I want the Row protected. That’s obvious. One side is already mostly boutiques and the other has more than one non-tailor already firmly rooted. It’s not a perfect state of affairs. Far from it in fact. Abercrombie & Fitch, parent company of Abercrombie Kids already occupies the former bank at the top of the Row and the smell of chemical-laden cologne can be smelled as far down as Huntsman on a breezy day. Gaggles of screaming teenagers swarming in their flip-flops and torn jeans. Far from perfect is a generous assessment, no?.

And, to finish establishing the facts, the local council and government committees were less than forthright with the surrounding businesses during zoning/protection talks. Abercrombie Kids will generate a lot of traffic and revenue, and those in power obviously chose sides long before the battle could be fought.

But this protest might not be the best way to show our collective displeasure with the selling out of what is an international institution and a national treasure. Most people these days think the Row is irrelevant and a historical relic, and I’m not sure showing up in three-piece tweeds with handlebar mustaches is the most tactful way to dispel this myth. I applaud the bravado of the protestors, and this is by no means a condemnation. I’m just worried about how most people will look at their actions.

Savile Row is as relevant as ever. They make clothes, not costumes. Its heart is craftsmanship and the dedication of individuals to producing something that possesses a bit of humanity. It is not simply a costume shop.

As someone who was privileged enough to get my sartorial toes wet for the first time in these hallowed houses, I am obviously protective. The owners, operators, and tailors have become my good friends over the last few years, and I abhor the very idea that somehow the British government does not understand what a treasure it has in the Row. The key though is making them see that it is as much a modern treasure as a historical one.

The funniest thing here is the nature the invader itself – Abercrombie & Fitch, once a great outfitter which stood for many of the same values as the Row itself. But, while Abercrombie traded dapper jackets for distressed denim, the Row has stayed true to its mission. Innovators have advanced tailoring without letting it go altogether.

It is just too ironic to think that having destroyed their own heritage Abercrombie now has to steal someone else’s.

Photos via GQ Eye and James Sherwood’s Diary

Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class is one of the great books on the role of “things” in our lives. In fewer than 300 pages, Veblen articulates a clear theory of material culture and coins more than a few commonly used terms. Here are just a few thoughts on one of his very small ideas.

One of the many evocative images Veblen draws upon in his treatise is a simple pair of spoons. One is handmade and rough while the other is an exact machine-made copy of the imperfect spoon. The former expensive, the latter cheap; the one desirable, the other expendable.

Veblen tells us “the hand-wrought spoon gratifies our taste, our sense of the beautiful, while that made by machinery out of the base metal has no useful office beyond a brute efficiency.”

Beautiful. Now, Velben will go on to use this to explain how we construct notions of beauty which are directly opposed to utility in order to rarify the beautiful and assign regard to those who possess it. But while he is completely right, that’s not where I’m going with this. Excuse me while I take his words completely out of context.

If the spoons look identical and function identically, this “sense of the beautiful” lies not in physicality of the object, but rather in its spirituality. The creation is beautiful, not the created. It is the fact that when you sip soup from the handmade spoon you are reminded of the craftsmen who shaped it, the tradition of silversmithing, the trouble you went through to obtain it, and the duration for which you will possess it. You are not simply “using” a spoon.

Sure this is a highly romanticized notion of material culture and craftsmanship, and I’m glossing over Veblen’s real argument, which illuminates many of the problems lying beneath this romantic surface, but this romanticism is a reality nonetheless.

I can’t help but think of bespoke tailoring when reading about Veblen’s spoons. A suit off the rack might fit just as well and be made of beautiful cloth, but you leave the shop with nothing but a suit in tow. No relationship, no process, and no romanticism. It is just a thing.

At the end of the day, all our things are just that – things. But any opportunity we have to give those contrivances meaning is an opportunity we should seize. To give beautiful little meanings to the otherwise utilitarian is one of life’s greatest, and most necessary, pleasures.

I highly recommend you check out The Theory of the Leisure Class if you don’t already have a copy.

You’ve doubtlessly read G. Bruce Boyer’s thoughts on everything from Harris Tweed to bench made shoes, but what you might not know is that the guy loves jazz music as much as (if not more than) great clothes.  So without further ado, a memoir from Mr. Boyer about Louis Armstrong.

It was just a regular Friday night dance at The Frolics Ballroom, that’s all it was. There hadn’t been any publicity about the band that was going to play that evening for a crowd of dancing teenagers on a warm summer evening in July, 1958. Most Friday night dances were “record hops”, where a DJ would play current Rock ‘n Roll hits for teens to dance. Occasionally we got a great musical act: Little Richard played The Frolics, so did Fats Domino, Bill Doggett, and numerous Doo Wop groups, and some local talent.

But this warm evening in July turned out to be a completely unexpected joy. The band was “The Louis Armstrong All Stars”, and the group consisted of:

Louis Armstrong, trumpet
Peanuts Hucko, clarinet
Billy Kyle, piano
Trummy Young, trombone
Danny Barcelona, drums

The All Stars had just played a concert at Lewisohn Stadium, the large amphitheater on the campus of the City College of New York in West Harlem at the end of June. This was the group that had appeared in the 1956 film High Society, with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly, and was lined up to open the first  Monterey Jazz Festival that October 3^rd.

But here they were playing the Frolics Ballroom to a crowd of teenagers in July. As it happens, you can hear exactly what they sounded like on Louis Armstrong: Live at 1958 The Monterey Jazz Festival (MUF Records), which was issued for the first time in 2007, almost a half century after the concert itself.

What struck me as so unusual at the time was that nobody danced. We all went to the Frolics ballroom to dance, but the band was simply so good that everyone there just stood and listened, for a full hour. I know now, from listening to hours of taped live performances, that this was a traditional Louis Armstrong program: they began with “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”, and ended with “:When the Saints Go Marching In”, and in between managed to get in “Blueberry  Hill” (our favorite), “High Society Calypso”, “Undecided”, “Mack the Knife” and a half dozen more.

The band was as tight and together and swingin’ as could be, both laid back and powerful, light and easy, then stomping away at the climax of the songs. But what I took away, what sticks with me is not a particular rendition of a song, but a story, a joke that Louis told during a break in the performance:

When I was a little boy in New Orleans we lived close to a bayou, and I had to go down there with a bucket to get water because there wasn’t any indoor plumbing at that time. One day when I bent over to fill up my bucket I found myself starring straight into the eyes of a big old alligator. I grabbed my bucket and ran like hell back to the house, and told my mamma what I’d seen.

“Oh, Louis”, she said, “Don’t you know that alligator’s as scared of you as you are of him.”

I gave that some thought. “Mamma,” I said, “if that ‘gator’s as scared of me as I am of him, that water ain’t fit to drink.”

When I finally heard the Monterey Concert album in 2007, I heard the same joke told in the same way at the same place in the program. The whole show I saw at The Frolics Ballroom in July was really a rehearsal for what Louis would do at the jazz festival later that summer.  Richard Hadlock, in the liner notes to the Monterey album, says that when one assertive  festival producer urged Louis to be sure and give the crowd at Monterey a “special” show, Louis merely replied proudly, “Man, all my shows are special.” Amen. I could have told the schmuck that.

The Arrow Collar Man is one of the most iconic images in all of menswear advertising.  He didn’t always look exactly the same, and sometimes we’d see him outside of the adds for Arrow’s wears.  But, regardless of where or exactly what he looked like, The Arrow Collar Man was a symbol of a particular masculine elegance that’s never out of place.

His creator, J.C. Leyendecker (1874-1951)was a German illustrator who grew up in Chicago and was trained at the Art Institute there.  He went on to be The Saturday Evening Post‘s most successful cover artist in his day, but in 1905 he began working with Arrow Shirts (then Arrow Collars).  The first Arrow Collar Man was modeled on a Mr. Charles Beach, who went on to become Leyendecker’s manager for years.  It’s rumored the two had an ongoing affair, but it’s a tough rumor to confirm.

The Arrow Collar Man himself came in many guises between 1905 and 1931.  Sometimes he had slick hair and dimples and other times a rock hard jaw and tousled mane.  He wore turn down collars with his collegiate-striped ties and immaculately starched shirts with his white bows.  Whatever The Arrow Collar Man wore under his chin – which is what he was selling, don’t forget – he looked confident and comfortable.

It’s no surprise that the above image has been used more than once as cover art for Fitzgerald novels (most famously as my favorite The Beautiful and Damned).  The Arrow Collar Man personified the glamour of the turn-of-the-century man.

One of the things we’ve lost in giving up illustration for photoshoots is the ability to have icons like this.  Being fictional didn’t stop him from getting his own fanmail for the better part of two decades.  No model, no matter how super they might seem, can inspire and dazzle like The Arrow Collar Man.

It’s not unusual for a truly great pair of shoes to elicit an exclaiming including the words “God” or “Holy.”  But on October 25 we can take this to the next level and celebrate St Crispin’s Day.

Since sometime in the Middle Ages, shoemakers have made October 25th their day, paying tribute to St Crispin, the Patron Saint of Shoemakers.  Traditionally shops were closed in a mix of reverence and revelry, but luckily we don’t have to worry too much about that these days.  So if you’ve been looking for that excuse to take the plunge on a new pair, what better excuse than a centuries-old holiday?

St Crispin was a wealthy Roman who resorted to shoemaking when he was shunned by his traditional family for taking to the Gospels sometime in the third century.  He went to ply his trade in France and was promptly put to death for preaching, which you can see above.  Another saint, celebrated alongside St Crispin, is St Hugh.

Hailing from what is now Wales, Hugh’s story was pretty much the same, but after his death his fellow shoemakers (also called cordwainers) took his bones and made tools.  Deborah Carre of Carréducker tells me this is why shoemakers tool were traditionally referred to as “St Hugh’s Bones” in the trade.

There’s something about a great pair of shoes that has no rival in a man’s wardrobe.  A great suit is a thing of beauty, but not all of us can reasonably wear one every day.  When I asked Ms. Carre  about where she sees handmade shoes fitting into the modern gent’s wardrobe she remarked “they complete a man’s look whether he’s in a suit or jeans,” and I couldn’t agree more.  A brilliant pair of hooves is never out of place.

Mr. Euan Denholm from Northampton’s Edward Green commented “beyond the technical, as humans we want our beautiful objects to have an authenticity to them, to have a dignity to them. That comes through being created with respect and consideration by their maker, rather than rolled off an anonymous conveyor belt…Our customers know that shows in the shoes.”  It’s this deep and obvious involvement of the maker that makes a day like St Crispin’s special, whatever your religious bent may be.

Every year John Lobb Paris (Hermes) puts out a limited edition shoe to celebrate.  The 2010 model might have been the most-blogged shoe of the past year – a whole cut double monk in Black Misty Calf with proprietary Hermes-designed buckles.  This year’s model, while not quite as mystifying at first glance, is definitely no slouch.  It’s an elegant captoe oxford offered in three different color ways.  One museum calf and two suedes.  The most exciting of the bunch is the Vivid Prune Suede, though I’ll admit I don’t know what I would wear it with.

If you happen to be in London, the folks from Carréducker will be showing off their skills at the Gieves & Hawkes flagship on the corner of Savile Row and Vigo Street all day long.  If you’re in New York, maybe swing by Leffot and take a look at what Steven’s got on offer.  Paris?  Drop by Corthay.  And no matter where you are, wear a special pair of shoes!