gdl203

[nomanwalksalone]

THE ART OF VALSTAR

By Derek Guy

Valstar is mostly known today as the Italian company who came up with a casual, sporty take on the classic A-1 blouson – a type of flight jacket with a button front and stand-up, knitted collar. The A-1 was originally a military flight jacket worn by American fighter pilots, but Valstar turned it into a sporty piece of outerwear that civilian men could wear in the city. Before coming up with the design, however they were actually an English maker of raincoats. In fact, they first did business under the name English Fashion Waterproof, and continued to do so until 1911, when they moved to Italy, changed their name to Valstar, and became the first Italian manufacturer of rainwear. It wasn’t until a generation later that they became known for their blouson.

In the time they made raincoats, Valstar had some spectacular advertising art. Much of it was in the style of Leonetto Cappiello, an illustrator whose style became widely copied – particularly in Western Europe – during the early 20th century.

Cappiello was an Italian artist who moved to France in 1898, and quickly became famous for his caricatures of Parisian actresses. The boulevards in Paris were full of distractions, so Cappiello had to quickly learn how to reject the fussy details of Art Nouveau (which ruled the day at that time), and instead focus on creating animated, slightly humorous caricatures of his subjects. His style had the energy of Jules Cheret (popularly thought of as the “father of the modern poster”), and the caricature style of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (one of the most well-known French painters in the Post-Impressionist period). His art was celebrated for how they captured people’s imaginations, and was soon found on advertising posters throughout Continental Europe. Anyone who’s been to a coffeehouse nowadays has undoubtedly seen reproductions of his work (think of that famous black poster with a mischievous green devil holding a bottle of absinthe, seemingly both mocking and tempting the viewer).

Of course, not all of Valstar’s artwork was done in this style. Some featured more realistic depictions of people in their raincoats. Whether in the spirit of Cappiello or someone else, however, all of their advertisements were tremendously stylish, as one can see here.

[nomanwalksalone]

BIG JOHN AND THE START OF JAPANESE DENIM CULTURE

By Derek Guy

Much of denim culture today owes itself to Japan. There are many theories about how this quintessentially American garment was introduced to the Far East, but it’s most widely believed that they came with the American soldiers who decided to stay in Japan after the Second World War. By that time, jeans had evolved from being a workwear garment to a fashion item. Hollywood stars such as James Dean and Marlon Brando gave them a new sense of young, rebellious cool, and they became a symbol of the counterculture that stood against the button-down, sack suit of old. With this new appeal, American soldiers found it easy to sell imported jeans to the fashionable Japanese youth.

At some point, the Japanese developed their unique denim subculture, rather than just follow the one in America. It might have started with Mauro Clothing, who began by importing Lees and Levis in the 1950s. They found they had to recut these garments so they’d fit the average Japanese customer, and in doing so, they learned how they were made. Thus, when the country’s restrictions on denim fabric imports were lifted in 1963, Mauro began manufacturing jeans with Cone Mills denim for the American label Canton. These were the world’s first Japanese produced jeans, though they were sold under an American brand name.

Having gotten the hang of manufacturing, Mauro launched their own line: Big John. The first Big John jeans were also made with Cone Mills denim, but shortly after, Mauro worked with a Japanese mill to weave the world’s first Japanese denim fabric. This made their model – the M1002, first made in 1973 – the first fully Japanese produced line of jeans, from fabrics to construction. It may be curious to reader to know that Big John was also the first to ever make pre-washed jeans. At the time, Japanese customers were used to second-hand jeans from America, and they wanted their Japanese jeans to have the same soft, broken-in feel.  

Of course, today, Japan is mostly known for their raw, selvedge jeans, which are meant to be broken in with time. These often draw from the vintage-repro movement that started in Japan during the 1980s, but Japanese denim culture in general – and denim culture today at large – owes a great debt to early Japanese pioneers such as Bobson, Edwin, Evisu, and Big John.

[nomanwalksalone]

Classic Budapester derbies   Oxblood boxcalf, double soles, goyser welt Entirely handmade by Vass in Budapest

Available at nomanwalksalone.com this fall

[gdl203]

Quintessential Austro-Hungarian shoemaking here

[nomanwalksalone]

[wellwornwornwell]

I very, very rarely reblog anything. However, I’m extremely excited for Greg and Kevin’s new venture, No Man Walks Alone. Both of these guys have been some of the most consistently excellent posters on Style Forum over the past decade, and their taste levels far exceed what has become the #menswear norm.

I encourage everyone to follow their blog and sign up as a VIP on their soon-to-be-launched site here. Their stock promises to be exceptionally curated, specializing in items that are as rare as they are tasteful.

[gdl203]

Thanks !

[nomanwalksalone]

STUTTERHEIM 

By Pete Anderson

Midway on the journey of life, Alexander Stutterheim found himself in a dark place, the right road lost. Unsatisfied with his copywriting career, he was rummaging through the belongings of his grandfather, when he came upon an old raincoat. The black rubber coat reminded him of the nights the man would set out fishing in the worst weather Sweden could offer. “I would see his silhouette on the waves, always afraid he wouldn’t return. He did, with a great catch. I would ask him ‘Why do you always go out to catch fish in these thunderstorms?’ And he’d say ‘It’s not fish that I caught, it’s life.’ I didn’t understand it at that point, but now…” Stutterheim found the unique Swedish brand of melancholy inspiring. “You need to embrace the darkness. If you feel blue for some time, eventually you have to be creative to get away from that feeling. I used to do that with words. If I were a painter I would paint. I made raincoats.”

Stutterheim still isn’t quite sure how he got from that dark place to where he is today, with his impressively functional, unfussy raincoats in demand worldwide. “For me it’s surreal, because I’m still in my kitchen in a way.” It was in Stutterheim’s kitchen that he originally made a prototype copy of his grandfather’s coat. He brought it to a factory in Sweden that still made outerwear, and was very specific about what he was looking for.  “I decided to make 100 black coats. I bought fabric and buttons; I was very picky.” The factory didn’t understand at first why he didn’t want the latest tech fabrics. Stutterheim wanted his grandfather’s old-school rubber coat, just updated.

The night his order of 100 black, rubberized cotton coats arrived, Stutterheim posted on Facebook. In the morning when his doorbell rang he found a line of customers outside. After his second batch sold out, “My neighbor was starting to wonder what kind of business I had. He thought it was a fetish club—all these guys in black rubber coats.”

The success led to Stutterheim opening a store in Stockholm and to developing a product line that’s expanding, but still consciously limited—just a few coats; a pair of boots; an umbrella.  Stutterheim’s coats provide protection only from rain, though. We have to navigate the darkness on our own.

[nomanwalksalone]

Napoli travel bag by Calabrese dal 1924 Antiqued tan leather, full leather lining Handmade in Napoli, Italy

Available at nomanwalksalone.com this fall

[nomanwalksalone]

INIS MEAIN AND INISHMAAN ISLAND 

By Derek Guy

  At the end of the 19th century, Irish playwright John Millington Synge made a number of trips to the Aran islands. He was encouraged by his friend William Butler Yeats, who told him to “Live there as one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.” Synge spent his first summer there in 1897, after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, and died seven years after his final visit in 1902. Before passing, he documented his trips in a book simply titled The Aran Islands.

The Aran Islands is not a dry read. Much of it is dedicated to describing the wet climate and desolate environment the islanders face. “Grey floods of water” sweep over the limestone, “making at times wild torrents on the road,” which wrap over the low hills. Throughout the book, the reader feels waterlogged and deafened by the ever-roaring sea. Despite these harsh conditions, life seems peaceful and idyllic. Synge describes the fashion on Inishmaan (the middle of the three islands) as having a simplicity that helped elevate the local air of beauty. “The women wear red petticoats and jackets of the island wool stained with madder,” he writes, “to which they usually add a plaid shawl twisted around their chests and tied at the back.”

It’s this island that knitwear brand Inis Meáin inhabits and represents. For example, basketweave sweaters are inspired by the ancient stonewalls used to divide the land for agricultural purposes, and their undyed, natural yarns are reminiscent of those imposing limestone cliffs that Synge described over a hundred years ago. Certain details – such open plackets cut into crewnecks – are directly borrowed from old sweaters pulled out of sheds and cottages.

Many have lamented that the world is being homogenized through globalization. The main Aran island, Inishmore, for example, has a large knitwear industry with sweaters that are nearly indistinguishable from any mall brand’s. Inishmaan, on the other hand, seems to have been spared this, being so isolated and difficult to access (there are no safe, natural harbors, and the island is populated by less than 200 people). As such, it’s been able to preserve its own unique, regional ways of doing things - ways described in John Millington Synge’s mesmerizing book and preserved in Inis Meáin’s beautiful knitwear.

[nomanwalksalone]

Money clip wallet by Ettinger Racing green bridle leather Handmade in England

Available at nomanwalksalone.com this fall

[nomanwalksalone]

A WORKSHOP WEATHERED BY TIME

By David Isle

  If Gaudi had ever built a shrine to umbrella-making, it would look like Mario Talarico’s workshop. It’s located in Naples’s Spanish Quarter, surrounded by cobblestone streets and the laundry lines hung across them. The one-room shack doesn’t seem to have been built so much as it seems to have sprouted, from the seed left by some ancient umbrella-maker many generations ago – perhaps by Mario’s great-grandfather Giovanni Bongiovanni, the founder of the family business.

Copses of gnarled sticks, gathered from around the world, lean against the walls and hang from the ceiling, waiting to be curled into umbrella backbones. Against the back wall, an underbrush of German umbrella ribs, each one tested for its strength before use. In one corner, like a hobbit home carved out of a sequoia stump, is the elder Mario Talarico’s work desk, and above it are tool cubbies. Each one contains odds and ends, some of which may be useful for only one umbrella in a thousand.

Nearby, behind a mechanical saw, there is a hole bored into the wall, chest-high. But it’s no Andy Dufresne-inspired escape plan. “I had to put a hole in the wall so I could work,” says Signor Talarico. The saw cuts a notch in the stick, to which the umbrella’s clasp for opening and closing the canopy can be fitted. Without the hole in wall, like a cramped pool player, the umbrella-maker would have no room to pass the correct part of the stick over the saw.

Just as each Talarico umbrella is its own unique project, made individually, by hand, the workshop and the tools of the craft within it have been moulded by a history that will never be repeated. Today the Talarico workshop is one of the only places in the world that makes umbrellas by hand. There won’t be any more starting up soon either.

This workshop, however, will survive at least one generation more. Across the shop from Talarico Sr.’s desk is a glass counter, covered with a scrapbook’s worth of photos of celebrities receiving and using Talarico umbrellas. This has become the workspace of Mario Talarico, Jr., Senior’s nephew. He stands behind the counter, sewing in a canopy. The fabric lies open, obscuring most of the pictures, which is just as well. The snapshots capture an instant in time. In the Talarico workshop, time is measured not in instants, but in generations.

[nomanwalksalone]

"Noblesse Oblige" sunglasses by Lunettes Kollektion Honey frames, green gradient lenses Handmade in Northern Italy

Available at nomanwalksalone.com this fall

[nomanwalksalone]

Ramino wood full stick umbrella Handmade by Mario Talarico, Naples

[nomanwalksalone]

Alt Wien derbies,  Bordeaux boxcalf, double soles, goyser welt Entirely handmade by Vass in Budapest

Available at nomanwalksalone.com this fall

[nomanwalksalone]

Does the world really need another online menswear store?

Before you answer that question, let me tell you a little bit about No Man Walks Alone and why it’s worth a look for anyone who values quality craftsmanship, thoughtful design, honesty, and passion from the people who make their clothes.

No Man Walks Alone borrows its name from a Humphrey Bogart line and is a site with a point of view.  It’s an online space that will showcase makers and products that we would like to share with others.

We want to offer a selection of great looking products - ones that are honest in their design and their make, from casual to formal - all in one place. In the last nine months, we’ve scoured the world over to define our assortment. We’ve made multiple trips to Italy, France, Japan, and the UK; visited workshops, design studios, and trade shows; and met loads of  talented and passionate people.

Our site and store will open in September and we will offer a carefully selected (dare I say “curated?”) assortment of clothing, footwear, and accessories. We don’t want to be an online department store with hundreds of brands, nor do we want to offer only luxury bespoke products to a happy few. We know every item in the store, and each was selected for a reason. In fact, many were specially commissioned by us – we picked the styles, materials, and details, and let each maker perform their magic.  From the unique series of suits made for us by a Neapolitan bespoke tailor, to a carefully selected line of footwear from our favorite Hungarian shoemaker, our offering reflects our taste and point of view.

I believe that you will like our selection. There will be handsewn shirts from Puglia; cashmere scarves and sweaters from Scotland; neckties from London, Milan, and Naples; jackets from England, Italy, and Japan; rainwear from Sweden and Scotland; knitwear from the Aran islands; handmade belts and trousers from Parma; handmade shoes from Northampton and Budapest;  sneakers and boots from Tuscany and Alsace; casual shirts and outerwear from Japan; leather goods from Italy, England, and Spain; and handcrafted umbrellas from Naples and Milan.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving you a taste of the makers and products we’re carrying by posting photos on our Tumblr and Facebook pages. So, follow us to stay updated, and spread the word to your like-minded friends.   

If you head over to www.nomanwalksalone.com now, you can sign up to become part of our Founders Circle, which will carry benefits reserved only for those who register before our September launch.  There’s also a nice surprise when you sign up …

Looking forward to serving you soon,

Greg (gdl203)

[gdl203]

Introducing the project I have been working on for the last nine months.   Please follow me at nomanwalksalone on tumblr as I will be posting mostly there going forward.   And don't forget to sign up early to our Founders Circle to get discounts and invites to early sales and events.

[gdl203]

Hi Greg -- Since you have experience with various TOJ jackets and leathers, I was wondering if you could make a recommendation. I'm ordering my first jacket from them, so I wanted something versatile for a refined casual wardrobe (flannel trousers, suede chukkas, dotted scarves). I'm leaning toward a brown CWU, but am not certain about whether to go with goat or lamb. I see you wear your goat A2 quite a bit, and are also happy with your black lamb UMDR. Which leather would you pick in my shoes?

Hi there -

Given the more refined clothes you are looking to wear with it (flannels & chukkas), I would definitely go for lamb.  A goatskin bomber would look a tad off with these IMO, and a better match for jeans and boots.   Now, is the CWU the best option for the look you're going for?  Maybe.   Take a look at possibly doing a lambskin Harrington maybe as an alternative.

In any case, TOJ leathers are amazing (especially lambskin ones) and you will be very happy.

Best

---Greg (gdl203)

[nomanwalksalone]

Quick study of Neapolitan shoulders

When commissioning a bespoke jacket in Naples, the choice of which shoulder construction to use tends to fall into two main categories. 

Much has been said, written and many diagrams drawn on the topic, so rather than post yet another essay, we thought we would share a quick photo comparison to illustrate the differences.

Showing here side by side, two beautiful examples from the master tailors at Sartoria Formosa in Napoli :

Spalla cadente morbida (regular soft construction) :  first two pictures of the navy birdseye suit.   The shoulder is still very soft with minimal padding but the seam allowances inside the sleevehead are pressed open to give a slight bit of volume.   The shoulder is “cleaner" than the second example.

Spalla manica a camicia (shirt sleeve construction) : second set of pictures of the blue nailhead flannel.  Constructed like a shirt with a lapped seam along the shoulder line, and seam allowances are folded up and pressed up inside the shoulder.   The sleeve is also cut a tad fuller at the sleevehead to create the shirring seen here when inserted into the armscye, which gives a little bit of extra freedom of movement.

[forreferenceonly]

[nomanwalksalone]

Greg Lellouche (gdl203) in Neapolitan jacket cut out of Johnstons cashmere plaid cloth

[ethandesu]

Trees

One of the great parts of Saint Crispin’s shoes is not even the shoe itself, but rather the individually made, hollow lasted shoe trees. All my pairs that have been custom lasted have shoe trees to match, keeping the last that fits my oddly shaped feet. They are a beautiful piece of fictional art in and of themselves.

[gdl203]

Couldn't agree more with that. As irrational as it may sound, my favorite thing about my Saint Crispins is the trees.