Posts
7 hours ago
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Red Head Piano Bar
The Red Head Piano Bar
16 W Ontario
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 640-1000
All in all, the Red Head is a nice place for occasional outings. Bring your folks or your boss. Oh, and look for their new ad that features bombshell Megan Parker!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy- Heatmeiser
A holiday classic. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy covers Heitmeiser from the Rankin and Bass special.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Penman Hats
Few things embody the spirit of classic style like a great hat. The driver's cap is all the rage on winter streets from New York to Los Angeles. I love the humble driver's cap and its cousins the Apple and the 8-Panel among the many variations. The ultimate expression of classic style for many, is a great hat. Fedora, porkpie, bowler. Whatever your preference, a well-crafted hat is not only great for expressing your personal style but for paying homage to great style icons of the past.
If you have a fedora in your closet, bravo! If it's your first, is it a wool or cloth piece that may be fraying or worn all too soon? Does it have a gun or a skull silk-screened onto it's crown? Or are you hatless and just looking to get a lid that you've admired on old stars like Bogart or your grandfather's old pics? If so, check out Penman Hats.
I first heard of Penman Hats on the Fedora Chronicles, a website and forum inhabited by hat aficionados, retrophiles and general ne'er-do-wells. Offering a variety of hat related services, Penman Hats will make a custom hat to your liking and specifications. Ideal for a signature look, a custom hat will allow you to find one that suits your face and express your style from bold to classic. It's a great gift to yourself, one that may last a lifetime with proper care.
If you have a fedora in your closet, bravo! If it's your first, is it a wool or cloth piece that may be fraying or worn all too soon? Does it have a gun or a skull silk-screened onto it's crown? Or are you hatless and just looking to get a lid that you've admired on old stars like Bogart or your grandfather's old pics? If so, check out Penman Hats.
I first heard of Penman Hats on the Fedora Chronicles, a website and forum inhabited by hat aficionados, retrophiles and general ne'er-do-wells. Offering a variety of hat related services, Penman Hats will make a custom hat to your liking and specifications. Ideal for a signature look, a custom hat will allow you to find one that suits your face and express your style from bold to classic. It's a great gift to yourself, one that may last a lifetime with proper care.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Secret Weapons: The Tie Bar dot com
Keeping your tie wardrobe fresh can be challenging. Everyone makes mistakes in this area, particularly when it comes to the flavor of the season patterns. For the novice, matching basic colors comes easily. Matching unusual colors becomes tricky, especially with a suit. While the monochromatic look will always have its place, it gets old quickly. To the rescue is The Tie Bar!
The Tie Bar is one of my favorite web retailers of neckwear. The reasons for this are four-fold. First is the easy to use website. Dividing the offerings into Trendy, Traditional and Trenditional (think trendy takes on traditional patterns), each tie pattern is clearly photographed. Next to it is an easy to read series of color icons showing what shirt and/or suit colors and patterns are recommended for the tie.
Second is variety. Many are offered in XL lengths and the website offers a variety of skinny ties as well. Also available are bow ties and ascots. While all the ties are silk, the sheer variety of patterns makes finding a tie that suits a particular occasion, personality or wardrobe a snap. If you need a quantity of ties for a wedding or a performance, they can accomodate those requests. If you want something truly exceptional, they can create a quantity of custom ties. Great for corporate gifts or student organizations.
Third, I love their pocketsquare selection. Many of the ties have matching pocketsquares but finding a pocketsquare with a complimentary color is possible thanks to the great choices available. The squares are silk, and have some truly beautiful offerings.
Finally is price. The ties, including bows, are $15 (slightly more for XL lengths). Ascots are only $30 and pocketsquares are only $8. For gift giving, check out their Tie of the Month club.
The Tie Bar is one of my favorite web retailers of neckwear. The reasons for this are four-fold. First is the easy to use website. Dividing the offerings into Trendy, Traditional and Trenditional (think trendy takes on traditional patterns), each tie pattern is clearly photographed. Next to it is an easy to read series of color icons showing what shirt and/or suit colors and patterns are recommended for the tie.
Second is variety. Many are offered in XL lengths and the website offers a variety of skinny ties as well. Also available are bow ties and ascots. While all the ties are silk, the sheer variety of patterns makes finding a tie that suits a particular occasion, personality or wardrobe a snap. If you need a quantity of ties for a wedding or a performance, they can accomodate those requests. If you want something truly exceptional, they can create a quantity of custom ties. Great for corporate gifts or student organizations.
Third, I love their pocketsquare selection. Many of the ties have matching pocketsquares but finding a pocketsquare with a complimentary color is possible thanks to the great choices available. The squares are silk, and have some truly beautiful offerings.
Finally is price. The ties, including bows, are $15 (slightly more for XL lengths). Ascots are only $30 and pocketsquares are only $8. For gift giving, check out their Tie of the Month club.
Vote Early and Vote Often
21st Century Burlesque is taking nominations for it's Top 50 Burlesque Stars. Please take a moment to nominate your favorite Chicago starlets. The winners will be announced at New Years, so vote now.
While you are at it, check out the interview with newly-wedded Michelle L'amour on 21st Century Burlesque!
While you are at it, check out the interview with newly-wedded Michelle L'amour on 21st Century Burlesque!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Burlesque To Keep You Warm This Winter
The Windy City seems to have gone from pleasant Fall days to Arctic temps with not much warning. Unfortunately, many of us (myself included) seem to shun our social lives during the cold months. Don't get overwhelmed with the holiday craziness. Invite some of your friends out for a night of drinks and gorgeous women dancing for your entertainment. Chicago burlesque darlings Vaudezilla and Red Hot Annie have some great shows lined up for you.
Even better for the ladies, if you need something to keep you going during the winter weather, check out Red Hot Annie's Basic Burlesque Class to indulge your inner diva or just have a great workout. For the gentleman (or lady) of discerning tastes, check out Red Hot Annie's pin-up photos. They do not disappoint!
Want a sample of the goods? Check out the vid for a great holiday performance!
The New York Times
The following is from a wonderful article from The New York Times that addresses the new "Mad Men" ethos of the younger generation compared to the jeans-and-tee frumpiness of the Baby Boomers. It's worth a read.
==============================================
December 17, 2009
Dress Codes
Dressing for Success, Again
By DAVID COLMAN
THE runaway phenomenon that is “Mad Men,” with its stylish depiction of Kennedy-era New York, where men dressed with style and philandered with impunity, has handed modern men their very own “Sex and the City” fantasy.
But an overlooked aspect of “Mad Men” is the fashion turnabout it represents. In the show, the older men — Don Draper and his boss, Roger Sterling — are the best-dressed characters, while the new-kid, cool-cat copywriters are so loath to play the game that they won’t even wear a tie. Soon enough, the hippie movement would deride the necktie as a “dog collar” and any corporate-minded spoilsport as a “suit.” In the decades that followed, a minor genre of films addressed the Unsuiting of Mr. X, from “Barefoot in the Park” (1967) and “Easy Rider” (1969) to “After Hours” (1985) and “Something Wild” (1986).
Now the tie is on the other neck. Today the well-off 55-year-old is likely to be the worst-dressed man in the room, wearing a saggy T-shirt and jeans. The cash-poor 25-year-old is in a natty sport coat and skinny tie bought at Topman for a song. Young men are embracing the “Mad Men” elements of style in a way that the older men never did, still don’t and just won’t. The result is a kind of rift emerging between the generation of men in their 20s and 30s and those in their late 40s and 50s for whom a suit was not merely square but cubed, and caring about how one looked was effeminate.
The evidence of this style gap is everywhere. Just check out the numerous men’s wear blogs — acontinuouslean.com, dandyism.net, thetrad.blogspot.com, fineanddandyshop.blogspot.com — dedicated not to cutting-edge European fashion but to old-school minutiae of dressing well. Or take a look at the Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones, who favors double-breasted suits and bow ties and talks about “the resurgence of the gentleman.”
The trend reaches from Madison Avenue to the shopping mall. At Paul Stuart, most of the store’s growth is in its trim-tailored, dandified (and expensive) Phineas Cole line, courtesy of customers in their 20’s and 30’s, said Michael Ostrove, the store’s executive vice president.
Brooks Brothers, which has struggled since the 1980s to recapture the all-American style mantle that Ralph Lauren made off with, has received quite a bump from “Mad Men.” The company made the suits the main characters wear, to the specs of the costume designer, Janie Bryant.
And at Topman, the men’s branch of the popular Topshop, the category it calls “smart” clothing — dressier togs that straddle work and play — has been one of the best performers in its new New York store.
“I think it’s a reaction against the homogeneity of casual wear,” said Gordon Henderson, the design director of Topman. “There’s nowhere to go with that in terms of personality, whereas a suit sets you apart. And now there are suits that are cut for young people. There’s never been that before, so it’s new to them.”
In a twist, neckties are being sold at the very place that did more than any other to usher in casual Friday: Gap. Not to be outdone, American Apparel now sells bow ties.
“The older generation, say 45-plus, look upon success as being able to dress down,” said Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst at NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. “They think being able to wear jeans is the epitome of achievement.
“But the younger generation is looking at getting dressed up and making their mark,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a real generation gap here. I teach at three different colleges, and I am amazed how dressed up some of the students are. Girls still come in their hoodies and pajamas, but boys come in their suits.”
NPD figures for the year ending Nov. 1 indicate that sales of tailored clothing among men ages 35 to 54 were down 17 percent. Among men ages 25 to 34, sales were up almost 4 percent.
“It’s these young guys rebelling against their boomer dads,” said Russell Smith, 45, the author of “Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress” and an advice columnist for The Globe and Mail in Toronto. “But it’s very amusing and paradoxical that the new anti-parental paradigm involves a pinstripe suit and a pocket square.”
Far from being a superficial movement, the style gap is seen by young men as something of real substance, with the same kind of opposition to fuddy-duddy ways that the boomers wore threadbare. A perfect (and hilarious) example of the tension is found in the new Tracy Letts play “Superior Donuts,” in which an aging boomer gets a dressing-down (and a wake-up call) from his savvy young employee.
When the older man, Arthur, says, “I haven’t dated in a long time,” the young Franco deadpans, “That’s hard to believe, the way you dress and everything.” Voicing the watchwords of his generation, Arthur retorts, “I like to be comfortable.” Franco is unmoved: “You might be comfortable naked, but that don’t mean it looks good.”
And the new USA television show “White Collar” uses the style gap to breathe new life into the odd-couple buddy-cop formula: one sharp, the other flat. In the pilot, the show’s youthful con artist hero, Neal Caffrey, cajoles his way out of prison and into an elderly widow’s mansion and, more important, her late husband’s pristine early ’60s wardrobe. The shlubby and overworked F.B.I. agent to whom he is assigned is appalled.
“You look like a cartoon!” he says.
“This is classic Rat Pack,” Caffrey responds, adjusting his fedora. “This is Sy Devore!”
Like Barney Stinson, the well-dressed womanizer who constantly scoffs at his sloppily dressed friends on “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS, Caffrey is a truer reflection of the younger generation’s take on style than the whole cast of “Mad Men,” however perfectly turned-out they all are. For Caffrey, as for most young men today, dressing in a suit and tie is not just a choice but a stance that challenges the apathy and monotony of casual Friday culture.
“The fashion gene skipped a generation,” said Samuel Rascoff, 36, a law professor at New York University who specializes in national security law and who, being a fastidious dresser, has given serious thought to the trend, which he sees reflected in his students.
“There’s a sense that this return to style, or to a consciousness of how you look, is an attempt by young men to recover a set of values that were at one point very much present in American society and then lost,” he said. “It strikes me as being of a piece with the way young people buy their coffee or their food: paying attention to authenticity or quality, and to whether something is organic or local. They stand for a rejection of the idea that all consumer goods are ephemeral and inevitably made in China and bought at Wal-Mart.”
Baby boomers may well dismiss the trend as a silly phase that young men will soon outgrow, but they might consider how they are perceived in comparison.
“Not only do I see these guys out there, but I get agitated letters from their wives,” said Mr. Smith, the advice columnist. “One of the most frequent letters I get is: ‘My husband has moved up in his career, but he’s still dressing like a kid. I am embarrassed for him whenever he leaves the house. What do I do?’ I don’t get those letters from women in their 20s and 30s.”
So, in an age of irony, here’s a whopper: Given how zealously baby boomers have clung to, or hopped on, all kinds of youth trends, no matter how age-inappropriate, why can’t they hop on this one?
What’s the worst that could happen, Pops? Someone might think you are 10 years younger?
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
==============================================
December 17, 2009
Dress Codes
Dressing for Success, Again
By DAVID COLMAN
THE runaway phenomenon that is “Mad Men,” with its stylish depiction of Kennedy-era New York, where men dressed with style and philandered with impunity, has handed modern men their very own “Sex and the City” fantasy.
But an overlooked aspect of “Mad Men” is the fashion turnabout it represents. In the show, the older men — Don Draper and his boss, Roger Sterling — are the best-dressed characters, while the new-kid, cool-cat copywriters are so loath to play the game that they won’t even wear a tie. Soon enough, the hippie movement would deride the necktie as a “dog collar” and any corporate-minded spoilsport as a “suit.” In the decades that followed, a minor genre of films addressed the Unsuiting of Mr. X, from “Barefoot in the Park” (1967) and “Easy Rider” (1969) to “After Hours” (1985) and “Something Wild” (1986).
Now the tie is on the other neck. Today the well-off 55-year-old is likely to be the worst-dressed man in the room, wearing a saggy T-shirt and jeans. The cash-poor 25-year-old is in a natty sport coat and skinny tie bought at Topman for a song. Young men are embracing the “Mad Men” elements of style in a way that the older men never did, still don’t and just won’t. The result is a kind of rift emerging between the generation of men in their 20s and 30s and those in their late 40s and 50s for whom a suit was not merely square but cubed, and caring about how one looked was effeminate.
The evidence of this style gap is everywhere. Just check out the numerous men’s wear blogs — acontinuouslean.com, dandyism.net, thetrad.blogspot.com, fineanddandyshop.blogspot.com — dedicated not to cutting-edge European fashion but to old-school minutiae of dressing well. Or take a look at the Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones, who favors double-breasted suits and bow ties and talks about “the resurgence of the gentleman.”
The trend reaches from Madison Avenue to the shopping mall. At Paul Stuart, most of the store’s growth is in its trim-tailored, dandified (and expensive) Phineas Cole line, courtesy of customers in their 20’s and 30’s, said Michael Ostrove, the store’s executive vice president.
Brooks Brothers, which has struggled since the 1980s to recapture the all-American style mantle that Ralph Lauren made off with, has received quite a bump from “Mad Men.” The company made the suits the main characters wear, to the specs of the costume designer, Janie Bryant.
And at Topman, the men’s branch of the popular Topshop, the category it calls “smart” clothing — dressier togs that straddle work and play — has been one of the best performers in its new New York store.
“I think it’s a reaction against the homogeneity of casual wear,” said Gordon Henderson, the design director of Topman. “There’s nowhere to go with that in terms of personality, whereas a suit sets you apart. And now there are suits that are cut for young people. There’s never been that before, so it’s new to them.”
In a twist, neckties are being sold at the very place that did more than any other to usher in casual Friday: Gap. Not to be outdone, American Apparel now sells bow ties.
“The older generation, say 45-plus, look upon success as being able to dress down,” said Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst at NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. “They think being able to wear jeans is the epitome of achievement.
“But the younger generation is looking at getting dressed up and making their mark,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a real generation gap here. I teach at three different colleges, and I am amazed how dressed up some of the students are. Girls still come in their hoodies and pajamas, but boys come in their suits.”
NPD figures for the year ending Nov. 1 indicate that sales of tailored clothing among men ages 35 to 54 were down 17 percent. Among men ages 25 to 34, sales were up almost 4 percent.
“It’s these young guys rebelling against their boomer dads,” said Russell Smith, 45, the author of “Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress” and an advice columnist for The Globe and Mail in Toronto. “But it’s very amusing and paradoxical that the new anti-parental paradigm involves a pinstripe suit and a pocket square.”
Far from being a superficial movement, the style gap is seen by young men as something of real substance, with the same kind of opposition to fuddy-duddy ways that the boomers wore threadbare. A perfect (and hilarious) example of the tension is found in the new Tracy Letts play “Superior Donuts,” in which an aging boomer gets a dressing-down (and a wake-up call) from his savvy young employee.
When the older man, Arthur, says, “I haven’t dated in a long time,” the young Franco deadpans, “That’s hard to believe, the way you dress and everything.” Voicing the watchwords of his generation, Arthur retorts, “I like to be comfortable.” Franco is unmoved: “You might be comfortable naked, but that don’t mean it looks good.”
And the new USA television show “White Collar” uses the style gap to breathe new life into the odd-couple buddy-cop formula: one sharp, the other flat. In the pilot, the show’s youthful con artist hero, Neal Caffrey, cajoles his way out of prison and into an elderly widow’s mansion and, more important, her late husband’s pristine early ’60s wardrobe. The shlubby and overworked F.B.I. agent to whom he is assigned is appalled.
“You look like a cartoon!” he says.
“This is classic Rat Pack,” Caffrey responds, adjusting his fedora. “This is Sy Devore!”
Like Barney Stinson, the well-dressed womanizer who constantly scoffs at his sloppily dressed friends on “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS, Caffrey is a truer reflection of the younger generation’s take on style than the whole cast of “Mad Men,” however perfectly turned-out they all are. For Caffrey, as for most young men today, dressing in a suit and tie is not just a choice but a stance that challenges the apathy and monotony of casual Friday culture.
“The fashion gene skipped a generation,” said Samuel Rascoff, 36, a law professor at New York University who specializes in national security law and who, being a fastidious dresser, has given serious thought to the trend, which he sees reflected in his students.
“There’s a sense that this return to style, or to a consciousness of how you look, is an attempt by young men to recover a set of values that were at one point very much present in American society and then lost,” he said. “It strikes me as being of a piece with the way young people buy their coffee or their food: paying attention to authenticity or quality, and to whether something is organic or local. They stand for a rejection of the idea that all consumer goods are ephemeral and inevitably made in China and bought at Wal-Mart.”
Baby boomers may well dismiss the trend as a silly phase that young men will soon outgrow, but they might consider how they are perceived in comparison.
“Not only do I see these guys out there, but I get agitated letters from their wives,” said Mr. Smith, the advice columnist. “One of the most frequent letters I get is: ‘My husband has moved up in his career, but he’s still dressing like a kid. I am embarrassed for him whenever he leaves the house. What do I do?’ I don’t get those letters from women in their 20s and 30s.”
So, in an age of irony, here’s a whopper: Given how zealously baby boomers have clung to, or hopped on, all kinds of youth trends, no matter how age-inappropriate, why can’t they hop on this one?
What’s the worst that could happen, Pops? Someone might think you are 10 years younger?
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Deo Veritas Review by Nouveau Vintage
My very excellent colleague, Jovan, has a a wonderful review on Chicago-based Deo Veritas shirts. His blog has excellent photos and a veru insightful review.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Hat Life celebrates the driver's cap
http://www.hatlife.com/newsletters/2009/dec09_1/art3.htm
THE DRIVING CAP GETS A NOD FROM THE MEDIA
The fashion section of the New York Times ran a great article this week called “A Smooth Shift to the Driving Cap.” It is a great testimony to the shifting mind set of young people toward headwear.
“Many men have taken to the far worthier wool driving cap, and with good reason. It may not suggest that you are an indie-rock guitar rebel who thinks two chords are plenty, but it will keep your head warmer - and more important, your hair neater - in cold weather.”
Well put, I must say.
“The driving cap has a snap of its own. Traditionally constructed of old-school sport-coat fabrics - stalwart checks and tweeds, showier patchworks and plaids it has been put through hippification and made in all sorts of novel fabrics (corduroy and cable knit) while keeping its basic shape: a small oval beret with a baseballer’s brim. But such tinkering is needless — it has enough personality as it.”
As in the Steampunk fashion, the driving cap’s background is 19th-century working class. The author said the 20th-century desire to upgrade its status can be seen in the name “driving cap,” as well as its aliases: “ivy cap” or “golf cap.”
The writer’s advice: The fabric must accommodate your head roughly from the base of the skull to your hairline without pulling or puckering, and it must be stitched (not snapped) to the visor clear across the front. Period. If it is too wide on top, it takes on the more cartoon look of a newsboy cap, which is more circular and made with eight panels (think of the top of a beach ball) to the driving cap’s three.
He found the perfect cap - with buckle back and a longer curved brim - at Paul Stuart. Sizing is an issue, he said (we hear that often).
Stetson’s Cavanagh division has some great caps in assorted plaids as well. We saw them at the Magic Show.
HERE IS THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/fashion/03PERFECT.html?scp=1&sq=A%20Smooth%20
Shift%20to%20a%20Driving%20Cap%20&st=cse
THE DRIVING CAP GETS A NOD FROM THE MEDIA
The fashion section of the New York Times ran a great article this week called “A Smooth Shift to the Driving Cap.” It is a great testimony to the shifting mind set of young people toward headwear.
“Many men have taken to the far worthier wool driving cap, and with good reason. It may not suggest that you are an indie-rock guitar rebel who thinks two chords are plenty, but it will keep your head warmer - and more important, your hair neater - in cold weather.”
Well put, I must say.
“The driving cap has a snap of its own. Traditionally constructed of old-school sport-coat fabrics - stalwart checks and tweeds, showier patchworks and plaids it has been put through hippification and made in all sorts of novel fabrics (corduroy and cable knit) while keeping its basic shape: a small oval beret with a baseballer’s brim. But such tinkering is needless — it has enough personality as it.”
As in the Steampunk fashion, the driving cap’s background is 19th-century working class. The author said the 20th-century desire to upgrade its status can be seen in the name “driving cap,” as well as its aliases: “ivy cap” or “golf cap.”
The writer’s advice: The fabric must accommodate your head roughly from the base of the skull to your hairline without pulling or puckering, and it must be stitched (not snapped) to the visor clear across the front. Period. If it is too wide on top, it takes on the more cartoon look of a newsboy cap, which is more circular and made with eight panels (think of the top of a beach ball) to the driving cap’s three.
He found the perfect cap - with buckle back and a longer curved brim - at Paul Stuart. Sizing is an issue, he said (we hear that often).
Stetson’s Cavanagh division has some great caps in assorted plaids as well. We saw them at the Magic Show.
HERE IS THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/fashion/03PERFECT.html?scp=1&sq=A%20Smooth%20
Shift%20to%20a%20Driving%20Cap%20&st=cse
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