By Sonya Glyn Nicholson Some things are difficult to explain. I know a lawyer who shut down his law business one day and became a ranger in the army. I know a neighbor who sold most of her belongings one weekend, and left on Monday to live on an Indian reservation. I know a sales [...] Read more – ‘No Girls Allowed ?’
The thing we know about men is that if they love a certain thing, then they are capable of immersing themselves in the subject of their affection until they become gurus in their own right. And, it is a little fascinating for women to watch this drive that men have to pursue and grasp technical information about [...] Read more – ‘A Shoulder That Sings: The Second Signal of a Handmade Suit’
Cuffs, Ruffs & Contours: dressing men’s necks by Dr Benjamin Wild (http://linleywild.com/) Charley: The young ones have no manners. The other day at the carwash, a young man looked me up and down and asked me if I was a natural blonde. George: What did you say? Charley: I looked him straight in the eye [...] Read more – ‘Cuffs, Ruffs & Contours: dressing men’s necks’
Gentlemen, For PG, as well as for the benefit of several magazines to which I now regularly contribute, I have taken it upon myself to dedicate several hours every Sunday purely to seeking out “gems” of the art of shoemaking from around the world. And even if I can, I believe, claim to be an [...] Read more – ‘Let there be light !’
TOO EMOTIONAL ? There is a noticeable decline in the amount of emotion we use when we communicate with each other. It seems that somehow, there is an accepted perception that showing feelings of sentimentality, passion, hurt, and shame is…embarrassing (even weak). A flatliner is a more recent term that is used to describe a person [...] Read more – ‘Injecting emotion into a world of “flatliners”’
THE STYLE & SYMBOLISM OF FRED ASTAIRE, GARY COOPER & CARY GRANT By Benjamin Wild. http://linleywild.com Man’s stock appears to be falling. He is suffering a public relations crisis. As recent as three years ago, Hanna Rosin contemplated ‘The End of Man’, as his physical size and strength are of little consequence in our post-industrial [...] Read more – ‘Astaire, Cooper and Grant. They don’t make them like that anymore…’
After consuming December’s caloric filled tsunami of festive food, followed by a bout of apocalyptic digestion, today our sartorial adventure takes us to a place where we pose a simple but highly appropriate question: even if it is not the end of the world, could we be witnessing the end of a world? Or to put it differently and [...] Read more – ‘If Not the End of The World, Is it the End of A World?’
-By Sonya Nicholson Some texts are better left untouched, as I am sure that I’m not able to improve upon John Henry Newman’s words regarding what makes a true gentleman, from The Idea of a University (1852). And so, with no commentary needed, we launch into the specific description of a gentleman, as written by Newman. This simple page [...] Read more – ‘The man behind the clothes’
-By Sonya Nicholson Stop and stare. Yes, Rita Hayworth had this power over millions. The personal style that she developed for herself, created a feeling of blissful dizziness among those who were lucky enough to know her. Developing her personal style didn’t happen in a vacuum…Rita made it happen…and each of us can create our own [...] Read more – ‘Personal Style Personified — How to Do It’
-By Sonya Nicholson The ritual of suit and sport jackets “buttoning and unbuttoning” is very simple: Each time a man or woman wearing a suit or sports jacket sits, he or she unbuttons one jacket button. And every time he or she stands, the person re-buttons the jacket button. I love rituals. There is something knowing [...] Read more – ‘Jacket Buttoning Ritual – What Men Already Know’
-By Sonya Nicholson Above: Andrew Ramroop’s first suit from 1969. The renowned Master Bespoke Tailor Andrew Ramroop runs Maurice Sedwell No. 19 Savile Row and is the first black tailor to own a Savile Row tailoring shop. Twice he has captured the title of “Best Men’s Wear: Design, Cut and Fit” at the Golden Shears [...] Read more – ‘The Comeback of the Century: Dressing Well Again’
-By Sonya Nicholson Let’s be blunt…being too precise can ruin an honest attempt at emanating style. And, being too precise is tiring for others to see, as well as for the person who is attempting to express him or herself. On the flip side, being concise opens the heavens of self-expression and leads to an effortless “feel” of [...] Read more – ‘On ease and fortitude’
Maybe Jean Cocteau had it right by summarizing, “Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.” I believe that style could mean something as simple as visually and non-visually expressing the truth of who we are, without any filters. And, wonder if style and freedom are more closely related than we realize. As I search for my personal definition [...] Read more – ‘“Style – Visual shorthand” by permanent PG’s contributor Sonya Nicholson’
Gentlemen, For a few years, mass manufacturers have had a clear tendency to “hunt” on the turf of traditional sartorial culture by decking their down-market suits with so called “Tailoring details” It is not up to us to judge the relevance of this trend, nor its (probably positive) impact on the reputation of those whose [...] Read more – ‘Detail overload’
Gentlemen, It is our pleasure to open PG’s pages to Pierre de Bonneuil as an exceptional contributor by gracing you with a very complete summary of September 1920’s edition of French magazine Monsieur. As Pierre outlines on his Facebook page, “Monsieur was founded in December 1919 at 4 rue de Tronchet in Paris by Jacques [...] Read more – ‘« Monsieur », French journal of elegant gents: September 1920’
Gentlemen, Cifonelli, international icon of bespoke and unanimously hailed institution of everything dapper, has for decades been the label of all superlatives. Contrary to those who have somehow lost (or sold) their souls to the assaults of mainstream culture and the sirens of the new menswear Eldorados, the tailors of the rue Marbeuf tirelessly and [...] Read more – ‘Cifonelli: Contemporary bespoke’
Gentlemen, Let us continue our summer semantic meanderings through the wonderful world of words used to shape, express, fashion and attempt at rendering the impressions, emotions and other aesthetic feelings linked to our lives as passionate aesthetes. Tonight, we shall tackle (to say the least) what I personally consider as one of the linchpins of [...] Read more – ‘Elegance and the art of nuance’
Gentlemen, It has been a while since I started contemplating the idea of writing a small series entirely dedicated to the words we use in our desperate (and maybe useless) attempts to qualify elegance as we see it , most often fortuitously. The idea underlying this small series is absolutely NOT to assemble an umpteenth [...] Read more – ‘Words of elegance, elegance of words’
Gentlemen, For an important book to be released this winter for the 50th anniversary of an iconic bespoke house, and to the publication of which I am honoured to participate as a guest writer, I was asked a particularly complex question: How does one define French chic? As I must admit to having been slightly [...] Read more – ‘How does one define French Chic?’
