Colour that graduates from light to dark, this trend gives dip-dye a new appealing spin by highlighting gentle gradations of a single or more colors, the modern, minimalist version of tie-dye.
This technique associated to a bohemian look, but this season designers took a different approach and gave it the luxe treatment by mixing knitwear, sequins, color block stripes, houndstooth and fur.
Corneliani, Emporio Armani, Ernest Alexander, Fendi, Givenchy, J.W. Anderson, Katie Eary, Ovadia and Sons, Neil Barrett and Lie Sang Bong
Today at 3 in NYC the Pop Up Flea returns. An annual, and now traveling event, that they sum up best as “a short-term store for long-term goods”. Unfortunately, I won’t be there…but, I was last year so I’m a dwell on that all weekend and write about it a little bit here to open this whole blog thing.
I’m out in Providence, RI and there is one shop selling quality mens clothing and their taste is very exclusive (read: expensive as shit). NYC is 3 hours away, I had just crawled into the menswear hole and I had at least one friend willing to come with, so last year I spent the PUF weekend in NYC. PUF was my IRL introduction to menswear. I showed up nieve, with all of my knowledge coming from lurking on SF and reading Four Pins. I was so corny, I really expected Tommy Ton to be outside and that by going I was suddenly a real part of the #menswear community. I was unprepared, which is pretty much how I am for most things in life, except I actually felt a little embarrassed about it this time.
So PUF wasn’t a place where people exchange Twitter handles and pop off rosé, or more likely some people do, but I was a bitch and didn’t try to meet anyone new. It did allow me to see clothes that I could normally only look at online and an opportunity to actually talk to the dudes behind these brands. Listening to the 3sixteen guys explaining their denim was ridiculous. Discovering a dude pushing leather bags made in fucking Providence was unexpected to say the least. Seriously that happened, how did I sleep on Lotuff making the best bags, right in my city?! I traveled to New York just to find out I didn’t even know what was happening in Providence.
The most important thing the PUF did for me is to pop my cherry for buying expensive shit I can’t afford. IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER THAN PEOPLE ON INTERNET MAKE IT SEEM. Good news though, it’s get easier every time, even as you have less guap.
I had an item in mind for this first purchase, a band color, anchor print shirt from Ernest Alexander’s S/S. So, I assumed I’d drop like a stack and then be off to lunch, but low and behold Ernest is just going to sit there and tell me they didn’t end up making it. I didn’t want to immediately leave his booth/area(?), so I decided to kind of browse for a minute cause I felt it’d be rude not to. Here though, was this perfect spring jacket, like rain or shine, you put this on. Heading to brunch, to a ball game, to work, to whatever, this is the go to (it’s the Grant jacket, for anyone wanting details). This is also the first time I really tried anything on that was designed to actually fit, and I fell in love. Then, I found out it was $300, which was literally my budget for the entire weekend, not just clothes everything. Like I said, nieve. I put that shit right back on the rack and we left. I didn’t really have a plan, so we went to the nearest bar. Again, always unprepared, and always ready to head into a bar.
So, I sat there and drank down beers until finally spending all of my money seemed like the best idea since they started writing jokes on popsicle sticks. (Seriously, some of those are golden.) Thankfully, Steven essentially agreed that the jacket would significantly improve my life. Side note, he DID NOT AGREE ON ME BUYING A $50 ROPE LEASH FOR MY DOG. That was fucked up, but he bought me a cookie so I’d be drunk and on a sugar high when I made my purchase, so all was forgiven.
That jacket was essentially a gateway drug and has led me to slowly replacing my wardrobe with quality shit. That’s what the PUF did for me and you need to be getting down there this weekend, getting day drunk and coping some shit you know you can’t afford. Do that because the next day, when you’re at brunch in a tiny fucking restaurant soho, waiting 45 minutes for eggs benny, with no AC on a 90 degree day, you’ll know it’s all good. That’s what clothing can do, it can make you feel like you’re thriving in the wake of an unbearable existence.
