The Sunday Best

148. Snappin' Ain't Easy | A Sartorial Tale

Would you let this man take your picture?

Two weeks ago I decided to start taking pictures of people and their street style. Here's what happened.

My determination to gather the necessary courage to ask complete strangers if I might photograph them coincided with Victoria's warmest day yet in 2008. In atypical fashion for our patient, orderly city the climate decided to forgo Spring altogether and head straight for the dog days of summer, with temperatures climbing to the high-20s (degrees Celsius for any American readers) and the air unusually calm.

The previous day I had made the, for me, monumental move of asking a patron at Habit, my local coffee haunt, the following, hypothetical-heavy question:

If I were writing a style blog and I asked you, would you agree to let me take your photo?
(I forgot to add, and if I was holding a camera.)

Rather than stare at me blankly--previous best case scenario--or call me a weirdo --one of the unsavoury yet, somehow, more likely to me scenarios--she said that indeed she would let me do such a thing.

Emboldened, the next day I brought my camera and once again went to Habit, which on the weekends is generally bustling with sartorial splendour. There was no one there. I don't mean by this that there was no one worth photographing; I mean there was no one there. The place was empty. Even the generally nattily dressed staff had seemed to decide that today was jeans and a t-shirt day. After waiting awhile I left and went back to work.

My plan, such as it were, had been to start my foray into street style chronicling by shooting almost exclusively at Habit.

In my mind the enclosed space and familiar people offered a safer, less wide-open venue to hone my "craft." It gave the whole endeavour some focus beyond the admittedly terrifying aspect of photographing strangers. I know the Habit people, my reasoning went, and as such they are no longer strangers to me. They are, at the very least, acquaintances.

When work let out early I ventured downtown again, determined this time to snap someone, anyone, whether I liked their outfit or not. I practiced in my head:

Hi there. I'm starting a street style website and was wondering if you'd like to be on it.

As I walked around town, camera in hand, I started to feel like the world's most indiscriminate stalker. Practicing a line to start talking to people seemed somehow seedy...maybe even vaguely desperate. What was I trying to do here? Take pictures of people I didn't know? So I could look at them later? Was this normal?

I saw about five or six people I thought fit my "design aesthetic," but each time they were walking in the opposite direction--you tend not to notice people walking in the same direction as you--and I couldn't think of a way to stop them. Usually they were just walking too fast.

The day wore on, the heat making me dizzy and depressed, and I gained an even deeper appreciation of Mr. Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist. The oft told parable that to know a man you must walk a mile in his shoes had never been more true to me. The fact that he goes out, every day it seems, and not only finds people to photograph, but then convinces them to let him take their picture, and gets results that are so uniformly good...well, it boggled my already by then heat-boggled mind.

Daunted and in desperate need of fluids I abandoned my quest. I returned to work to take advantage of its cave-like thermal properties (government buildings of the 50's were designed without nod to trivialities like sunlight, or wheelchair access.) However, the day was not a total loss. I did see people that, with a little more hutzpah, I would have asked to photograph. I had, paradoxically, walked the walk without talking the talk. But there is always another day, and eventually I'll get out of my way enough to make styletribes.org [Ed. There will be no styletribes.org] a reality.

Until then I leave you with two of the outfits I noted, presented as verbal snapshots.

Person 1

Straw hat

Cream-coloured vest, blazer, and bowtie

White shirt

Light blue pants

Walking stick

Person 2

Skinny jeans

Fitted short-sleeve button down

Vest

Chelsea boots

Horn-rimmed glasses

147. The Dying Gentleman

In my daily perusal of Get Kempt I came across an article from The Times UK which wonders, "Are gentlemen a dying breed?"

I have bemoaned the sorry state of manners and good grace on this blog before, from the loss of the simple but apparently bewildering concept of door-opening to the treatment of women as, well, women. And I will be the first to say, sexism be damned, that I treat women differently than I treat men, which is to say better.

The author, William Drew, relates the story of his grandfather's death, and the flood of letters that came in calling the man a true gent, unfailingly polite and interested.

One word that peppers the text frequently is respect. It wouldn't be a stretch to say, as episodes of Punk'd play in the background and people crow over the pounds Britney may or may not have put on, that our collective sense of mutal respect may have taken a beating this past decade. In its place - schadenfreude. I am constantly amazed over how much pleasure people take in the failure of other people they do not know. (Although by now I suppose I shouldn't be.)

Can one aspire to being a gentleman, or does such aspiration automatically make it a pointless affectation?

I would argue that it depends entirely on motive. If you want to be a gentleman because you believe it to be the right way to conduct yourself, then I think you'll be more successful then if you attempt to wear a gentlemanly manner like a pocket square.

Colin, the young man I work with, receives a lot of grief from his peers for wondering what it takes in this era to be a man. I imagine it must be hard for him at 23 to negotiate this question; at almost a decade older I find myself still curious about it.

Colin, working on his gentleman.

Drew's following list provides helpful guidelines.

How to be a (modern) gentleman
1. Some things don't change: say please and thank you and ask questions about other people rather than talk about yourself.
2. Be punctual. Tardiness does not make you look important, it turns you into an arrogant incompetent who thinks that his time is more important than other people's.
3. The modern gentleman cares about the planet. Be environmentally aware (but not obnoxious about it).
4. Open doors for people and stand up when they enter a room, but do this for men as well as women. The modern gentleman doesn't treat women like porcelain.
5. Be modest. Bragging is distinctly ungentlemanly.
6. Be a good father. Nothing is less charming than a man who leaves childcare to women.
7. Be honest about wherever you have come from in life. Pretension is spineless.
8. Flirt - with everyone. Good flirting is a form of politeness. Pay compliments and put your companion at ease.
9. Do not phone/text/check your BlackBerry incessantly.
10. Dress tidily. Whatever style you are going for, scruffiness just isn't in.

146. Wisdom

Hel-looks has added a raft-load of photos recently. From that batch, this gem:

Olavi (87)

"I wear a two-piece suit with a tie every day. That's a habit that I've learnt many decades ago.
I shop at Stockmann and Dressmann.
Clean-cut and tidy clothes make the style.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

145. New York Magazine | Street Style Photos | Video

With the wealth of fashion information available online, and the multiple good people writing about it in their spare time (see Exhibit A to the left), it's easy to forget the traditional publications who were once our only source of information.

So it was with some surprise that I discovered New York Magazine's excellent fashion section. The Look Book chronicles in both photos and videos the sheer avalanche of style walking around the five boroughs, and the subjects often have personalities to match their style. These are the two latest additions.

Ebeneezer Nii Sowah

On the question of style tips, I would say, first of all, don’t be afraid, and most importantly, do what works for you—find your niche.

Emma Bracy and Kevin Khuong

What do the kids think of you?
KEVIN: They tell me I look like a pirate a lot of the time. I take it as a compliment.
EMMA: All the boys wear velour tracksuits, which is funny. They think of us as, like, weird Manhattan people. They like to ask me about my nose piercing: “What else do you have pierced?”

The videos are close to an idea I had, and may still do if I ever gather up the courage. This next gentlemen in particular has inspired me to grow a mustache.

I have finally taken some street style photos. They are...ok. I'll post them. Really I will. But first, sometime this week, my description of how insanely hard it is to ask strangers if you can photograph them.

144. What things we make | Skateboard

Some time ago Charlie was a skate punk. Or maybe punk is the wrong word, but she definitely skated. Maybe even skated is the wrong word.

Reset: she went about the streets on a board with wheels. Fast forward to the present day and we are buying decks by the bushel on eBay for our hijinks. Knowing of my love for all things paper clip, Charlie did this one up for me on Valentine's.

It only took me three months to get it skateboarded (now I know that's the wrong word.)

No paper clip skateboard is complete without pencil wheels.

For the curious - that paper clip is indeed to scale.

143. Why does Warner Brothers hate me

Over at The Playlist, disturbing news: apparently Alvin and the Chipmunks scribe Jon Vitti was asked to "modify" the Dave Eggers script for Where the Wild Things Are, possibly the greatest children's book ever. You read that correctly - Alvin and the Chipmunks. And I suppose Uwe Boll will be given final cut on Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

I wrote about Warner's meddling before, and prayed that it wasn't true.

While The Playlist is right, and far too many people went, as they say, batshit crazy over the news, I think it kindly overlooks the fact that when studios adapt books really bad things can happen.

142. Domestic Bliss | Photo Contrivance

It might be a bit of a stretch to say that wardrobe_remix changed my life, but only a bit. The flickr photo group has been a revelation. So many nice people saying so many nice things, like a giant festival of positive feedback photo captions. At first I wondered about the enterprise the way you wonder about laughing at a joke you just told - was I really going to take photos of myself and put them up for other people's comments?

Yes, yes I was.

From w_r I moved onto lookbook. Lookbook is like high school if everyone dressed well and encouraged each other; in other words, not like high school at all. That feeling is probably fostered by the median age being 17.

Bored with my usual "stand here, look left" compositions, I started to imagine scenarios for which I could pose. I struggled with this. It seemed like this would be officially "too much." It seemed like this would be a little daft. It seemed I have too much time to think.

So, caution to the wind. Presenting Domestic Bliss Part 1.

Sipping Tea

Tax Time

Vacuuming

Rebuttoning

Unwinding (in this one I am looking RIGHT - not the same at all)

141. There ain't no party like a FIMO party

For some time now Charlie has been eyeing these whimsical necklaces from Tatty Devine.

As lovely as they are, Charlie wondered if she could make them. A quick trip to Opus and two packages of FIMO later, we had our answer.

Clockwise, from left: bowtie, paper clip, glasses 1, dot, glasses 2, mustache.

Little orphan Charlie.

140. United Arrows | Men.Style video

For someone with no knowledge of the language, I buy a lot of Japanese magazines. The Japanese are experts at taking a look or trend and making it their own, often going further with it than the originating culture. One has only to see their embrace of rockabilly or goth to know this. And while perusing these periodicals I found that more often than not one store was associated with the clothes and accessories I liked - United Arrows.

Men.Style posted the following video tour of United Arrows by Tim Blanks. I give Blanks a lot of grief on this blog--lord knows almost all of it is jealousy. That said, the shirt he is wearing in this video is god awful. Blanks - you are a fashion insider. Step it up.

Two things that stood out for me - Chief Creative Officer Hirofuni Kurino saying he can dress business one day, punk style the next, and Blanks observation that Japanese men are not devoted to one style.

139. And then you start to look alike

I never thought I would be one of those people. You know - the couples that buy matching jackets at 2-for-1 sales, or the same hats, or full track suits. And I probably never will be (except at theme parties). But, as posted previously, I am definitely one of these people.

I post this again for two reasons. Exhibit A - Suzie and Steve.

And, from dreamecho, Exhibit B - lc and Jones.

I imagine some time in the future when all three groups accidentally meet somewhere random, such as Barcelona, and we take turns making fun of each other. At least, that's how I see it.