United Colors of Benetton: FW07/08

Lanvin prepping denim line with Acne

Last months Lanvin announced that they have consulted Acne Jeans for a denim collection expanding their line of high-end clothing. Pioneers Acne Jeans revolutionized denim fashion with their skinny jeans. What makes Acne and Lanvin a perfect match is that both companies are minimalist. Acne’s Jean for example have no broidery or logos on the back pockets giving off a neutral and stealthy appearance.

Details are yet to be released about the partnership or whether Lanvin will use the denim line to go down market. Currently their line of clothing is highly premium with nothing for sale that a blue collar guy can buy and without swallowing a lot of water. If the shareholders are money hungry the denim line will be cheaper than Lanvin’s current line of products, if not exclusivity will be ensured using limited production and high prices.

What's in the bag???

There are two things kicks off a cloudy Tuesday in a positive manner. One is waking up to a cute message on your phone for a soon-to-become mistress, and the other second one is “finding” money. Digging for dirty laundry in my wardrobe I pulled up a pair of trousers which had not been worn in a few weeks and was due to spend some times in the washing machine. Checking through the pockets I made a discovery in the front right pocket. Folded three times was a lonely legal tender in the form of a £20 note!! How awesome isn’t that, finding money you thought you never had?

With a £20 note to spare for what ever I want I walked the streets of London realizing that for the first time in my life, I’m in need of a calendar? Having always been the type who stores all his agenda in the head I finally realize that a calendar will help me manage my life a little bit better. When in stress I tend to suffer from Alzheimer and with important things on my agenda I cannot afford having negligence standing in my way. Hunting for a calendar my first pray was Smythson which is a manufacturer of fine stationary.

Horrified by the price of a highly luxurious leather 08/09 calendar priced at £210 avoiding the smell of leather became my first criteria. Lurking around various shops I stumbled across ORDNING&REDA which was a familiar brand name since it’s Swedish. Their wide variety of stationary in various colours had me trapped. Spotting a box filled with 2008 calendar in an array of colours I got even locked in place by the price sign stating “75% off all 2008 calendars”. Available for a just under £5 I knew that finding anything better at a competitive price would highly unlikely. Next up I had to battle with philosophical challenge of choice. With 6 different colours in different textures I contemplated for 10 minutes deciding over which to take with me home. Since the calendar was to spend most of it’s time in my bag I placed every single colour next to the bag to see how they paired together. In the end the navy blue one with a shiny luster became the choice since the dark, matte and gleamy texture makes it look more luxurious than the other colors which were white, lime green and bright lava orange. Alligator green and burgundy would be a great addition to their line of colours.

Replacing my worn out notebook the calendar in a happy home with all the other items I carry with me. I thought that I should attach pictures of what’s in my bag so that all guys who wonder what on earth I might need a bag for. Anyone with moderate IQ level can guess that the umbrella and sunglasses rarely leave together since rain and severe sunshine are two extremes. Water bottle is a necessity which I’m used to carrying with me after having lived in the very dry climate of Southern California. The wallet carries all the cards and cash, camera is very handy and is stored in the red case which look gorgeous next to the blue calendar and brown bag. Since cargo pants with big pockets aren’t going to be fashion anytime soon, I hope that you can now understand my need for a bag.

Look of the month: May 2008

Dior Homme AW08

The white shirt is the common denominator of all wardrobes. It’s a piece that every man should posses. As a foundation for any proper wardrobe the white shirt is ironically our most “precious” piece of garments. There’s a holy aura around it which has every owner under the spell of protecting it at all cost. Many people only pull out their white shirts at special occasions and when they do it’s, unlike their other piece of clothing, perfectly ironed. Why do we give such a high level of care to our white shirts??

White shirts happen to be amongst the cheapest clothing money can buy and they tend to be significantly cheaper than any other coloured shirts. It’s such a basic element in our wardrobe and we should rock white shirts like a 2 year old rock diapers. Stain someone’s white shirt and they eyes will turn red with fury focusing on the stain for the rest of the day. Yes, white is more sensitive to dirt than other colours but white clothes are also very easy to wash. The first aid kit in any household is a stain remover, which should be applied ASAP after “disaster” has struck, after a few hours soak it in a bucket filled with detergent and water until it’s time for it to hit the washing machine. Follow those tips and rest assured, you shirt should remain whiter than cocaine. Obviously a white shirt is not to be worn if you have planed on eating spaghetti bolognese while participating in a paint ball war during a rainy day in the forest.

In conjunction with my outfit posted last week, shirts are optimal for warm climates. Unbuttoning allows ventilation and the same goes for rolling up the sleeves. As the sun set and temperature drop, rolling down the sleeves will protect you for any breeze. What’s critical when wearing a white shirt casually is that the fit is slim or else you’ll look like a sales guy on a 15:00 break playing hangman. Sadly cheap shirts are often of classic fit and highly non-trendy for use without a blazer or sweater on top. If laziness isn’t a problem taking a shirt to a tailor is worth the hassle and shouldn’t cost more than $/€10-20.

CEO lifestyle: Part II final.

Juggling multiple businesses is a tough task and eventually time becomes money with your wishing a day had 30 hours instead of 24. You essentially live and breathe your empire of firms with no weekend to take off lying in the bed eating ice cream while watching TV all day. Quite similar to how a mother is occupied taking care of her toddler all day every day.

Handling the tough decisions you enslave an unpaid female intern as personal assistant to keep track of your schedule making sure you are at the right place, at the right time. As a respectable man having a watch on your left wrist is a good idea too. Most importantly a wrist watch is good for timing people boring you to death with weak business proposal, time them with you watch and cut them off if they have failed to trigger your interest within the first 15 minutes.

Timing obviously requires a fine wrist watch capable of measuring time with highest possible precision. The best of the best will only do and that includes manufacturers like Breguet, Vacheron Constantine, Zenith, Patek Phillipe and Jaeger Le' Coultre. A time piece from either of those manufacturers will make a Cartier or Tag-Heuer look as exclusive as codfish. They represent engineering at its absolute finest with thousands years of knowledge in gravity and physics baked into a time displaying instrument on your wrist. Only those who have seen one of these uncompromised time pieces in real life can appreciate the level of engineering complexity lying under the glass window. Some of these time pieces take as long as 4-8 months to piece together.

With time being scares as sun light in northern Sweden during winter, decisions sometimes have to be taken on the move. The Mercedes Maybach is the campervan for executives. Stuck in traffic you have a foldable table, internet access, satellite telephone and a fridge to keep you busy.

Sometimes you just want to relax and that’s were the Maybach shines offering the most comfortable seat seats on the market. The seats can be reclined and be customized in the same way as a first class seat. Maybach Landaulet(pictured) is the latest edition to the line up and comes with a foldable rag top for the rear for anyone with ambitions to look cooler than the Pope this summer.

A Maybach might be a triumph worth celebrating but the final destination of the career will be made in your very own private yet across 6 times zones. Dr. Vijay Mallya has reached his destination with his fully customized Airbus VT-VJM. Not only does a private aircraft save you tons of time but it allow you to do what ever frequent flyer want to do, which is to have intercourse at an altitude 2times higher than mount Everest.

Biggest ego project of them all is venture capitalist Tom Perkins’s yatch. He got a shipyard to commission the largest privately owned sail boat for him. Named “the Maltese Falcon”, it’s one extraordinary creation. More impressive is that he designed the controlling software himself. That illustrates that billionaire’s aren’t just indulging in obscene consumptions but are actually highly productive. Many of the worlds billionaire’s started from scratch like any average human. All the wealth they posses isn’t just a reward for their smartness or intelligence but most importantly for they risks they take. Business is not only about having a great idea but also being willing to go at it by accepting the risk of loosing every penny invested.

These people didn’t stop when they made their first 100 million but continued to flip their money over and over, like Russian business magnet Roman Abrahamovich who bought Chelsea soccer team and turned into one of the most competitive soccer teams in the world.

Hottest places to be every summer for any big hitter is in Monaco during the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The event of Formula 1 drivers racing on a street circuit completely overshadows the Cannes film festival. Small boats at the harbor leave and make space for the big yatch on where the rich and luxury will sit watching the spectacle. For Formula 1 fanatics the race is sadly the least watcher-friendly one on the calendar because of the nonexistent overtaking possibilities. Those on site at the events will killer time enjoying the spectacles and festivities that take place during the race weekend. The drivers love battling in Monaco for the glory, Monaco GP is after all the most prestigious races a driver can win. Tomorrow Ferrari and Mclaren will battle it out for the glamor and if there weather will be like predicted, rainy, then we will have one very entertaining race with cars sliding into the barriers and clogging up like rice poured into a kitchen sink.

CEO lifestyle: Part I.

Hundred millions of people worship God, respect him and want to be him. Although we don’t have divine powers to create Adam and Eve in our backyards we dream of becoming a greater man than the neighbor living next door. Becoming an influential entrepreneur so high on the hierarchy that we can play basketball with the moon has been the life goal of many male two legged creatures on earth. The epitome of entrepreneurship is building an entire consisting of business spread across there different continents with you holding the control of all firms with an iron grip. It's time to examine life at the top.

Waving a business card as friend eating dinner with you on a Friday evening is a lost art. The business card has simply lost its status of giving people the perception that the owner is a big time hitter. With countless of internet site offering 100-250 business cards for a mere €/$4 a highly computer literate porn surfing 14 years old boy can order a batch tonight and have them in his bedroom on Monday morning.

In the midst of the business card left on the curb the pen is still left standing tall. Since the introduction of PCs handwriting is a lost art. Despite all the technology enabling us to live weeks without even touching a writing instrument, the pen is still one of the most powerful instruments in the world. All treaties, business contracts and marriages are still sealed with signatures using a good trust worthy pen. So what better way is there to awe fellow acquaintances and business partners by pulling out a silver 30 gram fountain pen out of your left chest pocket?

Premium writing instruments tend to be overlooked because people are content with the free pens they have collected from various banks, conventions and post offices. What the masses are missing out on is the efficiency of premium writing pens. Writing with some premium ball point pens is like ironing a silk shirt, 100% smooth with your soft hands barely having to apply any pressure because gravity and the weight of the pen does all the work for you. As a CEO you don’t want to do any unnecessary labor of pressing the pen hard against paper, slapping it or nudging the tip on your tongue just to get the ink flowing. Naturally the average man shouldn’t go off and buy a €8 000 Montblanc pen unless they are sitting behind a mahogany table with a banker's lamp on it like Hayden Christensen in the movie Awake.

Laying in the bed wrapped around in Egyptian cotton the morning begin with flicking through a news paper reading the headlines, latest acquisitions and scanning for any interesting news in the corporate world. After a breakfast drinking freshly pressed juice and eating croissants brought to your residence every morning by a catering company you jump into your standard attire, tailored suits.

With an appetite for three piece suits and double breasted suits you have an established relationship with a Savile Row tailor like Richard Anderson or Norton & Sons who served Winston Churchill back in the late/early 1900s. Naturally you don’t have to waste time visiting the store, instead, the store visit you at the office letting you browse through look books of new materials.

California Love.

The latest prancing horse born in the stable of Maranello based car manufacturer is the Ferrari California. Developed to fill a void in the Ferrari Line up the California is a GT aimed to take on top selling sports cars like the Porsche 997 Turbo and Mercedes SL63 AMG. Powered by a 4.3L V8 the California will offer an exhilarating experienced with a roaring high pitched sound waves leaving the exhaust pipes.

Although the California will the typical sporty Ferrari experience with précis handling and a high sporty natural inspired engine, Ferrari have nurtured the California to be a tame horse. With a double clutch transmission the car will ensure fast but smooth gear changes as opposed to the sequential F1 transmission offered in the 599GTB and F430 Scuderia which use hydraulic pressure pushing gears for ultra fast gear changes. Additionally the 454hp California will come with a hard top folding roof making the car usable all year around. To make the car more appealing as a daily driver there are two backseats which sadly can only be used by hobbits…………….with detachable legs. Price is yet to be announced but has been said to land in the $/€165 000-180 000 region similar to the F430. As a bonus carbon ceramic brakes will be standard as opposed to being offer as a €/$12 000 option.

One might wonder why the car wasn’t named Ferrari Alaska or Tennessee. The name California wasn’t chosen because Ferrari fancies the accent of the current Californian governor nor because California account for close to 15% of Ferrari’s sales. Thought of as one of the most beautiful cars ever made the 250 California GT became the inspiration for Ferrari’s latest model. Instead of classy chrome details very chose the path of walking away from strict lines and have crafted the new California with free flowing organic lines. Radio DJ Chris for a record breaking $10.9 million.

Contributors wanted.

The doors to additional contributors are now unlocked making it possible for those with fashion journalism ambitions to participate in evolving this blog. Bear in mind that this is a high fashion blog and not a street or formal wear blog, so your taste and perspective on fashion and lifestyle should be high compatible with the existing content here. On the other hand new ideas and suggests are highly welcomed as well.

Qualities sought after.

Passion: You love writing or you are suffering from verbal diarrhea and love expressing your opinion.

I has a crayon: Writing skills are naturally essential and it’s not just about stringing sentences together but fabricating material which is enjoyable to read.

Witty-ness: Preferable you are unofficially an artist who love painting pictures using words and know how to write with style and poise.

Welcome to the internet: Knowing your way around the internet is essential. Skills in Photoshop are highly appreciated.

Creativity: There is nothing I value higher than a great personality pair with the creativity of just randomly coming up with cool stuff. This blog isn’t a dry “Fashion Guide for Men” so those of you with interest should shine with bright character and flair.

The obvious: Fashion must be one of your biggest obsessions in life, high fashion in particular and like previous stated your perspective has to be compatible with material already available on the blog. Preferably you are already a blogger but those who aren’t are highly welcomed as well as long as they love fashion, know how to express themselves and pull magical articles and features out of a hat.

Interested? Hit me up with a letter at the email address listed on the right.

Trendsetter 4: Front Row Addict.

If there’s one celebrity who have, during the latest 12 months, become customary on the Paris and Milan fashion shows then it must be Kanye West. With a fetish for the initials LV, Kanye’s frequent visits on the front row of Louis Vuitton’s fashion shows have turned him into a front row hopper during fashion season.

With men’s SS09 fashion weeks commencing next month, Kanye’s mail box is probably cramped with glossy and nicely decorated fashion invitations from Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, V&R, Marc Jacobs, John Galliano and other designer’s the hip hop phenomenon has bonded with. Quite different privileges his super star status has granted him compared with us mortal who would have to beg and sent flowers to the PR-people in our contact lists in order to get a last minute invitation to a fashion show.

One might suspect that his front row fascination is all for flossin and the sweet sensation of spotting a chair with paper displaying your name, but Kanye’s admiration for fashion is genuine. Although sitting on first row comes with a high degree of status Kanye has throughout his music career expressed his love for high fashion with pretty styled hip hop outfits. Likewise with his music he walks down his own path. At fashion shows he tones down on the street wear but yet managed to put on a little show of his own with tasteful but yet fresh and vivid outfits.

Being a chameleon by adapting to different occasions without compromising your demeanor and character too much is a skill few people posses. Naturally Kanye’s taste in music will translate into his clothes but still he has his feet on the ground and managed to impress at both high fashion shows and at kick ass hip hop festivals.

True blue.

So London was hit with an unexpected heat wave resulting in people(slow walking tourists in particular) happily crowding the streets and defying the soaring western economy by engaging in impulsive retail shopping.

With the temperatures causing people to sweat in the underground trains I couldn’t blame girls wearing short shirts for exposing their skin in order to vent their body. Having a wardrobe dominated by proper trousers I gave into the May shopping bonanza by snagging a pair of shorts and fell in love with a pair of Smurf-blue short shorts to keep my legs cool.

Ultimately buying clothes for your lower body tend to lead to purchase of something designated for your upper body. As a fashion addict it didn’t take more than a few minutes after spotting the shorts to come up with the idea of pair them up with a white shirts, looked for a cheap one in HM but those offered didn’t have the fit I had pictured in the my head. So yesterday I got a cheering visit by a friend from Sweden who kindly granted my request of brining me some Swedish candy which you can see in the picture together with the sunshades I bought earlier this week. Either way I and she headed to Ralph Lauren on New Bond Street which was my last resort for shirts since they manufacture shirts of superb quality and with great fit.

On the way there I had eye contact with a very attractive girl who happened to be top model Rosie Huntington! Like a heterosexual man I discretely turned my head a 180 degree turned my head around to check out her out properly, after all you haven’t scooped a girl out properly if you have seen her face and bum. What a sexy fox! Nonetheless distractions in the form of estrogen didn’t derail me from my quest of finding a nice fitting shirt!

At RL I was out of luck since my size is 14½/37 is somewhat rare and very popular, and visiting Selfridges and Harrods didn’t result in me holding a shopping bag with a shirt inside. After that I canceled the quest since there is obviously not a worse way to bore a girl than to let her into to your vain world of walking around London for a few hours looking for a perfect…………..white shirt. So this editorial ended up with an existing RL shirt of mine as a stand in. BTW ignore the flip flops, they’re only used indoors.

Premium sneakers

The battle between form over function is a never ending battle in life and fashion, just ask the girl wearing skirts when the out door temperature is lower than the one inside your fridge.

Some times we want to dress fashionable but be comfortable at the same time, especially during days or occasions when mobility and nothing having to worry about out gear are important aspects. A common dilemma is when you want to wear sneakers…………………but don’t want to appear to wearing to be wearing sneakers. Walking in Stan Smiths, Air Force ones or Chuck tailor when everyone else are wearing formal shoes will make you look at lost as a camel standing amongst a group of giraffes.

What has emerged in Sweden during the latest years is what we can call “formal sneakers”. They have thinner sole and laces giving off a more refined and elegant appearance than the average sneakers people tend to stomp around in. Based in Sweden’s most beautiful city, Gothenburg, the sneakers pictured are designed by Sneaky Steve and retail for 40-120 euros.

Jude Law & Matt Damon

Hedi Slimane sniffing Diesel?

Straight from the rumor mill whispers have been circulating about Hedi igniting with Diesel in the combustion chamber to produces fumes in the form of Hedi collaborating with the denim giant for the more premium Diesel Red Line.

Your highness has yet to comment on the claims or even mention his future as a designer to the media. The rumor come as a surprise as one would expect a highly capable designer like Hedi to rise from the dead with a label of his own like Tom Ford did after taking a long pause from the. Diesel is a highly mainstream brand and would compromise the French man’s creativity with guidelines and visions to make the Red line appeal to the average MTV and Myspace loving 20 year old.

Only time will tell whether this unification for a mainstream brand with a world renowned high fashion designer will come to fruition. In the mean time keep the suspense alive by looking at some of Hedi’s spectacular photography.

Gossip Girl brings elegance to your TV-set.

What a week, London has enjoyed sunny 25 degrees hot air while I’ve been benched in front of my desk the entire week finishing of coursework and studying for exam. Battling deadlines and high temperatures a friend of mine didn’t make life easier for me by recommending me to start watching Gossip Girl. As bored as I am waiting for Prison Break season 4 to commence, I gave the Gossip Girls a try by illegally downloading and watching the three episodes but what I didn’t know was that Gossip Girl would become my new addiction, highly distracting me from my academic ambitions. Fast forward 4 days and I have marathoned(just made the word up) through 16 intriguing episodes.

The initial impression is that Gossip Girl is the east side version of the O.C, you know, cooked using the famous recipe consisting of an insecure lower middle class boy stepping into the upper class and stir things up by falling in love with a troubled brat who’s already in love with an hunk who has an enharmonic relationship with his father. If consuming that type of media makes you feel nauseous hold on to your bucket and don’t puke just yet.

Unlike the god given O.C which was about the dreamy life in Newport Coast, house parties in Malibu and CLK convertibles as Bar mitzvah gifts Gossip Girl has more substance. Behind the facade of the lavish life on the upper east side in NY lies a story about……….people! Relations are the center point of TV-series with conflicts, back stabbings, secrets and feuds many people can relate to regarding relationships with partners, friends, family and best friends of the opposite sex which might twist things up with your girlfriend. If Gossip Girl was a cake the base would be 7^th Heaven, the berries would me Sunset Beach and the glazing on top would be the O.C. Surprisingly the produce of the TV-Series is josh Schwartz who happens to be the brain behind the O.C.

Since NY is the fashion capital of the US, the city’s sense for style and fashion shines throughout the movie with formal wears in sparkling colours and shades. Forget hot pants, surf shorts, flip flops, tank tops. Ivy League it what it’s all about with tasteful non-ostentatious summer wear in cheering pastel colours.

Summer desires.

Nothing triggers the hunger for retail consumption like a shift in weather. When a hot summer weekend hits, like the one London’s been enjoying the last days, you take a peek in your wardrobe and notice that it needs a supplement of t-shirt and ankle socks. Suddenly your wallet spreads wide open like a 24-hour store with your pockets getting chubby by the countless of receipts you’ve acquired. Here is a list of May’s hottest items.

Loafers

Standard loafers with a touch a class in the form of a red/black strap held down by a gold coloured closure. Elegant but yet comfortable to walk around in for hours these loafers are ideally worn without socks.

Trilby hat

Traditionally worn by mobster in the 1920-30s, trilby hats a severely neglected to today’s men but have slowly making they back thanks to sings like Justin Timberlake, NeYo and Pete Doherty. During the hot summer a braided trilby hat, preferable made out of straw or a ventilating material, will keep the sun away from your face while at leaving you with a cool appearance.

Picnic bag

As unluxurious as it is, nylon is necessity even in world of high fashion. Nylon is what makes this big bag water resistant. Perfect to keep rain from getting to any strawberries or tuna sandwiches stuffed inside this “Yogi-Bear”-brown bag for a picnic.

Cufflinks

If women have drawers filled with bracelets and earrings then men should own a case with multiple pairs of cufflinks. It’s dangerous fascination though since it’s quite easy to become obsessed with collecting cufflinks. Starting with the customary cufflinks engraved with initial and family name one can move on to buying a pair with a logo of the favorite sports team, to later buy non-sense ones in the shape of cigar, dices and such.

599GTB

Like a typical Ferrari the 599 GTB was sold out the moment it saw day light, waiting lists in countries like the UK and US are right side of 2 years. Used models have been selling for twice the amount of a brand new one! Last week when A1GP occupied lower regent street here in London I got to see the car in metal for the first time. With arches around the corners of the rear windshield the down force at the rear is comparable to cars with traditional spoilers. That’s some aerodynamic magic that Ferrari’s F1 team cooked up.

Elegant proportions with Fiorano design the car was conceived with 100% Italian passion. Listening to the soundtrack of the engine my knees got weak making me want to hijack the ride. The muffled but slightly high pitches noise from 611 was magically hypnotizing. As a stoned 1^st year college student living in a dorm would say “Duuuuuuuude, this is some next level shit!”

FW08: Garconshinois Men's wear.

What’s black and Japanese? It’s neither the PS3 nor an executive Lexus LS600 hybrid but Garconshinois’ FW08 collection. Lead by renowned designers like YOHJI YAMAMOTO the Japanese’s fashion industry is on a rise constantly giving birth to new designers, and one of them is Shin. Denoting his existence by glazing symbolic Japanese fashion cues with French silhouettes Shin has with his second fashion collection crafted a collection with cultural substance and poise in form of simple but yet bold designs.

The collection is unmistakably a Japanese buffet with compulsory boots, sublet dome shaped buttons and dark colours, but with the excess use of fabric left out. The result is more avantgarde and streamlined collection than what we are used to see from the far east. May I say the Japanese equivalence of Lanvin? Garconshinois’ is clearly a fashion house to keep bookmarked Shin, with his ambitions and distinctive designs, shall continue to engrave he’s name of the scene by impressing us with new age Japanese couture.

+

Great presentation, especially the lighting.

The cuts.

White shirts with black buttons.

-

Two of the models look a little chubby.

Grade: 7.0/10 Personalized collection making Garconshinois a very promising brand considering that this is just the second one.