Recently in Dress Code Category

Handcrafted wooden eye glass frames made in PDX.  Take a gander at this origination story about a few of their frames. From the street to the boutique.

For more on the sunglasses go here.  www.shwood.com

That purveyor of perfect shirts, Steven Alan, has just released a beautiful short film which highlights his spring / summer 2010 collection.

The film stars montreal based actress, Liane Balaban, alongside New Yorker Matt Creed as they battle the serenity of the country and contemplate the conveniences of the city.  Watch it below. 

As we wait for the cooler fall weather to find us, we are dreaming about a return to buttoned up collars and sport coats.

In comes The Hill-Side, based in Brooklyn and Connecticut.

We've always loved the idea of custom sneakers but the barrier has always been the styles available for customization.  Adidas has broken out of the pack with the classic Stan Smith (along with over 10 other styles) available through Mi Adidas.com. 

As we studied the possibilities in the Dandy and Wit shoe lab, we found the focus to be not how crazy we can make our shoes, but how much we can strip them back. 

We visited the Soho store to sit in their custom barber's chairs - replete with Matrix style screens and solid metal keyboards. But, you can also tackle it online.

Dandy and Wit Stan Smith Model #1

It seems that we're on an eternal hunt for a good bag.  We eschew the 'gear' look, we're not bike messengers, thank god we haven't succumbed to the gym-bag-only (though we looking for a good gym bag as well) and brief cases are too impractical for the lifestyle.

This bag from the Guys Collection at Le Sport Sac caught our eye. "Magnet main closure, Two front pockets with zipped closure, Back pocket with Velcro closure, Two side pockets with Velcro closure,Interior organizer pockets, Interior pocket with zipped closure, Two interior mesh pockets, Detachable/Adjustable shoulder strap"

I'm sure it has plagued us all, those cold days walking down the street trying to make a call or send a text, the great debate. Take off the glove or just keep going.

DOTS has brought a simple solution to hand. Take a gander. Their metal-tipped knit-wear will transfer the conductivity to the sensitive touch screen. Dial away.

www.dotsgloves.com

Thanks Jacob

While we don't usually encourage t-shirts as a fashion choice, our inner film fan beat out the inner fashion snobbery when we found Last Exit to Nowhere.  Designer Mike Ford launched this Nottingham based T-shirt atelier in June 2007. Each design is based on fictitious companies born out of twentieth century fiction. You of course recognize Weyland-Yutani Corporation as Ripley's employer from the Alien series of films.

If you hadn't guessed by the recent spate of cooking posts, we are culinary fans. We're captivated by everything from tasty dishes to kitchen toys to cook's fashions. This excelent number comes from Ichiro at Ichiroya Flea Market in Osaka, Japan. This is a classic Japanese store or factory apron. The one pictured above says "Miyoshi Soap Factory." Ichiro has an excellent and ever changing collection.

We have long been fans of Muji. I can't say we've been using too much of the A4 stationary, but the multi-colored ball points are nice. I've coveted the sleek simplicity of their CD and DVD players for years. They are matte black boxes with three buttons and no writing. It would seem that most electronics makers still believe the world will be baffled by a series of buttons on media players that can make your music or picture pause, play or skip forward, without a dictionary worth of information backed up by false promises of useless audio and picture filters to undo countless hours of careful sound mixing and color correction. But I digress.

It would appear that ties, however much we love them, now have competition from their downstairs neighbors. It is the sock's day in the sun. One should take as much care in matching (or mismatching) their socks as you would a shirt or tie. It is time to find some color and infuse some style in the nether-regions of the fashion body. If you're hiding behind plain black (or potentially worse, plain white) it's time to stretch out.