VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Wishing You Champagne Dreams and Minded Manners

The night they invented champagne
It’s plain as it can be
They thought of you and me
The night they invented champagne
They absolutely knew
That all we’d want to do is
Fly to the sky on champagne
And shout to everyone in sight
That since that world began
No woman or a man has ever been as happy as we are tonight!

-Lerner and Loewe, from the musical “Gigi”

The night we drank too much champagne
Was an embarrassing night indeed.
The spill stretched
from the sculpted green carpet to the Harris Tweed.
No woman or man or woman we ever met
Was as upset
Of ruining taffett(a) as the VintageGent and Gent-ette!

- V-Gette

Ah, yes…the holiday dinner party. This time of year, the party invites are too numerous to do more than “put in an appearance” at while the Champagne and wine hostess and host gifts insulate every cabinet, hope chest and ice box. Liquor is a traditional gift, and therefore a retro choice, but its time to update the etiquette book.

Tried and True Etiquette:

• As has been tradition, do not expect the bottle to be opened and served with the meal or during cocktail hour.
• If the host/hostess should offer you the unopened bottle to take home, insist that you intended it as a gift, but do not make a spectacle of yourself. The host/hostess may have assumed the bottle was for dinner. If they insist, graciously accept.
• Do not give guests free tickets to your sideshow. If the host/hostess offers alcoholic beverages, do not drink to the point of interesting propositions and colorful language. Rather, enjoy a glass properly balanced with food or follow with soft drinks.

Coffee or soft drinks is a safe second course.

The New Etiquette

• Observe the host/hostess. If they have never been observed nursing a glass of mashed grapes, they might not drink alcoholic beverages for medical or personal reasons. If they do not, rethink the gift.
• Offer to be a designated driver. Deliver revelers home, and swiftly return to the party.
• Choose theme wines and champagnes. A selection that has a connection creates conversation if the host is not a particular wine connoisseur. Choose a wine from a newcomer’s native state, or something with an unusual or clever name. While impressing someone with good taste is important, humor breaks the advice, so long as the name is not off-color. The point of a party is to converse, not to dazzle other guests with your snobbery.

Did I invite you over? Then I might interest you in my uncle’s special vintage, adorned with inkjet paper labels. I have no idea which variety I have, since water droplets splashed on it and ran the ink.  Guests will surely play “name that wine.” Bring your own and tear off the label. Should be fun. Cheers!

Fashion Swap

Ever since Wagglepop came and went, the inbox runneth over with press releases, pitches and recommendations for new auction and selling sites.  Tradze.com is a new one to me. Apparently, its in the barter websites format. Users list items that they want to get rid of, and other users may trade for them with credits. Each user receives 200 credits for signing up, and from there, credits are accumulated through listing like-new and collectible items for the perusal of other site users. The site heavily promotes users to sign up their family and friends, so they can swap through their own trusted network. There is a clothing category in the mix.

Upon inspection, there is little to no Feedback action. Either users are not ingrained with the courtesy of leaving other users feedback stars, or the site just has little action. The site itself appears to be in the early stages as some pages, such as FAQ, are not quite filled in yet. Users do have to register to flip through the item catalog. Be persistent, as almost always only four items show up. Click on subsequent page numbers to browse the entire category.

The full potential of the site lies on the concept of users having a comfort level of bartering in “T-Bills” that only work on this site, versus receiving money. It will not attract folks hoping buy and sell to raise some cash, but it will attract users who truly just want to rid themselves of a few items. There is great potential for an established group to barter, such as a special interest hobby club, a parents group, or an association to park their people there and make it their own. Hosting a clothing swap sometimes is hard to get together because of conflicting schedules and an uneven representation of sizes. If the extended network swapped with credits, everyone would be held accountable to delivering.

In the meantime, I’ll be watching to determine if this is a worthy place to score a fashion find.

Thanksgiving Delight

No one, apparently, got the memo that Christmas music is absolutely not to be played until at least the day after Thanksgiving? If i ruled the world, the sleigh bells wouldn’t ring until December 15th. This way, we could all truly enjoy it instead of burning out on it by December 5th.

Dad, ever the astute observer always defends his position with: “There just are no Thanksgiving carols, are there?” maybe not when he was growing up, butt if you delve into the early days of rap and hip hop and transport yourself to 1979, there is ONE Thanksgiving carol, even though it is hidden within a 14 minute, 36 second long song.  Well, the Sugar Hill Gang probably didn’t intend it to be festive.

We used to trick dad into listening to the full version when we didn’t want to clean our rooms. “Dad, listen to JUST this one song. It’s really short.”

Have you ever went over a friends house to eat
and the food just ain’ no good?
I mean the macaroni’s soggy the peas are mushed
and the chicken tastes like wood.

So you try to play it off like you think you can
by sayin’ that you’re full,
and then your friend says momma he’s just being polite
he ain’t finished uh uh that’s bull.

So your heart starts pumpin’ and you think of a lie
and you say that you already ate
and your friend says man there’s plenty of food
so you pile some more on your plate.

While the stinky foods steamin’ your mind starts to dreamin’
of the moment that it’s time to leave
and then you look at your plate and your chickens slowly rottin’
into something that looks like cheese.

Oh, so you say that’s it i got to leave this place;
I dont care what these people think
I’m just sittin’ here makin’ myself nauseous
with this ugly food that stinks.

So you bust out the door while its still closed
still sick from the food you ate
and then you run to the store for quick relief
from a bottle of kaopectate.

And then you call your friend two weeks later
to see how he has been.
And he says i understand about the food
baby bubbah but we’re still friends.
With a hip hop the hippie to the hippie
the hip hip a hop a you dont stop the rockin
to the bang bang boogie
say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat

May your Thanksgiving be full of cozy, Rockwell-inspired moments (Norman, not the “Somebody’s Watching Me” Rockwell and far more delectable food than what the Sugar Hill Gang was subjected to.

The Windsor: Where Wands/Walruses/White Houses Meet

Standing on the Corner…Watching all the Icons Whiz By

A Brief History of Skincare: New (?) Under the Sun

Tanda Skin Care recently created a chart about the history of skin care. Some of the info I was already intimately acquainted with, laced with tidbits of shocking new. While the madness and illness lead powder left behind is legendary, I had no idea that it was used for spot treatments as late as 1900. The idea of exfoliation and microdermabrasion is actually not so 20th and 21st century. The earliest skin smoothing junkies used sand paper to soften their outer layers and slough away scars. I thought the strigil was abrasive, but at least Romans at first covered themselves in oil so scraping all the dirt away at least would glide more like a razor. It is all conjecture, as of course, strigils are just not something you see at the store these days. If so, they would be mistaken for a personal possession of Captain Hook. You’ll have to settle for a squeegee.

The only thing “new under the sun” might be treating psoriasis with UV lamps and also acne light therapy. Then again, English doctors sent ailing patients to the south of France and Italy to hopefully healed by the sunlight. It is merely the act of going to a professional and receiving blue light in an isolated and concentrated fashion.

What grooming practice today do you think we will look at quizzically ten, fifty, or even one hundred years from now?

.

Via: Tanda Skincare

My Strange Addiction

Thanks for the guest post by Esteban Vinson

I am a total sad movie addict. I know most people don’t enjoy feeling sad, but could there possibly be anything better than curling up in a warm blanket on the weekends and watching a good tearjerker on Direct TV?

I have a lot of friends who think I am really strange because of this, but to me, it’s totally normal. My mom, sister and I all have this strange penchant for loving sad movies. I have too many favorites to even name. I’m not a movie snob who only watches the Oscar winners either. I love them all, even the bad ones.

I sometimes get upset when I go to the movies to see something that I think is going to let me get a good cry in and then it ends up having a super happy ending. I know most people go to the movies for a bit of fantasy but everything can’t have a happy ending! I guess I like it so much because I’d rather cry about something completely made up than something that really happens.

Halloween 2011: The Night of the Living Sheen

Trick-or-Treaters can never go wrong with a ghost costume fashioned from a thrifted bed sheet or older brother’s graduation frock and a purchased witch hat. Along with perennial classics, each new crop of Halloween costumes brings a new slew of nods to recently-at-the-movies superheros and topical references.

What is everyone wearing this year?

According to the news on the street, which is every Reuters and AP press release, the guy at the local shoe repair shop and a gent overheard at the local pub, among the top three predictable or unusual trends are as follows:

1) Zombies. Did I even have to mention this one? Zombies are the new vampires–well, not exactly “new” anymore, but these things take time… (Speaking of vampires, you apparently have to have “Team Edward” moussed hair these days. A classic Drac with 1,000 pounds of gel doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. Team Bela! No, kids that is NOT a typo.)

2) Charlie Sheen. Really. No “I have dark brown hair so I am going as myself” cop outs. You really have to “sell” this one. The shirt has to be right, a bottle of Tiger Blood ale and perhaps even a thought bubble to carry around with a Sheen-ism.  Sadly, you can actually buy a premade  Sheen costume and this wouldn’t merely be among the Adult Halloween Costumes for a grownup party, as  your 12 year old is on Twitter.

Lady Gaga would be another choice celebrity getup, because you could dress like Carmen Miranda or a telephone and everyone will think you are going for Gaga anyways.

3) Smurfs.  This time, Smurfs aren’t only aKids Halloween Costumes a la 1984, but for adults, too. For toddlers, its adorable. The jury is out on Uncle Sid.

Are you dressing up this year, or are your day to day duds scary enough?

Hit the Freezer Aisle for the Next Three Martini Lunch

Win a $500 Suiting Makeover

Toms: An Internet Success Story for a Cause

The shoe manufacturer, Toms has run a campaign to donate a pair of shoes to a child in need for every shoe that a paying customer buys. During their first year of operation, they sold 10,000 pair of shoes, and donated 10,000. Not too shabby! However with good, search engine optimization, including a robust Twitter presence, Tom’s donated one MILLION pairs of shoes to children in 23 countries. Similar success was repeated by One Hope Wine.

Via: Wpromote

Its amazing what can be done with just one shoe purchase or the click of the “Like” button. It seems that internet campaigns are replacing the old fashioned act of going door to door to neighbors to collect funds for a cause.  It seems so much easier to raise funds for a cause when the individual would purchase the clothing anyway, but might choose to buy sooner for the cause. What do you think about promoting a cause with your wares

One might say that Tom’s is a large operation and “my little shop needs to be known as the ‘best kept secret.’ I could never handle it.” Well, it is all relative. If you did just a little to increase your linkage and presence, a little shop that sells 3 items a month could sell even 10 items a month…you never know!

Educate the Nation

(At left: President Woodrow Wilson and granddaughter Ellen Wilson McAdoo )

In 1945, an educational disparity was recognized. Professor Whitney Oates at Princeton notice that many bright and promising students that served our country in World War II were not returning to complete advanced degrees. When the ear of an important donor was bent, a plan was devised to attract returning G.I.’s to continue the advanced Ph.D.’s studies they left before.

At that time, the full scope of the G.I. education bill, its demand and use had not been realized. However, with this effort answered the shortage of folks with specialized degrees who could become the college professors of the future to handle the influx of the educational needs of the baby boom shortly later.

Through teaching fellowship programs through the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, named after the only Ph.D.-holding president, 13 future Nobel Laureates and 14 Pulitzer Prize winners received advanced degrees over the years.

Today, you can get a leg up, too. If you hold a degree in the sciences or mathematics, you can apply an receive a fellowship, teaching computers, teaching mathematics or other sciences, such as biology. If you do not currently hold a bachelor’s degree, you must be scheduled to graduate by June 2012 for this round. Selected fellows receive a $30,000 stipend to pursue a Master’s Degree.

What’s the catch? To apply, you need to have maintained a 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale, and commit for three years to teaching computers, math or science to students in underserved areas where specialized teachers are needed most. The school might be in a rural area, or an area with a higher than average poverty ratio. After that, you may teach where you wish.

There is a cap of 30 teaching fellows per campus. Campuses of eligible schools are located in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. You need not graduate with your bachelor’s from these institution, but you must consider completing your Master’s Degree there.

Are you ready to impact a few lives, an even the education of a nation? To apply, visit www.WWTeachingFellowshpo.org and have an impact on the future of science and technical education.

Planning a Boardwalk Empire theme party for the season premiere

Guest post written by Janet Thomas

Thre are few occasions when it seems like I don’t really find an excuse to dress up. It’s so much fun and I’ve loved playing fashion and dress up since I was a littel kid. Well that’s definitely carried on into a lot of theme parties that I started having when I was in college and have just kind of continued over the years.

As you can probably guess, I really love following all of these costume period dramas and checkin gup on all hte different things that are going on with my new favorite show Boardwalk Empire with my wireless internet Chicago. It’s just so interesting to see and hear the things as they’re reimagined during that time.

I’m planning on throwing a Boardwalk Empire season premiere party. I think that it’s going to be so much fun and I already have a few great outfits from my Grandma that I’ve already picked out. Now finding vintage pieces from the 20s or that look like they belong in the 20s can be pretty tough, but that’s a challenge I love taking on.

Jersey City: Grit and Suspense Minus the Big Hair

Furniture for 5 Year old Grown Ups

Ah, the furniture of youth. The 1950s Danish Modern dresser was so passe in the early 70s, such that it lived out its existence in my cousin’s room.  It’s finished was slightly marred by the occasional Batman sticker, not discreetly affixed to a low corner like a maker’s mark, but smack-dab in the middle of the first or second drawer. Attempts to remove were met with bald wood or a papery footprint. There was no in between.

Karen Keane, expert over at the Antique Roadshow would just be gobsmacked. Apparently she is not quite that flappable. It relieves me to hear her say:  “The trade market is filled with compromised pieces,” and doesn’t seem to poo-poo them for daily use.  Faded paint is apparently a beauty mark, but she says nothing about Batman.

No one ever seemed to have “kid furniture” in my family. You had a crib. When you were old enough, you got you mom and dad’s or cousin’s cast off set. No race car beds. Oh, but occasional bunk beds. We were the original urbane hipster babies.

I was reminded how urbane we all were as tots when I perused The RoomPlace furniture stores website and inspected the comforting selection of bunk and Captain’s Beds.  I always wanted a Captain’s Bed with all the drawers, but I was too much of a packrat and I spawned from those types of parents that thought a five year old would fall to their death in one. But that is what the metal slide-in railing that we could get our head caught in was for, no? My cousins were the lucky ducks. As the third born on that side of the family, there was still one random dresser and head board left. As fourth born my cousin, M, had bunks. We were all very close in age, so there was no chance of a hand me down from an older cousin. By the fourth, it was time for new furniture.

Further into my journey on the website,  I came across something more familiar. The “five year old adult” decor I was so accustomed to

My brother had a bachelor pad-ish black lacquer set that had been an uncle’s during his heyday. Now, its gone through a major transformation and it seems it is back at a retailer – but this time marketed specifically to kids. Well, not to kids. Whoever has the check book.  In many ways, it makes sense to create furniture to follow the child into the teens and kick all the pieces out the door with them when they leave.

Maybe the folks at the The RoomPlace furniture stores have the right idea. After that, your cinema room or hobby room is right around the corner without adding on.