It is very spring-like this week in sunny Fairfax, VA. I love warm weather, and I love spring clothes even more. In the past few weeks we've been introduced to the new Fall 2010 lines, but really, let's dwell for a minute in the here-and-now. You know, the reality of designer clothes I can't afford on my MFA stipend.
Boy & Band of Outsiders, at least, do present lines that are wearable. I'm not criticizing the fashion world. Clothes are art. I appreciate the creativity of people like Alexander McQueen, whose designs advanced fashion and whose death is sure to set it back. And I would wear those clothes if, say, I lived in NY or just didn't live most of my life around 18 year olds in George Mason University sweat pants. Boy & Band of Outsiders, though, make clothes that, were I able to afford them, might be appropriate for my mundane, grad school in Northern Virginia lifestyle. And these people are fun! The clothes and the presentations are self-aware and energetic. The style plays with New England prep and polish and American Apparel rawness and ironic grit.
The printed shirtdress in the picture above, for instance, pulls off feminine and pretty, but is still serious about design. And I cannot tell you how much I want that color block shift above. The shape, the neckline, the sleeve, the below-the-knee hem--this is real glamor without the sex, sex, sex. The website also has pictures of several of those striped mohair sweaters, which look soft and slinky. I want those, too. The one big mistake I think Boy makes is those lace up stilettos by Manolo Blahnik. They are really just ugly, and I think lace-up anything is hard to pull off. Design quirkiness still has to be flattering, right?
So, I have failed to really talk about Band of Outsiders, the men's collection, at all. They do great men's clothing, which is hard to find these days. If it were up to me I'd dress Corey in all Band of Outsiders this spring. Actually, never mind, if it were up to me, Corey & I would both be in a Jean-Luc Godard movie. I did just find out that Bande à part is based on a novel. Reading project.
-Megan
Band of Outsiders' most recent photoshoot for the men's line has a few chiseled (but not TOO chiseled, maybe something like granite instead of marble) dudes hanging out on a boat with a lovely blonde woman, whom I assume is a willing participant in a kind of futuristic, Huxley-style consensual menage-a-everyone -- in other words, the lifestyle that comes with living in Brooklyn and going to parties with James Murphy and Kanye West (because, duh, everyone in Brooklyn has to mark their calendars for nights with celebrities in advance, like Tuesdays with Kanye and Thursdays with Jonathan Safran Foer & Spencer Pratt who have to share a day because they've both sort of fallen in public esteem lately, sorry guys!). I'd like to point out that I've been rocking the vaguely nautical for years now -- I knew the name Sperry Topsiders before I knew the name Ezra Koenig, thanks all! -- which I attribute somewhat to the influence of Herman Melville, love of my life and light of my seersucker shorts-clad loins. He would've loved pique polo shirts!
Friday, April 2, 2010
RE: Boy / Band of OutsidersBand of Outsiders' most recent photoshoot for the men's line has a few chiseled (but not TOO chiseled, maybe something like granite instead of marble) dudes hanging out on a boat with a lovely blonde woman, whom I assume is a willing participant in a kind of futuristic, Huxley-style consensual menage-a-everyone -- in other words, the lifestyle that comes with living in Brooklyn and going to parties with James Murphy and Kanye West (because, duh, everyone in Brooklyn has to mark their calendars for nights with celebrities in advance, like Tuesdays with Kanye and Thursdays with Jonathan Safran Foer & Spencer Pratt who have to share a day because they've both sort of fallen in public esteem lately, sorry guys!). I'd like to point out that I've been rocking the vaguely nautical for years now -- I knew the name Sperry Topsiders before I knew the name Ezra Koenig, thanks all! -- which I attribute somewhat to the influence of Herman Melville, love of my life and light of my seersucker shorts-clad loins. He would've loved pique polo shirts!
I share Megan's financial envy, here, as I think Band of Outsiders hits right at the perfect sweet spot between Trust Fund and Bushwick (whoops, sort of the same thing, but you get the idea). Teaching's given me an excuse to Dress Up My Life lately, and I'm more comfortable now wearing a tie around Fairfax's stripmalls than not (impressed yet, lady at Smoothie King?). The menswear here, especially Outsiders' ties oh man, is contemporary without being flashy. Nice! And, by the way, Aziz Ansari -- star of the funniest show on network TV and also the most well-dressed young man on NBC (your tie's too skinny even for me, Joel McHale) -- reps for the label, which means you can't go wrong. He, after all, actually DOES hang out with James Murphy and Kanye, and they tweet about it SO GOOD! Check him out in Band of Outsiders on the cover of his new comedy LP:
Even more well-dressed than the polar bear, mother nature's Guy Who Wears a White Tuxedo to Your Senior Prom. Good work, everyone!
--Corey
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