(Near) Perfection No.2

I once wrote a story about a perfect style, that it doesn’t exist at all because fashion is such a subjective matter.

I still agree with my sayings, but I am still surprised by the fact that there are a lot of styles that fall near perfection. Those styles are hidden from our normal eyes yet when they finally appear on the web-blog, they feel right in our eyes.

Simple, accessible, normal and affordable. A style that we can all adopt.

The newest near-perfection that I found in the web is this man.

(There, I bold-typed it. Just to be safe.)

He is wearing his blue navy jumpsuit and his standard polished brown Oxford shoes. That’s it. No bags, no accessories (don’t make me repeat myself: MEN DO WEAR ACCESSORIES!) And it’s just perfect.

Okay, near-perfect.

Maybe it’s the lighting, maybe it’s the posture, maybe it’s that white paper works he is carrying around. Maybe all of those things. I don’t know. My mind is playing this nonstop symphony telling me that this is one of that near-perfect styles…. alright, my sister is playing Pentatonix next to me.

STOP! Don’t you see I am typing my ass off?!

Anyway, good man + good jumpsuit + good shoes + good paper work + good photographer= (Near) Perfection No.2

Image taken from The Sartorialist

When Men Take Colors Seriously

A few years ago men and colors seems to be a strange idea. Colors are ugly! Colors are difficult to play with and who really wants to play with color, if she/he can wear black?! Viva black! Thanks God, things are starting to change. I praise Henry Holland and his wonderful House of Holland label, which encourages people to start bold with colors. And who can’t forget to mention Oscar de la Renta, when it comes to the upraising of pinky trends? His classic quote that goes something like ‘black is ugly, pink is a better color because it flatters every skin tone etc etc.’

The euphoria went straight from the designers’ minds to the street and some men (some is too many numbers to refer to the first group of ‘men love color’, maybe we should’ve used ‘a few’) finally realize wearing color is not a ‘gay thing.’ But I guess there is also one big helper behind this ‘men and colors’ trend.

Gossip Girl

Yes! The addictive story of young New Yorkers trying to stab each other and apologize right after they dump each of their boyfriends? The crew of Gossip Girl brought a new wave of trends into a much larger crowd of teenagers and more open minded (or too open minded crowds?) easing the ‘trendy colors’ trend to enter and seduce people’s minds. Who can’t forget Selena and Blair preppy style? And who can’t forget the impeccable punk style of Jenny (the designer? The one that almost dumped her family?)

Anyway, because we are currently in menswear world (duh!), the only one that we should be thankful to is Mr. Chuck Bass. The playboy with glamorous metropolitan lifestyle and tons of colorful shirts, vests, and blazers. A lot of them (seriously, he seems to have different vest each day… what a maniac! )(even though I only watch him until Season 2 because TOO MUCH DRAMA!) Admit it guys, you want to be as charming as Chuck.

Just say it out loud because tons of other guys want to feel the same thing Mr. Bass feels. The playboy world, the rich rich man things, the hot parties… and you also get a chance to flirt with Leighton Meester. Please, who doesn’t want that? And the easiest way to copy him is to dress like him. And the rest of the stories just fall like dominos.

It will be naive to think that men finally accept colors, good clothes and nice new cologne (at least, eau de toilette) as parts of their lifestyles. Jocks are always be jocks (I am considering myself as geek)(jocks are stupppiiiddddddddd!!!!!) And good menswear clothes are still a ‘gay thing’ to have. Pff, such an idiot. We are lucky though to live in exciting transition era, when people begin to make new traditions instead keeping the old ones. And we can be a part of this! Yeay! I am thinking about making a ‘wear your colorful jersey and basketball shorts all day’ tradition.

Don’t you like it?

P.S: And it’s such a stupid post, if I didn’t give you some real proves. Fine, I am giving you the real men. Real men with colors. On the street.

Click the images to see the sources! 

Why Girls Hate Menswear

Is fashion designers are fooling us all this time or are we accepting silently the fact? Yes, the fact that men always have the easiest, cheapest, wearable items all this time. It’s easy for them to go effortless chic -or masculine, but the girls… effortless chic is totally on the new level above heaven. That doesn’t mean men are always stylish, all the time, nope. That’s just mean it’s easier for them to become a stylish, someday, when they finally decided to attract women not with muscles, but with brain and styles (rarely happens, if you ask me.)

Anyway, it’s pointless to rampage about this thing without a solid prove, the best thing that I can give you is the picture above. Don’t you adore him just with one look? The neat hair (only five minutes affair with cheap comb and hair-gel! No Chanel product needed, no organic creams, and totally no face-mask-whatever for ‘white skin’), the striped shirt (someone gives it to me…uh, years ago. I forget. But definitely no need to fight with other people in random boutiques or save my money for a shirt! Ha! Who wants to do that?!), the dark purple coat? Perfect! I believe this guy doesn’t do anything except walk down to his closet, pick up the first thing he can reach, put it on, ah, where-is-my-jacket condition and he is ready to go.

Imagine every morning you spend rushing between one chaos to another (bags, clothes, pants, tops, cardigans, dresses, summer-dresses, hats, accessories, argh!!!!!), trying to find anything to wear (before work, after work, before the party started, before ‘casual’ hang out, and most importantly, before my-first-date!)(please…like men really care about what we wear)….. and never end up on The Sartorialist (put extreme disappointment here.)

Life’s quite unfair, I see now.

I guess that’s why girl always hate menstyle and tell everyone that men don’t know how to dress and let the standard of a ‘stylish man’ grows higher than what it’s supposed to be (come on, even t-shirts and cargo pants can look good for men!) Well, who are we kidding, girls? Men can be easily stylish, they just don’t want to (which is the reason why women still survive.) 

P.S: Sorry, but I am totally on men’s side this time. We are stylish, you just don’t want to admit it! Am I right?! 

P.P.S: Okay, maybe we are not always stylish. But we can easily do that without having to go through thousand makeover ideas and stupid reality tv shows. Stylish?! Pfft, easy! 

Taken from The Sartorialist 

Day Suit

Oops, I did it again! No, I am not impersonating Britney Spears because I never can (and never will), I just forgot again to let men join our little chats with their classy, casual, a bit rebellious and masculine styles. Even though I am a man (or a teen trying to be one), I never really into menswear when it comes to my blog. Womenswear has so much to talk about until I always think WordPress should give free memories for fashion bloggers only. But menswear? Uh, they only have some nice shirts and pants. And suits. But I won’t be a downer and talk about how boring menswear is. Just admit it girls, there is nothing better than a hunk in a good suit. Hell, even a normal guy can be James Bond-y in good suit. Now, we are entering the tricky part, suit can only be worn at night, right? Well, you are half-right and half-wrong. There is something called day suit, even though (this is the right part) most people associate day suit with office suit. Hmm, I almost thought the same with those people before noticing some differences between those two.

The main difference is the color and how people (eh, men) wear it. Office suit looks gloomy, formal, and can be a little bit stiff because it is made to showcase your perfect posture. Big shoulders, straight back, and strong body posture to intimidate opponents inside the meeting rooms. But day suit, on the other side, might looks a little bit relaxed. More like blazer for men. I like the way it comes in many colors like shirts  (there is even a pink suit! Pink!) and you don’t have to pat your back because the suit is bothering (aka killing) you. Day suit simply flows with your body and create whatever posture you always come up with when wearing usual non-suit clothes. Love that quality.

Therefore day suit never really can beat a good tuxedo for me. Maybe because the huge gap in the atmosphere of the occasion. Come on, having a good lunch and probably sightseeing with your girlfriend and boyfriends (honoring the awesome gay communities out there) in some kind of holidays never beat a ball or formal, extremely important dinner which involves one or two royal family members. Or a wedding in Bali.

Well, we’ve learned something so far.

Taken from StreetFSN

STYLE Loves: Painted Shoes

I once said (well, I always say) that men are such uncreative when it comes to fashion and that’s including me. But then after a little bit consideration, which means looking up on the internet what’s happening on the hip streets of fashion worlds (yeah, somewhere between New York and Milan and London and, wait, Paris!) and found something quite nerve wracking yet exciting, I thought…maybe they’re not that uncreative. I mean, we have pretty boys, who are really perfect object for all clothes from masculine to unisex, we have gays, who are gods in make ups and stylings and, well, other things (assisting and things like that, you know what!). In short, I was wrong. In fact, guys are so creative they dare to paint their own shoes.

Okay, maybe I once painted my own sneakers when I was junior high school for my art project (they were amazing, I got A+ and that was the time I considered being a shoe designer, turned out not as easy as it seems). I just love the fact that they managed to solve the classic shoe-problem, shoes look exciting from the top with all those shiny leather, zippers and pointed ends. Once you lift your feet however, it turns out that they’re not as pretty as it seems. All that masculinity, sporty and stylish style are gone…because of dirty soles. Yuck. The solution? Well, I guess you guys just have to paint your shoes. Oh, one more suspicious thing: I don’t think guys are skilled enough to paint a man with white suit that good….man, we have to find the seller!

Taken from StreetFSN

Thom Browne Menswear Spring 2014

Umm…do you remember that time when we talked about stereotypes and pretty boys? Well, I forgot to tell you that the line between drag-queen-wannabe and pretty boys is very very thin. Don’t kid yourself, sometimes you want to laugh seeing boys wearing makeups, even though it is very thinly spread across their chins. Me too. But that laugh turns into a horrifying look when I see Thom Browne Menswear Spring 2014 collection. Gosh, those models look like a mix between scary hunk from military academy and drag-queen form the nearest cabarets. If Moulin Rogue ever did a collaboration with Hitler, this would be the perfect result. Okay, maybe I am entering my judgmental side once again, let’s go slow this time.

First, the inspiration is indeed from military, think Nazi without genocide, and people speculate that Browne used make ups on the boys’ faces because he wants to criticize gays in the military. Well, okay, I just hope he is on their sides because they already have a lot of enemies these days. Things get more interesting with broad shoulders, full skirt, long coats and navy’s symbols for the clothes. Now, let’s go to my opinion. This show explodes the standard ordinary menswear limit instantly. I don’t know why, but those make ups are totally out of my league. Maybe some high fashion people will say: that’s totally okay, it’s fashion! It’s high fashion!!

Uh-huh, I won’t say that because, even though I really agree with a lot of westren open-minded attitude, I am still a kid from downtown Jakarta (a bit pathetic to reveal thing like this) and those makeups (on men!) are just…wrong. The clothes are great though, Browne is an expert at tailoring, he proves himself with his strong and clean coats and very highly made suits. The materials aren’t bad either, with something like polyester that gives really edgy bad boys look, but all those cool impressions are thrown to cabaret club with those make ups.

Okay, maybe I will clear the air a little bit, the bad thing about the makeups is not the makeup itself. I am okay with boys wearing makeups whatsoever, in fact I sometimes adore the way designer create a clean look for men with makeups, making them somehow more attractive and masculine. But this show is just…too much. The smoky cabaret club’s room with striptease dancers and drag-queen yelling inappropriate things keep coming back in my mind. If Browne really means to criticize gay acceptance in military, I will praise his purpose. But I will not ease my comment about the show. There are a lot of good ways to criticize something and putting too much makeups on guys’ faces is not one of them. Maybe if you wear those clothes without makeups (or with clever makeups), they will look really cool. Maybe….

Taken from Style

Issey Miyake Menswear Spring 2014

Ah, okay, maybe I do like T by Alexander Wang and all designers that still stay simple for menswear this season, but I can’t say no to Issey Miyake. When I first saw the collection, I immediately thought about artists and how they dress for work. Simple t-shirts with a lot of colorful stains that somehow create quite an artistic patterns. I love it. It makes me feel more creative, well, maybe I am desperate to find inspiration source. I like the fact that Issey is doing something different to the classic plaid shirt, plaid shirt is like men’s little-black-dresses, but the difference is…there is only a handfull of designers who want to work with it (and that color blocking blazer looks promising as the-next-big-hit!). As the show went on, the artist feeling began to fade and replaced by uneasiness. Pink, granite black and strange abstract patterns came in not really cool ways. Maybe this is what Heidi Klum mean when she say: too costume-y, which is quite explainable in womenswear, but mens? Well, strange (or rare) case, mens are used to be under-dressed.

Tunic, shorts and pants come and go with reckless styling and rough attitude, I don’t know about you, but I feel like jumping from painter’s loft into an adventure in mountains with rebellious yet artsy travelers. Issey gives us one of the most colorful shows, some of the pieces are messy good, but some of them are just not my style (or anyone’s style).

I’ll give a lot of credits for his braveness in mixing colors, feel rebellious and fresh at the same time (it is hard to feel fresh in fashion, designers are easily ‘inspired’ by other designers). Even though, it becomes slightly annoying at one point on the show. I have to admit it is hard to balance the explosiveness of colors, they’re like bad kids and we are the parents, trying desperately (shouts, sweats and tears of shame involve)  to control their behaviors. Sometimes we’re good, other times….we are not. Now, the question is….what kind of parents are you guys?

Taken from Style

T by Alexander Wang Menswear Spring 2014

White, patterns, more exploration in colors, bold again an again. Those are what I’ve seen so far during menswear. I am not going to complain about the trends because I used to cheer designers to go explore the ‘other side’ of men’s style. So, no rain on your parade today. Phew! But I like to say that there is always one designer that play it different, even though not that different because the logic is: he stays the same while others play different. Uh, annoying logic. Okay, so the point is: T by Alexander Wang takes different approach with simple collection of black, sporty materials, simple (almost nothing special) items, and I instantly like the collection.

Starts with beige/creme-de-la-creme pieces, Wang continues the collection with white t-shirts and super cool shorts, after that masculine black comes in shapes of sport jackets and geometric-patterned sweaters before the collection ends…almost perfect. I think the reason I like the collection is not because the clothes are amazing, they’re cool but nothing worth to feel ‘OMG-this-is-insanely-great!!!!’ thing. I like it because it’s different than others. When other designers are fiercely chasing colors, Wang stays still and do the collection just like usual, staying true to his aesthetic and successfully blew me away. Sporty, a bit too simple, casual, and ignorant are men’s (and Wang’s) things, and I was too fired up in color-up-dude-trend that I forgot the ultimate point to make it into the menswear section. Shame on me. SHAME!!

Well, if you are a cool guy with great body who are looking for good clothes that don’t need too much special treatment, go to this guy, he knows you well. Promise. And, sorry Wang, I won’t join the fans lining up infront of your store because I will look like fat-panda inside your clothes (they look really soft and reveal the naked body’s silouhette of the wearer, which is great if you have abs. I don’t even have a flat-tummy). Bah! Let’s talk about Holiday-Weight later!

Taken from Style

STYLE Loves: Skateboarding Thing

I am not good at any sports and maybe never will because…I just hate sports. But I tell you a million times already and I will tell you one more time: I really like sporty style. In fact, I keep tons of basketball shorts and thinking about buying jersey shirts because they’re really soft and comfortable, even though I have to bear the embarrassment when people ask me wether Lakers win last night or not after looking at my shorts. What the hell Lakers is dude? I am kidding, I know what Lakers is, just checked it out on the net. Not only comfortable, sports is also a good style reference. Alexander Wang, Isabel Marant, Thakoon, every designer wants a little bit of sporty spirit and they do it great.

Except for one small detail…sport is an activity. It is not a noun, it’s a verb. In order to get a cool sporty style, you have to do sports first. Well, nothing too intense, maybe a short jogging around the Central Park or…skateboarding. Okay, maybe you are not that young anymore, but skateboarding is hot in fashion. Even Prada made a collection about skateboard once (I forget, but I am quite sure), Teen Vogue did it, Marc Jacobs also took a part. And it’s fun! Plus, skateboarding can be the instant way to get Punk-ed style (one of the most popular styles. You’ll thank me later) (or not). Interested? Just don’t forget to wear helmet, body protections and bring a really good Aspirin. G’luck!

P.S: A little weather reminder: do the skateboarding thing now, if you are interested, when the summer still raging and sunny days are easy to get.

Taken from The Sartorialist

Burberry Prorsum Menswear Spring 2014

Okay, you got me! I am ignoring the menswear season this year because I am really not in the mood writing reviews and copying pictures. Please, I need rest, can someone do the heavy works for me? Anyone? Yeah, blogging can be a sucker for your holiday. But I can’t resist the Burberry Menswear Spring 2014 temptation. Christopher Bailey succeed (again) in making delicious collection that every man wants to wear. Maybe not every man, but most of us. This season Bailey took inspiration from author and painter, Alan Bennet and David Hockney. It looks like the trio come from Yorkshire and agreed to bring back some of the old memories back to the runway, along with modernity and simple Englishman masculinity. I can see that.

The colors look exceptionally bold, cheerful, and artsy while still maintaining clean cuttings and simple items like sweaters and things that we (men) actually want to wear. One thing that makes me praise the collection even more is the use of polkadots. I have seen polkadots a lot of times in womenswear, but rarely see it in menswear. Bailey in the other hand, gives quite a pattern show with polkadot shirts, scarves and, as sweet addition, striped ties. It’s like Burberry finally gives some spaces for artsy-fashion and cheerful moods. Good thing because I almost forgot what else Burberry makes except trench coats and umbrellas (duh!).

Some people say that Burberry is loosing it’s identity when Bailey (and the rest of the team) decided to go global. But I don’t think so, Burberry is simply evolving like any other major brand. Here’s the deal: fashion is a very quick business, once you are in, you have to go follow the flow (sometimes you have to make some splashes, of course) and keep up with it. If Burberry still sticked with it’s classic gentleman attitude and don’t want to loosen up a little bit, uh…maybe we can think other places to buy trench coats.

Anyway, good job Mr. Bailey and no negative critics for you this season. Best regards.

Taken from Style