There might not be anything particularly exciting about this suit from Elio Berhanyer, but the well-puffed pocket square certainly grabs the attention. The color combination of yellow and gray is a rare one, but those with a strong grip on the palette can make it work.
While strolling around town today, Izzy saw a gentleman unknowingly drop some papers from his wallet. Doing no less than should be expected, Izzy spoke up and said, “Sir, I think you might have dropped something.” The absent-minded gentleman thanked Izzy, and bent down to pick up his belongings. As he looked up, he gave Izzy a full look and remarked, “Classy hat.” Such is the power of the fedora.
As reported in the Daily News, a recent film screening in New York became the site of a case of extraordinarily bad manners:
Soon after the lights went down, a source tells us, “a man in the audience started yelling, ‘Don’t touch me!’ People looked around and shrugged. Ten minutes later, the voice yells again, ‘I said don’t touch me!’”
Again, people shrugged off the disturbance. But a few minutes later, says our source, “the guy stands up in the darkness and thwacks the guy behind him with a big festival binder. He hit him so hard everybody could hear it. Everyone freaked out and turned around.”
The thwacker? New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick.
The thwackee? Esteemed Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert.
After battling thyroid and salivary gland cancer for years, Ebert, 66, can no longer speak.
“Apparently, Roger was just trying to tap Lumenick on the shoulder to signal him that he couldn’t see the movie,” surmises our source. “He was trying to ask him to move over a bit.”
Though Lumenick seemed surprised to see whom he had struck, he offered no apology, according to another source.
Obviously, Lumenick’s hitting of Ebert was beyond the pale, but even if the former had just responded rudely, he would have been at fault. He ought to have upheld a principle of charity: on first glance, assume that other people have good intentions and motives, even if they’re not obvious at first. But even if in this case the tappee had been actually rude, Lumenick should have remembered that the true test of manners is how you deal with people with no manners.
Rubén Albarrán, lead singer of the popular Mexican rock band Café Tacuba, nearly always wears a white fedora/mask to feign anonymity, perhaps even that of a luchadore. (This is even more obvious when he wears his bizarre coxcomb cap.) But Izzy can’t help but thinking of Dumb Donald, the lunkheaded character from the TV show Fat Albert who literally pulled he wool over his eyes in his permanent pink stocking hat.
Unlike The Manolo, Izzy can barely comprehend the mystifying, wonderful world of women’s shoes, but if he had to name his favorite designer for the female foot, it would have to be the fanciful Christian Louboutin. Hence, Izzy was pleased to discover that the Frenchman has created at least one model for gentleman. Now, Izzy wouldn’t actually advise wearing these velvet opera pumps—which are best left to Cinderella’s footmen—but he is happy that they exist.
Whether or not this Obedient Sons suit is made of wallpaper, curtains, or drapes, Izzy thinks it would be wunderbar were it from the designer’s Von Trapp collection.
On the right, Michael Steele, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, does something rare among politicians: flaunt a bespoke suit by leaving not just one, but two, sleeve buttons undone. On another occasion, he has even worn a shirt with a spread collar in a contrasting color. As if being a prominent black Republican wasn’t enough to make him an outlier.
There are only two ways to wear an open collar under a jacket: 1) firm and erect, 2) limp and flaccid. Someone, please get Mr. Clooney some Viagra for his shirt.
If this interview of James Cook, the bespoke manager of Turnbull & Asser, can be trusted, economic downturns turn out to be booms not just for bankruptcy lawyers but high-end conservative tailoring. According to Cook (who, incidentally, wears his jacket sleeves unusually short—perhaps to show off T&A’s best work: their shirts?):
In the 90′s, many Americans came into Turnbull & Asser in London and every single person was talking of the dot com craze and how they would never have to buy a tie again. They were only ordering shirts. And then there was a massive crash, and everyone went back to a tie because the Bank Manager showed up, or the Finance Minister. Gradually people started wearing less and less ties again until this recession.
You notice in this recession that people are dressing up again. Every time that [an economic downturn] happens, people have to get suits and shirts. They have to sharpen themselves up again.
Everyone forgets about history; the shirt, the tie and the suit never change. I don’t know why people think it is okay to be casual at work…. [I]f I show up and my bank manager isn’t suitably attired, I am not going to trust that person with my money. Same thing with my lawyer.
As autumn approaches, protection for a gentleman’s hands that is both classic and masculine can be found in gloves made of boar skin (or peccary), which has a distinctive appearance. Rarely seen nowadays, they are not easy to find in stores, but Izzy spoored this tobacco-colored sueded pair at Ben Silver. Even more traditional is this unsueded model from Pickett of England, though it it’ll break the piggy bank at £215.00.
It’s not exactly a scarlet letter, but a Spanish debt collection company has been using a very odd tactic to shame deadbeat debtors into paying up:
If more confirmation were needed of the funereal state of Spain’s economy, it can be found in the shape of The Debt Collector in Top Hat and Tails.
That’s a translation into English of “El Cobrador del Frac,” the name of a company that specializes in sending out men dressed like extras from a 1930s Fred Astaire movie to humiliate debtors into paying up. Its business is booming.
“At the start of the year we noticed demand was increasing,” said Juan Carlos Granda, head of El Cobrador del Frac’s international department.
[...]
Mr. Granda refers to the top hats and tails, whose appearance has unnerved so many Spanish debtors, as the company “uniform.”“We send collectors in uniform and collectors without uniform. It depends on how the debtor reacts. If we need to do it to collect a debt, we send a collector wearing top hat and tails, so his debt attracts more attention,” he said.
The ethics of public shaming aside, Izzy is dismayed to see a look that was once was the epitome of elegance being debased by such negative association. It ought to make every hatter mad, and Señor Cacahuete nuts.
Regardless of one’s politics, it’s hard to deny that in choosing Joseph Biden as his running mate, Barack Obama picked the best-dressed man in the Senate. Admittedly, there’s not much competition for that title, but Biden stands out due to his willingness to wear form-fitting suits in a shade other than blue or gray, fun suspenders, pocket squares, casual shirts with the top two buttons undone, and, in the winter, a chesterfield coat with a velvet collar. And in what is perhaps a bold statement about his foreign policy, he often wears shirts with French freedom cuffs.
