Rules vs. Style

"Get to know the best that there is and was; in every period there have been progressive innovations that represent a better way to live. Get the feeling of different materials, colors, and lighting, of the flow of line in  a piece of furniture, of different spatial proportions. Don't limit yourself to looking at lamps and chairs and your neighbors' houses. Look at paintings and sculpture and chateaux. Even if what you see is far beyond what you ever thought of or could afford for yourself, your experience can be reflected in your home. Even non-visual arts can contribute by affecting the kind of person you are and the emotions you project into the space around you."

-from "Lifespace: a New Approach to Home Design" by Spiros Zakas, 1977

I've mentioned before my affinity for seventies design books, and "Lifespace" by Spiros Zakas, a new acquisition, is a good one. In the quote above, replace the word "furniture" with "clothing" and "home" with "wardrobe" and you have a pretty good quip about why developing a great sense of style has little to do with following trends and rigid sets of rules.

A kilim rug with a glas and chrome coffee table and a collection of African art? Not unlike wearing a button down oxford and repp tie with pleated trousers and suede shoes if you ask me.

Reader Questions: The Middle Ground

Reader Rob writes:

Hi Giuseppe,

I've been reading your blog for at least a couple years now and I have to say I am still mystified by suits.  I think mainly from a lack of hands on experience.  I do my best to make a decent appearance, despite being a chronically underemployed recent college grad, but I the only real occasion to wear my solitary suit is funerals. 

What really has me stumped is the fit/cut trends.  I'd really like a well fitting conservative suit, but all I seem to see is the shapeless suits all the dads wore when I was a kid in the 90s and the ultraslim/too small fit that's currently trendy.  What do I need to look for or ask for to get at that middle ground?  Can you give me a rundown of the general evolution of these trends over the decades that I'd be likely to see thrifting? 

Rob's question speaks to on of the core issues that faces those of us who favor classic clothing when out thrift shopping : the avoidance of overt trend and fashion. This is true for wearers of classic styles who shop new as well, but doubly so in the world of thrift shopping as the fashions and trends one encounters are dated and passe. The photo above is a good example, showing many of the late 1980s styles that are currently represent a large portion of whats available second hand these days. Big shoulders, low button stance, and lots of pleats. It can be tricky finding something that works for you in such circumstances, but not impossible.

Truthfully, thrift stores can contain a wide range of cuts and styles from different decades. Trim cut 1960s jackets with razor thin lapels share space with broad lapeled polyester pieces from the 1970s , big shouldered 1980s clothes, bad full cut 1990s things, and even newer stuff. And a lot, if not most of it, is bad leftover stuff that wasn't good in the first place. So how does one find the middle ground between the too tight, too short, too small look of today and the "boxy" old stuff in the thrift shop.

As with so many questions in menswear, it all comes down to finding a good tailor. When you search the thrift shops, look for suits made of quality cloth in conservative colors like navy or grey with a moderate lapel. Knowing good brands is helpful, but not necessary. Remember that a good suit is a good suit, regardless of band, as much as a brand name can trick you into accepting something of lesser overall quality. Some of the best stuff to be had in a thrift store originally came from small local men's shops you may never have heard of. Try them on until you find one that fits well across the shoulders and chest, then have a good tailor alter them, taking in the sides if necessary and removing some of that undesirable boxiness. It will cost extra, but in the end you will have a better fitting good suit for a fraction of the cost of a new one. And don;t forget, some what we now call "boxiness" may actually just be proper shape. In our current climate of too small/too tight, anything with breathing room can look baggy. Being comfortable always looks better than holding in your breath.

Above all, be persistent. Thrift shopping well takes time and determination, but the payoff, when it comes, is always worth it.

Free Stuff : LSTN Headphones (or: ain't nothing like the real thing)

Recently, I was sent a pair of headphones for review by LSTN,  a relative newcomer on the scene. LSTN offers earbuds and headphones made of wood reclaimed from the scraps of the furniture industry. So far, so good. They also donate a portion of their sales to programs that help deaf children. So much the better. I can dig it.

When they first contacted me, they offered a pair of earbuds, what they call their Bowery model. I replied that while I liked what they were about, as an avid vinyl/analog enthusiast, earbuds were essentially useless to me, and I could hardly give them an objective critique. They decided to send me a pair of Troubadors, which  retail for $150. I anticipated their arrival excitedly. As a music lover with an extensive vinyl collection who usually gets home well past everyone's bedtime, getting a good set of phones has been on my "to do" list for some time. Getting a pair made of wood was un-heard-of.

When they arrived in the mail, I sure did think they were pretty. Cherry wood cans, with separate left and right inputs tipped in cherry. Only trouble was, they had a 3.5 mm jack on the end, and the big old analog record player takes, of course, 1/4 inch RCA jack. So, I listened to them on the phone, and on the laptop. And they sound, I guess, better than other phones on the phone or the laptop. But really, what audiophile considers the phone or the laptop any kind of reasonable facsimile of actual music. On the LSTN website, there's a lot of talk about how they use wood for the same reason pianos and violins are wood; resonant acoustic qualities. So I decide to wait until I had an adapter and could put these to the test via vinyl before I formed an opinion.

So I get the hook up, and I'm all excited, and I plug it in and.....sounds like crap. Disappointment to the bone. Then I notice this dang thing:

There's this little pause switch thing on the left side of the cable. See how its wrapped in scotch tape? That's because these things only work with the Marantz amp/Pro-Ject turntable set up if the dang pause thingy is depressed, so I gotta tape it down to make it work. I gave them a hard test: "Blessing in Disguise" by the Sonny Rollins Trio on East Broadway Rundown; "The Wanton Song" by Led Zeppelin, on Physical Graffiti: and "Il Porno Star" by Shellac, on At Action Park; all on vinyl.

The phones were simply not up to the task. All the reviews I read of them before were nothing short of glowing, praising the deep bass and lack of any "clipping". But I guess none of these people listened to anything analog, or the least bit physical. That's fine, I guess, and in fairness I do suppose these phones were made for more modern, albeit perhaps inferior, modes of recording /listening. And in fairness, I am an old fuddy duddy at best. But I must say, these left me flat.

Then...

Today, about ten days hence receiving the previous pair, I walk into a thrift shop to find this box sitting on the front desk. Of course, I nabbed it immediately. No word on the maker. Googling Game Industries only brings up a lot of video game crap. Ironic.

I bet you can already tell where this is going.....

grade school hearing test 1984 style....

Do I even have to say it?

abundant power...sound output...practical use...exceeding power.

That's my kind of language.

I have long been of the opinion that the technology of recording and sound reproduction reached its pinnacle in the late 1970s. I stick by that belief. Without having any of the science or terminology to support my argument, I can only speak from how I feel, as both a musician and lover of music. So I gave these the same three song test as the others. With the first pair, I could barely be bothered to listen all the way through. With these, I got a chill down my back, and wanted to stay up all night listening to everything: Led Zeppelin, Sergio Mendes, Motorhead, Eric Dolphy, Brahms, you name it. Direct and bone felt deliver of the human glory that is music.

$150 for the LSTN pair, regardless of the charitable component, would have left me cold. $4.99 at the thrift store, charitable component a plus, leaves me happy in a way that can be hard to describe to those who love neither analog nor thrift shopping.

Sorry, but analog has duende, and digital simply does not. Never will, it ain't human.

The Jams

"I met this girl for the first time on Saturday night...."


Very early AC/DC, 1974. Dressed like rejects from the auditions for Queen, playing what is essentially a rockabilly jam, via Gibson, Fender and Gretsch. The beginnings of their tongue-in-cheek, fun filled and goofy brand of filthy rock n roll. It was a promise to be later fulfilled by the arrival of Bon Scott (more on him later), and lost in the wind with Brian Johnson and too much touring into too old age.

AC/DC has been with me for a long time. I found them as a teenager in high school, stuck with them through the punk years, and still enjoy them on the turntable with the volume way up. Despite their solidly cemented place in the annals of big bad bar rock of the 1970s, they managed to do it with enough humor to keep it timeless.

And for what its worth, Angus Young has been teaching me for years that there's nothing wrong with being the only guy in a jacket and tie if that's the way you're feeling it. In a world filled with jeans, t-shirts and beer, he was a king among men, always in a tie.

p.s. given the fact that for those of us with social lives, Saturday is for parties,my infrequent series of posts "the Jams" will now be a semi regular feature on weekends. It will give me an excuse to continue to dig up great moments in music the older among you may remember fondly and the younger among you can thank me for teaching to you.

Stylish Films: Welt am Draht

I'm by no means a movie buff, but I do enjoy them as much as the next guy. Not one for Hollywood, or the folks who populate it, I tend to prefer highly stylized movies that are as fun too look at as the story is good. Clearly, this proclivity leads me to numerous foreign films, and lots of old ones. I'm especially enamored of 1970s futuristic dystopia flicks, and I may just have found the penultimate one. A long time fan of A Clockwork Orange and Brasil, I have to say that World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) by prolific German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder takes the prize.

Originally aired in two parts on German television in 1973, this three hour masterpiece is a real trip. But I'm not going to discuss the plot here, that's what Wikipedia is for (see here). Instead, I'd rather discuss style and decor, and make once again my argument that we not discount the entire decade that was the 70s out of hand as an aesthetic wasteland. 

Truth be told, the look of this movie is my decor ideal. The buildings have a brutalist vibe, all white concrete and glass cubes. The cars outside are big and luxurious, with lots of corners. Inside, the decor is that rare and difficult to reproduce early 70s post-modern eclectic blend of things like stark white rooms containing a mixture of glass and chrome furniture, ornate antiques, brightly colored plastics, oriental rugs, classical busts, abstract paintings....and maybe a German motorcycle helmet attached to wires suspended over a Le Corbusier lounge chair that allows one to connect with the simulated computer world. So much cooler than my Toshiba laptop. And let's not forget the big heavy analog technology all over the place. Sub-titles (and everything else) in Helvetica are de riguer. The people you see in magazines like Dwell think they get it, but it's just not the same.

See what I mean? In all the office scenes, this character is always shot in reflection in this weird silver globe, rubber tree plant behind here, electric typewriter before her.

And that's what the cafe looks like. One of those light fixtures is cool enough, but a couple dozen of them covering the entire ceiling? Unstoppable.

Clothing-wise, we get a lot of men in business suits. As one might expect, the ties and lapels are really wide, and we get some awful black shirt/white tie combinations, but generally speaking there's a real 1930s vibe running through it, as seen here in main character Fred Stiller's hat and chalk striped double breasted suit. At other points in the film, he wears a grey tweed suit with a half belt and pleated back. Not all bad, if a bit exaggerated. Remember, the 1970s were the last period when a man in an office dressed this way was not eccentric or unusual. The details may not be to our liking, but the but the overall concept of dressing well as a matter of course hadn't yet died.

Frequent scenes feature characters in evening wear. Not for trips to the opera or anything like that, just restaurants and dinner parties. Tom Ford, by the way, can thank our Herr Lowitsch for not only the strikingly masculine tailoring of his clothes, but also his haircut. And hipster girls all over Brooklyn don't even know what they owe to Mascha Rabben.

Even this guy, evil-security-director Edelkern, looks sharp, and surprisingly timely, in his navy three piece suit paired with awning striped shirt and solid grenadine tie.

Clearly, this dude is the bad guy, Herbert Siskins. If his haircut doesn't give him away, surely the brown shirt does. However, his office is one of the most knockout scenes in the whole movie. It's spacious and bright, filled with white furniture and lots of glass, punctuated by large plants and huge colorful paintings. At one point, he calls a press conference there. As they are speaking, the camera pans across a long buffet of "snacks" for the reporters, a long table laden with gourmet European food, including a number of pheasants, and an ocean of Champagne and fine Riesling (it is Germany, after all).

I love this movie. If you've got three hours to kill, watch it. Hulu Plus has a good version with subtitles. Looks like I've found a new (anti) hero in this Fassbinder cat.


Update: here's a link to an interesting short film on "the making of...", also worth a look.

p.s. Speaking of why stuff from the 70s may actually be, dare I say it, cool, I've finally gotten around to adding Barima to the blog-roll. That kid gets it for sure, go see.

p.p.s.new stuff in the Shop.

The Jams

In the old days, I worked in a down and dirty crazy thrift shop. We had a record department. Not like we just sold records, we actually had a full blast record department, and I was in charge of it. This meant that besides organizing and pricing all the records, it was also my job to go out and find them. I loved it. Once, when I was out scouring the globe for slabs of vinyl, at the tender age of 24, anno Domini 2000 or so, I acquired a heap of r&b for the shop. Among it was the self titled first album by Funkadelic.

By this time in my life, I had heard of Parliament Funkadelic, or "P-Funk". I knew all about George Clinton. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg had made my generation aware of them. But 1969 era original Funkadelic was something else entirely. Sure, the outrageous outfits and showmanship of the later years would steal the show, what with Bootsy Collins and all. But this old stuff was raw, simple, drect and grimy. Funk in its purest, undistilled form. Funk driven by gospel harmony, Hammond organs, Fender and Gibson guitars, and Gretsch drums. Funk that still has the stink of Jazz on its boot heel. Funk with a meaning far deeper than simple goof ball, pimped out party jams. I was hooked the minute I got this record home, and 10 years later it remains a precious favorite. In all these years, its the only record I know of that can actually make you feel a little like you've been smoking weed, given of course that you know what that's like in the first place.

Godammit.

correction: Rogers drums, not Gretsch. Equally good, if not better.

p.s. A black man in a purple satin KKK robe with police style sunglasses. How are you gonna argue with that?