First of all, I’d like to dedicate this blog post to my good friend and homey Gunifort Uwambaga. Although today is not a special day, he couldn’t let the opportunity pass him by to buy me one of the most inspiring books for any upcoming fashion designer. A big shout out to you my dear friend!!! This amazing book tells the story of a woman who has worked 15 years as a stylist for French Elle, been a consultant & muse to the likes of Tom Ford at Gucci & YSL for around 6 years, plus 10 years of which she was editor-in-chief for French Vogue, where she did some magnificent things! Since then she doves in a number of new projects, including a book called Irreverent. It contains her favourite images she’s been involved with. The Carine Roitfeld book, titled ‘Irreverent,’ was curated by Olivier Zahm (founder of the French fashion mag Purple) and follows the French muse and editrix through her fearless career spanning the early ’90s through collaborations with pictures and notes of Mario Testino, Tom Ford in his Gucci years and her stewardship of French Vogue. Karl Lagerfeld once said that if you close your eyes and imagine the ideal French woman, it would be Carine. This book is chic, chic, chic, with 250 magazine tear sheets and covers, plus personal ephemera. Definitely a force not to be reckoned with! Thanks again for a great book Gunifort Uwambaga!!!

My first jeans patch sample arrived today!! Logo design made by Kim Demane, big shout out to this guy for all his effort and time!! Also a big shout out to my lawyer Dominique Seedorf who helped me out with some legal work for the logo, thanks!! The next step is the jeans sample. I already ordered the denim roll for the jeans, hyped!! There’s always that moment before you open a package when you think ‘Will it be as I ordered’.

To be a gentleman you must: trust the classics, take notes and press replay until you deem necessary. An essential video from Close Up and Private’s Sergei Sviatchenko.

Oh, gross! I know that Terry Richardson has basically entered some kind of enshrined and untouchable pantheon of American Celebrity Photographers, where if you hit a point in your career you basically have to get your photo taken by him against a white wall in his SOHO studio American Apparel ad style and that’s just how business is done in Modern America and fair enough. But now he has crossed the line big time. Can someone please help this guy or give him some good advice please? LOL… if you look closely you will see that’s not Terry Richardson kissing Terry. LOL…nope, it is actually Chloe Sevigny dressed as Terry Richardson, photographed by Richardson himself. I’ll give you a second to process that. Honestly, I think it is quite…odd, just saying!!

Conceived by Dior Homme artistic director Kris Van Assche and shot by Willy Vanderperre, The Wanderer is an aptly moody and and compelling showcase for the dramatic draped silhouettes in the brand’s A/W 2011 collection. The eerie and sombre film features model Victor Nylander in a state of possession as he wanders through billowing cornfields. Minimalist, clean and beautifully shot, Dior Homme stayed true to their image.

Everyone should check out the latest issue of 10 Men Magazine Winter Preview. 10 Men is a magazine containing men’s fashion, articles, great photography and reviews. It’s definitely one of my favourite magazines in the world so far. After reading so many magazines every month, it is only natural we develop our own preferences. And I must admit I’m quite a magazine junkie. I started off of course with Dutch magazines but those magazines bore me a lot, and it takes a lot to bore me. I ended up on picking up lots of magazines to read to only 3 great magazines to pick from named Inventory magazine, Workwear and 10 MEN magazine. I consider these magazines as the basics of all new and old topics on fashion, lifestyle and art. Anyone wanting to know about this ought to have a look to these wonderful magazines. I also really really love the cover of the latest issue of 10 Men. I always feel that magazines should produce covers that would entice people to pick it up to have a read, as well as making the readers want that piece of clothing on the cover. For a proper good look you’ll have to go out and buy it, definitely worth checking out!!!

Givenchy‘s Riccardo Tisci represents to me a particular class of designers whose intricate visionary masterpieces defy the real world so utterly that they can sometimes scarcely be called clothes at all. In the mind’s eye of the designer and the hands of his atelier craftspeople, a world within a world is created – a symbolic landscape where the subconscious sweeps through with all the force of a hurricane. For this collection, Riccardo Tisci has taken inspiration from the bird of paradise – both the mythical animal and the flower. The dresses are airy and structured and make use of angelic colours and light materials. The thick plastic zippers, strategically-placed sheer cutouts and calculated overabundance of embellishments ensured that the pure intentions were tempered by a pinch of beauteous transgression: the hallmark of a tried-and-true Radical Perfectionist.

Men’s loafers are a versatile and stylish shoe choice. They’re great for dressing up casual wear, or for adding a relaxed feel to dress attire. The new APC loafers are totally casual and a little bit on the sporty side, these driving-styled loafers are amazing!!!! Relaxed but still stylish.

British pop singer Amy Winehouse was found dead Saturday at her home in London. She was 27. The cause of death is not yet known. Two ambulances were sent to Winehouse’s residence in North London at 4 p.m., and arrived after she died. It’s not clear how long she was deceased before she was discovered. It’s too early to draw conclusions about Winehouse’s tragically early demise, but given how troubled her life has been since the success of her fantastic 2007 album Back To Black, it’s likely that the Amy Winehouse story for now and forever will be depicted as yet another cautionary tale about the pitfalls of “too much too soon.”

R.I.P Amy Winehouse 1983-2011

The Fashion A to Z Dictionary brings all the key words commonly used in colleges and in industry together, this fashion reference book is beautifully illustrated with diagrams and drawings of fashion details and costumes that bring the subject to life. The book contains over 2,000 entries, arranged alphabetically. Illustrated by renowned fashion illustrator and designer Zakee Shariff, and written by Alex Newman. This is with out over exaggerating the best book for bloggers, design students, fashion addicts and other creatives if you want to learn more about the ins and outs of fashion. I guess I’m kind of lucky because I stumbled on this book by ‘accident’ while I was making rounds of key bookstores in the center of Milan. At the end of the day I returned to the Armani bookstore because the store looks absolutely stunning and there was a 50 percent discount – Yes, I am smiling. No, I’m not lying. I guess, timing and destiny is everything, right? If you’re a really curious mind, I bought the book for 7,50 Euros.

Founder of both Earnest Sewn and Paper Denim & Cloth, Scott Morrison’s commitment to the raw essence of denim extends down to the brand names of each new project. His latest, 3×1 Made Here, borrows a name from the technique that gives denim its diagonal weave. Shoppers at his new 4,000-square-foot Soho space can customize a pair of ready-to-wear limited edition jeans, order a pair in their denim of choice or make an appointment to work with Morrison from scratch. How cool is that, your own pair of bespoke jeans. Come on be your own STYLIST…!

3×1
15 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10013
+1.212.391.6969

To help feed the obsession, I tend to blindly order men’s clothing related books when they come out. I’ve recently taken delivery of Josh Sims’ ‘Icons Of Mens Style’. I was surprised to learn that the ‘icons’ referred to in the book are not people (like Cary Grant on the cover) but the clothes themselves, a discussion of clothes seen as “capturing the spirit of the times”.
So…. it’s not just as any other book about clothes, the Icons of Men’s Style book by Josh Sims looks at every ‘classic’ item in a man’s wardrobe, as well as where that item came from.

Published by Laurence King, this 192-page book claims that the male wardrobe of today has evolved over the years, with key items all emanating from a single ‘definitive’ item. The t-shirt for example was originally made by Hanes for the US Navy, but has since been used in pretty much every walk of life. Icons of Men’s Style examines, garment by garment, the most important and famous of these products, their provenance and history, the stories of their design, the brand/company that started it all and how the item shaped the way we dress today. So much to discover about your wardrobe – you’ll never look at boxers in the same way again.

I bought the ”Icons of Men’s Style” book for only 30 Euros at bookstore MENDO. Get it to remember, get it to inspire, get it to rip-off, whatever, just get it!!!

With Pitti Uomo 2011 now in full motion, first shots from the streets of Florence have emerged. Tommy Ton has some amazing street style shots that I think are worth checking out. I’ve handpicked a few of my favourites which you can check out below. Straight swag…everywhere!!!

All images © Tommy Ton

This edition of the fashion industry series takes a look at the relationship between the fashion press and the PR machines of top designers, and considers just how much power the press has over the direction of design. Oh look, there’s Anna Wintour looking…the same and the big busted white haired zombie Karl Lagerfeld. This video remembers me when he used to eat regular human food instead of the fallen locks of emaciated models. This is also when he used to smile with his mouth! I don’t think Karl has smiled since the early 90s. He doesn’t smile now, because that’s something “only ze fat jalli pepull do.” I miss fat Karl, but skeleton Karl is just as entertaining. I also might need to rethink my future relationship between the fashion press and my upcoming fashion brand. But who the f*#ck in the world would try to mess with me, LOL. I hope you enjoy this video. It’s remarkably entertaining to say the least.

My good friend Gunifort who works at bookstore MENDO in Amsterdam, is the man who hooks me up with the most amazing books I have ever read. I love everything about books and magazines, the way they smell, the way the paper feels, the feeling you get when your reading a good book all of it’s just why I love to visit my good friend Gunifort while he is making mucho deniro. Last week I visited the bookstore and Gunifort just couldn’t stop talking about Albert Watson. Sometimes I’m amazed at the things he comes up with and the passionate words and ways he chooses to explain why I should read this book. Oh well…here it goes.

Born in 1942 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Albert Watson has made his mark over the last four decades as one of world’s most successful fashion and commercial photographers, while creating his own art along the way. As well as being exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, his photographs have appeared on more than 250 covers of Vogue and has been featured in numerous other publications, including Rolling Stone, Time and Vibe. Watson’s latest book is titled UFO (Unified Fashion Objectives), and it’s a 40-year retrospective of his fashion photographs—many of them iconic and some of them never seen before by the public. While Watson says the book is not laid out chronologically, he did include some of his older work in the beginning pages to show the progression of his style and his career.

I bought Albert Watson’s ”UFO” book for 90 Euros at bookstore MENDO. It is an amazing read!

The first thing you might think when you walk into the gallery where Hans-Peter Feldmann has pinned 100,000 $1 bills to the wall is, $100,000 here and $100,000 there, and it’s still a pretty long time before you start talking about real money. Which just may be Feldmann’s point. Well, definitely maybe. The Contemporary Art World’s Hugo Boss prize is one of its most prestigious, alongside the prestige of winning this award comes a $100,000 fund to assist the artist in their new works. Hans-Peter Feldmann used exactly that when it came to creating his aptly named “$100,000″ installation at the Guggenheim New York. The exhibition will be on show till November 2, under tight security I imagine.

I’m a longtime fan of Glenn O’Brien — his monthly “Style Guy” columns in GQ are an absolute must-read. O’Brien recently written How to Be A Man, his tome related to all things stylish for aspirational men around the world. It’s full of useful tips such as how to drink, how to dress, and how to organize your social calendar. I’m sure not everyone likes being told what style is, but he does give useful tips, and his writing contains enough humor to balance what some might see as snobbery. This book will have transsexuals regret surgery from the first moment they turn the first page. A must read for every man aspiring to be the perfect gentleman.

This video will give you an inside look into the careful thought process that went into the creation of APEX’s show Indigo, that will guarantee you appreciate the striking canvases in a whole new way. Kiya Babzani, owner of San Francisco boutique Self-Edge, oversaw the production of 14 samples in four different indigos of hiqh-quality denim from one of the oldest mills in Japan and TSS, a small garment manufacturer in Okinawa, over a period of six months. The various twills mean that each denim responds to the paint differently creating completely unique compositions, enjoy!!!

Freshcotton is one of my favourite stores online and for their Spring/Summer 2011 collection they have not only drawn inspiration from family and friends, they have also used them in their lookbook. Click any page shown below, and you might even see me there!!!

Photography: Boris Postma
Styling Street: Peter Kolks
Styling Selected: Alvar Piepers
Assistants: Rosalie van der Windt, Spencer Samuel, Elton van Bosse and Albert Visser.
Locations: Hotel V, Toko MC, Vondelpark, Uliveto and Westerpark.

Brands: Altamont, Anything, Carhartt, Libertine Libertine, Mark McNairy, Nike, Ontour, Pointer, Vans, The Hundreds, Sixpack France, OBEY, Penfield, Wood Wood, Pro Keds, WeSC, and Outerwear.

Rin Tanaka, a Japanese editorial photographer, was born in Yamaguchi, Japan in 1970 and grew up in his family’s hometown of Yokohama after moving there with his family in 1976. He started hitting U.S. roads in 1990 during his college days. He moved to San Clemente, California in 1998. Over the years Tanaka tracked down and photographed authentic clothing from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Mostly from the collection of hardcore collectors. One can go into this fanatical world and see incredible amount of clothing that tells that era’s obsessions and of course the craftsman’s skill in making these clothes. Through photography he documents how Americans do Americana. My Freedamn! 8 is another fantastic volume that colorfully depicts 1960s Pop Fashion with clothing from surf, motorcycle, car, and other cultures. All these images are from the new My Freedamn vol.8 and presents a unique selection of 600 vintage cloths classified in 4 chapters.

I bought ”My Freedamn vol.8” book for only 89 Euros at bookstore MENDO. Get it to remember, get it to inspire, get it to rip-off, whatever, just get it!!!