Moncler

As mentioned in Rick Ross' 2012 health consciously named hit 'Diced Pineapples' "Pop bottles, make love, thug passion, red bottoms, Moncler, high fashion" Ricky Rozay is an outerwear aficionado and a fan of French ski specialists, like many of us in the #Menswear world.

With prices around the £1000 for their iconic bubble down jacket, Moncler will provide a polyester outer layer in an array of colours filled with duck down feathers and a fur trimmed hood. It may sound crazy that people pay this much for a "basic" coat (as opposed to some next level Japanese/Rick Ownes/Tom Ford creation) but according to Bloomberg (they're like the Hypebeast of finance, bruh) the French ski specialists are doing very well as they are looking to release shares in the company for roughly £653,000,000. Which is good.

(side not, personal observation: in and around Manchester city centre I've seen loads more people wearing them this last year, that right there is gold research)


Moncler have a few different offerings for men, it kinda goes down like this:

Moncler Mainline - Stuff you get everywhere, it's all good

Moncler Grenoble - High tech ski clothing, wear this on piste whilst sipping Campari and going backwards giving that blonde ski bunny THE EYE$

Moncler Gamme Bleu - It's Bleu not blue, which is French. Therefore better. It's also designed by Tom Browne. Everything from ready to wear, outerwear and accessories from this collection are so on point I recommend you try and view some of it in person, the attention to detail is what you'd expect from Mr. Browne.


Here's me in an olive coloured Moncler puffa coat, very nice. People say I look like David Gandy. I don't see it.

I saw this floral coach jacket style Moncler in Harrods last year for around £1900, I've recently found one on eBay which is very tempting.

If like me you're poor, then check out Uni Qlo for a much cheaper equivalent.

Arjun

Nike x Size? Air Max 93

All I can say is that following on from the post a few days ago I don't think that this will be a surprise but I am FIENDING these Air Max 93's but I don't know I can be bothered with the absolute fuckery that comes with queuing up and getting them. The thing with these is, aside from the fact that it'll make everyone in a pair of AM1s and AM90s stop and be like huh!?, is that they have the crazy tonal Jordan grape tonal upper thing going and then the chilled black outersole. It's part of a pack of two though so hopefully everyone and their dog gets the huarache and I can have a pair of the 93s without queuing at all.

Wood Wood Pants = Danish Magic

Because of the elastic waist these trousers could be passed off as pyjamas (or PJs, jim jams, pyjams or whatever you call want to call them) but that would be a terrible thing to do. They have check AND dip dye. Dip dyed check mayhem on your legs. I don't know if I agree too much with how they've been styled in this picture but I would wear these more than just to the shops to get milk. I'm talking about to town to buy more clothes, to meet this girl I might end up going out with's parents or even to the moon. Whatever. You know that you're going to look super fresh.

Arjun made me buy this t-shirt

By which I mean that I was drunk when he linked me the four-pins article that rated it. I'm still not really sure how I feel about it but I think I like it. It's cool and understated for a parody t-shirt but, you know it's still a parody t-shirt.

Parody t-shirts in general are definitely pretty fucking lame though, apart from this one since I now own it. I can see why if you're about 16 years old you think it's pretty cool to rock a dead homies Hermes piss take t-shirt but what's the deal with anyone over 18 wearing one? It was maybe cool for maybe a minute maybe six months ago but they should be left alone now. The Gwarizm one that I bought is the thinking man's parody t-shirt in that Margiela is, perhaps less now because of the hip hop name dropping (Jay Z rather than A$AP though), a well composed and thoughtful brand. 

CAPITOL COUTURE? WHAT THE FUCK IS CAPITOL COUTURE?

So I just read on Daily Beast that Net-a-Porter is going to do a collection that is themed around/based on the Hunger Games series which a) was kind of suprising and b) kind of sucks. If you think that Net-a-Porter is one of the leading online women's luxury store and consider that the Hunger Games is, albeit not strictly, for teenage girls then it isn't all that hard to say that on the surface of it that the two don't have too much common ground. Teenage girls don't go dropping £1400 on Bottega Veneta cardigans.
The one thing that makes sense about this is the costume designer, Trish Summerville who also did something with HM about that Girl With The Dragon Tattoo film, has taken her inspiration (the original Times article maybe pokes the stick of 'you copied McQueen and Christopher Kane' at her a bit) from high fashion. But as the Times article points out, it kind of looks like stealing.
Anyway, what the fuck is the point of all this? The collection doesn't look great and is that thing on the bottom a key ring or a fucking attachable tail or what?

Fingers crossed, and I mean your toes here as well, that Mr Porter does this with someone not entirely shit. say... A Wes Anderson film:

I found out I like weird trainers

They say that you should spend good money on what separates your feet from the ground. This is usually my mental justification when I want to purchase a new pair of shoes that I 'need'. But allow me to be more precise; I'm currently trying to justify buying a pair of trainers that everyone that I've shown dislikes. Being more specific again it's the  Garbstore x Reebok Instapump Fury's that have whet my appetite so. I showed my fellow blogger and general dapper man about town Mr Arjun Sohal and he told me that he wasn't feeling it. I showed someone else thinking that maybe Arjun was a one off (Arjun is a one off). You know, just not quite to his taste or something like that but the other person that I showed liked them less and was less polite. 

Now, I'm not just fiending a new pair of trainers for no reason, I want a new pair of trainers because some shyster stole my orange leopard Roshe runs from outside my apartment at Unknown Festival. Fuck you whoever took them. I loved those trainers because they were lairy and totally over the top and if I had pretensions I'd say that they were avant garde. I like avant garde lairy trainers. There's something about them that appeal to me deep inside, the loudness and the shameless attention grabbing are what scratch my itch, float my boat and make the world go round. 

Similarly I own a pair of Gourmet Dignans and people ask me what I'm wearing, not to see where they come from but because they don't know what the fuck are on my feet. I have a pair of ninja slippers that provoke the same reaction. So for me it's all about the weird shit that gets you thinking. The Reebok instapump has always been on my list of things to buy in some guise since I saw a pair appear on hypebeast one day. Mind = blown. I literally didn't know anything could look like that at that point in my young adolescent life. There is also the little matter of a certain Chanel collaboration. 

The other shoe that I lust after currently is the Nike Foamposite in all black. That's right. Murdered out Foamposites are what I'd like to own for all of the above reasons. Garish, over the top and slightly ridiculous looking and I like that. They kind of look like futuristic tanks for your feet except with less actual firepower and more metaphorical firepower and they're stealthy looking, like they could sneak up on you, take your sweets out of your pocket and run off without you ever knowing. Are they my three favourite trainers ever these avant garde musketeers? Not quite but they're up there and I definitely fucks with them all day. 

Nigo is about to go IN

Nigo AKA Mr Bathing Ape has been was announced the creative director of Uniqlo, yeah as in that Japanese clothing shop dotted around London? He has become creative director. I'm trying to get my head around it, the only thing I can see being a common bond is their place of origin, the land of the rising sun aka Japan aka where we all want to go and cop next level linen and cyber material garms.

I'm looking forward to some amazing things coming out of Uni Qlo during the next few seasons. I just they don't bring out some sort of unbranded Bapesta lovechild. Imagine that. Enough to give you nightmares.

Here's Nigo and his BFF Pharrell 

Arjun

Arena Homme+ celebrates 20 years

One of the finest mens publications from this great land; Arena Homme+ turned 20 this month, to celebrate this landmark the godfathers of luxury outerwear Stone Island collaborated with an event at Flannels Manchester, Leeds and Stone Island's flagship store in London.

Stone Island delivered the goods, bringing their finest Italian outwear pieces from the past 30 years to be displayed in a gallery style exhibition style alongside the photographs from past campaigns and the current issue of Arena Homme+, Dj's from the Boiler Room played a superb mix, free goodie bags were given out, drinks flowed and a discount on the AW13 Stone Island collection created a big buzz in store.

Above: DJ Thristian in Stone Island AW13 (he ended the night with Sampha, which is a brilliant choice)

Below: 1: Stone Island window display

2: A sneak into the Stone Island 30 Years Anniversary Archivo Book (which I believe is Italian for Archive, I may be wrong) Buy it here

Above: Joe and crew of OiPolloi and myself, working hard or hardly working?

Below: The guy from this Rihanna video modelled Stone Island a few years back which is in the Archivo book

Arjun

"Started from Balenciaga now we Here" - Nicholas Ghesquiere

I know this blog is about #MENSWEAR but bro, Marc Jacobs has left LV and some next man from Balenciaga (yeah you know that minimal parisian chic label that make those overly waxed black jeans with the white rib detailing on the waist band I/you have wanted since you were like 15 and went in to Selfridges and saw them for the first time, yeah well he is the new womenswear designer at LV. I wonder who will become mens/general creative director? I'm guessing lord YEEZUS.

Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesey are one of the worlds wealthiest companies owning the likes of Dior, Belvedere, Hermes and Gueralin. Arguably their most profitable company Louis Vuitton has recently felt some unnerving changes to it's corporate structure. Creative Director Marc Jacobs resigned, as mentioned in a number of interviews that he wants to shift his focus primarily back to his own label.

Nicholas Ghesquiere has been appointed to Creative Director of Womenswear following his exit from another luxury fashion house - Balenciaga after 16 years.  After transforming Balenciaga into one of the most iconic and forward thinking luxury brands he now needs to keep pushing  his signature chic minimalist style with womenswear at Louis Vuitton.

Above: Marc Jacobs, former Louis Vuitton Creative Director

Below: Marc Jacobs on the AW13 catwalk to a standing ovation at the end of a Louis Vuitton show he curated

Louis Vuitton have released this statement regarding the introduction of Ghesquiere (via Business of Fashion)

"“a modern creative vision to the House’s women’s collections, building on the values of refinement, savoir faire and extreme quality.”

It's exciting time for Ghesquiere as the next visionary for Louis Vuitton's Womenswear director although, he may have to deliver under pressure as H1 financial reports suggest the company is loosing momentum in emerging markets.

Above: supermodel Lara Stone modelling Louis Vuitton

Below: Nicholas Ghesquiere, the newly appointed Louis Vuitton Womenswear director

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