The Staple: Maria Francesca Pepe Bracelet

Brace(let) Yourselves

It's been six months: #obligatorybadbloggercomment. Times are busy with Notion, but I'm still all over menswear, just pon de Twitter rather than on blogger. Anyway, a few things left me to start up The Staple again; many of which stem from the fact that my Staples have been significantly added to since I last did any proper blogging, and that I reckon there's still a bit of mileage in the format of a blog analysing menswear from the angle of individual essential pieces. Which brings me nicely to one of my latest purchases. I've long been an admirer of LDN-based designer Maria Francesca Pepe's jewellery. It's bold and statement enough to warrant its own installations at LFW (including a memorable one a few seasons back in the crypt at the Freemason's Hall), yet still subtle enough to be worn everyday. So after last season, I was contacted about pre-ordering AW12's collection at a rather attractive discount. Press discount and pre-season private ordering are increasingly common with London designers - they know who their audience is - and it's a relatively inexpensive and pleasingly ahead-of-the-curve way to think about clothes. Anyway, my longtime lust has been the perfect wrist bangle. I bought a Margiela Love/Hate bracelet a few years ago, but it's broken after the catch becoming loose. In any case, it wasn't the brass nail that I really wanted. With Cartier's beautiful signature Juste un clou bangle well out of my price range, MFP's line sheet arrived at precisely the right time. I selected this one, fairly simple copper-plated brass set with two Swarovski black pearls back in March, and it arrived in the mail just the other week. It's barely left my wrist since. And now my wrist is free from the tyranny of the green cast, it's free to be adorned. The tones complement my watch, and it fits perfectly on my wrists. It's in fact from the women's collection but items like this are pretty unisex IMHO. What I really like about it is the subtle sparkle that it adds to my gloomy summer mornings: there's something really energising about the rosy hues and reflections that it makes on the bus, and it makes me smile when I see it. If that ain't a necessary Staple quality, then I don't know what is. Other Staples this week:
Maria Francesca Pepe black pearl copper-plated brass bracelet
Not having my arm in a cast! (though the green shade was rather fetching)
Frank Ocean's 'Channel Orange'
Brownies from Salvation Jane on City Rd
Pernod's Bastille Day garden party and a rediscovery of Chelsea
A full-size umbrella
A pair of comfy, retro trainers (New Balance/Ellesse)

(Hope you like the new visual motif btw - it may look like a pub table, but it's in fact a piece of wall art which was a gift from my very old schoolfriends...)

The Staple: White Shirt

It's pretty safe to say that there's not much more of a menswear wardrobe staple than the classic white shirt. I've blogged about it before, but this return of my somewhat-sporadic updates was prompted by an email dropping into my inbox from the lovely people at Jermyn Street shirtmakers Charles Tyrwhitt. Entitled the White Shirt Challenge, it's a classic Ronseal job: take a white shirt and make it interesting. Now since last LFW, I've been toying with the idea of a fur collar, so in my best Blue Peter mode, I decided that this was the right moment to trial it. I picked up an old baby's faux-fur jacket in a charity shop in Hastings for 4 quid, made a template of the collar shape of the shirt and chopped off a portion to fit the collar. Luckily fur has a shaggy edge, so it didn't need to much careful trimming and (not being a dab hand with a needle or thread), I safety-pinned it in place. For some reason, it made me think military, so I upended my enormous box of badges and made this lil militaria-inspired collage on the breast before teaming the finished article with a pair of Helmut Lang military trousers, a Reiss patent belt and these lovely (and in need of a resole) Russell & Bromley patent boots. Et voila: look complete. I'm pretty pleased with it tbh - it's been a while since I did any kind of bloggy/customisation thing and this one came around at the right time. LMK thoughts through the usual channels. And who knows, a regular return to blogging soon? Let's hope so.

Pen Magazine Feature

A few months ago, completely out of the blue, the lovely folks at Japan's Pen Magazine dropped me an email to ask if I'd like to be featured in their magazine. I originally thought it was some sort of semi-elaborate joke from one of my mates, but it turned out to be real, so I went along with it,styled up some outfits which were all based around a cardigan (at their request) and took the day off work. It was tremendous fun, though somewhat sweaty under the lights, and a great opportunity to go through my wardrobes to find suitable outfit combos. And now, it's in print! So here I am, rocking some fairly eclectic outfits and looking about a thousand times smarter than I usually do, in the Japanese version of GQ (apparently)...do let me know your thoughts and if anyone does happen to read/translate Japanese then I'd love to know what the article says - something about Big in Japan, presumably...

The Staple - Sandqvist Rucksack

Backpack Pro

It's been awhile, what can I say? Editing PlanetNotion is stealing my days, and my evenings are filled with gigs. I'm not sat around like I was at my old job, surfing the web and reading menswear blogs incessantly. Also, Twitter for me seems to have rendered the blog a little superfluous. But look, it's been six months since I posted anything and I reckon I oughta get back into it. So here I am. There have, it's safe to say, been many Staples over the last six months, but Imma try and be forward-looking rather than retrospective. Best purchase has to go to my rucksack. It was, I'm afraid, a wantonly whimsical purchase from (where else?) Liberty, while on a casual shopping trip with my mate Mark. Rucksacks are obvs all over the shop nowadays, and you can buy a perfectly good one from ASOS. So why splurge? Well in a sea of lookalike Dalston trends, the details are uber-important. On first glance my Sandqvist number might not be the most obviously nice bag, but well, since when did first glance give you the whole picture? Take a closer look (past the dirt if you please); the tan leather straps have aged nicely in six months of near-continuous wear, though the heavyweight black canvas is still as tight as day one. The fastening, a combo of a thick drawstring and two of those rich tan straps tucked into neat tabs is practical if occasionally fiddly, and looks good without recourse to jangly metal hardware. It;s the kind of fastening that only works with precision finishing, which is just the kind of thing Sandqvist do, as Scandinavian connisseurs of design. I'm obvs very much used to it now, but my bag is both widely admired and not often seen on the street; is there a better combo for an item? I've become a big fan of the brand, and this example has accompanied me on trips all over the place; not to go too Tyler Brûlé on your asses, but it's great as airline carry-on too. Anyhoo, I'll not bore you with my ode to a canvas bag. The purpose of this is to highlight what for me makes an item a Staple; it stands out and it's - well, if not individual, every hipster cyclist and their miniature daschund has a rucksack now - of sufficient quality to make the design notable. Look, it's a nice bag, alright? I like nice things...other Staples this week:
Sandqvist canvas rucksack with leather trim
Azari & III's debut album
Home-made cheese scones
The Travel Almanac (magazine)
M&S triple-berry juice
Eley Kishimoto x Orlebar Brown Setter shorts
A nice bottle of rosé from Majestic in Shoreditch

The Staple - Leather Clutch

Clutching Up

So LFW is over. Gosh, didn't it go quick! My six days of running around co-ordinating a team of over 20 people for Notion Magazine was knackering and exceptional fun in equal measures. There's nothing quite like getting dressed up at 8am, chucking an envelope-full of tickets in your bag and hailing a cab to Somerset House to make your day be that bit special. Existing on a diet of randomly-obtained cakes, bottles of sparkling water and the occasional espresso shot was somewhat precarious, but for all my complaining, I love the excitement of LFW. It's utter madness and I needed 2 days off work to recover, but it's so inspiring seeing the catwalks, presentations and tho be honest, the punters; anyone looking for a good people-watching venue would, I think, find it near-impossible to better Somerset House's cafes over LFW. Anyway, my fashion reports are all over at PlanetNotion, so take a look there. Two shout-outs though: JW Anderson & Matthew Miller. Utterly fantastic menswear with a twist, and whose collections I want to wear EVERY piece of (chance'd be a fine thing!). Anyway, this blg is about real life (erm-ish), so it's time to reveal the ASOS clutch bag that I ummed and ahhed over for so long, and which accompanied me to every show that I attended (apparently there were over 20). It was surprisingly practical, for a largish satchel with no handles; the main advantage being that it restricted the amount of crap I could carry about, forcing me to be ruthless with my shit, as well as frequently without a beverage. This did however mean that I didn't have a hernia after this season's Fashion Week, or the remains of cupcakes smeared across my notebooks. It creates a neat, businesslike look that I felt was appropriate to LFW, and didn't interfere with the contours or lines of my outfit. Also the slightly ridiculous orangey-brown leather gradually softened and became less garish as the week continued, and I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people double-taking (outside of Somerset House, at least) on a man carrying a large women's clutch bag. I was even more pleasantly surprised by a few women I saw at LFW carrying the black version of this, who commented that they'd wanted to buy this one but played it safe with monochrome. So, all in all, a good purchase (though not as bargainous as my recent Vivienne Westwood black crewneck jumper on a sale rail at Selfs, £179 down to £29), which was widely admired - and yes, style-snapped; see here - and practical. I saw quite a few guys around LFW toting document wallets/clucthes of a similar type, so I reckon that makes it a Staple. Definitely one to give a try...amongst other Staples this week:
Navy YMC canvas lace-ups
Delia Smith's recipe for cheese scones
Shine 2009's Associates EP
Patterned Paul Smith socks
An entirely booze-free February
Twitter LFW madness (@sebulous and @NotionMagazine)
'Sup Magazine

PS: The photo above is not, I admit, particularly brilliant. And I don't really DO outfit posts. For a nice shot of what I wore to menswear day, take a look at The London Journal of Style (Navy APC trench, red Carolyn Massey tiefront cashmere jumper, Filippa K chinos, brown plaited leather belt from Turkey, patterned Paul Smith socks, navy YMC lace-ups, grey silk All Saints Union Jack scarf, grey cashmere wristwarmers from Brora, brown clutch from ASOS).

The Staple - Desert Boots

Just Deserts

I went to a meeting last week about social media. The guy I was talking to actually used the term 'cross-platform integrated strategy' in my presence (although in his defence, he did apologise for it). We laughed about it, but accepted it. After all, however wanky the words might sound, they are the easiest way to refer to what we were talking about. This morning, I had an entertaining discussion with a couple of people (@oohbrilliant and @sluttyfringe - poor @_sophiejames got caught in the crossfire) on the hipster-ness of trousers tucked into those boots. Whether it's a hipster signifier or not, it was a discussion on Twitter, and thus we're all fucking hipsters anyway. Some things we just accept as Shoreditch cliches. In this vein, may I present the desert boot. At aforementioned meeting, both of us turned up wearing desert boots, and (self-aware media types that we are) immediately recognised the fact. We laughed about it, but *puts on SJP voice in SATC* it got me thinking: how come everyone is wearing desert boots? Trendy guys, dads, office workers and shop asistants alike favour the desert boot, and the girls' version (with a wedge heel) is pretty popular too. What's the attraction? I think the reason is that the desert boot is that perfect blend of just-smart-enough without being too formal; just practical enough not to be ridiculous and above all exceptionally comfy. The crepe sole offers a lovely bounceback that we're just not used to in a non-trainer, post-plimsoll world of footwear, and suede is soft and yielding, like a nerf ball. I'm a semi-recent convert, buying these electric blue (well, almost) beauties in the time-honoured manner: in the sale at Liberty, last winter. For bonus points, they're from APC. And I've been living in them - lasting me throughout the summer and autumn, I've worn them to raves, family events and work; like I said, they're perfect for any occasion. Although they do bear the scuffs, scars and stains of the cycle commute. Anyway, before I fulfil any more cliches, and after much deliberation, this week's Staple is without doubt the desert boot.
London's fantastic cab drivers
Future Disco compilations
Quilted sweatshirts (from Topman)
M&S ginger beer
Receiving invites for #LFW
Home cooking