Check out my The Wish List Tumblr

http://wishwanthave.tumblr.com

It's an extension of this blog.  I'll be posting both places.

Have: The J. Crew Ludlow Suit

I am deep in the thralls of a love affair.  No, I haven't fallen for the usual candidates--not tall, dark, or handsome.  Instead my affair is with a woman and her quest.  Her name is Jenna Lyons and she's here to recruit you. 

I have loved watching Jenna Lyons take the reigns at J. Crew and transform the decades old brand into a true fashion powerhouse.  Lyons has revitalized the company and taken it up market.  While the price point is significantly higher than a decade ago, the style quotient has increased exponentially. 

While menswear, especially beyond high fashion, often stays quite stagnant, Lyons has  managed to add her touch here.  The brand was one of the ushers of the heritage feel that is now gripping much of men's fashion.  The cut is slim, the style harkens back to the 1960s, and the materials feel luxurious but well worn with love.

That brings me to my most recent purchase, the Ludlow Suit.  I love everything about this suit.  The cut is a body conscious slim line, something none too easy to find outside of very high fashion designers.  As an admittedly short man I often find that boxier cut suits make me look even shorter.  The slimmer cut of the Ludlow Suit allows me to show that I am not, in fact, shaped like a cube.  The suit also lends itself to great diversity from more formal business affairs to simply using the blazer over a gingham shirt and dark denim for a more casual look. 

So, my love affair with Ms. Lyons continues.  Keep givin' 'em hell Jenna.

Harness The Power of the Gays Discount Shopping Sites!

Long time blah blah blah.

So recently my bitches at my favorite afternoon addiction The Cut: New York Magazine's Fashion Blog wrote a posting about why the discount luxury fashion websites namely Gilt.com, Ruelala.com, and Hautelook.com are so heavily favored towards women's shopping experience rather then men's.  The opined the fact that the websites male to female percentages ranged from 70-85% women.  They asked the obvious questions, why aren't men shopping here?  What is it about this experience that appeals so much more heavily to women?  Yet I think they missed a key answer to this question.  GAYS.

Do straight men simply not shop?  No.  That is obviously a gross misunderstanding.  Straight men obviously are still going to stores and buying things, but their first priority is not and will never be clothing. While the world still produces the latest electronic gadget, high powered grill, and various car crap straight men will not be shopping at a site called "Rue La La."

So what is the answer to this question?  Heavy heavy research into what gay men are wearing, what they buy, and how you can cater to that in an online shopping atmosphere.  At this very moment Rue La La is featuring Valentino (fucking Valentino) for their women's sale and on the men's side Johnston and Murphy dress shoes.

Now I must admit Gilt does pay a certain level of attention to what gay men are actually wearing (at least in New York).  Y3 is a current fixture on high top stomping, loose short, tank topped gays of New York these days and it's also one of Gilt's most common brands.  Without having actual sales information in front of me and from a purely customer perspective the brand sells immensely well for Gilt.

The moral of this rant is simple.  Gays love to spend money on clothes--utilize it.

Father Karl Forgive Me for I Have Sinned

So far be it from to question papa Karl in all his amazing black and white Baptiste loving glory, but I was simply wholly unimpressed by Cruise 2011.  The show was obviously inspired by flowing wispy looks of the flower child era.  The palette was a mix of ambers, browns, creams, and some flower child florals.  In reality nobody really expects to be blown away by the design aspects of Cruise/Resort collections, but what one does expect especially from the big guns is a barrage of clothes that are simply and utterly wearable.  You expect a long march of flouncy pretty dresses that will keep wealthy trophy wives looking their best and most stylish.  In reality the collection underwhelmed even that expectation.   The clothes looked more fit for a trip to some muddy lake front beach than the 5 star resorts the price tags align with.   Of course there was plenty of Baptiste but even the clothes the few men walked in was atrocious and lacked any clear direction.  

So my second point of this post... Crystal Renn.  We LOVE her.  She's everywhere.  She is the face of the industry's push towards more use of plus size models in actual normal shows/shoots.  Before I begin I must say I find her incredibly inspirational.  Her face is beyond stunning.  It is evokes both a beautiful country girl tending to her small Italian farm and an aristocratic strength.  BUT while her specs list her as a size 12 I have to ask is she REALLY still a size 12?  I mean she looks mighty small in both her recent Glamor cover and more importantly in the pictures from the unretouched Chanel Cruise show.  Please girl keep those curves.  Your career is once again exploding and we'd all hate to see those bodacious hips we saw walk the Gaultier runway disappear.  

Late I Know: Kitty Kitty Miu Miu!

I cannot express how much I love the Miu Miu slinky kitty print!

Seriously if they made a shirt for men in this print I would buy it.  Hell if I could find this fabric I would have a shirt custom made.


Look at it!  It brings together one of my favorite kitsch (slightly weird girl) loves of cats and makes them ultra cool but definitely not too cool for school ;-).

Which brings me to my point.  Why can't more men's clothes be so adventurous and thoughtful?  I would love to see something that is kitsch and chic as the glorious slinky kitty print!

p.s. Sarah posted this photo on my facebook wall and I'm trying to convince her to buy them so I can live vicariously through her and by vicariously I mean steal them when she's not looking and stomp off to live in kitty dreamland!

Why We Suck

Although I know nobody is exactly hanging on our every word I figured I would write an explanation about why Sarah and I haven't written in a while and how we do plan on continuing, for ourselves so we don't disappoint future Sarah and Sam.

People always say: I just got so busy.  That isn't our excuse.  Neither Sarah or I have gotten ridiculously more busy.  The real reason we haven't written is pretty simple.

Both Sarah and I are pretty, well, obsessive.  We've always been this way ever since we were little kids.  When we find a subject we love we obsess over it and pour over it.  That is the case with our love of fashion.  We constantly think about what we like, what we like on other people, what is happening in fashion, and our future in fashion.

BUT--our obsessive nature is exactly what brought us away from our dear beloved infant blog.  Both Sarah and I have moved recently.  Sarah moved (I think) about a month ago and I moved about a week later to a bigger better NYC apt.  When Sarah and I move we become absolutely obsessed with home design.  Literally we have been talking on the phone about 4 nights a week and the conversation ALWAYS goes to home decor, our ideas, our purchases, the color schemes we're deciding on, and of course Sarah's "white trash" Anthropologie tapestry.

So that is our excuse.  We'll be back on fashion soon.  For now I think for us to continue this blog, even though it is mostly just for us, we'll probably be writing about what is in our mind and wallet right now and most likely will be for the next few months--apartments.

We wish wish wish you tons of beautiful paint, sofas, and Horchow furniture ;-).

The Grand Finale of Lee Alexander McQueen

Today the images were released from yesterday's memorial show for Alexander McQueen's final collection.  The collection was not open to the press and was shown in a small old fashioned couture style with each outfit being announced.  Even as I write this I feel corny and perhaps that I come off as disingenuous, but then again maybe this post is just for me so I will remember how I felt.  I didn't know him, I never met him, I was not his friend, I have no connection to him--but I feel a loss over the last weeks that hits me at odd moments.  He was my, our, Beatles, our Picasso, our Da Vinci, our Twain, our Fitzgerald, our artist.  The loss that I feel is personal because to me Mcqueen exemplified all that is right with fashion.

As I look over this collection I can't help but think in some way as Mcqueen put pencil to paper he knew he must put his heart, his soul, and all his artistic ability into these works.  The exemplification of his aesthetic and his abilities is so abundantly apparent.  I try to take in these beautiful works of art and I just can't.  I simply have to feel the love and care Mcqueen put into each piece he created. To him nothing was impossible.  Take a look back through his archives and you will see the evolution of an artistic mind that never ever told himself no, it just cannot be.  Never did details come off as contrived or messy.  Despite the fact that he only showed a RTW collection under his eponymous label, the collections far surpassed even the most advanced classic couture shows.  Perhaps it was his years spent with Givenchy surrounded by couture hands ready to make the dreams of an fashion prodigy become reality.

The above look is shows all that was the McQueen aesthetic.  He has always been called "gothic" but to me (though far from an experience critic) he was simply a culmination of a thousand years of British fashion.  The above outfit is so obviously inspired by styles and techniques of hundreds of years of British Monarchs, yet it is far from costumey or period with thigh high leather waders and a short hemline, the look is distinctly fresh and current.

So that's that.  Maybe I've said these things before or I'm rambling but I know if I don't write down how this all has made me feel, right now, I will be letting pass a moment in my life that deeply affected me and the world I care so much about.