Rules of Thrifting : Consider Context (house and home edition)

Only the other day, while out hunting for clothes, I came across this fine set of dining room furniture, circa mid 1960s, in a local thrift. A nicely sized table with two extension leaves and six cane back chairs, two with arms, in dirty but good shape. Asking price was $250, but after pointing out a nick or two here and there, I managed to get them down to $200. I figured the seat cushion fabric might be whiff ugly,  but nothing I could't easily fix via DIY tactics.

Then I got it home, and waxed it up with a little Old English with a drop of dark brown stain, and suddenly, in my dining room, with it's rusty orange walls and clean wood floor, those seat cushions didn't look so bad. In fact, they looked pretty damn good.

Few things are as important to remember as context if you want to thrift shop successfully. There are no end of good things out there, but the will often be crammed in amongst a bunch of junk under unflattering fluorescent lighting. They might be in need of cleaning or slight repair. You have to train your eye to see a little past what is right in front of you to what you're actually getting. It's all about context.

The Man From Brooks Brothers

Brooks Brothers isn't what it used to be. There was a time when you could tell a guy was wearing Brooks Brothers from half a block down the street. A certain combination of subtle but distinct details in cut, styling and fit was a clear signal. These days, its hard to know what that means, or meant, especially for younger guys who never saw it first hand. But when you see it all together, it still makes sense.

The high buttoning 3/2 roll...the undarted front...the natural barely padded shoulders. Combined with flat front, slightly high waisted pants with a conservative cut through the legs and cuffed hems. Behold the now iconic #1 sack suit. Acquired in trade some months ago from Newton Street Vintage, I've been waiting for a nice chilly day to wear it. On the feet, double soled shell cordovan longwings by Allen Edmonds. What else?

Given this suits late 1950s/early 1960s provenance, a narrow repp striped bow tie of similar vintage seemed the perfect choice. A soft rolling unlined button collar was also a given. Now usually I'm not one to go full blast vintage, preferring instead to mix older pieces with well made modern things, but in this case the combination picked itself.

All of it vintage,all of it made in USA, all of it Brooks Brothers. It's hard to argue with that.

p.s. there are some photos of what to expect from Eddigan's, a furniture consignment shop and Top Shelf rookie, over at the TSFM blog. Check it out.

Book Review : The Gentry Man

A few weeks ago, Harper/Collins was kind enough to enough to send me an advance copy of their new book, The Gentry Man, released to the general public today. A compendium of Gentry magazine from 1951-1957, it provides an interesting look back at a period in menswear history that can frequently be romanticized beyond recognition.

For those of you not familiar with Gentry magazine, I can only say that it reminds of what GQ was like a long time ago, when it was good. It offers a broad slice of all the things that make up what they call "the civilized man". In it you'll find not only cocktail recipes, but also great articles about the act of drinking itself with titles like "In Praise of Booze". You'll find tips on winning chess in seven moves, food articles about James Beard and Brillat Savarin alongside classic and time tested recipes. You'll find a few pages about cars and resort hotels, furniture, modern art, and of course, plenty about clothing. Interestingly, you won't find much talk of professional sports.

As you might expect, it contains a lot of nostalgia about "the good old days" when men regularly wore suits in the day and formal wear at night. What's better than that, though, is all the unusual stuff that's included. Crazy sailor suits for poolside at the resort come to mind at the wild extreme, a tweed weekend jacket with raglan sleeves comes to mind in the "why doesn't someone make that anymore" end. The good stuff is really good, but it's the inclusion and sheer amount or weird stuff that's even better. For one thing, it makes the good stuff look better, and for another, its good to be reminded that even in what we like to think of as the glory days, it wasn't all a bed of roses. People were just as prone to go for something crazy in the interest of newness back the as they are now, the only difference being that then the labels were attached to the inside of the clothes. Its a useful thing to remember both good and bad when we see the past and use it as a tool to assess good and bad today. Gentry provides both.

Each chapter is introduced with some brief text by editor Hal Rubinstein, and his writing is well informed and to the point, making this book as good to read as the pictures are fun to look at. Best of all, the whole thing is relatively short, and very well chosen. No filler, only the good stuff. The book is laid out in a very easy to thumb trough way, which is always a bonus with these kind of things.

For the older reader, this book can offer both a warm look back and a chance to chuckle at some minor foibles. For the younger reader, it provides an extra degree of true perspective on the past in a more multi-dimensional way that is often offered. In either case, it would be a fun addition to any mans collection of sartorial books.