PART 2: MENSWEAR’S TOP 100 FAVOURITE THINGS FOR A/W 09

11. Kool Moe Dee

An underrated style inspiration for the winter.

12. Knuckle dusters

Regular readers will know I have a thing about jewellery and for me knuckle dusters have always held a fascination. They are physically appealing, protective and unsubtly masculine. Also feel nice on. And the best one is of course by the inimitable Hannah Martin.

13. Ally Capellino

Every style for A/W 09 is ultra special and as much as I hate that cliche about style and fashion (this blog will always be about fashion as opposed to style) they’re outside of fashion. The bags all have great names too; Arkwright would be a tough outsider type with a flesh tunnel; new boys Barry, Richard and Michael pretty dandyish with a penchant for too-short shorts and spotty bow ties in their leathery satchelness. Is that even a word?

And then there’s ‘Wayne’, now in high gloss leather…

14. Lanvin’s felt hat

Like any season you could pick out any random elements from the Lanvin show and blather on about them but this felt (!) hat, from Browns, is quite special. The colour’s just right, isn’t it? What do you mean it’s OVER THREE HUNDRED QUID? It’s probably worth it though, just imagine bombing to the grocer’s in THAT for your morning papers.

15. Nike Air Maxim

Been meaning to blog about these for ages. They’ve been out since July and probably been covered by every blog under the sun already but red, white, blue is classic, toothpaste stripe fresh, they’re a lot lighter than the usual Air Max and they just… well… work right now. You just KNOW THAT. Maybe it’s the mesh, reminiscent of a MUJI pencil case; is it wrong that I want one foot red, one foot blue?

16. Nike Air Max 90

Actually Nike have got some amazing sneakers out at the moment, especially these which – the HORROR – I saw in the windows of FOOT LOCKER yesterday. Is it just me, or is it a 100% more fun experience buying sneakers from foot locker than some wanky trainer boutique in Soho, when more often than not it’s just the SAME PRODUCT?

Whatever: that dirty jeans/white tee/black hoodie/Nikes look is good enough for Alexander Wang, it’s good enough for US TOO.

17. Wood Wood accessories at HANON-SHOP

Hanon-shop always has a gentle, well-planned choice of stock and these Wood Wood accessories are all just the perfect tan/caramel shade; the leather looks perfect, the quality impeccable. There’s a pocket wallet, pencil case and the perfect laptop case (goodbye PC world black neoprene).

18. BIG COATS- as typified by Patrik Ervell

19. Montagne Jeunesse

You walk into a local branch of BOOTS; you need something fun and cheap for your face and it calls out to you. A FACE COVERED IN MUD, 90s Sunset Beach packaging, and a RIDICULOUS ITEM COVERING THE MODEL’S EYES. Cucumbers, bits of chocolate, foliage, rocks… When you get home you put the clay on your face and it turns SCALDING. You wash it off and your skin feels sort-of amazing. All for NINETY NINE PENCE!

Is there anything, really, better than splashing out on a sachet of MONTAGNE JEUENESSE? Even the ludicrous name and the archaic use of ‘masque’ conjours up memories of a certain point at the end of the last century when Celine Dion was eternally on TOTP, Ricki Lake was still on Channel 4 and people still used VO5 hot oil.

20. Jean-Paul Belmondo hair

Begone “Shoreditch monks” (CADFAEL WAS SO 2005) and Alice Dellal undercuts. Has anyone really had better hair than JPB? Yes, but… you know what I mean. I’m buying some hair straighteners, but using them lightly.

21.Bassike drop-crotch trousers

From oki-ni again- a promising young label that seems to be all about quality and cut rather than hype. As opposed to the obvious drapey/deconstructed context I can see myself wearing them with a nice pair of low-cut Reeboks (maybe Reebok x Alife…), a very old polo shirt in a pale grey with a charcoal crew neck sweatshirt over the top. More on that notion later…

22. Return of photorealism

Courtesy of Comme des Garcons Shirt at colette. In its own way this is really timeless, and as much of a wardrobe staple than the ubiquitous white shirt.

23. HERO magazine

‘Hi Elliott we like the blog’ well that’s good HERO MAGAZINE because THE BLOG likes you too. In an age of dwindling print returns and endless, endless, meaningless online tomes created by this that or whoever how refreshing to see a clear-minded, well-written and beautifully designed tome that, as importantly, as lots of rather attractive young men littering its pages. It’s a magazine about models- the next models, the ones who will influence your hair, your poses, your facial expressions probably. The ones who will litter all the other magazines in ad campaigns etc.

24. Coat of the season

Imagine this, with Portishead’s “Machine Gun” playing in a white, Milanese room. It’s Raf with his Jil Sander hat on; the texture isn’t printed but actually swirls of wool smashed together in a marbled watercolour effect.

25. Leggings for men

Yes, that’s me in the second picture;  in an event that was destined to haunt me forever in cyberspace, I went out in Milan wearing a “Damir Doma/Givenchy-inspired ensemble” which included these Material Boy leggings under denim shorts. WHICH ENDED UP ON “THE CUT“; I felt like a bit of a ‘cut’ afterwards.

EVEN SO… leggings and slim tracksuit trousers are still strong for this season, and next, and the best ones are by TIM HAMILTON who merges the long john with the legging with the tracksuit bottom; failing that, LOU DALTON‘S jodhpur trackies fit the bill nicely.

26. Fanny and Jessy

You know what? Those girls are AMAZING and I’m really sorry I didn’t make the show, god knows what I was doing that night (probably Tweeting) but it doesn’t matter because they’ll probably be showing at MAN next or something and I’ll be standing in the back row probably, unable to see the trousers past the heads of club kids.

Photos are by Christopher James.

27. THAT Sammy Davis Jr. photo

Has there ever been a better hat and glasses combo? Has there ever been a better time to wear hats and glasses?

28. HEDERUS

Every little thing she does is magic.

29. Topman fingerless gloves

Useful, good colours. FIVER!

30. A Suit That Fits.com

Because their suits are bespoke, nice quality and produced under responsible conditions unlike high street suits. This site, launched in 2005, came from founder Warren Bennett’s bespoke suits made by the family he was staying with in Nepal. The same family is making the suits still, made well and for a ridiculously accessible price. I’m planning my perfect ‘fashiony’ winter suit from here- possibly double-breasted grey felt or flannel, or something a bit more Lanvin inspired.

Here is my lovely friend Michael, the best-dressed boy I know and the PR for A Suit That Fits (coincidence? OBVIOUSLY NOT) wearing one of his own pieces and looking dare I say good x 100. Hair colour optional but something I’m toying with…

MENSWEAR TALKS TO HANNAH MARTIN, PART TWO.

Part two of our interview with the lovely Hannah Martin, jeweller extraordinaire. Hannah tells us about providing ‘aggressive’ jewellery for Morrisey’s guitarist, creating cock rings, nipple clamps and Pirate-inspired jewellery and how Savile Row can happily sit alongside Hatton Garden. All images from her latest collection, ‘Vincent’.

MENSWEAR: Do you have an aim for your work? By that I guess I mean, is there a certain feeling or mood you would like to project or you’d like the wearer to feel (I’m thinking of an article that suggested someone would feel powerful wearing your jewellery).

Hannah Martin: This is quite a difficult one to answer – I definitely do, but it’s hard to articulate! I think because I always design with a really strong sense of character in my head, the mood and persona of that character is projected from the jewels. It’s quite a sensory thing – when I’m designing I just know if something is right or not, without consciously considering the ‘feel’.

And I guess the characters I develop are all of a genre – like Vincent, the dangerously elegant gangster, or the pirate-type figure I had in mind for the ‘Aguila’ collection – a man who had seen the world, had stories to tell and secrets to keep… Each character has their own personality; if you see the collections together on the new site, their separate identities become very clear. But they definitely all have common threads – dark, hedonistic and always a bit sexy. I think this is the ‘feel’, and what people buy into.

MENSWEAR: Do you see yourself within a history or line of jewellery designers, or menswear designers as a whole?

Hannah Martin: Is it cheating to say both? I feel that I have a foot in quite a few camps – and am quite happy that way. I respect and am in awe of the history of jewellery – it is such an ancient craft, and I am proud to be a part of it. Things haven’t really changed that much in hundreds of years.

But I would love to be considered as part of the exciting things that are happening in menswear right now too. And the craft of Hatton Garden and the traditions it still has, sit so perfectly alongside those of say, Savile Row, and the art of tailoring.

MENSWEAR: Your work is so evocative of hedonism, living dangerously, rock’n'roll, you can almost see certain characters behind it/wearing it. I’m really fascinated to know what kind of guy buys the pieces, and what you’ve heard back from them…

Hannah Martin: Quite often the people you would least expect if I’m honest!  I think the fact that it is so easy to see the characters behind it means that people buy it that have those characters bottled up inside, if you know what I mean! Aspirational is probably the word. I do have the people you would expect – I have one guy who is the guitarist for the legend that is Morrissey, he buys a lot of pieces from me. He always says he likes the aggressive feel of them. But I also have accountants, lawyers and city workers … I guess if you don’t have rock n’ roll in your everyday life you have to bring it in in other ways!!

MENSWEAR: Just a last question- you also make pieces to commission, what’s been the craziest or most out-there thing you’ve made so far?

Hannah Martin: I have one client who is fantastic and gets me to do all kinds of crazy projects. I made a gold knuckle duster for her once, with an enormous cowbell hanging off the side! And a tiara made up of fossilized sharks teeth, some bones, old African hair combs and gold! Pretty out-there! I did cock rings and nipple clamps for Coco de Mer – I think that’s pretty near the top of my bizarre scale too. Am always pretty proud of that one!

MENSWEAR TALKS TO HANNAH MARTIN, PART ONE.

DON’T BELIEVE ANY RULES ABOUT MEN’S JEWELLERY. Especially the rule that says we shouldn’t wear it. In fact, in its various forms, it seems more and more to be a common factor amongst the most stylish men I meet. I wanted to bring men’s jewellery designers to light, wanting to know more about how and why jewellery works within MENSWEAR as a whole.

First off, who better to speak to than the wonderful HANNAH MARTIN? The designer ‘redefining luxury jewellery’, she has an extraordinary ability to create pieces that seem to come alive and interact with a wearer, forging an enormous amount of personality in something often quite minimal. As she launched her new collection, Vincent, Hannah was kind enough to give me a fascinating look into her work and inspirations.

All images are from the new collection, available at www.hannahmartinlondon.com.

MENSWEAR: How did you get into designing men’s pieces initially?

Hannah Martin: I began designing for men after a period I spent working at Cartier, whilst I was finishing at St Martins. I was spending my days designing these incredible pieces of fine jewellery for women, and my nights hanging out with friends in Paris watching beautiful boys play rock’n’roll in grimy bars. It suddenly seemed clear to me that I should combine the two parts of my life. Designing for men is exciting – there is a certain amount of freedom for me to create the edgy, masculine shapes I am so drawn to.

As I began to work more and more for men it also became clear to me that no other jewellery brand dedicated itself purely to men. It felt like this was something that had been missing for a long time.

Men’s jewellery was either heavy, chunky stuff that looked like a car part – or maybe a big skull ring if they were lucky. I couldn’t understand why men shouldn’t wear something with elegance, style and craftsmanship – just as women can. Young men, and masculinity in our society, are certainly changing rapidly. I think this is also what inspired me to design for them. A lot of boundaries are being broken down and gender lines are beginning, at last, to become a little more blurred.

MENSWEAR: How does your design process work?

Hannah Martin: I draw inspiration from all over the place. I have loads of sketchbooks and pictures stuck all over the studio when it’s new collection time.

At the start of a collection I tend to create myself a muse – a kind of beautiful seductive Frankenstein-style monster, out of all the things and people that are turning me on at the time. I invent stories around my muse, they become the narrative of my work – and I design for them … I create myself a whole world to get immersed in, and the collection springs from this.

MENSWEAR: What can we expect from the new collection, ‘Vincent’?

Hannah Martin: Oh I’m so excited about Vincent! Vincent is the shadowy patriarch of a Russian mob ruling the darkest depths of London. He grew from an ongoing fascination with Russia; its history and its stark brutality. I looked to Soviet iconography, Tsarist symbols and 30’s gangster films amongst many others for inspiration.

I think it is my most ‘grown up’ collection yet – a definite progression from what has gone before. I wanted to create something seriously gentlemanly, but for a very dangerous gentleman. There are signet rings, sovereign rings and even a medallion – but of course in the best possible taste!

I thought a lot about the power that jewellery pieces can have. The superstitions that can build up around a certain piece – so much so that even a man in such a powerful position as Vincent, may never leave the house without. I wanted the collection to be a series of talisman with stories, signs and symbols only readable from inside the world in which they have the power.

Left: Vincent’s Empty Sovereign Ring: the collection’s crowning glory.

MENSWEAR: Where did the muse/character of Vincent come from? Is it anything to do with the film Eastern Promises and Russian criminal tattoos (as sold in your bookshop online)?

Hannah Martin: Yes, I have been pretty obsessed with Russia for quite a long time now! I bought the first Russian Prison Tattoo book when it came out all those years ago. The photography of the prisoners is amazing. Then Eastern Promises was filmed on the street outside my studio … and low and behold I just couldn’t stop thinking about Russian gangsters.

What I wanted to be really clear about Vincent is the strength of his persona – even if you may never see him. The quality of the fabric of his suits, the perfection in the tailoring of his trousers, the flash of gold of his insignia ring as he lifts perfectly proportioned cigar to his lips. Suave, sophisticated, elegant and deadly … he rules his underground kingdom with an iron grip, without ever getting dirt on his own hands.