The Blog Article Discussion Thread

[Newcomer]

I am hoping that this concept for a thread will spark some discussion around these parts. I am fairly lazy and I am not creative and I take atrocious pictures so my pipe dream of living that menswear blogger life is likely just that - a pipe dream. Nonetheless, I read articles daily on various blogs and have thoughts I would like to share regarding those articles. The purpose of this thread is just that.

In addition, I am certain that there are various blogs out there that I do not consult on a daily basis (or that I forget about entirely) and rarely do I have the wherewithal to scroll through past posts.

If you find an article that is well-written or that catches your eye, link it here, and share your thoughts. It can be positive, it can be negative. People can feel free to respond to those thoughts.

I'll give it a go.

A few days ago, I read an article on DWW about Herrie Son, a "young up-and-coming tailor located in Nashville, Tennessee."

I lived in Memphis, TN for the better part of a decade, and I have never heard of Herrie Son. I did some light research on the ole' Google machine, and I did not locate a scintilla of information about her, or her bespoke operation. Aside from the DWW post and a few pictures I tracked down through her Instagram there is no information about this bespoke tailor that worked a mere two-and-a-half hours away from where I grew up, and often visit.

With the advent of the internet, and various retailers (particularly, The Armoury), it feels like the menswear world has shrunk considerably over the past eight years. When I first joined this forum, you had to travel to Naples to purchase a Marinella or Capelli tie; you could only purchase Vass shoes from an SF-user on the B&S forum that shipped the shoes directly from Budapest; and you had to shoot Rubinacci an email and hope that they would send you a pocket square (even after you paid). The commodification of Neapolitan menswear - especially that menswear that formerly felt unobtainable - has shrunk the menswear world for me. There is less of a chase, if that makes any sense, and that sometimes makes me a little less interested in the game.

For that reason, I loved hearing about Herrie Son, and I would love to hear more about her business. The menswear world is bigger than this forum, and the sources that we rely on, and it is refreshing to be reminded of that fact.

 

[Andy57]

I often find interesting and useful information on Derek's blog. I do wonder how he finds the time to do the research he must do, the article on Herrie being a case in point.

As for the world of menswear shrinking over the past few years, my opinion on whether this is a good or bad thing is different from yours, @Newcomer. For me, it is an unalloyed good thing. The chase is not the thing for me, it's the process, at least as it pertains to bespoke tailoring. I like being able to purchase pocket squares, ties, cufflinks, socks, underwear, and, to a certain extent, shoes online. Thank goodness the world has gotten smaller. Now I enjoy going to bricks-and-mortar stores. Indeed, I'll be in New York this weekend and I'm trying to decide which #menswear stores I should visit. The Armoury, for sure, Cesare Attolini, perhaps, and Leffot. Not sure what else. But when I know what I want, it's wonderful to be able to click a few clicks and have the item delivered to my doorstep (okay, my office, but the point remains).

I also appreciate the value that blogs like Derek's provide for me. He does the hard work of discovery and I can pick and choose among the things that he finds according to my taste and objectives. Over time, I've tended to read fewer and fewer blogs as each one eventually seems to recycle through the same content. I have not found that to be the case with DieWorkwear. I suppose you can't discuss menswear blogs without discussing Simon Crompton's blog. I also find Permanent Style to be very useful, although his sensibilities diverge quite a bit from my own.

 

[Quesjac]

Good topic.

The Rake can be good --- Wei Koh's articles in particular. They have a very individual voice.

Permanent Style I think has a lot of practical points, but also by this point has encyclopedic value as a catalogue of producers and designs, even if a lot of the individual discussions tend towards a particular anecdotal view of a single item. To my mind it's one of the better ones at balancing practical information for beginners and new information for informed consumers.

I read less of the instructional material on Put This On, but I think that this is by design: it's a beginner's guide, and one is supposed to 'grow out of it', but they do also cover some new things here and there.

Die, Workwear!, as noted, is both very knowledgeable and interesting as writing. It stands out for me because it's not just about the products from a consumer's perspective, and is able to really analyse the issue because the scope includes history, literature, art, etc. Derek also edits Put This On, and I think of DWW as the blog you graduate to after PTO.

There's also Parisian Gentleman, which I won't appraise because I write for them.

 

[Newcomer]

I am going two-for-two with DWW, but this is less about the content (which was perfectly fine, just more about the clothes than analysis), and more about the subject - the new look book from Drakes. I discussed this, in brief, in the Drakes London thread.

For the past several seasons, I have been impressed by the colors used by Drakes in their collections. Specifically, in this recent look book, I love the mustard / canary yellow brushed shetland next to the petrol blue trousers, the dusty and earthy browns and greens, and the just-bright-enough red. The colors remind me of the descriptors used by Reginald Jerome de Mans (i.e., RJ Man) when he used to discuss the now-defunct Holland & Holland (I wish I could find those old articles that he wrote for ASW/Will. Those were, bar none, the best articles on the internet, in this author's opinion). I feel like a lot of my favorite vendors to peruse - NMWA, Drakes, The Armoury, and recently, Anglo Italian - have a wonderful eye for color.

And that eye for color is something that I feel we take for granted. I recently stepped into one of the local men's stores in town, and the color palette could be described as either dull and drab or tacky and excessive. The pinks were bright pinks - not dusty pinks that have that wonderful greyish tinge. The blues were dull navies or sky blues - not petrol blues or airforce blues that are just different enough to warrant a second look. The same with the browns, the greens, etc. I visited a couple of other stores, and noticed the same thing. Perhaps my observation is obvious, but when you are trying to combine jeans from one company, a sweater from another, and a sport coat from yet another, it is critical that the colors have some cohesion. Sure, blue and grey go well together. But the wrong blue with the wrong grey (i.e., if the colors have disparate levels of saturation) can look pretty awful.

 

[Newcomer]

I often find interesting and useful information on Derek's blog. I do wonder how he finds the time to do the research he must do, the article on Herrie being a case in point.

As for the world of menswear shrinking over the past few years, my opinion on whether this is a good or bad thing is different from yours, @Newcomer. For me, it is an unalloyed good thing. The chase is not the thing for me, it's the process, at least as it pertains to bespoke tailoring. I like being able to purchase pocket squares, ties, cufflinks, socks, underwear, and, to a certain extent, shoes online. Thank goodness the world has gotten smaller. Now I enjoy going to bricks-and-mortar stores. Indeed, I'll be in New York this weekend and I'm trying to decide which #menswear stores I should visit. The Armoury, for sure, Cesare Attolini, perhaps, and Leffot. Not sure what else. But when I know what I want, it's wonderful to be able to click a few clicks and have the item delivered to my doorstep (okay, my office, but the point remains).

I also appreciate the value that blogs like Derek's provide for me. He does the hard work of discovery and I can pick and choose among the things that he finds according to my taste and objectives. Over time, I've tended to read fewer and fewer blogs as each one eventually seems to recycle through the same content. I have not found that to be the case with DieWorkwear. I suppose you can't discuss menswear blogs without discussing Simon Crompton's blog. I also find Permanent Style to be very useful, although his sensibilities diverge quite a bit from my own.

Andy,

I have considered your response, and I think I know why our opinions diverge (well, at least from my perspective).

To be honest, I am envious of your relationships with Steed and Hemrajani - you have two tailors that offer goods that you are satisfied with at different price-points that travel to your doorstep (okay, your city, but the point remains). Conversely, although I am exceedingly happy with my relationship with Chris and have no intention to depart from that relationship, my orders are limited as a result of my (1) distance from Chicago and/or Dallas, (2) inflexible work schedule, and (3) limited funds. Unquestionably, the most enjoyment that I get from this hobby now-a-days is from ordering bespoke. The search for the right fabric, the wavering over minutiae, the various fittings, etc. - it is all very enjoyable. However, I only experience that enjoyment at most once per year. Accordingly, although I vacillate a lot (I feel like I spent two months debating whether or not to order a sport coat or a tuxedo, for goodness sake), I have to seek enjoyment from other aspects of this hobby.

You have ordered some truly wonderful garments - and it makes sense to me that you like the ease of accessing the right accouterments to those often unconventional-yet-wonderful garments. Further, I feel like your hobby - at least at this point - revolves around your next order (forgive me if I am incorrect). For the vast majority of my year, however, I find a lot of enjoyment in discovering the esoteric and the unknown. It was something of an adventure paying $400.00 to an SFer in Budapest with the hope that you would receive your shoes at some point in the next year. Or ordering a tie from Drakes (at the time, 85 pounds) and seeing it in the mail three to four weeks later (at the time, Drakes was only available through the website).

 

[GBR]

I am hoping that this concept for a thread will spark some discussion around these parts. I am fairly lazy and I am not creative and I take atrocious pictures so my pipe dream of living that menswear blogger life is likely just that - a pipe dream. Nonetheless, I read articles daily on various blogs and have thoughts I would like to share regarding those articles. The purpose of this thread is just that.

In addition, I am certain that there are various blogs out there that I do not consult on a daily basis (or that I forget about entirely) and rarely do I have the wherewithal to scroll through past posts.

If you find an article that is well-written or that catches your eye, link it here, and share your thoughts. It can be positive, it can be negative. People can feel free to respond to those thoughts.

I'll give it a go.

A few days ago, I read an article on DWW about Herrie Son, a "young up-and-coming tailor located in Nashville, Tennessee."

I lived in Memphis, TN for the better part of a decade, and I have never heard of Herrie Son. I did some light research on the ole' Google machine, and I did not locate a scintilla of information about her, or her bespoke operation. Aside from the DWW post and a few pictures I tracked down through her Instagram there is no information about this bespoke tailor that worked a mere two-and-a-half hours away from where I grew up, and often visit.

With the advent of the internet, and various retailers (particularly, The Armoury), it feels like the menswear world has shrunk considerably over the past eight years. When I first joined this forum, you had to travel to Naples to purchase a Marinella or Capelli tie; you could only purchase Vass shoes from an SF-user on the B&S forum that shipped the shoes directly from Budapest; and you had to shoot Rubinacci an email and hope that they would send you a pocket square (even after you paid). The commodification of Neapolitan menswear - especially that menswear that formerly felt unobtainable - has shrunk the menswear world for me. There is less of a chase, if that makes any sense, and that sometimes makes me a little less interested in the game.

For that reason, I loved hearing about Herrie Son, and I would love to hear more about her business. The menswear world is bigger than this forum, and the sources that we rely on, and it is refreshing to be reminded of that fact.

It seems foolish not to have a web presence especially for a newcomer; second only to that is a web site which tells readers nothing about the newcomer and comprises nothing more than a home page and some images culled from somewhere else on the internet.

 

[Quesjac]

It seems foolish not to have a web presence especially for a newcomer; second only to that is a web site which tells readers nothing about the newcomer and comprises nothing more than a home page and some images culled from somewhere else on the internet.

I really can't figure out what your objection is.

On topic, does anyone read Japanese and have any experience of the Japanese menswear magazines? I get the sense that Men's Ex, the Japanese Rake, and so on are still pretty good. If you've read David Marx's Ametora you will have a sense of the considerable significance of clothes magazines in earlier decades in Japan.

 

[mossrockss]

Old thread—I live in Nashville and hope to visit Herrie soon and get to know her product a bit, for my own benefit and also as a resource for others to host on my website. She's now got an Instagram that's been fairly active lately so perhaps she's more well known. But I haven't once run into anyone locally who's wearing her garments.

 

[dieworkwear]

Old thread—I live in Nashville and hope to visit Herrie soon and get to know her product a bit, for my own benefit and also as a resource for others to host on my website. She's now got an Instagram that's been fairly active lately so perhaps she's more well known. But I haven't once run into anyone locally who's wearing her garments.

I haven't tried her tailoring, but I met her once. She and her partner are really nice, down to earth people. It's kind of a wonder that bespoke tailoring can still survive in today's world, but also nice to see that even new businesses are starting up. Let us know how the visit goes.

 

[mossrockss]

I haven't tried her tailoring, but I met her once. She and her partner are really nice, down to earth people. It's kind of a wonder that bespoke tailoring can still survive in today's world, but also nice to see that even new businesses are starting up. Let us know how the visit goes.

Yeah I'm interested in finding out a bit about her clientele, etc. Are they local? Are they long time or new customers primarily? etc.