02/05/2013
I encountered Red Wing Shoes some 23 years ago when I first moved to London as a wide eyed and caustically mouthed young man. This story will mainly be an ode to the Supersoles, but I also have a deep appreciation for other models from Red Wing, so read on if you like your rugged American workboots! I fell in…
01/05/2013
In a slight deviation from the typical “label to watch” post, this time I’m taking a left turn away from makers of fine and interesting garments and instead taking a look at a company making travel bagssuitable for a Well Dressed Dad. I’ve ventured this way before, when I was looking for a backpack suitable for a stylish man, and…
16/04/2013
On a recent trip to London I made a point of seeking out the famous Savile Row. I’d watched the 3-part docu-series the BBC had made about Savile Row focusing on it’s changing fortunes and I was really curious about what the street was really like. I did a post on this visit a while back, it can be found…
14/04/2013
The other day I was having a look at my friend Grey Fox’s blog and suddenly found myself staring at a photo with a quickening pulse. Something about it was different, though I’m hard pressed to describe it in words. The photo is of a guy, in a cap and coat, in tweed. Surely something seen a thousand times before?…
06/04/2013
Kickstarter, the popular and innovative website for seeking funding through crowd-sourcing has seen yet a new use today, as UK-startup Machiavellian is seeking funding to launch it’s new brand of high-end men’s sleepwear. Kickstarter started out being mainly about seeking funding for geeky gadgets, but has seen massive diversity in the projects seeking necessary funding. As far as I know, this…
29/03/2013
On a recent visit to London, when I was visiting SEH Kelly, I got talking to some of the other visitors they had the morning I was there. A couple of these were the guys that have the shop almost right round the corner, Labour & Wait. Now, I’d heard about this shop before, as it was mentioned in an…
08/03/2013
The Vintage Showroom is both a collection and a shop in London. This book is written by Josh Sims (who we already know though “Icons of Men’s Style”) and the proprietors of The Vintage Showroom, Douglas Gunn and Roy Luckett, and what a book it is! As with “Icons of men’s style” it perfectly illustrates that almost everything being done…
06/03/2013
On my recent visit to London, one of the around half a dozen destinations on my list was the Universal Works shop. While a few places now stock Universal Works garments (such as Urban Outfitters, various left field and trendy menswear shops, and even a few of the online-only clothes shops), there is only the one dedicated Universal Works shop.…
05/03/2013
In this episode of “Labels to watch”, we’re looking at another of the tiny UK-based, 2-person companies doing interesting things whilst being under the radar of most folks. ARN Mercantile is the label of Neil and Akimi, the name being made up of their initials combined with that of their son, Robin. The Mercantile comes from the period when Neil…
03/03/2013
One of the places I was most keen to visit in London was the SEH Kelly workshop on saturday morning, as they’re usually only open at weekends. I’d never been to the Shoreditch area before (or so I thought, as it turned out I’d actually been quite close the year before, when I visited the interesting Boxpark trading area), and…