Dante missed one

Dante was wrong, there are actually 10 rings in Hell. The 10th ring is actually a bunch of small rings, that when put together, create the most horrifying ring of all!


I give you, the Uggs retail store in Chicago! And I imagine there are tons of these stores, all over the world. Add them all up, plus the individual retailers who sell them (Nordstrom how could you?), and you get a black hole of evil ugly. Now if I could just get Juicy to open a store next to this one, I could concentrate all of my disdain on one corner in Chicago! It would also be easier to spy on everyone entering and leaving the store with a purchase; enabling you to mock and then avoid them in public. I think you should even consider throwing snowballs at any men who buy something.

And if you look closely enough, there is even a female walking by the front of the store, wearing Uggs! See how ugly they are? I know it's cold, I know it's wet, but there has to be a better way. You owe it to beauty to try a little harder then this.

A Brief Guide to Men's Fashion - From 1963

See following article. Must point out that 1963 was still early enough in the 60's that men still looked good.

A Brief Guide to Men's Fashions Unravels The Deep Mysteries of All Those 'Looks'
Published On 10/4/1963 12:00:00 AM
By SUSAN M. ROGERS

Men's clothing can be confusing. The wide variety of makes, cuts, weaves, and patterns presents an enigma to the prospective buyer of a suit. As a result, he will often remain in a rut. Yet, with a little background, the uninitiated can differentiate quality products from inferior ones and can select clothes that are both smart and congenial.

First of all, the erroneous preconceptions of the Ivy League look must be erased. "Ivy League" refers to a bastardized version of the natural shoulder model, first produced on a mass scale about 1938. Prior to that time, only Brooks Brothers and J. Press promoted the natural shoulder. These stores derived the Ivy look from the five button suits with narrow lapels worn by fashionable late Victorians in the 1890's. Since 1950, the natural shoulder model has changed little with the exception of narrower lapels, shorter coats, and slimmer trousers.

Warwick vs. Andover

There are two distinct models of the natural shoulder with gradations in between. The Warwick model, as one manufacturer calls it, has a high and not overly narrow lapel, a rounded bottom to the jacket, and the first button is set slightly above the pocket.

On the Andover model the buttons begin lower, the lapel is longer and narrower, and the cut of the bottom of the jacket is squarer, giving a less sporty look than the Warwick suit.

Both styles omit waist suppression, narrowing the middle by darts over the side pockets. Unpleated trousers are an important concomitant of the natural shoulder look.

Worn by about nine out of ten Harvard men, the Ivy look is smart and trim. It is supposed to make a man look masculine without the phoniness of padding. However, these effects are attained only by wearing a natural shoulder model which suits you. The Warwick model is slightly clubbier than the Andover model which hints of Madison Avenue. Both are appropriate for almost every occasion the college man encounters.

For dressier wear, however, some men like a suit along the lines of JFK's semi-lounge model (two buttons, longer lapels, some waist suppression, and a bit more shoulder padding). Either the Warwick or Andover models are far better for the occasional suit buyer with a limited amount of interest, time, and money.

Hobsack and Tweeds

A coarse material from England called hopsack will be important again this season. It is woven from a six-ply yarn rather than the two-ply yarn used in most cloth, making a loose but warm weave.

Another popular fabric -- a rich tweed -- comes from the improbably isle of Skye off the Scottish coast. Supposedly this tweed is hand woven on cottage looms, and hence is more "authentic" than the Harris tweed it resembles. Synthetic blends such as sharkskin, and stretch materials have gained popularity because they shed wrinkles and fit smooth.

Colors will be lighter this season. Charcoal is giving way to dark gray, and even light gray. "Bottle green," possibly named after the shade of English beer bottles, promises to be popular for blazers, and there are indications a reddish maroon called cranberry will also find favor. Blue, especially in tweeds, will appear frequently.

Double-breasted blazers, long popular with the international sporting crowd, have not yet made their mark on ivy-laden New England. About 1950 the double breasted suit died, and only a handful of avant-garde types around here have recently picked it up again.

Back to Bogie

Prior to the natural shoulder suit, the draped look or "lounge suit" enjoyed popularity. Considerably padded shoulders, waist suppression, and a jacket length a little longer than is now in vogue were its most prominent features. Wide, pleated, and cuffed pants also characterized this look, now to be seen only during exam period in Bogie flicks.

The English coat combines features of the "lounge suit," such as waist suppression, flared bottoms, and wide pleated trousers with tastefully narrow, almost natural shoulders. The supposedly widespread appeal of the English look comes from its narrow lapels and association with tweeds.

On the whole there is very little inspiration in British menswear. Three manufacturers produce about 90% of the garments, and little variation appears from year to year. Superior, richer fabrics enhance English coats, regardless of the style, and their suits no longer sport baggy trousers.

Continental

The Italian suit, a forcrunner of the continental look, is more fitted in shape. Its coat is a version of the in shape. Its coat is a version of the British model in lighter, less rich materials. The Italian suit was a flop here.

The continental look launched five years ago never got off the ground beyond Madison Avenue which endorses this narrow, narrow look. Similar to the English coat, but shorter and boxier in appearance, it is otherwise chiefly distinguishable by its slanted pockets, and ultra slender appearance, and fabric.

You need not be wealthy to dress well, and of course, you need not be "in style" to be successful. With both money and interest you will certainly dress fashionably. But if you have neither, yet you care, the best thing to do is to take along a sartorially inclined girl when you go shopping.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=253022

RL Magazine - Scions of the Times

I really enjoyed this article. I'm probably getting the entire book for Christmas.

Plus Marina Rust Conner, mentioned in the article, is gorgeous! Not as beautiful as my wife of course, but attractive.

Uniqlock

I love the Uniqlock website. Of course I'll never wear the clothes, but the site is fun and hypnotic.

Labor Day Weekend

So how did I spend my Labor Day weekend, the weekend where we celebrate the worker by not working?

1)Babylon A.D.: the critics hated it, the people liked it. I’m going to have to vote with the people on this one, I enjoyed it.

2)Dinner at Fat Willie’s: BBQ doesn’t get any better then this. Well ok Bone Daddy was better, but it’s been closed for awhile now, so I’d best get over it.

3)Cleaning the Apartment: hate doing it, but improves the wives tempermant tremendously. When she’s happy, I’m happy.

4)Going to the Library: holy crap, I know it’s trendy now, but I can’t believe how long it took me to figure this out. They have everything!

5)Picking up my wife’s car from the pound: ok a neighbor took my wife to pick up her car, I was busy with #3. A church had it towed because it was in the way of their back to school rally, a church! And their parishioners park illegally every Sunday because they don’t have enough parking. I sense there may be a war brewing…

6)Taking the cat to the vet: Jules is still very sick, and his treatment is still very expensive.

7)Sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular with my wife: a more pleasant way to spend one’s time has yet to be discovered.

Ben Silver

I just wanted to take a moment to recommend the Ben Silver website for men's clothes. I think the world would be an entirely better looking place if everyone, or at least the men, dressed in the fashion found here.
I was watching "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with my wife, and have decided that I need more silk knit ties. This are simple and casual, yet guaranteed to spruce you up compared to the next slob.
I'm honestly considering a road trip with my wife down south, with the express purpose of visiting this store in Charleston, NC. I've been receiving their catalogue for a few months now, and only wish I had money to buy their wares!

Dressing Your Age

I've copied and pasted the following article from men.style.com, particularly their Details magazine section. While I do appreciate the spirit of the article, I do find it rather ironic that it appears in Details. I mean they put Hayden and Zac on the cover, the cover!? No one who's 30th birthday is in their rearview should be seriously looking at this magazine.

It's Time to Start Dressing Your Age

If your thirtieth birthday is in your rearview, lose the rebellious-teen uniform.

-By Katherine Wheelock

Still clinging to that earring and biker jacket? Tell us your thoughts on dressing younger than your years right here.

Dressage

Image credit: infgoff.com

Call up a mental picture, for a moment, of Dina Lohan. In your mind's eye, the 45-year-old stage mom is probably wearing a low-cut top and a denim miniskirt. Maybe a pair of UGGs. In other words, an outfit a lot like one her 21-year-old daughter would wear. If you're reading this story and you're a 35-plus-year-old wearing a faux-vintage Urban Outfitters T-shirt and plaid Vans, you and Dina Lohan have a lot in common. Only, not having a honey-colored spray-on tan and highlights, you don't look as good.

In addition to the midriff-baring mom, you're inadvertently aligning yourself with another type you probably scorn: the Midlife Crisis Man. Being 38 and wearing a retro Sea World tee under a hoodie to Sunday brunch is essentially the same as being 48 and wearing a leather bomber and dog tags. You and Midlife Crisis Man—see Anthony Bourdain (dressing like a punk might be his thing, but the man is over 50) and Harrison Ford (the dad jeans don't cancel out the fear-of-mortality earring)—each might as well be wearing a big ol' baseball hat that says I'M AFRAID OF GETTING OLD.

"I don't get it," says Tim Gunn, Project Runway mentor and chief creative officer at Liz Claiborne. "I think men look older when they try to dress young. You stop and look at them, because there's something incongruous about it. And then you realize—wait, this person is way too old to be wearing those clothes."

"So many people have a distorted view of themselves," Gunn, who's 54, adds. "I remember once a few years ago seeing my reflection in a department-store mirror, and for a moment I thought, What's my father doing here?"

What motivates some men to cling to the vestments of their youth like a 4-year-old to the last pair of SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas in Toys "R" Us no doubt varies. But it can usually be categorized in one of two ways: deliberate (you don't get your ear pierced at 52 by accident) or unconscious (If I don't remember that 35th birthday, then it didn't really happen, right?). And it manifests itself in ways both subtle and heartbreakingly obvious.

"I've found recently that older guys are wearing clothes that are far, far too small for them," says British men's designer Oliver Spencer. "There's nothing worse than an [old] guy who's very fashion-conscious but not in shape wearing small shirts."

"A 45- or 50-year-old guy shouldn't be wearing ripped jeans or leather jackets," Spencer continues. "They shouldn't even be wearing jeans that are all washed out—those are for kids."

But what exactly is the turning point? How do you know when it's time to shed the uniform of your twenties for good?

"The hip quotient is a very defining one for many men," Gunn says. "But you have to reassess [your wardrobe] at regular intervals. It's different for every man—it depends on your body changing, your lifestyle changing, your work changing. I think I did an assessment at about 40."

Patti Stanger, founder of the Millionaire's Club dating service and host of the Bravo reality show Millionaire Matchmaker, points to a reasonable middle ground between dressing like an understudy for Keith Richards and shuffling around in hiked-up polyester pants.

"You have to give up the leather bombers and the Members Only jackets, yes," she says. "But it's not like you have to put on a grandpa Missoni sweater. My boyfriend's 50. On the weekends he wears Vans—adult Vans, the ones that look like boat shoes, not kids' Vans. I wanted to buy him a hoodie recently and he said, 'No, that's too immature.'"

But conquering arrested sartorial development—and then resisting the urge to regress—takes discipline.

Jean Touitou, the French designer and founder of A.P.C., is well over 50. He treats the abundance of graphic T-shirts and hoodies available to him like an aging socialite treats the dessert cart.

"Skinny jeans. I can't do it," he says. "Down jackets. I'm too old to wear them. It's not very sexy. If I were a woman or I were gay, I couldn't take the aging-rocker look. It seems it's a trend because we do not accept death, apparently."

So get a Ferrari. Get a 22-year-old girlfriend. But dress like a grown-up. To do otherwise is to undermine your dignity.

"I'm proud of my age," Gunn says. "I dress for the body I have and the work that I do and how I want the world to perceive me. I want to look like someone people trust and believe—not dress like somebody I'm not."

His point is a solid one. Self-delusion isn't flattering to anyone. Ask Dina.

Well Dressed Traveling Man

I have cut and pasted the following article from the NY Times. You can find the original here: Well-Dressed Travels Well

January 31, 2008
Dress Codes
Well-Dressed Travels Well
By DAVID COLMAN

IN fashion the swaggering march of progress sometimes offers more questions than answers. Like, why does a minor yet sublime improvement (upgrading to cashmere socks or handmade shoes, say) always take a back seat to some Dutch-designed, laser-cut, steel-paillette tank top that struts up and down a runway, to be worn maybe once more — by a model on the cover of Angst?

If you furtively harbor the notion that true fashion is more about the clothes men wear than those they don’t, you might avert your eyes from the runways and into the bleachers.

Contrary to the idea perpetrated on makeover and reality shows that men in fashion are a crew of sorbet-suited wags prone to flinging around pashminas, catty comments and little dogs with equal abandon, the majority of fashion’s men — shocker — are well and conservatively dressed. (As for the catticisms — so, so guilty.)

More important, if a man in any creative and vital business wanted a sensible road map for how to dress well for a long business trip, he would do well to bypass the runway coverage on Style.com in favor of the fashion vérité on The Sartorialist, the photo blog by Scott Schuman.

Mr. Schuman made his name shooting stylishly dressed “real people” on the streets of New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm and elsewhere. In the last few seasons, though, he has discovered a mother lode of good men’s style hiding in plain sight during the grueling city-hopping fashion parade known simply as “the collections.”

“People say to me: ‘Why do you shoot editors? They’re not real people,’ ” Mr. Schuman said. “But they are. They’re professionals with deadlines and work to do. It may seem romantic, but these guys are up at 8, going to shows all day and then out to dinner with an advertiser. You see them beautifully dressed, but they’re also practical. It’s about getting from Point A to Point B.”

If Mattel were to update its 2002 special-edition Fashion Insider Ken, he should come boxed with this: One suit (blue or gray), two pairs of jeans, five button-down oxford shirts (in white), a pair of dark shoes, a pair of sneakers, a cardigan, a V-neck sweater, a cashmere scarf, a simple overcoat (also cashmere), a light raincoat, socks and underwear.

Fashion Insider Ken would also need some sturdy luggage that is not too flashy (Jim Moore of GQ swears by Tumi) and a roomy, low-key but statusy shoulder bag that does double duty as a carry-on (Fabien Baron, newly named an editorial director of Interview, has one from Balenciaga). And one little flourish, so that you know he is not a dreary British peer: a U.K. football-club scarf, the latest impossible-to-get sneakers or a wood-veneer case for his little iPhone.

“I am very low-key,” said Olivier Lalanne, the editor of Vogue Hommes International, based in Paris. “I dress very conservatively — I think most editors do — almost to the point of being boring.”

But boring should not be confused with unattractive or cheap, just understated. Mr. Lalanne chuckled. “You can’t tell it’s expensive unless you touch me,” he said.

And this being the world of Fashion Week, Ken does need labels, the crucial ones being Jil Sander, Thom Browne, Prada, Dior Homme and, most of all, that master of statusy understatement, Martin Margiela. Even Mr. Margiela’s ultradiscreet trademark, four little white pick stitches on sweaters, shirts and bags, is instantly discernible to the style cognoscenti while invisible to others, like a whistle only dogs can hear.

Why so safe? “I think there’s a little bit of fear of being a fashion victim,” said Pierre Rougier, whose fashion public relations firm (luckily for him) represents Jil Sander and Balenciaga. “I have to have enough to meet all my clients, but I get everything in one suitcase and a carry-on, and I can go for 20 days.”

His formula is familiar: “A button-down shirt, a V-neck sweater, a pair of black pants and very classic shoes.” Not that he isn’t finicky. “I can get obsessed with the fit of pants,” Mr. Rougier said. “I fell in love with these Jil Sander pants, and I bought them in four colors.”

For professionals in a creative field, their pragmatism seems almost unimaginative.

“The simpler the better,” said Tommy Fazio, the men’s fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. “I basically wear navy and gray, so everything is interchangeable. If you think about your closet, there are 10 things you always wear. So you pack those things, some basics to go with, and you can travel for two weeks.”

In the end, clothes that make it easy to look good are the best things designers can offer — and the smartest things men can buy.

“To me, there’s always a disconnect between the runway and real life,” Mr. Schuman said. “You watch the show, you hear people talk about how brilliant Miuccia Prada is, but you know it’s never going to end up on them.”

He added: “I don’t want new. I just want to feel like I look nice.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/fashion/shows/31CODES.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin