Classic Fashion

Archive for November, 2011

A lot of fashion trends come and go but vintage classic clothing is always in style. Vintage is great because of the versatility. By using neutral colors it is hard to mismatch anything if you keep it simple and classic. We will take you through all the styles available and help you put it all together for the perfect vintage appeal.

Vintage Denim Jeans

- Jean Styles:

* Slim Boot Fit – lean through the top, flaring out at the knee. An updated look pulling the best of the 70′s jeans fashion. Looks good with vintage western shirt.

* Flap Pocket Fit – low rise, fitted through the thigh opening to a slight flare at the knee. Hand-distressed with a worn-in look plus back flap pockets for added detail. Looks great with a vintage military style shirt.

* Straight Leg Fit – sits comfortably at the hip and fits straight through the leg and thigh. A classic fit from the 50′s and 60′s goes well with a vintage graphic tee.

* Relaxed Fit – a relaxed fit through the hip and thigh featuring a boot-cut leg opening. Perfect with a classic button-down or vintage western shirt.

Vintage Shirts

- Button-Down Styles:

* Military Shirts – inspired by vintage army shirts feature tabbed sleeves, shoulder flaps and front flap pockets. Goes with slim boot fit jeans.

* Western Shirts – a vintage essential featuring pearl snap buttons, detailed yoke stitching and unique patterns. Wear with slim boot fit jeans and vintage retro boots.

* Polo Shirts – classic fit and cotton fabric made this big in the 60′s and 70′s especially in the summer. Goes great with straight leg fit jeans and white sneakers.

* Raglan Baseball Shirt – popular in the 70′s, a classic style featuring 3/4 sleeves, ringer collar and knit cotton. Looks great with straight leg or slim boot jeans and sneakers.

- Graphic Tee Shirt Styles:

* Rock Band Tee Shirts – Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles & Woodstock graphic tees go great with relaxed fit jeans. Up your style with a blazer.

* Funny Saying Tee Shirts – a worn and faded look give a thrift store vintage feel to a past funny saying. Goes great with slim boot fit jeans and flip-flops.

* Graphic Art Tee Shirts – cool art designs give a subtle detail with jeans or with layers. Perfect with any type of jeans.

Accessories

- Sunglasses: add detail with vintage inspired aviators, thick-frame square glasses and polarized sunglasses.
- Socks: bold vintage argyle patterns can add some color to your outfit.
- Hats: fedoras, drivers and trucker caps can also help pull an outfit together.

You may have not noticed, but a lot of the celebrity kids today are wearing kid’s clothing pieces that adhere to the Japanese street fashion style. After all, the entertainment press usually covers the likes of Suri Cruise and her penchant for chic, stylish, and almost clinical designer kid’s clothing. But if you look at the likes of Leni Samuel and Kaya McEknna and their eccentrically designed tees, for instance, or Jaden Smith’s hip and street style-infused fashion, it would be easy to see that celebrity kids are also embracing the classy and cute style of Japanese kid’s clothing.

In fact, these celebrity kids may actually be wearing Japanese-inspired kid’s clothing without even knowing it.

Jaden Smith, for instance, wears a lot of kid’s clothing pieces that hardly match. During the Twilight Saga: Eclipse premiere in Los Angeles, he wore a gray vest with silver spikes over a plain white cotton shirt, black straight cut pants, and black boots. His sister, Willow Smith, wore a yellow tank top under a chest length leather jacket with floral print. These kid’s clothing pieces combine the formal and casual kid’s clothing aesthetics, something common in Japanese fashion.

Jaden’s spiky jacket and Willow’s floral printed vest, meanwhile, have very distinct marks of Japanese kid’s clothing style. The floral style on the leather vest is actually quite Victorian-Lolita in aesthetics, although the girly and youthful yellow tank top defuses whatever inappropriateness that particular kid’s clothing has to create a very distinct style, something akin to Japanese kid’s clothing street fashion. Jaden’s jacket, on the other hand, is more hardcore, as it uses the concept of Visual Kei, a Japanese fashion style that borders on the flamboyant and the kitschy. Many fashion bloggers and experts did comment that Jaden’s kid’s clothing piece is very glam rock in style-and glam rock is one of the styles that influenced Visual Kei.

Of course, it goes without saying that Jaden’s and Willow’s kid’s clothing outfits were cute and age appropriate, classy and young-and very Japanese in style.

Many celebrity kids follow the footsteps of Jaden and Willow when it comes to consciously or unintentionally using Japanese kid’s clothing fashion as the template for their own ensemble. Shiloh Pitt, for instance, has been seen wearing very feminine sundresses that look like a mellowed-down Lolita dress. Even the prints of Suri Cruise’s designer kid’s clothing pieces are reminiscent of the ones you’d see in Japan right now!

This is possible due to many reasons. For one, good fashion will always be good fashion-regardless whether the style is American or Japanese. But more than that, Japanese anthropologists and pop culture experts have said over and over again that Japanese street fashion and even the more current Japanese kid’s clothing fashion styles such as the mellowed-down Lolita dresses are actually imitations of fashion styles from other cultures and countries, including but not limited to America. This exact reason makes Japanese kid’s clothing appropriate and fashionably gorgeous and fitting for American kids.

There is a misconception in men’s fashion that dictates that the contemporary cut suit is a young mans game. This is mostly a half truth. Many, if not most, of the top couture fashion houses do focus their slim cut suits into extreme versions with extreme proportions but there are ways for the over 40 crowd to wear a great looking modern cut suit with out looking like they are doing their best Derek Zoolander.

When it comes to modern slim cut suits there are two things to look for: Cut and Fabric. the edgiest of the design houses will use extreme proportions in their cut. This means that the suit will be not only slim but also be cropped. They will then pair it with trendy fabrics or overtly simplified color palettes. The result is a “very out there suit” or a suit version of Ikea furniture. While these suits might be great looking, they seem oddly out of place in a board room and even odder still on a senior level executive.

This does not mean that one has to stick to the boxy sack suit with the triple pleated pants. There are plenty of places to go if what you are looking for is a sleek and tailored look. Here are the some things to look for in a slim cut suit
Look for British cut suits- British cut suits are tailored and slim with out being tight. Less structured than their Italian counter part yet much more fitted than an American sack suit its classic lines help create the sleek silhouette yet slim enough to be quite contemporary. Most recently seen on Daniel Craig in the James Bond role and Pierce Brosnan in his turn as Thomas Crown Its the prefect blend of classic and modern. Look for Classic Fabrics- a lot of slim cut suits are cut in contemporary fabrics. This and the cut is what makes it look trendy. pairing a great slim cut with classic chalks stripes, Glen Plaids and flannel grays creates a tailored look rather than a trendy look. While this may be tougher to find it is well worth the effort. A great way of simplifying the search is to find a tailor that specializes in slim custom cut suits. Stay with in 10% of your comfort zone-This is the best rule of thumb. When trying stuff on make sure that you are stretching out a little but not too much. If you put it on and feel weird do not buy it. No matter how great it looks, if you do not feel comfortable you will not wear the suit.Invest wisely. A truly great looking suit cost money. When buying slim cut ones you will run the risk of buying something trendy, so finding the balance between Classic and modern is key. Brands such as Isaia and Tom Ford are masters of this and if the end goal is investing in a suit that will carry you through decades, spending more to get much more makes all the sense in the world.