Question:
Now, this is what I call menswear. I love what Basitan is doing. Modern and luxe and garments I would actually wear (if I had a lot of dough). The BD suits and the giant cuffs are totally sweet.
http://mens.style.com/fashion/collec...N/review/MBMEN
The RL is great too, especially the Black and the Purple and those wide ties.
http://mens.style.com/fashion/collec...N/review/RLMEN
With both of them, I am digging the actual real pants for men with a small and tiny break that doesn't make you look like an ass what with you ankles showing all the time. Ankles are nice to show sometimes, but all the time? No dice.
Answer:
I love Michael Bastian clothing. It is, however, like you say... expensive. Overpriced, in my opinion. His clothing is very wearable and works seamlessly with many different styles of clothing. Modern, casual, yet very classy and constructed.
Ralph Lauren I love. Black Label is just awesome. This line to me is like a perfectly primed canvas on which I can layer, and mix up just about anything in my wardrobe and make it look cosmopolitan, modern, and stylish. This season's RLPL feels like a sleek, throughly tailored and modern interpretation of the Avengers. RL's Polo brand has got to be the most fun set of collections around to wear. Many pieces border on the whimsical yet offer you a chance to make it work with its more conventional items.
Answer:
Phew I'm glad to see he toned it down a bit. This current Fall collection is almost a bit out of hand with this "Other Side of Aspen" apres ski thing that he has going on.
In speaking with him he is constantly talking about how he just wants to take those classic and great comfortable things we all own (appears in this collection cargo shorts) and do them right and make them luxe (helps that Cuccineli is his manufacturer).
I haven't had the time to try on the trousers for this current Fall; but, last fall (his first collection) the glenplaid pair and the pair for my grey flannel suit are one of the best cuts of pants I've seen out there. Comfortable in the waist/crotch (room to move) and then slightly narrow down as you get to the ankle...perfert for hemming with no break.
Answer:
The Bastian stuff did nothing for me. It's just too blah. I felt like I was looking at a GAP photo shoot. Ralph's stuff was better, but little really grabbed me. With RL I'm sure I could find a lot of pieces I would like if I were browsing through it. Quite frankly, I've been more impressed with the Black Fleece spreads I've seen than either of those.
And could someone please stop Bastian and Ralph from allowing their models to wearing those sandals. :shudder:
Answer:
Both show respect and concern for their clients and their real lives. Isn't that what a clothing company should be about? Though I see little reason to waste money on a show for these companies, I realize that they have to put their stuff out there because it's now the way of the world.
Leave the perfume selling to the artists. Clothing companies that think about their customer's needs and not what Cathryn Horyn will write abut them are suddenly more interesting to me. Am I jaded? Perhaps. :blush:
Answer:
I must be a Philistine because I do not see what all the hoopla is about. Like someone had said before, Bastian's stuff are just expensive street wear in the veins of Gap/Old Navy. A model with an ideal body shape, tall with long legs, trim and fit torso, will look pretty good in a fitted garbage bag.
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I vote blah for Bastian also... I see nothing inventive in the design. And I thought Chalayan menswear was bland :confused:
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I have got the body shape you describe,
well maybe you could add really really ridiculously good looking
and despite all this I do not look good in a fitted garbage bag.
So I welcome designers that put out collections intended for the athletic body type.
In rtw clothing it is either very slim cut clothing made for walking skeletons or mainstream stuff square short people. Or the thom browne thing for tiny people from the shire.
and remember:
At the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, we teach you that there's more to life than being really, really good looking. :bigstar:
Answer:
Bastian's stuff has some nice details when you see it in the store.
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I see a lot of nice stuff in the the Bastian collection that I would wear as well. As Flieger stated...it's nice to see some things sized for a athletic figure.
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Just because they are unadorned active wear doesn't make them in the vein of a mall brand. Basitan is nothing like Old Navy/Gap/Banana except they both make American Sportswear.
Have you tried on a pair of pants or sweater from any of these companies? Awful and I don't mean that in a snobbish way. Their clothes are designed for everybody and nobody at the same time with a blobby fit and Chinese-made finish.
That's not to say they don't have their place in fashion. They do.
But I don't think the average person will cross shop Gap Chinos with a pair of Bastian Chinos or even RL (which is roughly 2x the price).
If I could afford it, I would wear almost the entire Bastian collection and I'm not even his fit model size. That said, his prices are fucking insane.
Answer:
The Ralph Lauren collection was full of the usual RL cheesy eccentric melodrama, so naturally I loved it. :)
Some of the striped suits towards the end were stunningly sharp.
Bastian looks very wearable, but I must admit I'm cheap enough not to want to pay the prices he asks.
Answer:
Does the world really need another pair of cut-offs for men?
Also, Dolphin shorts are generally bad news, except on certain women.
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I agree with AlanC--it just looks too much like Gap or mid-90s Banana Republic.
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Navy pinstripe suits from Brioni can look like those from the Mens Wearhouse.
