Sympathy for the Detail

So I must admit that I harbor a certain prejudice against vintage clothing.  I don't know whether it grows from the gag response that the smell of mothballs induces, or because when someone mentions a vintage store the first thing that comes to mind is the episode of Seinfeld where George steals his father's old cabana clothes and sells them to make a quick buck.  Of course, they are moth infested and the owner ends up burning them in the alley.  Alas, poor George Costanza.  When I have been compelled to enter, I have often found them staffed by dudes with ironic facial hair and women who think that bathing is done with pachouli oil instead of water.  This motley crew can opine for hours about the superiority of a Phish groove to a Rolling Stones riff.  Seriously?  Almost as off-putting to me as the mothballs.  But in the last few weeks I have been forced to reassess my long-held bias.  The shirt I am wearing in this picture is one reason.  It is a vintage Jil Sander which from the structure of the collar and the cut of the shirt must date back to the late 1980s, or early 1990s.  Yet it still looks as sharp and minimalist as it did when it was purchased.  It's un-pictured brother is in a soft, black cotton that looks like it could have been wardrobe in the movie version of Less Than Zero.  Neither of these pieces of clothing would have set you back more than a meal at the McDonalds in Holborn.  So if you are fortunate enough to live in central London don't let the first generation Sony Playstation in the window scare you away from the random Romanian Charity Shop.

(Jil Sander shirt, Armani Exchange jacket, Barking Irons Tee)

London Laundry Day

(Calvin Klein Collection blazer, Calvin Klein t-shirt, Seven A-Pocket jeans, Camper Pelota shoes)

Having to live with a wardrobe that fits into a duffel bag necessitates regular trips to the laundry room. I try to do laundry on the same day every week to avoid a deficit of clean clothes. Of course, sometimes events completely out of control occur and my planned trips to the laundry room with my blue Ikea bags overflowing with clothes don't quite happen on the day I had planned. So I have the problem I had this morning: none of the t-shirts in my regular rotation were clean. No worries, I thought, I'll just dig out a plain white undershirt and wear it instead. Let it be said at this point, and as you can see in the pictures adjacent to this post, the shirts that I choose for this purpose are clean, white, and free of any random stains from my adventures in our mini-kitchen. However, this ad hoc clothing choice never fails to annoy my co-blogger who feels that this clothing option is unsatisfactory. Personally, I feel that the white t-shirt and jeans combo is classic. I'm not the Fonz, and jumping a shark tank in the parking lot of Arnold's isn't in my skill set, but I can see why he was always thought to be so cool in this attire. Thumb through any fashion magazine today, or even over the last fifty years or so, and I'll bet that you will discover at least one picture of the jeans and white t-shirt combo. It is timeless American style. I have paired my jeans and tee combo with a cashmere Calvin Klein Collection blazer. This is the first piece of non-LL Bean clothing that I ever ordered off of the Internet. The picture doesn't really do justice to the rich shade of the jacket, or its soft texture. What got me to take a gamble on this blazer was its clean design. Notice that unlike most blazers, it has no outside breast pocket, buttons on the cuffs, or back venting. It is a bit longer than a standard blazer, but that adds to its style. My favorite feature, though, is the pocket on the interior seam of the jacket. If it weren't for the zipper pull, you would not notice the pocket inside. So even on days that I can't find a better shirting option, the blazer spiffs-up the Calvin Klein v-neck tee beneath it, even though it came in a pack with eight of its brothers from Costco.

Click to check out the zipper in the seam

Defending my tee

a gift of lemons

London is all kinds of cold and rainy and windy and gross today, keeping us inside and out of fashion.

We ate at this restaurant a few weeks back, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of this bowl of ill-attended lemons that were clearly meant to be decorative, not decayed.  I might not have noticed if I hadn't been sitting right beneath them, but as it happens I have an aesthetic fascination with mold and rot which made this very much my kind of thing.  A little bit along the lines of a 16th-17th century veritas still life, but by accident rather than design, and just the sort of thing I would love to recreate (as design!) in my home, but for P's penicillin allergy.  Alas.

ps~now you can follow us with bloglovin!

the great outdoors

The park looked so pretty this morning that after I finished photographing P's outfit I decided to wander around a bit and snap some pictures of whatever caught my eye.  I'm a little embarrassed to confess that we've been London since October but have only recently begun taking pictures of this gorgeous city.  Obviously beautiful photos of London abound so it's not like ours are needed, per se, but lately I'm really drawn to the idea of commemorating the city as we experience it every day.  Plus there was a man mowing the lawn as I was walking through and the scent of fresh cut grass is so intoxicating.  How could I resist?

   

I secretly love dead (or dying) flowers as much as fresh ones.  The way these preserve their color whilst be walked on really appeals to me.

(I may or may not have lost my balance and trampled some flowers stalking this bee.)

I am not the most discreet person (see above re: clumsy) so I was really hard pressed to get a good picture of this man relaxing on the bench.  This was the best I could do before he saw me.