I “need” some new shades, and I’m looking for these:

There’s a rumor they’re Raleighs from the 50s. Ibid claims that Ray-ban RB4109 Olympians are similar, but they’re not gold enough…

[Update: Supposedly they’re “Spectaculars by Renauld of France, circa 1964″.

Beeb doc on the suit, via Baroing:

Great, hope it gets picked up (via BB):

Kate Middleton’s wedding dress was actually very plain. Discuss?

The two most important people in the history of men’s clothes:

1. Beau Brummell, one of the buddies of King George IV, killed foppish dandyism and started the trend of men wearing less flashy clothes than women.
2. The Duke of Windsor, who abdicated as King Edward VIII, started the trend toward less formal clothes, set the standards for a number of functions, and invented a number of significant details (including cuffs on trousers).

Note that individual designers have not had significant influence, probably because they’re all busy stealing from each other. Those of us interested in men’s clothes have been waiting for the next British courtier or other role model to revolutionize men’s style. Charles, William and Harry aren’t it: they dress respectfully, but none of them has any particular flair. Obviously it’s doubtful that society is structured in such a way that any single man could have such a great influence, but it’s fun to dream about like how religious people fantasize about the second coming of their gurus.

The only individual woman I’m aware of who has had much influence is Queen Victoria, who popularized both the white wedding dress and wearing black for mourning. Women’s designers (eg: Coco Chanel) seem to have more influence, and so women end up with a fashion cycle instead of stylistic periods. Within each fashion cycle, women of note can be influential. This article discusses Kate Middleton’s move into influence with her wedding dress by McQueen (her influence will be of a more upmarket variety than Michelle Obama’s).

The new McQueen show dropped a couple of weeks ago. I like the sci-fi look:

A few of my friends have been asking their social networks for help finding ugly Christmas sweaters to wear to a themed party (full disclosure: I didn’t get invited). I’m sure they’re at least vaguely aware of the politics of such a theme, but I’m going to make it explicit: the wealthy and the cool distinguish themselves from the poor and the square by arbitrarily categorizing some sweaters as “ugly”.

Stuff White People Like imagines this exchange at such a party:

“Hey man, nice sweater. It’s so ugly.”
“Yeah, when my family first got to this country we had to shop at Goodwill, this is the first one my father bought to get him through his first winter here. Good thing they didn’t have these parties back then, right? He would have died.”
“Geez, man, I’m sorry, you can cut in line for egg nog.”

The Critical fashion blog Threadbared talks about sweaters in a larger (and ongoing) discussion about the politics of thrift stores:

At the Salvation Army closest to campus, there is an “ugly sweater” rack for all the students purchasing these as novelties for themed parties. Similar sweaters are not separated at the store that serves the non-students, and that is located in the same building that provides other services to low-income or homeless persons. And because bodies and clothes interact and activate certain ideas about each the other, the same sweater on a college student going to a themed party is funny because it is outdated, and on a young fashion blogger pairing it with leggings is innovative because it is renewed, and on an older woman imagined as its appropriate owner the sweater will be “just” unfashionable because (supposedly) so is its wearer.

In other words, poor people just call them “sweaters”.

Value Village is the largest thrift store in Victoria. In the past year or two I’ve heard a few people complaining that it’s too expensive. For the first time they have a “Christmas sweater” section – coincidence?

Gladiators with a cloth ankle are huge in Milan and Cannes. Pictures possibly to follow if I can get my effing photography pipeline to cooperate.

Milan is also the place to buy fake (or stolen) bags. I have pictures of the vendors set up around the fountain in front of the Sforza’s castle. Supposedly.

Just now, moments ago, I completed a years-long saga to replace my day-to-day glasses. The last time I had regular-person glasses I was still slaving away, polishing pixels cut raw from the bit-mines for the man.

I’ve been resisting hopping on the “thick rims” bandwagon for long enough now. I have to admit I’ve lost the argument. Jared linked me to a Globe article about aesthetics which was helpful, but keeping those guides in mind I wanted to step outside the bounds a little.

I was at the doctor getting some pills topped and saw, incongruously, a copy of Paper in the waiting room. I made a note and checked their blog when I got home.

By an incredible stroke of luck they had a post up talking about glasses. I checked out the company they mentioned, Warby Parker, and loved their chutzpah:

Most high-end fashion house brands don’t design or produce their own eyewear. They sell those rights to massive international companies that do it all for them. These large companies control the market and sell frames and lenses to retailers for astronomical prices. Then retailers mark up frames and lenses an additional 2-3 times before selling them to you.

Yeah! Stick it to whomever! Goo Goo Goggles, I guess!

WP also gives a pair of glasses to a person in the developing world for each pair you buy and their Virtual Try-On is easy to use, and actually kinda fun. Cheap, socially-responsible, well-designed eyewear, all through a high-tech interface. And they make a monocle.

Sold! But they don’t ship to Canada. Otherwise I would totally be rocking their specs:

Cross-border shipping is doable but ridiculously complicated for some reason. The basic idea is to get it shipped to somewhere just over the border, like Point Roberts, and then drive over and pick it up. K-Lo the American, for example, recommends TSB Shipping.

But! There’s also Clearly Contacts, an unfortunately-named online glasses retailer in Vancouver which has some style:

However, Clearly Contacts’ website is effing terrible: The worst combination of poorly thought out, slow, and badly implemented. The virtual mirror (comparable to Warby’s “Virtual Try-On”) is just crap — it doesn’t do enough processing and doesn’t autoconfigure your webcam. But no worries: even if you can get it to work the results aren’t worth it.

Worse, there’s no “back to search” button on the details pages, so if you decide you don’t like a pair — and most of them you won’t — you have to start your search again from the top. But it’s not even that easy: it retains some of your search information and manages it so poorly you’ll have random fragments of old searches come back to terrorize you regularly. To get around this, use the “Clear All” buttons they provide liberally (you should also use a popular browser).

Weak! But they do ship to Canada — they’re based in Vancouver — their prices are ridiculously cheap, cheaper than Warby and about four times cheaper than local retail like Goo Goo, and you get a bunch of free stuff with your purchase like a chamois and case. They also have a bunch of customizations, like lens material and tinting. Clearly can do prescription sunglasses, for example, while Warby doesn’t (but then, Clearly doesn’t have a monocle).

If you choose to order from CC, make sure you Google around for coupons. I managed to get 25% off after a one minute Google, saving me millions — seriously though, at these prices you could have six-to-eight pairs for what it costs to get one pair of store-bought Dolces.

Last, Clearly will ship Canada Post or FedEx. They charge the same price, but FedEx delivers faster and Canada Post has taken to robbing me. Guess which got my coin?

… is ad-heavy, but pretty awesome:

Again, I like the weirdness more than the music — though this is a decent club track. I’ve long thought that using digital artifacts in art might be fun. I think this is that.

Again, notice Gaga’s vision/eye-obsession.