VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Worst Dressed of 2008

I couldn’t put my finger on what was missing as this year winds up.  Then it struck me…Mr. Blackwell’s Worst Dress List!  Sadly, we bid adieu to Mr. Blackwell earlier this year.  Read more details on the passing of Mr. Blackwell in October HERE.  His end of year tradition will certainly be missed. Undoubtably, he would have put Brittney Spears on the list as he has done practically ever year.  He was probably already thinking about it.

In honor of Mr. Blackwell, I would like to weigh in with a personal opinion.  Maybe Karl Lagerfeld, at left, doesn’t merit a spot for the entire year, but he certainly made an interesting statement a few months ago.  White on white on white can look extremely elegant. However, I don’t quite get the fingerless silver gloves.  Fingerless gloves are “in,” but on men it can only be usually pulled off if you have a motorcycle, if you are going for the Steam Punk look, or if you adopt one of Johnny Depp’s prior styles that evoke the image of an elegant vagabond.

The “my outfit matches my hair” also makes Mr. Lagerfeld look like one of the characters from “This Island Earth.”   Is that a cumberund over the table cloth- patterned shirt? Also, I am noticing a “double belt” look.  I don’t usually make fun of people, but for someone who has designed things for the rest of us to wear, it is constructive criticism, or in other words, he can take it.

I am wondering if it his personal statement, or is it a sign of things to come for a future line of clothing?  I can only imagine…

In honor of Mr. Blackwell, who stands out this year for their misses, rather than their hits?

Have Your Cake, But the Musician Eats Too!

Just like payola is something that went down in the history books regarding the history of 20th century rock and roll, the Napster court case was a precedent for the future of the way music is distributed. Kerchoonz, now in Beta, is a new website I just discovered that features free downloadable music. Instead of the artist not being paid royalties and the site acting like your childhood boombox you made mix tapes with, the artists are actually getting paid. In my observation, I would guess site advertising pays for that, though the website doesn’t state.

There are many Indie and unsigned artists on the site which make it very likely for you to be able to discover someone new. Also, since it is free to download the music, you are able to sample the music before running out and buying a CD, and the artists are getting an additional outlet for their music to be heard. The site uses a social networking platform as well, and it sure beats myspace for hunting for music.

The downside of the site is that there is no way to search by genre. With so many new artists, it is hard to navigate only being able to search by artist, album, or song. I just had to randomly guess a few times before I was able to find something. There are lists of the Hot 100 and Indie and Unsigned artists but it is hard to search if you have an idea of the type of music you would like to hear.  Go to the site to sample and explore, not to find something specific.

Man of a Thousand Dances

Several times I have received the video of Judson Laipply’s Evolution of Dance, which is the most popular video on the internet right now. Not only is it entertaining, but it is also a trip down memory lane. He recreates snippets of popular dance styles from the 1950s to present. Ever?ything is there form the Twist, to Disco, to the Hammer Dance he represents. Some bits and pieces are things that I have forgotten about. It made me smile to see Brady Bunch style dancing and Headbanging along with the more social dances.

There is now an interactive application on the internet that is Evolution Of Dance starring YOU!.   Self Improvement website PeopleJam.com and Saveology.com have teamed up to unleash it on to the internet. You can upload your picture and perform dances with Laipply. Not only is it hours of mindless entertainment, but it serves as a preview to a sequel to the Evolution of Dance 2, which will debut in the New Year.

As you can see, I decided to use the faces of Hayworth and Grant. You can choose the gender of the character that represents you and either have one or two dancers. You can replay yourself over and over again, or share with a friend. If you missed the original Evolution of Dance, the video that started it all, look no further than below!

Uncovered Gem: The Barretts of Wimpole Street

I love the movies of the 1930s.  There were some pretty psychological stories before the studio codes went into effect.  One of the more mainstream films that I had never seen was the Barretts of Wimpole Street.  The story of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and Robert Browning didn’t immediately appeal to me in the first few scenes, as I thought it was going to be a maudlin love story (or a chick flick).  Norma Shearer is supposed to be deathly sick and looks beautiful and perfectly made up…that is one of the suspensions of disbelief one must have in watching older films.  As the film went on I became very enthralled.

The story is not just about Elizabeth and Robert but it is more about how a controlling person can crush someone, and even snuff the life out of someone one professes to love.   One really pulls for Elizabeth, Robert, and Henrietta.  In real life, Mr. Barrett forbid his twelve children to marry. In the film, he doesn’t quite get redeemed in the end.  That may have been a whole other movie and not the purpose of the tale. Here are two clips. The first features Norma Shearer as Elizabeth, Charles Laughton as Mr. Barrett, and Frederic March as Robert Browning. The second also feature Maureen O’Hara.

The movie also serves as a step back in time to fashons that suggest the 1840s in London as an added bonus.

A Music Library Must Have

Hey lady! do I look all blurry to you? ‘Cause you look blurry to me!’

- Dean Martin

Are you looking to treat yourself? Hop over to Amazon. There is a Dean Martin at the Sands long box set that is the perfect backdrop for any swanky party.  Maybe it is just a party for yourself as you tidy up the place.  What’s more is that it features some of Dino’s best and is under twenty bucks.

It was recorded on February 8, 1964.  It was before his big comeback, and just before “Everybody Loves Somebody” made him chart topping gold again.  The recordings give you a real good sense of what his stage presence and touring act was like back then.   In otherwords, go grab it.

Trivia time:   Did you know that during the Dean Martin show and his prior appearances with Jerry Lewis, most of the time, the glass of booze Dino seemed to always had in his hand was fake?   Yep.  Many people thought it was real, but he was just playing it up.

Harrison Ford would Definitely Be In the Movie Version

There have not been too many good espionage novels or games this side of the Cold War. I have recently stumbled across Hacker Evolution, something that will probably suck up a lot of my time. It is a computer game that involves YOU, a former intelligence agent. Critical services have all been disabled, causing worldwide troubles and only you can solve the world’s problems.  You have to hack in to make everything all right with the world.

In real life, it would be all about a team of thousands of experts, but in video game and movie land, it probably would just be Harrison Ford or Gene Hackman or a teenage Matthew Broderick, depending on the decade, taking it all on.  

Download Hacker Evolution - The most challenging PC game

Farewell William Claxton: A True Vintage Gent

At left, Peggy Moffit and Steve MacQueen by William Claxton.

Photographer William Claxton has died at the age of 80 of congestive heart failure.  Claxton may not be a household name to all, but those in the fashion world remember his iconic photos.   He was most known for his work with  wife Peggy Moffitt, muse of designer Rude Geinrich. creator of the monokini.

Claxton was known for many other images of pop culture icons.  His moody, black and white Jazz Life series featured the likes of Chet Baker and other greats.   In fashion, he photographed many pop culture icons, including Moffit and Mary Quant and Steve MacQueen.

Claxton will certainly be missed as a great man and a great talent.

The World’s Most Famous Watch

The most famous watch in the world was donated to the Smithsonian in 1998 by Don Hewitt.

It is a Minerva stopwatch previously owned by a Mr. Arthur Bloom. Mr. Bloom was a television director and one of the founder’s of the perennial news magazine “60 minutes.” He lent it to the production crew and on Oct. 22, 1968, the familar tick of Bloom’s stopwatch greeted America for the first time. The watch is an icon, and has been dramatized and parodied hundreds of times over.

Artie Bloom passed away but the Minverva…now computer generated (as the article informs)…ticks on…

reprinted from http://www.cbsnews.com

‘60 Minutes’ Founder Arthur Bloom Dies

NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2006

Arthur Bloom (CBS)
Arthur Bloom (CBS)

(CBS)Arthur Bloom, the award-winning CBS News television director responsible for the distinctive on-screen look of >60 Minutes since its debut 37 years ago and who led the modernization of on-screen graphics at CBS News, died at home Saturday of cancer. He was 63 and resided in Grandview-on-Hudson, N.Y.

He was one of the last remaining original 60 Minutes founders still working for the program. Bloom also played a role in helping to train Dan Rather to succeed Walter Cronkite in the CBS News anchor chair in 1981.

Bloom spent his entire 45-year career at CBS and used his keen eye and a symphonic vision of camera work to become one of the medium’s best directors of live political event coverage. His outstanding talent was recognized with the first Lifetime Achievement Award in News Direction from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in 1995. The same organization had honored him twice before, once for news direction of CBS News coverage of the 1976 Democratic and Republican conventions and, before that, in 1973 for his work on 60 Minutes.

Most of Bloom’s time was devoted to 60 Minutes; he helped to create and then honed the consistent, classy look of the broadcast. Each week he worked in Studio 33 in the CBS Broadcast Center monitoring the program’s studio production and directing the 60 Minutes correspondents as they taped introductions and tags for their reports. He influenced some of the broadcast’s most basic elements, starting with its famous ticking stopwatch.

The first stopwatch was Bloom’s own. The timepiece symbol began as part of 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt’s idea for “60 minutes of reality” and came to life when Bloom filmed his own Minerva stopwatch. The concept worked well enough to be used at the beginning of the broadcast’s third edition on Oct. 22, 1968.

Soon it was shown between segments, eventually becoming the iconic logo recognized by generations. Bloom updated the logo, but only in barely noticeable ways at intervals of several years. His modernizing touches included the use of slimmer typography and the addition of subtle shading and texture to the logo’s background. He oversaw the stopwatch’s transition from a filmed image to a computer-generated one.

“Artie had an eye for what worked visually and what didn’t – he was invaluable to me,” said Hewitt. “I depended on him to make the broadcast as visually appealing as it turned out to be. He was at my side every step of the way.”

Bloom also helped Hewitt execute the graphic concept for 60 Minutes as a magazine for television, deciding on a mock-up of a magazine page to put behind the correspondent to begin each of the broadcast’s segments. Now also computer-generated, the magazine concept has essentially remained the same.

A Farewell to One of Cinema’s Coolest

A belated farewell to one of cinema’s finest. 

Paul Newman was known for his “cool” style, but never fit the Hollywood mold.  He chose roles based on his personal interests and the challenge he thought the role would provide, rather than the paycheck.   One may argue that he wasn’t a pauper, but I think it is more of a case of “Do What you Love; the money will come.”

Secondly, he and Joanne Woodward married in 1958, and were only seperated by Newman’s recent death.  They met while starring in a stage production together, which is not uncommon for actors.  What was uncommon was that the chose to keep their home life private and their children out of the spotlight so that their family life could be relatively normal.  

(A little trivia footnote: Paper Moon was to originally star Paul Newman and daughter, who was known on screen as Nell Potts.  We know her today as Nell Newman of Newman’s Own.   The director changed, and Paul Newman withdrew his daughter when the direction of the film changed.  Ryan and Tatum O’Neal replaced them.)

Maybe modern Hollywood should take cues from them.  “Too Much Information” doesn’t a long marriage make.

Tune in to the World

As if I couldn’t find enough on the internet to completely distract me, the Internet Television and Radio directory has come along to lead me even further down the road. With thirty gazillion channels, it is a Pandora’s Box of sorts. I am going to listen to the radio stations from all the towns I have ever lived in, and I am bound and determined to find out if in some remote country, My Mother the Car is being shown. My dad talks about that show, but I have not been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have actually seen an episode. Maybe they have all been destroyed to protect humaniity. If you find any lost classics, write in and let me know!

In truth, there are not thirty gazillion. There are 1750 TV channels and and over 9500 radio stations. There are some I would not touch with a twelve foot poll, but there are quite a few that I am going to tune into.

Uta Would have Frowned

If you have ever watched television in your lifetime, you have probably noticed that hard liquor is just not something you see much of being peddled in commercials.   That is because for the past fifty years, makers of hard liquor have operated under a self imposed ban of advertising on tv.   Then, there were actual rules put in place that someone cannot be shown in a commercial actually drinking wine or a beer.  They can have it on the table to advertise it, but no one takes a sip.

In the movies, there were codes in place after the 1930s which regulated the portrayal of smoking and drinking.  When the codes were lifted, smoking returned in fits and spurts.  What I think that the old studio heads would roll over in their graves about are the goings on in films today.   The film Pineapple Express not only discusses or implies drug use, but portrays it.  Unlike many movies portraying addicts who “pretend” with baking soda, sugar, and other props, the actors in the movie are actually smoking. (?)

Okay, there is a technicality here.  What they are smoking are scientifically altered hybrids from International Oddities. So TECHNICALLY they are legal as they are not the actual plants that are banned. Seth Rogan had mentioned it was used in every scene.

I subscribed to the Uta Hagen school and got “drunk” on stage drinking apple juice and flat ginger ale. There was also a famous encounter between Sir Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman had stayed up all night in order to appear he had stayed up all night for the film “Marathon Man.” I do not want to hack up the words of Olivier, so will paraphrase that he mentioned to Hoffman that they used to “just act” in his day.

As a Stanislavski, method trained actor, I wag my finger at this. Perhaps this is a stalemate. They have the world on the technicality that its not scientifically real, and they have me on the technicality that it technically ISN’T anything illegal and may smell slightly different, so they TECHNICALLY are acting.

I would like to see them use sliced carrots and let’s see them use their acting muscles. Touche’

Wii Like It

I remember the good old days, when not all kids were “indoor kids.” Sure, some kids were bookworms. I certainly was, but I still went outside to play. Not a two hour “play date,” but sometimes our ball games with lopsided and “make it up as you go along” rules lasted until it started to get dark. Do kids climb trees anymore? I haven’t seen one do that in a long time, and I am not that old.

I wondered if there possibly could be anything that would get children off their posteriors, or were they mutating and fusing to the sofa.

I think I found my answer, and it actually originally came in the form of inbox spam. That answer may just be the Nintendo Wii, which I had tucked under the rug in my brain because I was growing jaded from all the false offers promising me a free Wii. I found, however, a contest that is very real where you could actually win won legitimately. For those of you not familiar, Wii uses various sensors and controllers to force the user to physically move around like their video alter ego

Charter, the internet provider and all-around legit company, is having a drawing for entrants to have a chance to win a Nintendo Wii. Not only will you win the console, but will also receive a stand, 5 Sports games ( Boxing, Baseball, Tennis, Golf and bowling), 1 Remote Controller, 1 Nunchuk Controller, 1 Sensor Bar, 1 Wii AC Adapter, 1 Wii AV Cable. You will have everything you need to play! Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo® Wii™!

In addition, they have an auction running where you can win internet service for life. The catch is that you have to be in an area that Charter services. That is easy to determine. Just enter your zip and you will find out.

I still am fond of my Atari 2600. Video games that look more realistic than, say, “Centipede” scare me a little, not unlike a caveperson revived from an ice block. Maybe Wii will be the next system to wax nostalgic about twenty years from now. I’ll need that time to acclimate to it.