Male Muse: George Cortina

Sometimes it's nice to appreciate plainness. I don't mean banality but a certain aesthetic minimalism, and not the arch and ascetic minimalism of graphic lines and stark palettes, but the less alienating minimalism that celebrates no-fuss effortlessness. A kind of elegant ordinariness, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Freelance stylist and fashion director of Vogue Japan, George Cortina, understands exactly how to be remarkable in being unremarkable. Former fashion editor of L'Uomo Vogue and contributor to a slew of mags from V to NYT Style, Cortina pushes the boat out with the day-job but keeps things clean as regards personal style.

An obvious proponent of the Thom Browne ankle-show, Cortina mixes cropped trouers with statement tailoring (double-breasted jackets and fitted shirts) and operates on the basis of essentiality when it comes to accessories; that means shades, monkstraps and smokes, evidently.

Also, he's bezzies with Anna Dello Russo...

See more of Cortina's styling work here and here.

Images from The Sartorialist and Chanel After Coco

Raun LaRose SS12: Forever Young.

Given fashion's single-minded, unswerving focus on the new, it's more than often than not that talented designers who make an imact with their debut, fade into the background in future seasons. It's good, then, to see NYC-based menswear designer Raun LaRose has gone from strength to strength since his last being mentioned here about two years ago.

Here's a refresher, or a brief intro for those of you who've yet to meet LaRose. A Fashion Institute of Technology grad, LaRose has interned with womenswear evening specialist, Zac Posen, as well at VIBE magazine. His first collection couldn't be ignored when it landed in my inbox in late 2010, testifying to a new kind of menswear emerging in New York. LaRose understood the importance of wearability, but refused to relinquish a certain extravagance in his search to achieve it. The result was an aesthetic that merged the NYC informal sportiness we're all so familiar with (Tim Hamilton, Michael Bastian, Patrik Ervell etc.) with a brand of European ostentatiousness usually reserved for the likes of Parisian names like Lucas Ossendrijver at Lanvin.

^ Raun LaRose Spring Summer 2012

This fusion of tastes is still obvious in the SS12 collection, Forever Young, but the slight missteps (student-y flourishes for the sake of being fashun) of the AW10 collection are undoubtedly ironed out. When people say 'one to watch', this is what they mean...

Find Raun LaRose on Facebook here.

Images from Not Just a Label

Play Dead with Bruce LaBruce.

Bruce LaBruce; porn provocateur, cult filmmaker, queercore/post-queercore icon, director of the films comprising the subject of my undergraduate dissertation and now eh scarf designer, apparently.

LaBruce, a filmmaker and photographer first, is still no stranger to fashion, having collaborated with designer Rick Owens on the teen zombie attire for Otto; Or Up with Dead People (2008) and having produced one of the more memorable interviews with Kaiser Karl for Vice. But design is a decidedly new development; LaBruce has teamed with online concept boutique Front Row Society to produce a collection of scarves inspired by the car crash, Play Dead.

Auto accidents and accessories, not exactly the most seamless commercial combination in the history of time but it'd be dumb to expect anything less obscure from LaBruce. Having witnessed a car crash himself (outside his family's farm as a child) and harbouring a particular fondness for Jean-Luc Godard's Week End ([1967], a film all about car accidents in the French countryside), LaBruce revels in the calamity of it all with these printed scarves below...

^ Through a Broken Glass, Darkly, Crash Fashion and Death Couture

They're cotton-silk, limited to 200 scarves per style, and €200 each, which is a bit steep for a first-time designer who's wont to wage war on advanced capitalism every chance he gets. Still, these are trademark LaBruce, paying homage to the French New Wave and exhibiting the auteur's obsession with sex and instances of violence, albeit a good deal more subdued than his usual stuff.

And remember, €1 from each sale goes to the Ethical Fashion Forum, which focuses on social and environmental sustainability in the fashion industry.

Images from Hint

This Greedy Pig: A Lesson in Retorial.

To say I've been putting a write-up of Dublin-based collective This Greedy Pig on the long finger would be a gross understatement. I reckon it's been the best part of a year since I initially intended to share this fledgling retail and editorial ('retorial', if you will) initiative with you but better late than never...

Details of this lazy pig's tardiness aside, here's a brief introduction to the brand. Founded last year, This Greedy Pig marks one of these few-and-far-between success stories that everyone likes to associate with economic recession. Adopting what's arguably proved the most efficient retail model in recent years, This Greedy Pig savvily merge editorial (a well-curated blog featuring everything from hilarious email conversations between spammers and spam recipients to your more expected fare of art, fashion and music) and retail.

^ Clockwork Orange crewneck sweat; This Greedy Pig logo tee; Lifetime Collective Sea Wall & Beyond jacket

This isn't so much an online fashion set-up as a lifestyle e-tail brand; products featured range from simply cut crew-neck graphic tees, fisherman jackets to prints from notorious Dublin graffiti artist, Maser. The edit isn't exactly what you'd term ambitious either, with the website looking sparse in certain sections but remember this is a small start-up run out of a flat on South Richmond St, not Mr Porter.

Long live the Pig.

MBBFW SS13 Men's: Sebastian Ellrich; Ubi Sunt & Patrick Mohr.

Some further men's highlights from Mercedes-Benz Berlin SS13 before I forget; most of them being studio presentations, since sadly organisers and designers don't seem to think menswear worthy of a runway slot. Understandable, in one sense, considering it's womenswear that rakes in the big bucks in most fashion industry contexts but questionable, seeing as menswear is gaining increasing attention elsewhere with initiatives like London Collections: Men.

Anyway, first up is a snippet from German designer Sebastian Ellrich's offering. Emerging from a theatre and costume design background, Ellrich combines smart tailoring with a certain opulence. The show itself was pretty much like taking a leisurely walk along an outer-space seaside resort, with muzak, dancers moving around models and a beach-y palette of coral, sand and bright white...if that makes any sense.

^ Sebastian Ellrich SS13

Next up is Swedish label Ubi Sunt, whose collection was a study in darkly romantic, utlitarian wear, think lots of subtly exaggerated silhouettes, a distinct sportswear influence and statement bomber jackets with contrast sleeves. The whole thing was a dead ringer for something Tim Hamilton, which predictably enough won me over in seconds.

^ Ubi Sunt SS13
And some misc. snaps to finish...

^ Schumacher eschewed the after-show party expectation, in favour of a late breakfast in a nearby park, to which Lily Cole made a brief apperance; since when is she blonde?

^ Outside Patrick Mohr's SS13 show, Metamorphose, at popular Berlin cinéaste haunt, the Babylon.
Ubi Sunt images from MBBFW

100 Beards.

Some of you will know that I've been working as a freelance consultant for a grooming brand, advising them on what sartorial styles to pair with different facial hair styles, which is all pretty uproariously funny considering it takes me a solid week to reach a semblance of stubble. 

Then again, I'm not really fussed considering anything more than three-day growth wouldn't really sit well with what I usually wear. Still, it's fun to marvel at the hirsute talents of others and blogger and photographer Jonathan Daniel Pryce's latest project is perfect for paying homage to the facially hairier.

Ambitious Pryce has set himself the goal of photographing 100 beards in 100 days. So far (already 10 days in...) he seems to have devoted a sizeable chunk of his time trawling through the tasches, chops and full-beards of London's East End, which, I can safely verify, more than fills its beard quotient.

Pryce says of the project:

"Over the past few years, the beard has re-established itself as the ultimate accessory for the modern gentleman. Since moving to London I have seen many a handsome beard, which has induced what can only be described as beard envy. To help cure this, every day for 100 days I will attempt to find a new beard to photograph."


The results are to be found on Pryce's 100 Beards, but make sure to check out his more clothing-focused street-style blog, Another Garcon, too.

If you fancy showing off your hairy wares, drop Pryce a line at JDP[at]JonathanDanielPryce.com or tweet him (@GarconJon).

MBBFW SS13 Men's: SOPOPULAR.

Back from Berlin. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest. Uncharacteristically, I managed to oversleep a couple of hours (not hearing my alarm for the first time in my life), missing my early Tuesday morning flight. Great.

Following a speedy transfer to Amsterdam, several hours spent listening to my stomach rumble audibly on a hi-speed Pan-European train, enduring looks from concerned fellow passengers, and generally tearing my hair out, I arrived. Then, it was straight to my hotel and on to the Dandy Diary x Facehunter party sponsored by Pinstyle, which ticked all the fashion party boxes (hot models, countless photographers, near-naked revellers and - my downfall - free booze). 

The next morning saw me nearly keel over at the first flurry of runway shows. Apologies to those seated next to me at Escada Sport who were forced to endure the heady aroma of cheap prosecco and hangover (eau de mouldy, anyone?). The remainder of the week passed by without major incident and also led to the discovery of a few new men's brands I think you should know about too. Here's the first:

^ SOPOPULAR Spring Summer 2013; a shit-kicking toughness softened by lightweight knits and what was either tie-dye or digital printing, I'm still not entirely sure. Designer Daniel Blechman describes the label as the melding together of the two cities between which he divides his time: London (the cool, the directional inspiration) and Berlin (the militaristic, structural influence). I'm sold.
More to come.

Pinstyle x Male-Mode.com x Berlin Fashion Week.

It's a bit cray to think that it's almost been a full year since I was traipsing around Berlin streets doing things like this or whiling away time doing this. A lot's changed since (my German is now comparatively dire, I think nothing of paying comparatively colossal rent, and leaving the party at 5am now doesn't seem so shockingly embarassing). But the soft spot for this sometimes hard city still remains, so naturally enough I didn't need asking twice when Pinstyle approached me about covering next week's SS13 shows at Mercedes Benz Berlin Fashion Week.

I managed to haul my sweaty self to a few shows last year (the out-door runway at WoodWood being the most memorable) but was by no means fully immersed in the Teutonic sartorial experience so the opportunity to see the work of designers like Michael Sontag, Marc Philippe Coudeyre and Kilian Kerner in the flesh is pretty much unmissable. There'll be updates here (sporadic, probably) but I'll be pinning and v-logging over at Pinstyle and Pinstyle Facebook.

To clarify, Pinstyle is a Facebook app and online portal not dissimilar to Pinterest but dedicated solely to all things style. Happen upon an image, consider it worth sharing and simply pin to your Pinstyle profile. It's the kind of thing that I immediately denounce on first hearing its premise but quickly enough grow completely addicted to. I can think of worse ways of spending my time than discovering other images, aesthetics and trends curated from people from all corners of the world. One of them is my current past-time - nursing almighty hangovers while cursing copy deadlines.

See you in Berlin.