Manolo for the Men

Presidents Bush and Putin recently met in Russia for some tense, and ultimately failed, talks on security issues including NATO expansion and Iran’s nuclear weapons program.  Unlike in former, happier times, the two came suited for battle, if subtly.  Bush wore a Texas-style Don’t-Tread-on-Me belt and a dress shirt with two front flapped pockets (just like Soviet-slayer Charlie Wilson), while Putin chose to wear an outright military jacket, complete with ammo pockets, epaulets, and belting.  Looking at the two’s cheerful faces, the cynic in Izzy recalls a line from Will Rogers: “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”

To Izzy’s mind, cream-colored wool turtleneck sweaters conjure up iconic images from World War II, of RAF flyboys in their sheepskin jackets and Spitfires, or of a submarine captain standing on the sail in the middle of the North Atlantic—pipe in mouth, binoculars in hand.  Izzy is clearly not alone in such fantasizing, given that at least three different vendors have attempted to reproduce the period sweater.

For the fashionable human cannonball.

This gentleman in Milan is doing so many things right, it’s hard to know where to begin.  There are his narrow, short trousers which show off the sensational antiqued shoes (Berluti?).  And it’s not every day one sees a pocket square in an overcoat.  But the gloves, cradling a cigar, are really what set the outfit apart.  If there’s one accessory any dandy must absolutely possess, it is a pair of canary yellow gloves.

The top’s all business, while the bottom’s all set for the ski slopes—circa 1985. Could DSquared² be targeting the undervalued Swiss newscaster demographic?

Incidentally, shouldn’t DSquared² be pronounced “DSquared squared”? Just sayin’…

While taking in the rarefied atmosphere of St. Moritz, Switzerland, one of Izzy’s friends encountered this well-to-do caveman. Someone tried to  dump a bucket of red paint on him, but he was saved by was a representative of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of A-holes). 

Part military in inspiration, this high-collared coat from Nom de Guerre cuts an excitingly modern figure.  Izzy found it Notcouture, which is an excellent source for the fashionably avant-garde.

Hip-hop star Akon’s overcoat has so many tightly-grouped buttons that it’s a risk-factor for carpal tunnel syndrome.  But if buttons are the new bling (they are so un-Amish), Izzy will happily tolerate the trade-off.

Jeremy Hackett, the man behind Hackett—a brand that, by copying and improving upon English classics, is in many ways the British equivalent of Ralph Lauren—waxes eloquent about the time he discovered the virtues of a Barbour jacket:

When I opened my first shop in London in 1983, I sold — as one magazine kindly put it — dead men’s clothes. Today they are known as vintage, and some items can fetch exorbitant prices. Once, on one of my frequent forays to Portobello Market, I chanced upon an ancient, patched-up Barbour jacket. I bought it and put it in the window, where it sold within minutes at a price not far from what it cost new. The attraction, I realized, was precisely that it was worn. In no time at all, no self-respecting Sloane Ranger would be seen without this distinctive olive green coat. Young army officers wore them as part of their mufti, teamed with straw-colored corduroys, suede shoes and red socks. Aspiring bankers adopted the Barbour, and it also became de rigueur over black tie. It was a way of airing your country pedigree, though you may have actually lived in a two-up, two-down in Fulham.

It spoke of damp dogs sleeping on tartan coat linings in the back of battered Land Rovers, of point-to-points and Badminton Horse Trials, all things dear to an Englishman. I recently retrieved my old Beaufort Barbour — with its oily texture, brown corduroy collar and brass zipper as strong as a railway line — from the attic, where it had lain neglected for nearly 20 years. Suddenly, I was filled with nostalgia for the countryside. So, despite not owning a large pile in the shires, I shall wear my shabby Barbour the next time I go shopping on Sloane Street — but I think I’ll leave my green wellies in the Land Rover.

From the looks of this Perry Ellis jacket, recently on show at New York Fashion Week, it looks like Izzy spoke too soon about the Tyvek windbreaker.

Pulitzer-prize-winning poet James Merrill was raised in a highly privileged setting (his father was a co-founder of Merrill Lynch), which should be kept in mind when reading his “Self-Portrait in Tyvek™ Windbreaker,” a meditation on the effects of dressing down. Here’s an excerpt, but Izzy encourages you to read the whole thing:

The windbreaker is white with a world map.
DuPont contributed the seeming-frail,
Unrippable stuff first used for Priority Mail.
Weightless as shoes reflected in deep water,
The countries are violet, orange, yellow, green;
Names of the principal towns and rivers, black.
A zipper’s hiss, and the Atlantic Ocean closes
Over my blood-red T-shirt from the Gap.

I found it in one of those vaguely imbecile
Emporia catering to the collective unconscious
Of our time and place. This one featured crystals,
Cassettes of whalesong and rain-forest whistles,
Barometers, herbal cosmetics, pillows like puffins,
Recycled notebooks, mechanized lucite coffins
For sapphire waves that creast, break, and recede,
As they presumably do in nature still.

Sweat-panted and Reeboked, I wear it to the gym.
My terry-cloth headband is green as laurel.
A yellow plastic Walkman at my hip
Sends shiny yellow tendrils to either ear.

[...]

Americans, blithe as the last straw,
Shrug off accountability by dressing
Younger than their kids—jeans, ski-pants, sneakers,
A baseball cap, a happy-face T-shirt . . .
Like first-graders we “love” our mother Earth,
Know she’s been sick, and mean to care for her
When we grown up. Seeing my windbreaker,
People hail me with nostalgic awe.

“Great jacket!” strangers on streetcorners impart.
The Albanian doorman pats it: “Where you buy?”
Over his ear-splitting drill a hunky guy
Yells, “Hey, you’ll always know where you are, right?”
“Ever the fashionable cosmopolite,”
Beams Ray. And “Voilà mon pays”—the carrot-haired
Girl in the bakery, touching with her finger
The little orange France above my heart.

Everyman, c’est moi, the whole world’s pal!
The pity is how soon such feelings sour.
As I leave the gym a smiling-as-if-I-should-know-her
Teenager—oh but I mean, she’s wearing “our”
Windbreaker, and assumes . . . Yet I return her wave
Like an accomplice. For while all humans aren’t
Countable as equals, we must behave
As if they were, or the spirit dies (Pascal).

[...]

At a party not too long ago, Izzy saw one of his well-sauced English friends rearrange his jacket to be worn inside out, which seemed to be a quick and clever way to go from proper and formal to woo-hoo!.  It’s too bad he wasn’t wearing this jacket from Paul Smith, which features a stunning chatoyant map of London, which even includes some street names.  It reminds Izzy of the maps of Europe sewn into the linings of World War II bomber jackets, which downed Allied aviators could use to escape and evade.  Come to think of it, perhaps the Paul Smith lining has a functional use as well: to assist a liquored-up tourist return to his London lodgings.