Velour’s Shirts & Ties

Velour’s online store, featuring a bunch of organic cotton in classic men’s styles, is up and running! The coordinating shirt-and-tie combinations are incredibly fetching, and mismatching them is even more fun. No one will even suspect that you’re a hippie in these sharp cuts:

Dominic SS10Dominic SS10

IsacGaryTradeJoe

BenRalph SS10

LennonTimAlbinBrian

AndrewTodd SS10Craig SS10 Ernest SS10

TURK & TAYLOR: 50% Off Everything!

One of our fav organic lines is having a crazy sale. Everything is 50% off online, and only 3$ flat rate for domestic shipping! ENTER DISCOUNT CODE TURKCRAZY50 AT CHECKOUT!

Image of CLOUDS TEEImage of MEN'S GUAYABERA

Spring: Casual Cuffs & Buttoned-Up

This freezing cold weather is out of control. So let’s concentrate on spring. Since it’s right around the corner, I thought I’d refresh you guys with some trends to keep in mind to spring. As per usual, I’m not in any way telling you to go buy ridiculously expensive designer stuff. Hit up your local thrift store and use these images as a guide for what to look for and splurge on one or two new things that are impossible to find elsewhere.

Dress shoes with shorts & Suits with Shorts. It’s OK to throw on a pair of oxfords or brogues with a suit and a really cool pair of shorts. Robert Geller and Calvin Klein’s models pull it off with confidence.

Robert Geller Spring 2010Calvin Klein Collection Spring 2010

Cuffs (up top and down low). C.P. Company and DKNY’s guys show off their shoes and their forearms.

C.P. Company Spring 2010DKNY Spring 2010

The Casual Suit. Like these images from the Rag & Bone and John Varvatos’ runways, there’s no need to put on a tie if you want to wear a waistcoat, jacket, and slacks or shorts. This a great way to communicate effortless and casual confidence.

Rag & Bone Spring 2010John Varvatos Spring 2010

Button up. If you wear a button-down shirt, please do not leave the top three or four (or five) buttons open like so many guys do. It looks seedy and 70’s and Dolce & Gabbana-Gay-Hooker-vacationing-in-Miami. If you must leave a button open, just do the very top one. Optimally button-up all the way, like these images from the Robert Geller and Paul Smith, and runways.

Patrik Ervell Spring 2010Paul Smith Spring 2010

Pleats. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. Pleats are back. Whether it’s one pleat or many baggy pleats – they are on almost every single menswear runway. It’s OK if you avoid it, but it’s also OK if you try it out. Yohji Yamamoto and Patrick Ervell are the messengers.

Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2010Robert Geller Spring 2010

A Question Of, Rubbers and Reikall

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At the last Copenhagen Fashion Week, ClangBoomSteam by Reikall (taking it’s inspiration from the industrial revolution) premiered on the runway, showcasing sustainable designs from organic cotton, hemp, linen, recycled poly, bamboo, and others. Invoking the era of great thinkers and innovators, the concept for this collection has a sci-fi-twist:

The: ‘ClangBoomSteam’ collection is set on the backdrop of a peculiar tale: the adventure of six time traveling pioneers, passing from year 2030 to year 1799, in order to save the planet from environmental disaster, by steering the industrial revolution in a sustainable direction.

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Kenneth Cole is making some vegan rubber boots to support awareness about using rubbers to prevent the spread of AIDS. 100% of profits from these boots goes to fund amfAR.org. There are men’s and women’s styles:

Founded in 2008, A Question Of is a company selling organic fair trade fashion T-shirts produced in Tanzania, Africa. The T-shirts are made under sustainable working conditions, and the employees receive fair wages, English classes, and training in health issues.

Deer Control Suit & Jil Sander Suit

A lot of you guys ask about wool-free suits. Jil Sander surprised us with a few cruelty-free options recently, featured on GILT Groupe. The wool-free suit below features textured woven cotton on a single breasted two button jacket with notch lapel, a center vent at back and non-functional button cuffs. Fully lined in cupro with three pockets.

Textured Woven Cotton SuitTextured Woven Cotton Suit

Jil Sander’s Nylon Marble Blazer and Cupro/Nylon Iridescent Blazer are also cruelty free and quite stunning.

Nylon Marble BlazerCrinkled Iridescent Blazer

GILT is an invite only site (click here to join). They do often feature organic brands like Loomstate and Edun, but also occasionally feature designers who continue to use fur, so take a moment to kindly ask them to stop featuring these items from designers like Michael Kors and tell them we want more cruelty-free stuff.

Our pals at Friends of Animals and CARE have a suit of their own. They are suing to stop National Park Service deer control plans. Deer “control” is always a tumultuous topic, and this case really highlights the opposing forces. I always find it amusing that it is the wildlife that is the problem, as opposed to our ever-expanding, ever-”developing” of wild areas:
Photo of white-tailed deer doe in the snow

“The deer are not responsible for the park’s manicured lawns, for deliberate removals of natural vegetation over the years and the planting of non-native foliage, for a lack of respect for the animals comprising the park’s natural food web, for paved areas and buildings, for more than a million visitors per year, vehicle exhaust, or for the constant presence of (often speeding) cars. These factors must be addressed directly to address the pressure on the deer, Friends of Animals and CARE have urged.”  – FOA

What do you think about deer “control” and other ideas we have about “pests”?