The Silentist - Menswear, Men's Style, Reviews

More details tomorrow on what I’ll be attempting (well, rather, what I’ll ask my tailor to attempt), but feel free to speculate.

White mother-of-pearl buttons

10oz 100-percent cotton duck canvas

Kept it simple today: navy suit, navy tie, light blue shirt, black wingtips, white square. Can’t screw this up.

For work, a dark grey suit, white shirt and red silk knit necktie. The pocket square is sort of tough to see, but it’s navy with red polka dots. Down low: red socks and brown leather brogues.

For dinner and a movie (or, as I call it, sushi and “Sucker Punch”), blue gingham, 501s, tweed waistcoat, tan bucks and a navy repp stripe tie.

Oxxford navy suit, $59.99 (Buy it Now) — It’s a size 38R in the chest, however, the shoulders are larger than a typical 38R (19.5”), which kept me from pulling the trigger on this. If you have broader shoulders, then this might be up your alley.

Vintage Brooks Brothers harrington jacket, $25 — Sized as a 42, this jacket also has a zip-out liner, giving it a bit more warmth if you need it. Not a Baracuta original, but still looks pretty cool.

Vintage Rukka raincoat, $30 — Sized at 42, made in Finland.

Vintage Lacoste tennis sweater, $29 — Sized large, acrylic.

howtotalktogirlsatparties:

…I was in what I deemed extensive talks with a brand that I hoped would provide me with my first professional foray into menswear.  My levels of excitement were off the charts and the phrase “blowing things out of proportion” could not have been more applicable.  Things eventually fizzled out as they tend to do sometimes, but not for lack of effort on my end.  Naturally, I was crushed.  When you build things up like that they can just as easily break you as they can make you.  For a while I felt kind of hopeless and worried that I had missed out on that one life changing opportunity.  But, time passes and you move forward.  I continued to do what I had been doing and eventually things got better.  New opportunities opened up and I took advantage of them.  Surfing the internet tonight I saw a write up about the aforementioned brand.  Honestly, I had totally forgotten all about them and about missing my “life changing opportunity”.  I had a nice laugh and reflected a little bit on the entire situation.  While there are numerous morals to this story, I guess I just want to remind everyone to go easy on yourself and have faith in your abilities.  Chances are, if you see the value in what you do and believe in yourself it won’t be long until someone else does too.

Damn, almost this exact same scenario happened to me last week for a job I was interviewing for and didn’t get (except it was in the political sector, not dope-ass menswear/style/fashion). And the same thing happened to me last summer, too.

Obviously, I felt like shit after hearing the news, because I knew I couldn’t have tried harder, interviewed better or brought anything less than my A-game to the process.

In the aftermath, I remembered a TED talk from Srikumar Roa, about plugging into your hardwired happiness. At the time, I didn’t fully believe it, but I kind of get what he’s saying now. You shouldn’t invest yourself in outcomes, but rather the process if you want to be “happy.”

No matter how great you are, sometimes your very best isn’t good enough. And that sucks — no way around saying that. But you get up, put one foot in front of the other and keep marching onward.

It reminds me all from one of my favorite Don Draper quotations from “Mad Men” in season 2 when Don finds Peggy in the hospital after her pregnancy:

“Listen to me, get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”

Cold-blooded? Logistical? Blunt? Yes, to all of that, but necessary. You cannot control outcomes, but you can control the process — and that’s where you find your strength.

I travel quite a bit for my job (by car) and thought I’d show you what I pack for an average trip.

For suits, a navy, a dark grey and I wear my grey tweed. Also, my black/white herringbone tweed blazer and a brown donegal tweed waistcoat.

For shirts, one pink, one blue, one white dress shirt for wearing with the suits. For casual wear, one red university stripe oxford and one blue gingham button down.

Accessories: red, green and navy silk knit ties (for the suits) and a navy with red/white stripe silk tie (for casual). Also, various pocket squares. I also pack one black and one brown leather belt as well as one tan web belt.

I only pack my 501s for extra pants, but if it gets warmer, I’ll maybe swap that with a pair of chinos. And obviously, undergarments and socks.

Not pictured: shoes, which include one pair black and one pair brown leather as well as a pair of tan bucks. Also, a trench coat.

I pack this all up in a rolling luggage (overhead size) and put the suits and blazer in a Hartmann tweed suit garment bag.

Living out of a hotel for part of the week for work travel (blargh). But that also means suits. Donegal tweed, purple gingham, yellow silk knit, black wingtips.

And for going out for a friend’s birthday in town, I kept the shirt and tie, but went with a 501s, my herringbone tweed blazer and tan bucks.

The standard uniform: navy sportcoat, charcoal trousers, brown loafers.

The variations: blue/white houndstooth check shirt, burgundy tie with navy “waves.”

J.Crew is having an extra 30% off their Final Sale items right now (code: LOVEIT). Here’s a few items that may be of interest:

Cotton-twill briefcase: Comes to around $70, for those of you who want a cheaper alternative to the Filson. Not sure if this is waterproof though.

Bowery wool classic-fit pants: Also around $70, in dark charcoal and lighter grey (above). I have a pair of these, and you should plan to get them tapered at a tailor. Depending on your price range, these could be worthwhile.

Baracuta G9 harrington jacket: At about $160, this is a rather low price to get an original Baracuta. I thought about getting one, but some research showed that these jackets aren’t kind to people of narrower torsos that also have longer arms (if anyone’s had a different experience, please let me know).

So, this list is really long — well over 100 people. But they are who I follow and if you’re looking for fresh faces, ideas and such on your Dashboard, then consider this a list of suggestions. I’ve also put this list on my “links” page, which was getting really outdated and needed updating.

Obvious disclaimer: This list isn’t ranked in any specific order (although my first few people I followed are toward the top-ish) and it’s in no way a thorough and conclusive list of people tumblr-ing about menswear.

The full list after the break:

Read More →

They’ve finally arrived: My made-to-measure blue oxford dress shirts from ModernTailor.com.

A few weeks ago, tredicielupo mentioned the site was running a deal for new customers: $20 for a custom oxford-cloth dress shirt. He really seemed to like his shirts and wished he’d bought more. I decided to take the plunge and order three.

The site recommends that you measure your best fitting shirt and input those measurements rather than measuring yourself. Being that I’m a big fan of the fit on the Brooks Brothers Extra-Slim Fit dress shirts, I decided to use that shirt as a pattern to get measurements from. You’ll obviously need a tailor’s measuring tape for this, which you can find at any hobby and crafts store.

Now, I didn’t use the BBESF measurements exactly. As good as those shirts fit me, it’s like any off-the-rack shirt and could be improved for my own fit. I actually took it trimmer in a few parts. I knocked off some sleeve bagginess, narrowed the waist measurement and increased the shirt’s length so it would stay tucked.

In addition to putting in my sizes, I also got to choose the various details of the shirt. Some are free, others are an additional fee. The only thing I opted to add was thick mother-of-pearl buttons.

For a collar, I went with a standard spread collar with longer point lengths (I can’t stand it when short collars don’t properly touch the collar of my jacket) and a single-button mitered cuff.

The only hitch came when I received an email back from them, saying that my armhole measurement was too small. I found this ridiculous and confirmed with them that, yes, I did want a smaller armhole. They made me send a photograph with a measuring tape on my BBESF shirt to prove that, yes, this is what I wanted them to do. Honestly, this worried me a bit, because it must mean they don’t get very many orders to do shirts with smaller armholes.

As it turned out though, my fears about the outcome ended up being unfounded. They arrived from China yesterday and I’m a big fan of how they turned out.

First, I just want to comment on how insanely quick they turned these shirts around from the day I placed my order to the day they arrived at my door: 13 days. And that’s with the slight delay because of their uneasiness with my armhole measurement. I’m blown away by how quickly they arrived.

The shirts arrive folded and pinned (plastic, not needles) just like any other shirt you’d buy at a department store and they give you a bag of sorts with their name on it (although I’m a bit unsure why).

I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on dress shirts and what qualifies as good construction. I will say that the one thing I noticed is that they use a single-piece yolk instead of a split-back yolk. This was a bit disappointing, but it’s something that lots of places do to cut production costs. For a $20 shirt, this isn’t a dealbreaker, but if you’re going to be buying a full-priced shirt from them, then I’d try to maybe request they do a split-back.

The one nice thing about choosing your shirt’s features is that you can avoid having back pleats — although you may find this can limit your shoulder movement. I’m OK without them, but others may want to have them. I’m also a fan of the gauntlet button on the sleeves, which makes rolling sleeves up easier (the lack of a button on the BBESF bothers me a lot). The inclusion of a pocket and a full placket for free is nice, too.

I will say that the material is just about what you’d expect for a $20 shirt: a bit thin for an oxford shirt, especially compared to the BBESF oxfords. I’m sure if you order a better fabric, this will be remedied. Regardless, I’m fine with the material and don’t think it feels “cheap.”

But it all comes down to fit, right? And I think they fit wonderfully well.

Granted, your mileage on fit may vary. It’s all going to come down to whether or not you have a perfectly fitting dress shirt to measure from — or one that’s close enough to what you want so that you can modify it.

The bottom line is that if you find yourself needing a couple of blue oxford dress shirts right now and are fairly confident in your abilities to get the measurements nailed down, then you should take the plunge and order a couple of these at the discounted price.

All told, I ordered three shirts and it came to around $100 with MOP buttons and shipping. At $33/shirt, I think these are a tremendous deal. I’m regretting not ordering twice as many — I’d be set for a long time.

Will I use ModernTailor.com again? There’s a very high probability. I do want to try and give other MTM online shirtmakers a fair try first, but the price, speed and fit do seem to be a nice combination here.

suitsandboots:

smileifyourewinning:

putthison:

I’ve got a couple of shows at the Second City next month.

Anybody wanna have a meetup? 4/14?

I’ll host it. Got a venue and everything. Seriously. Let’s do this.

Trust Ernest (smileifyourewinning). He the man. He is Chicago’s official wingman.

I just found out that on this day I’ll have to be in Springfield for work. I may make the 3.5-hour, one-way drive back though if I get off work early enough and this goes late enough.

Or maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll cancel session (not likely).

To work: navy flannel blazer, brown gingham shirt, navy w/ white dots necktie. (Also, grey flannel pants and brown chelsea boots.)

To a friend’s birthday party (bowling!): black/white herringbone tweed blazer, red/blue gingham shirt, grey v-neck sweatervest. (Also, jeans and Bean Boots, as it’s snowing.)

Totally misjudged the weather today by going sockless with Sperry Topsiders. The rest turned out fine though. I had a dentist appointment today, so I ditched the sportcoat and went with my favorite chunky sweater, white oxford and navy chinos.

I’ve been a fairly decent fan of “The Chicago Code” since its premiere episode. It’s not as great as “The Wire,” but then again, no show has approached that level. But I recently discovered something really cool about Delroy Lindo, who plays Alderman Ronin Gibbons on the show.

I was visiting my tailor last week and he and his business partner had maybe a dozen jackets and suits styled in a distinct 1950-60s-era cut that they were altering. As it turns out, these coats were actually costumes for the upcoming filming of the pilot episode of “The Playboy Club” ordered by NBC, which is being filmed here in Chicago.

I found out from him that the wardrobe for background extras often is rented from a few companies that specifically have huge warehouses filled with period-piece clothing, which is where these came from, so production companies don’t have to have dozens of extra articles of clothing made or hunted down.

But for re-occurring main characters in the foreground, clothes are either purchased or handmade. And in the case with Mr. Lindo’s wardrobe for “The Chicago Code” his was handmade by my tailor!

Two, three-piece suits and one double-breasted suit were made and an identical second suit was made for each style. They do this in the event one gets ruined during filming and they’ll have a backup for continuity. In movies they’ll have six of the same suits, especially for action films where a character might get shot or dirty up the clothing.

My tailor also said he does suits and jackets and other costume parts for Broadway shows (as well as local theater) and flies out for fittings in NYC. I asked why these productions didn’t just work with someone local and he told me the reason was primarily because of cost. Tailors in NYC have higher rents and costs for what is essentially the same product, so it’s cheaper for many of them to work with him.

So, it’s worth knowing that when movies, TV shows and other big-Hollywood entertainment comes here that a good part of that money does, in fact, get funneled into the local economy.

For those wondering, my tailor is Paul Chang Custom Tailors in Chicago’s Loop.