Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

In the run-up to Vancouver Fashion Week , I did this live hit from the Fashion Exchange during a fitting.

You can check it out at Shallom's blog . It originally aired on CBC radio in a shorter form.

A quick check up with all this talk of tuxes....a sign of taste and quality is whether or not tux rental shops offer simple classics. Many don't. I called around Vancouver and these are the one that have the "classic". Black and Lee offers the classic one-button, peak lapel called style "780" - romantic isn't it. But it is a catalog service which means, you can't try them on before ordering it. They do have a shawl collar with is a style I very much like, "700". I lost my shawl collar at my old tailoring shop. I think my master tailors sold it to someone else. True story! Freeman does, it's style 1000 (admittedly, two-button) but it's Calvin Klein and has a narrow fit. My good friends wore this cut last year and I was impressed. Plus you can have style 2087 (one-button, yeah!). Debonair , one of the few rentals which house suits on site, carry a two-button peak, style 270. NB the best part of renting from shops that have their own sui...

UPDATE - I despair. I just did some additional research on rental tuxedos. Leading Man - who carries a single-button, peak lapel - only offer the classic style with a pinstripe or with a strip of satin on the lapel only, both are the antithesis of classic! Hi JJ, Can you please suggest some Vancouver business to rent a wedding suit? I saw your blog on dinner jacket faux-pas and rules to follow. Thanks in advance, Dave Hi Dave. Thanks for writing. I love answering questions so keep them coming. I have to admit, I've rented only once in Bethesda, Maryland, an awful white double-breasted, dinner jacket with a ruby cummerbund. Ugh. Since then, I don't rent. Instead, I've had my dinner jackets custom-made and later, I bought, an Austrian number in mohair which, because I'm a duffer/tailor, I altered myself. I turned pleated pants into plain fronts. Not easy. For those, who've never apprenticed, there are good looks to be found in rentals. Outfits such as Tip Top (Freeman...

Check out this Toronto Sun article about Tommy Ton and his elevation much like The Sartorialist. And then there's the shoes .

I've changed my mind on some things.

The return of the bow tie at Club Monaco. This year it's skinny and striped. For all the closet kilt-wearers out there, this is your year. Judging from superstar designer Marc Jacobs' appearance in a black skirt during Paris's most recent fashion week and the fully-pleated flouncies by Japan's Comme de Garcons, swinging free and easy below the belt is the bold trend for men this spring. However, this flash-without-pants fad may be more suited to those who live on runways, Mars or, at least, Fiji. There, tailored, knee-length sulus function as acceptable businesswear. Not so in Canada. Here, it means a man intends to bend gender expectations for the whole day or hang around a circle of bagpipers. So, let's skirt around the skirt trend and find what top-notch fashionphiles picked as their fresh essentials for spring 2009...( continue in the Vancouver Sun)

At least for another 40 minutes and maybe more. Here's my interview last week with designer Kim Cathers (label, Kdon) about the battle to be Canada's top designer on Project Runway Canada . Of course, this was with Stephen Quinn on CBC Radio One's On The Coast .