and the garmentos, it's great fun to to do this and more so when someone pulls off a line that works.  Because, at the end of the day, I don't golf...but I do play tennis.

Boast Fall 2013 presented at the Harvard Club, NYC, 2/7/2013

Sanyo & (ahem) LaPerla

I've never owned a Sanyo raincoat.  Can't vouch for it keeping you dry or warm.  Not sure how Sanyo slipped by my 27 years of business raincoat ownership.  1985 was the year  I bought the first one.  A Burberry knock off at an unremembered men's discount store somewhere in Manhattan. The wool collar sold me. It looked just like the one Mike Wallace 'popped' on 60 Minutes.

Just after buying my coat, I spent a couple weeks watching a buddy's apartment and his two pet cray fish in Spanish Harlem. Walking to the subway one morning,  a couple kids, no more than 12 or 13, came up a hill on bicycles and one of 'em yelled as he rode by, "Hey, Asshole! You're supposed to tie the belt not run it through the buckle." I hope that kid's blogging today.

I have a never ending supply of stories about raincoats. How I lost 'em, how I found 'em, how I destroyed 'em and how one, my first real Burberry, got me all wet. Well, half of me. My stories, save the lady who  met me at the airport wearing only LaPerla under her trench, can't come close to the Sanyo story.

Above, is the first Sanyo raincoat made in Japan after WWII out of surplus parachute silk. Made for women, there was a waterproof finish covering the 'chute. Turned out to be a hit with the ladies and Sanyo was on its way.

I looked at three models. The Gold at $495, the Cortlandt at $798 and the Savina at $995.

The Gold at $495 is available here

Simple and straight forward.  It won't kill you to leave it in a Clearwater Beach hotel room.  It has a lining but it ain't gonna get you through a Chicago winter; not that any raincoat lining will.  If you have kids going to college in a few years, drive a Buick and own a beat up piece of shit that's been a train car for the past seven years -- This is your coat. Sit on the upper deck of the 6:31 Metra, and as you drape the Gold over the railing you will not be embarrassed by the Sanyo label -- Unlike the guy with the Jos. A Bank raincoat who sells scented urinal cakes for a living.

The Cortlandt at $798 available here

It comes with a belt.  I don't like belts.  Unless it's Friday.  I had a belted Aquascutum in the early '90s when I was making a worker's compensation video for Major League Baseball at Comisky Park. I was 30 pounds lighter and that belt made me look like a sausage link.  You can dump the belt on this all cotton number but I'd keep the wool collar. You'll look like Mike Wallace.  A 44" length gives you plenty of room and keeps you from looking like so many of these uber-urban storm troopers in short black trenches and black suede Ferragamos.  Geez, I hate those guys. 

The Savina at $995 available here

The top of the line Savina is made in Japan and looks it.You can see and feel the difference in this coat which I would not want to leave in a hotel room.  And while it tops out on price, I suspect it's a real steal and a helluva good value.  At 38",  it's only six inches shorter than the Cortlandt --  far from storm trooper length.

Made in a factory whose region was hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami,  Sanyo will keep the production there to help out the economy. The Japanese symbols on the label above stand for, "Integity, Quality and Beauty." For me, this coat stood out from all the others. It wouldn't look bad with a girlfriend's  LaPerla either.  Not a bad idea for Valentine's Day. I mean, if you're gonna do it right -- Might as well go all the way.