Showing posts with label ben silver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ben silver. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Double Breasted tweed

By actual count I have more than my share of tweed jackets in my closets. Irish tweed, Manx tweed, Harris tweed, and the odd mutt thrown in for good measure. Not a double breasted in the mix. Rarer than hens teeth, Ben Silver is showing 2 this season.

Nice tweed, but to my eye something appears off. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the casual tweed and the more formal peaked lapels.

I'm all over wearing the unexpected, and applaud the man who can wear this, but if this is such a great idea why don't we see it more often? Makes a better suit coat than odd jacket, don't ya think? Just saying.

Toad

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Am I just getting old?


I get about 3 pounds of catalogs a week from Ben Silver, a Charleston, SC haberdashery. Their marketing plan is primarily to offer very good looking gentleman's clothes, via the Internet, very expensively. I have in fact shopped there, but only from the outlet. Can't afford it otherwise.

While they do offer women's clothes, I generally am not privy to those catalogs, for which my mailman is grateful. Today I did receive an insert in my daily catalog which featured women's holiday wear.

Below are several examples. The models are store employees and are very attractive in a SC sort of way. The dresses I'm not so sure. The green numbers would keep me up nights.

Perhaps I have finally become too old for my own good.












Toad

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Bow Ties

Photo courtesy of Ben Silver, Charleston


I love bow ties so much that I have not worn a long tie in 8 years. It's Mrs. T's fault.
In fall Y2K her brother's wedding was on the horizon, and in anticipation of the blessed nuptials I refreshed my wardrobe. When time came to pick up the altered goods I make the worst mistake a man can make, as concerns his appearance. I brought the wife.

Adults should dress themselves. Every lazy man deserves every fate which befalls him who takes his wife shopping.

While in the shop she asks what are you wearing to the wedding? I replied and then she handed me this tie. It would look lovely said she.




I protested, I wept, I cried, I wore it. After the wedding I tried to take it back, but the merchant had had a party when they finally got rid of that tie, and wouldn't hear of it.

Slowly at first , then quickly, I rid myself of all my long ties, save 3, which I keep around as an aide memoir, and went the bow route, never once asking my brides opinion.

Bow ties are somewhat subversive. So few men wear them that its rare not to get a reaction when wearing one. Stereotypes run wild. I love it, much the way Tom Wolfe loves his white suits. Its a stick in the eye to portentousness.

Bows are found in the dusty bins in back of most haberdasheries. Ben Silver in Charleston, and Southern Proper make my favorites. Now if only I could arrange a trip to Bristol Tennesse, Wm King has my next favorite of tie.


In the mean time, thanks for reading. Stop in and say hello.
Toad