Books on Menswear - ABC of Men's Fashion

There are a lot of books on men's fashion, and I think I either own or have read my fair share of them. One of the most entertaining books I've ever read on the topic is definitely "ABC of Men's Fashion" by Hardy Amies.

This book contains a lot of advice - or maybe rather commandments - on men's fashion by Hardy Amies himself. Despite its structure it isn't objective or matter-of-fact, as it's basically a collection of Hardy's rants on almost everything related to clothing and menswear. Maybe you'll learn something, I'm not sure, but I can guarantee that you'll get a good laugh. I'm sure, Hardy Amies was a fun, amusing and entertaining character.

To me this is just a perfect example of his witty brilliance, and there are plenty more.

Brocade

"A patterned silk fabric for women's dress and for upholstery. It should remain there."

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Worth a Read - Raymond Carver

Running into my old high school English teacher a couple of days ago by chance and talking to her about the importance of the American short story made me think about Raymond Carver. When I got home some hours later I looked him up on the Internet and discovered, that on that very day it would have been his 74th birthday. I couldn't let this coincidence pass, so I decided to recommend some reading. I love his work, like I love the works of numerous other writers, but something makes him stand out to me. He has a way of telling stories, that you'll enjoy reading and if you get the same experience as I did, they'll leave a lasting imprint.

And you can get his collected works for pennies - almost literally. Head over to Amazon and pick up the short stories first and if you like it, pick up the collected poems too.

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One Month of Denim - Day 9

I foresee, that I will have very little time to do some blogging today and you will probably have very little time to read the blog. Now this is just an assumption, of course. If you find yourself with a lot of time on your hand with the urge to read, please go to the library and read a Raymond Carver book. Alternatively Hemingway, Bukowski, Steinbeck, Thoreau, Fitzgerald or whoever you prefer.

This is another good insight to the understanding of jeans*

*Though the info on the 501z is crap. The actual model didn't feature narrow legs FYI.

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Recommended Reading - Tools

The Japanese book "Tools - Real Stuff for Future Classics" has been featured on many sites already and with good reason. It's a great book with a lot of inspiring goods, that you'll be wanting to ad to your collection. I bought the book based on the recommendations that I had read, and I wasn't disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I already owned a lot of the products featured in the book, and the ones I didn't already have, I wanted.

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One Month of Denim - Day 1

This might be a huge project, but I figured that I would make September a month of denim. Therefore I intend to make 1 post a day on the subject of denim and I will be doing it in a random order. Some posts will of course be longer than others, as I have more time on some days. This is an introduction to the subject of denim, but I hope there will also be some for the denim connoisseur.

I'm mainly doing this because the denim culture in Denmark is pretty weak and hopefully this will inspire some Danes to dig deeper into denim history and culture.

To hit things off I would like to recommend some reading on the subject of denim.

Paul Trynka has written a great little book called "From Cowboys to Catwalks", which is one of the best introductions to denim if you know some, or very little. And by that I don't mean that you won't be referring to it after a while because you probably will. It should also be mentioned that Paul Trynka is very easy to get hold of, if you have any denim related questions, as he is a very active and most helpful user on the two big fashion fora - Superfuture and Styleforum. You'll most likely find him in the threads about Levi's Vintage Clothing (LVC for people in the know).

It should also be said that Superfuture is a great source for information, as there are many people who has a genuine interest and a lot of knowledge, but you have to remain sceptic.

The denim collector and denim hunter, Michael Harris, has written a great and extremely inspiring book on pre 1900 denim called "Jeans of the Old West". Though the subject may be a bit niche, it gives you a totally different aspect to wearing denim. Michael has been hunting denim in the Arizona desert for a long time and he has been trying to recreate the history of the old denim companies together with his wife. Levi's weren't the only company making dungarees and the book covers some of the forgotten companies, but it also focuses on Levi's and the book tries to put together the puzzle that is Levi's pre 1906, when the company was hit by a fire after a big earthquake. Michael Harris has since been working together with the Rising Sun company to create a beautiful pair of jeans that were based on his finds.

David Little wrote a book called "Vintage Denim" back in the 90's. The book is quite good and can also be used as an introduction to the subject. At some point it was an collector's item of sorts, but you can sometimes find it relatively cheap on eBay.

If you want more material on denim, you need to buy expensive Japanese Magazines (or rather books) like Lightning magazine, Mono or Free & Easy. All have fortunately been getting a bigger distribution lately - check Sivletto and Superdenim for instance.

Hopefully I'll be able to make similar months on different subjects. But let's see how this goes first, as I feel this is a rather big task.

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