RVS by V

1. RVS by V –  This brand is based in Instanbul, Turkey and handmakes all their glasses. What I like most about this brand and it’s products is the customization feature. Since each pair of glasses are handmade you get to choose not only the style but you can customize the colors and combine them as you see fit. Find a stockist in your are here

Henry Holland for Le Specs Hoodie Black (pic from FruitionLV)

Henry Holland for Le Specs Gold (pic from FruitionLV)

2. Henry Holland for Le Specs – The Hoodie frame is from the collaborative collection between Henry Holland of the UK and Le Specs of France. I actually like the entire collection, but The Hoodie frame reminds me of Dwayne Wayne without having to do extra work with flipping the shades up and down. The black colorway is a bit more stealth, while the gold let’s everyone else know that you know what you’re doing. You can pick them up at Revolve.

Grey Ant Matte Black Front

Grey Ant Matte Balck Side

3. Grey Ant Status  in Matte Black – I dig exaggerated frames but I avoid them because they never really fit my face or my personality, but on some days frames like this do fit my mood. Large and in your face! These happen to be my favorite sunglasses this year for one reason…they’re matte black. What more can I say?

                          

New Black Male Elegance

This past Saturday I covered “Style & Swag: The New Black Male Elegance” event at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. The event included a workshop, fashion show and panel discussion all in conjunction with the Dandy Lion exhibit showing at the museum.

The Panel

The highlight of this event was the panel discussion where the panelists all shared their background in men’s fashion and their insight on particular questions and concerns. The panelists were (left to right)

• Carlous Palmer – founder of Design LLC,1st person to graduate from the Baltimore School for the Arts Visual arts department with a minor discipline in Fashion
• Brian Joyner – cofounder of BeBetterGuys.com, historical writer/researcher and writer for BetterGuysX.
• Christopher Shafer - founder and custom clothier for Christopher Shafer Clothier, voted Baltimore’s Best Tailor 2 years in a row
• Octavius Johnson – actor/singer
• Earle Bannister – founder and custom clothier for E. Bannister Couture, master tailor for Brooks Brothers

The Moderator

                          

Tyga’s debut solo album “Careless World” was surprisingly solid, underrated even. I always felt like he had a knack for making solid songs or at least showing up well on features since his first few verses as a Young Money representative. The beats are really good on this album, its cohesive and the content is more than just jewelry and women as you would expect (there’s still a lot of that though). The most SURPRISING thing about this album to me is the amount of well done visuals Tyga has released as a new artist. In the last two weeks he’s put out two videos, one featuring a hook with Drake and the other with an actual appearance from Big Sean.

“Still got it” has obvious references to “Paid in Full” and since that’s one of my favorite movies ever I had to post this. 80′s trends are back in style so this video looks as modern as it does retro, from the the cars to the clothes to the glasses. I’m about to go downtown and buy a pager just cause. Go check out Tyga’s album here

                          

1. Elbow patch Striped Sweater – $60 at Topman

2. Shorts – $105 by Adidas SLVR

3. Lace-up Steadman Oxford – $650 by 3.1 Phillip Lim

The warm weather over the weekend inspired me to put together a casual sporty look with shorts. These black shorts match everything and hits just above the knee. These Phillip Lim oxfords with the wedge heel look comfortable, sporty, and a step above anything else you’ll see on the streets for oxfords. The contrasting white mid-sole pops just enough to stand out but doesn’t make the shoe too fancy. The teal stripe, light weight sweater by Topman adds a little color the predominately black out fit. The patches add a little character. I’m medium to slim build so I’d size up on the sweater to give it that extra casual, carefree look. No major accessories needed here…no visible socks either. Good day!

                          

Starting to notice how a lot of e-tail sites are looking very similar. This must mean someone is about to find a new approach.

I understand why they look alike but when they all resemble each other you should be striving for originality in the market place/ Then again I don’t run or design any of those sites…(yet)

You know what though? It’s hard to be original when you’re paying attention to what everyone else is doing. Happens to me too

Aside from the glossy white background @kithset has the most original & appealing e-tail site IMO Phillip Lim is just the best over all for high-end brands. @MRPORTERLIVE site has the most useful and original content…

…Park & Bond is right on their heels though. Barney’s is cool but could be better. Saks kinda sucks online…

If Saks & Bloomy’s claim to be higher end dept stores than Macy’s it should be that way online too, right?

We all know @GiltGroupe is the OG flash sale site. Rue La La & Hautelook have good product but their sites can’t beat Gilt. Belle & Clive is close to Gilt though. They have to be cause they sell more luxury items so the site should feel that way

Oh Burberry’s online site is top notch though. Lim beat them to the tumblr and video pages. But the way BB displays product is awesome. I’m convinced J.Crew & Gap Inc. used the same exact web design company. Acceptable since the customer is so similar. I prefer Crew…

…Club Monaco is late to the race. Presentation is fair and that extra personal vibe they try to create is cool. Still a ways to go though

Nordies has improved but it’s just so much on there and I never feel close enough to the clothes. Setback of being such a large chain.

I kinda feel @ABathingApeUS should categorize their products but w/ fanatical consumers they’ll troll the whole site. Yoox needs a lot of help. The Corner needs even more for using the same format.

. @ssense is great, gets right to the product. I don’t like the side view on models though. Product is there strength. They need me to blog

Ok I’m back… IMO Bluefly makes designer stuff feel very generic when my plan is cop exclusive. They should make some changes. Luis Viaroma gets by on luxury products. Their pics are lacking big time. Personal blogs have better pics

FarFetch is interesting though. The way the categorize the styles & clothes is interesting so is the auto-scroll page. Feels like Twitter. I pay attn to all these things cause I live in a small market city where I can’t go to a shopping district like Georgetown or Soho.

Some of you never heard of some of those sites. Many of you have. If you have, do you care about the online experience or just product & price?

                          

If covering an art exhibit wasn’t enough excitement for me for one Saturday, I also attended the Confirmed Stock Pop-Up Shop that I mentioned here a few weeks ago. The turn out was great! Great vendors, great customers and great products. It was held in an abandon church that looked like it has been waiting 10 years for this exact pop-up to come and give it some energy.

This Baltimore City flag is all the restoration the church needed

I met some new movers and shakers in the blogosphere like Summer from S.L Sterling and Skip from Alexander Grant who actually covered this event for Complex Magazine. I informed a few friends so they could come and check out some goods. I met some followers of my own blog and some of my former customers from Banana Republic. I even saw Oliver who, for a short time, was something like a mentor for me. Most people may know him from Baltimore’s first designer/streetwear boutique Shop Gentei. (bring that back one day)

I was pretty impressed by how many  good products were being produced and sold so close to Baltimore. Our city is in this weird in between spot as far as location and fashion. Its technically Southern but its not rural at all, in fact it has the 8th largest metro area in the entire U.S giving it a bit of big city, urban appeal. On the menswear front that creates various styles and demographics jockeying for postion from sneaker culture, college frat boy to prep and heritage influenced lifestyles. Confirmed Stock was right on time to represent for the heritage demographic that draws from more classic, functional, leather and hard goods inspirations.

Blue Claw Worton Weekender Bag

As soon as you entered pass the custom build Confirmed Stock sign you saw this beautiful weekend back from Blue Claw Co. All the Blue Claw products are handmade here in Maryland and sold all over from here to Japan. I’ve come to find out that the crafter doesn’t have a degree in design, crafting of carpentry. He just say a problem that he needed to fixed and became passionate about it. Now he’s creating incredible products and working on what he loves. Inspiration! This weekender back was great but my favorite piece were their new iPad cases. They’re simple clean and the leather is so heavy and perfectly cut that it hold shut themselves and don’t need any fussing buttons or snaps.

Blue Claw iPad cases

Lumina Clothing Company

Lumina Clothing company is an oline menswear shop based in Raliegh, NC. Lumina focused on high-quality made clothes at affordable prices. There’s a bit of an industrial aesthetic mixed with Southern-European vibe, probably because the climate in N.C is pretty similar to that region of Europe. The founders were really nice young gentlemen who look like and live what their brand is about.

Shirts from Lumina

Ties and Accessories from Lumina

The great thing about events like this is that you get to put a face to URL link and shake a few hands. I had a chance to do that with the cool cats from Two Inch Cuffs. I first found about Two Inch Cuffs last year and instantly became a fan of there online catalogs. Their site was pretty innovative, well executed and really seemed to tell the story of rediscovered American heritage (as told from the site itself).

Two Inch Cuffs display

The team from Two Inch Cuffs

Another cool thing about pop-up markets is that you find very creative approaches to entrepreneurship. Greenwich Vintage Co. is a showroom out in Minneapolis, Minnesota where there’s a carefully curated stock of vintage menswear, a barber and cobbler who customizes and re-soles shoes. I met Max of G.V the night before at the Confirmed Stock pre-party and I knew that I’d be hitting there space at the pop-up to check out there services. I have a pair of wingtips that have a sole that I’m eager to get rid of so this would be perfect for me. Zen “the Fresh Maker” is the in-house cobbler that restores shoes and boots with color soles to give them a modern twist.

Shoe from Greenwich Vintage Co.

Before I even arrived to Confirmed Stock my homie hit me up to tell me about a vintage Christian Dior trench that he wanted but couldn’t fit because his arms were too long, so I arrived to their space with a bit of a shopping agenda. Max recognized me from the night before and Zen was like my personal salesman putting me up on the shoes and helping me out the with the trench. He has a hell of a personality and that makes for a great, relatable salesman. He knows he stuff and doesn’t come of like he’s trying t swindle you for anything, just get you interest in quality products.

Christian Dior Monsieur...the elder gent to the later established Dior of the 2000's

Me in the Christian Dior trench. Fits perfect

Full body view

I didn’t purchase the trench so its still available for one of you lucky guys out there. Just contact them at their site. I did pick up great piece piece that you’ll see in a later post.

There were other great brands there like Ruell and Ray denim based out of Virginia and Cause and Effect that crafted hand made belts and accessories.

Ruell and Ray

Hand-made belts from Cause And Effect

From my point of view Confirmed Stock was a great success I’m looking forward to the next one and hopefully more of my readers will be in attendance.

                          

Dandy Lion : Articulating a Re(De)Fined Black Masculine Identity

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to attend “Dandy Day: A Celebration of Dandyism at the Reginald F. Lewis Musem”. “Dandy Day” was combination of activities including book discussions, vintage shopping and theatrical performances centered around the Dandy Lion art exhibit that showcased  Black Dandyism. Black Dandyism is sub-culture of urban sophistication among gentlemen within the Black community whose style engage both African aesthetics and European fashion. (see photo below)

The overall feel of the dandy aesthetic is sort of a throwback to the Harlem Renaissance where Black men wore suits most of the time and took as much pride in their look as they did their neighbors. They held each other to a high standard of not only fashion but morals and values. Those standards showed in everything they did but most noticeably in their clothes.

The exhibit was full of strong, powerful images from different photographers from around world. Each showcase gave descriptions of the photographer and even had brief captions from the photographers themselves. They gave insight on their photos, fashion, dandyism and how it affects them or their peers in their respective parts of the world.

Caption on Hanif Abdur-Rahim

Photo by H. Abdur-Rahim

Caption on Russel Frederick

Photo by R. Frederick

Photo by R. Frederick

I really related to this passage

The live performances from ‘Theater Morgan’ covered remarkable pieces like Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” and drew inspiration from some of the pieces showcased. The actors and actresses told stories of the Black experiences from struggles and adversity to joy and juke joints.

Actress doing her monologue on being different and loving it

There were showcases from artist who covered dandyism in Africa, urban landscapes here in the U.S and even in entertainment. I feel these depictions of Black men in fashion are something that everyone can learn from and brings great balance to stereotypes of how many Black men dress and present themselves today .

Dandies in Nigeria

Dandyism in the City

Dandyism on stage with musician Raphael Saadiq

Not only did I have a chance to view this great exhibit, I met some great people like staff from “The Vintage MaNN”. They were at the museum vending great vintage finds for men. Everything from vintage neckties to old school sportwear. Check out some of their goods below. Contact thevintagemann[@]gmail.com if you’re looking for some good vintage gear.

Vintage Snapback caps and this Ellesse v-neck sweater was nice.

I’m almost ashamed to say that I heard about this exhibit back in February and didn’t take the time to attend. I planned to but I kept putting it off. Luckily my fellow fashion blogger from Baltimore, Ty from Gorgeous in Grey, reached out and put me in contact with with the right people at the museum. I felt it was important to attend the exhibit on the actual “Day of the Dandy” so that I can experience the full presentation of the culture they were highlighting. The exhibit runs until May 13, 2012 so you have two weeks to get downtown and check it out.

                          

Over the weekend, a few looks from my “Cyber Closet” posts were featured at KevyKevSoulExperience .

Kevy is a UK representer in the menswear blogosphere. I found his blog back in 2010 or maybe a little before, and I’ve been checking in since then . We’ve kept in touch via Twitter. He’s showing love for what I’m doing and posted a few of Cyber Closet looks that may resonate with his followers on his side of the pond. Make sure you check out his site at www.KevyKevySoulExperiece.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks again for the post!

                          

1. Waterproof Hooded Jacket – $160 by Penfield
2. Crew Neck Tee – $18 by American Apparel
3. Backpack – $90 by Marc by Marc Jacobs at Ssense
4. Hightop Sneakers – $490 by Pierre Hardy at Mr. Porter
5. Shorts – $105 by Adidas SLVR

Here’s a little color block inspiration for the sporty guy who looks and feels young but doesn’t want to look anything like a hipster. Many guys don’t color block because we just don’t like wearing too many bold colors. There’s a proper way to execute but it only works if you’re comfortable and confident.

The Color Block Breakdown:

Major color blocking tip – keep the colors at the same frequency/tone. If you’re going to go with pastels all the colors should be pastel. If you’re going neutral try to stay neutral. With this look I’m going bold so all the colors are a bit rich. Bright yellow, vineyard red with yellow accents and cobalt blue all work well together. Pull it together with a cuffed black short and you’re good to go. Black may not seem like the logical choice with all these colors but it matches everything and the shorts are cropped so the black doesn’t visually dominate the color blocking scheme it just blends in. With all the other colors popping you don’t need a bright t-shirt, a simple white tee will do. Go have fun with some colors. Share your thoughts on color blocking in the comments section.

                          

I’ve been in this really “trapped out” music mode for the last 9 or 10 months. Aside from WTT, MBDTF and Lupe’s “Friend of the People” mixtape everything else has been hardcore, trap, drug dealing/using, swagged out, braggadocios rap music. My closest friends think its the funniest thing that I love music that seems to be so far from my normal demeanor (they don’t know me well enough). My mood has been changing and although I love trap music I need balance so I’ve smoothed it out a little bit. Lately I’ve been listening to the following 3 mixtapes.

The Misunderstanding of Teyana Taylor by Teyana Taylor – Everyone wants to know exactly what this young lady does. Does she rap, does she sing, does she dance or just take photos of sneakers on Instagram? Doesn’t matter she does it all well and has surprisingly great vocal talent imo. Download here 

Art Dealer Chic Vol. 1 by Miguel – I slept on this for far too long. There are only 3 tracks but its free so why complain? In fact more artists should put out EPs in this fashion. It builds real value for the artist. Too much free music has oversaturated the market and devalued some of the top artists’ music. Anyway, with such a cool album title and art work you’d expect for the music to be just as good…it is! Download here

Art Dealer Chic Vol. 2 by Miguel – Obviously I’m a Miguel fan. I put quite a few people on to his debut CD. Many people are skeptical of new artist’s album but that’s when the best music is made because they’ve had their whole life to create that first piece of work. The Art Dealer Chic series is definitely improving upon Miguel’s first piece of art. Download here