SPRING FASHION EDITION - 08

Men in suits
I was literally stopped in my tracks this morning by two different men wearing FANTASTIC suits. Yesterday I also developed a crick in my neck craning to see another contender. Which just goes to show where we’ve got to now in fashion. After decades of ‘dress down’ if not actually distressed garments being the status items we’ve come full circle and it is the tailored suit that turns heads. This is not the same as the Dior skinny tailoring we’ve grown used to but actually a return to something much more classic and masculine. [Click on the image below for a hot fashion shoot from Band of Outsiders ...]

Tuesday’s Mr Sartorial was wearing a ‘just-this-side of shiny’ suit with (I’d guess) a high silk content and an amazingly sharp cut. Mr 1 this morning had a fantastic flannel grey suit worn with a striped, open collar and perfect haircut. Mr 2 though wins first prize for a fantastic dark grey wool suit with – the killer detail - a tie made from the identical fabric. Awesome! If he was in any way approachable and the item wasn’t so obviously a bespoke suit I might have been tempted to ask him where he got it. Given that all 3 were City guys it only goes to show that the City is not entirely dominated by lads from Basildon wearing square-toed shoes with their dull tailoring. I’ve also spotted a couple of immaculate, super-groomed beards recently on my morning trip through the City. With new venues like
The Mercer winning style points, could we be poised for an 80s-centric revival of the City, ironically cool a la American Psycho? - I do hope so.

‘Happy Days’ are here again
On a separate note, I attended Liberty’s Spring fashion launch shopping event last night. There is only one thing to say as we head into Spring 2008: “Nineteenfifties”. From YMC who have been working every aspect of this look for a while (knitwear, rockabilly wallet chains in leather, bowling shirts) to Lost Souls, a Sydney label who have delivered perfect matelot style tops with neon cuffs (another key trend): it’s a definite theme. My purchases: one of the said nautical tops and a YMC dog-tooth bowling shirt. I will now be scouring the archives for images of 50s icons: Dean/Clift/Brando et al to inform the essential details. A look I first spotted in NY 18 months ago (fifties style ‘bohemian’) is finally coming to fruition it seems, bringing with it new meaning for the word ‘casual’.

Hot stuff: Oliver Jackson-Cohen
I am not ashamed to say that I actually watch BBC1’s Larkrise to Candleford on Sunday evenings. I’m slightly obsessed by costume drama and one of the only things that gets me through that Sunday evening feeling is watching a fine performance from someone wearing a bonnet, a crinoline or a flat cap. Speaking of which, no costume drama is without a heart-throb and in the case of Larkrise it’s most definitely Philip the gamekeeper. Oliver Jackson-Cohen is the actor in question and to my mind he sums up the squeaky cleanness we’re looking for right now in our ‘back to the fifties’ moment. Fuck, he’s handsome. I was therefore much bemused to find this on the web – the lucky blogger actually got to SMELL OJC’s neck. In NYC no less! I’m quite green with envy and will be looking out for OJC in earnest (I have a tendency to come across celebs in my wanderings).