Winter wonder style
As a general rule, men’s fashion is easier to pull off than women’s, particularly when it comes to the depths of winter and the sartorial disasters that are cargo shorts and flip-flops are removed from your grubby grasp. And it’s especially true of the festive season; while my friends and I are being force-fed sequins and trapeze coats (they flatter no one), the menswear catwalks are stuffed full of wearable trenches and Dr Who-style scarves. So why is it, that a disturbingly large proportion of urban males in Britain have all decided to buy the same hideous jacket?
If I see one more person in an ill-fitting Topshop bomber jacket I’m going to push them over. I know that this time of year it’s easy to let partying take precedence over style, but if you haven’t quite totally given up on shopping, it wouldn’t hurt to bear the following in mind…
Coats
Coats are the single most important aspect of a good winter wardrobe. In Newcastle, my hometown, men rarely wear coats for a night on the town and it makes me want to weep. Seriously. It’s just so tragic, watching them shiver violently in the depths of January, teetering on the borders of hypothermia, all so their Ben Sherman shirt can get that tiny bit more public exposure. Unless you can seriously rock the blue skinned waif look (only dead ringers for Conor Oburst need apply), it’s really best to wrap up warm.
When selecting your coat, I’d urge you to go with black. It may be the obvious choice, but with good reason. For one thing, it hides dirt stains better than any other colour, which is handy is a season that involves too much alcohol and icy pavements. It also goes with everything and looks perennially classy against the garish metallics of the moment. My personal favourite is this little number from Raf Simons.
The proportions are perfect, (crucially it’s not too big, a lot of men seem unaware you don’t need room to grow into a coat once you pass puberty), the slim patent stripes are a discreet nod to current trend, and the double-breasting gives it a military feel, always a winner when it comes to
impressing girls.
Novelty Christmas knits
I bet you think I’m about to denounce these Grandma favourites. Well I’m not. If you are very narrow minded you might think these are the male
equivalent of those hideous dangly Christmas tree earrings some misguided women choose to sport. You are wrong. Sweaters adorned with snowmen or reindeer can actually look pretty cool, and are a huge finger up to the drab V-necked masses. So long as you go down the Adam Brody route of patterns on a chunky knit, rather than Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’ Diary’s comedy reindeer on a slightly snug polo neck. When it comes to playing the hot geek, it’s your banter that should be weird-yet-hilarious, not your clothes.
Party dressing
Don’t look too bothered. That is the best advice I can offer you. It’s all very well thinking that this is the season for glamour, but turning up at the office Christmas party in a freshly-pressed suit makes you look a bit like it’s the highlight of your social calendar. By all means wear a pair of nice patent Lanvin brogues, but wear them all day so that it looks like you constantly have important places to be. That way, by the time you rock up to whatever function it is that you’re going to, you’ll look dapper, but in a nonchalant way. It also gives your friends and colleagues a chance to see you really working party wear during the day, so that if you do happen to stay out all night, no one will bat an eyelid at the sight of you sloping around in a crumpled red tuxedo jacket from Comme des Garcons.
If you do insist on making a notable difference between your work and social attire, it might be worth pulling the old female trick of simply swapping around accessories. I find that a tie is always a good place to start, so long as it’s not too fat. I know that it’s easy to think that skinny ties, like skinny jeans are the property of the indie fraternity but nothing good ever comes of wearing a tie wider than an inch and a half in diameter. You look at best like a chav at a court appearance and at worst like Gordon Brown. And no matter how drunk you get, or how funny it may seem, please resist the urge to undo your tie and wear it Rambo-style across your forehead. Unless you are under ten, in which case it is tres cute and should be encouraged.acc ringtones iphonebeaumont harrington amanda ofamc barington 306000 ringtone vx lgdownloads football ringtone byu 2006percent 100 free ringtones 3 sidekickringtones brothers allmanin amc theater barrington Map
We are listening to The Killers
There’s far too much high-end fashion stuff in the new Arena. It’s like GQ.
You should be looking at the younger trends (both clothing and otherwise) rather then plugging haute couture.
I’m gonna show my age here, but when I was younger the people I looked to for cool clothing were the bands I was into (flares aside, The Stone Roses and The Charlatans wore some really cool stuff I’ll have you know) and it’s here that notable fashion trends start.
From Elvis, though The Beatles, The Pistols and so on right up to The Strokes and The Libertines. Music is the source of fashion trends.
And the fashion houses steal from them for the catwalks – so why not go to the source and report on that, rather than the vastly overpriced stuff the fashion industry comes out with? Like I said, GQ have all that nonsense well covered already and it’s really dull.
I want the latest Filth And The Fury not an un-ironic take on Zoolander.
Comment by FLETCH — 19/12/07
As someone who spends approximately four nights a week watching bands I’m sure you can appreciate music’s influence on fashion is not entirely lost on me. However, to say that it is the only thing fashion draws it’s inspiration from is a little naive, given the impact factors like art, travel, history and social trends have on fashion designers, whose creative visions it is that produce the catwalk shows which will eventually filter down to the High Street.
I chose to focus on high end fashion and not report on satorial music trends because
1, People like Hedi Slimane are regulars on the indie circuit and way ahead of you in terms of working out what cut of trouser someone like Pete is wearing. Often the look is on the catwalk before it’s picked up public momentum.
2, These days fewer and fewer bands have a half original look. If you think i’m going to sit here and report on waistcoats and skinny jeans you have another thing coming. Yes the Horrors look superb. No, it’s not a look a lot of people see as everyday appropriate.
3, I appreciate that not all Arena readers are under-25. And for this reason probably are unable to pull off homemade t-shirt look currently so popular on the ’scene’. Why tell them about it?
ps, I’m not plugging ‘haute couture’, which happens once a year in Paris and applies to womenswear only. I was endorsing ‘ready to wear’, which is more affordable and vastly more eco friendly than Primark.
Comment by HollieM — 10/01/08
In response to the first comment: I appreciate your issue with the constant inclusion of high-end fashion in every male magazine under the sun, (surprisingly the budget of this fifteen year old struggles to reach the gross prices of Dior Homme or Thom Browne), but it’s inevitable, and it actually makes quite a lot of sense. By providing you with RTW pieces straight from the catwalks and as close to the pure visions of the designers as we can get, I think it encourages you to think in terms of what you wear and buy. By not providing a simple piece that you can buy on any high street in the country, it should make you think what it is that you actually like about the piece and then look for that, preventing lazy auto-pilot shopping. If an ordinary high street idea is offered, it often ends up being something of a bad copy, incorporating one of the numerous ideas behind designer clothes that isn’t always what you ACTUALLY want. In the original piece you can see the numerous themes that have influenced and inspired the designer and get a far better understanding of the trends for that season.
I know that isn’t desperately coherent, but still. Somewhere in that ramble, there’s a real point to be argued, and it’s for that reason I reject your comments concerning magazines’ constant use of designer pieces. If you take a little time to consider each look being offered to you, you’d realise it’s far better that way. Just think!
Either way, I enjoyed the article, and if i-D get any more painfully pretentious I might consider “ARENA” as a viable alternative. Especially like the novelty christmas knits idea, I’ve tried it out and was pretty pleased, it might be a good idea to wear it with something “hard”, e.g. a leather bomber with zips aplenty, adds a little edginess which is nice.
I’m done.
Comment by Future ID? — 19/08/08