Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

Q.  I like French cuff shirts, but how many pairs of cufflinks should you have and what are some affordable options? I don’t necessarily want to drop several hundred dollars on multiple sets, but get tired of using the same one all the time. — Sean, Toronto Today I took a nuts-and-bolts approach to collecting compelling cufflinks in The Vancouver Sun .

These are Orlebar Brown Setter Swim Shorts, You may not have heard of London swimwear maker Orlebar Brown but in a few months, with the release of the next James Bond film, Skyfall , you will 1 .

"Well it's got to be. I'll order you a red cap and a Speedo." TODAY, we offer Father’s Day gifts all themed around the films of Wes Anderson . Anderson is the American film director best known for his comedy, Rushmore , which is about a precocious polymath teenager at a private school who falls in love with his teacher. Of course there is also Fantastic Mr. Fox , The Royal Tenenbaums , The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited . His latest, Moonrise Kingdom , came out this weekensd. I nearly all his works we will find themes built around unsteady masculinity, boy-men looking for meaning, and often missing or wounded father figures, and these his films we often find items from the world of fashion used to connect the characters. To wit, I present stylish gift ideas inspired by the stylish films of Wes Anderson: 1. THE LIFE AQUATIC with STEVE ZISSOU Who can resist a nice tight Speedo? You can find swim briefs in navy, red, and blac...

Ferragamo's Baby Tiger pattern for Spring Summer 2012 Light, airy, and full of whimsy, the silk print or foulard tie with tiny geometric shapes or figures is the perfect piece to enliven a suit in the spring. And dismiss thoughts that a silk print is less worthy than a woven tie. Yes, a woven is hefty and it will bellow luxuriousness especially when paired with a thick, plutocratic knot. But it is heavy like a great overcoat. The finely printed tie, made by human hand or at least mechanized screen rather than the spew of an inkjet, can inspire singing in the rain, a shuffle and a tap, a game of catch. It can wave in a warm breeze and sway like a budding willow branch. Choose a simple four-in-hand knot and a young man's pointed or Eton collar, you pick, for a change. Hermes horses , Ferragamo horsebits , Liberty florals , Drakes muted madders are hardly jokes or novelties but wearing one would certainly be original.

Last night I attended the book launch of my good friend, Robyn Levy. Her book, Most of Me , is a great read. A funny, brave, honest look into living life with a sense of humour, a husband, a daughter, a dog and two diseases. Robyn read her passages beautifully and I was honoured to be there. Congratulations, Robyn. Now, for the special occasion I wore my favourite bow tie. It is paisley. It is English but not Liberty. It has seen many years of knotting and unknotting. Nevertheless, it is handsome. Only after I had walked out the door, as I passed a storefront window, I noticed the paisley and blue butterfly fraying. I could see the lining through the tear in the silk. Many men would give up on a tie that has frayed. No matter how well turned out, a man will disdain the garment in question. Even the world's most famous dandy, the first dandy, Beau Brummell, was pitied in later life for becoming tattered in his dress. His biographer, William Jessop, described Brummell'...

This tweed coat is not a blazer,  it's a sport coat but nomenclature shouldn't faze yer. A sporty coat is supposed to snap, This one has a vent that gaps. Somebody's bottom is looking fat. A good looking tweed ain't supposed to do that. For my actual thoughts on elbow patches. I don't like them. Here's why .

I receive many queries on the advisability of elbow patches on new  Harris tweed jackets. I am not against patching up old tweed jackets to mend a hole on a sleeve. I think patching clothes demonstrates love of a particular garment and is a charming sartorial practice. It hints at sage frugality and the muted nature of Old Money, which, by the way, hardly exists anymore because now it is New Money that everyone imitates. A repaired tweed sports coat has dignity. However, buying a new tweed coat with patches already affixed strikes me as painfully presumptuous on several levels. 1. Those who would deem to buy a pre-patcher are most often the type of person who would rarely don the jacket in question frequently enough to wear any hole into the elbow 2. If one did indeed wish to fake the impression of heavy use, the ridiculous symmetry of  having TWO elbow patches, one on each arm, reflects a lack of understanding. A well lived-in jacket will always experience...

This season smallish, modest trilbies and fedoras will suffer an inferiority complex as wider hats will be donned by men, especially those who have a flare for the dramatic. Dsquared²'s menswear collection featured on the runway deep covering brimmed chapeaux with bowlish crowns. Style.com reports they are Borsalinos . Which makes them the official supplier of the trend as Junya Watanabe also featured bigger brimmed fare by Borsalino in the form of bowlers (also called derby or coke - and, yes, they can have big brims) and Homburgs (Germanic upturned brims). In both runway shows, the hats seem peaky. That is they are slightly misshapen as if by rain and snow, lending the hats a recession-era ruggedness. If not, they should be. Some have called the whole trend towards bolder head cover the "Amish hat trend," but more often than not, they will be in fact be flamenco/Cordobes, gaucho hats, or any number of larger hats. While shorter men, may need to be careful...

It's not a Barbour jacket because that would be too posh for English cockney kids. Not a trucker. Not enough seams. With classic bomber jackets, I see shearling and welt pockets. Or pilot jackets with no shearling and patch pockets mid-torso for navigation maps and cigarettes. Need more detail? Sorry, didn't mean to cut off his wand. It was especially made, presumably, by UK costumiers, Angels . I would describe it as a zip-front ranch jacket. Belstaff, the motorcyle jacket company, refers to this kind of cut as a blouson . Quiksilver (below) has something close but the collar is different. It also comes in gunmetal grey.

As a recent San Francisco Chronicle article declared: pocket squares, handkerchiefs, puffs, what have you, are returning to the menswear lexicon thanks to TV shows like Mad Men. In Vancouver, a city which takes going casual seriously, the spray of fabric has become an acceptable replacement for a tie. It is dressy but not too dressy. But what of the pocket that holds it: the breast pocket? Imagine if the breast pocket were not there. What would be lost? Angled correctly a breast pocket, distinguished by the tab of fabric known as a welt, has the desirable effect of visually lifting and broadening the chest. Sometimes careless suit makers will make a breast pocket dead, flat horizontal, in which case, it would only visually fatten the wearer’s torso by making it look boxy. But a great breast pocket rises slightly towards the shoulder. Not too acutely. If done right it can enliven the dead zone between the lapels and the shoulder and through the introduction of a slight diag...

Is it okay to dress like you're a partner in a 1960s ad agency in the 21st century? Today when I go On the Coast , I talk with host Stephen Quinn about Mad Men style, the hit AMC show, and its growing influence on menswear.

Twenty years and going strong or rather still riding low. Sagging jeans have always been controversial. A New York Times article attests to its restriction in the US south. But policing sagged jeans has reached new lows with a court hearing in New York. It might be a fashion disaster but is it a crime? I spoke this week with Stephen Quinn, host of On The Coast, CBC Radio One, about the Mystery of the Sagging Jeans , its cultural origin and why it's still in style.

The front tuck, the half tuck, the belt tuck. The mullet of the shirt to pant interfaces. Both inside AND out. A great example is Dave Mullen's (of Save Khaki) in his designer profile in GQ . Polo players do it. Hockey players do it. Gretzky did it best! But off the ice, on the street, why do men wear their shirts in a state of dishevelled limbo? And how is it done well? I talked on CBC's On The Coast with guest host Grant Lawrence of Radio 3 about those demi shirt hem insertions . I also received a great email from Dave Tomlinson, colour announcer and hockey expert for the Team 1040 in Vancouver. He played for the Jets and Leafs, most notably, and had the following insights on the Great One's half tuck (this column's contribution to hockey lore). Gretzky did the tuck when he was a youngster because the jersey's were large and he was tiny, so he tucked in the side on the top hand of his stick...because without doing that, the excess jersey would get caught up on ...

Ann Hollander, in her book Sex and Suits , writes the the taming of the lapel and collar between 1750 and 1800 is the real beginning of modern suit tailoring: “Its collar was forced by clever cut, steaming and stiffening to curve up and around the neck, to fold over and open out in front, and to form lapels that would obediently lie down and align themselves smoothly with the body of the coat.” I love the way she writes about suits. There is something so BDSM in her language. You can hear the crack of the whip and how it goes loose with obedience, curves and stiffening. In Ann’s sartorial universe, lapels could be the boned corset underneath a Turnbull and Asser dress shirt. Lapels are, can be, should be: kinky, dangerous, sleek . . . when buying a suit, you deserve lapels that are potent and have some or all these qualities.

JJ in the Vancouver Sun : VANCOUVER — To rent or to buy is not the question. What really matters when it comes to wearing black tie is looking like you belong in a tuxedo. Admittedly, all men can't be James Bond or Barack Obama, but it is possible to achieve some true panache, thereby avoiding any associations with Batman's flightless adversary, the Penguin (who technically wore a tailcoat and therefore was dressed in white tie), or high school graduation. Guy Voglino, New York-based divisional merchandise manager for Brooks Brothers, offered the following advice.... (read the rest in the Vancouver Sun)

If you need MORE than a quick drop-off and instant, most likely dubious, shoe repairs, you need to know Mr. Ho, my shoe guy for the last ten years. The news: he is still in business. You see, he used to be next to the Vancouver diner, Cafe S'il Vous Plait (remember smoking there and drinking bottomless coffees?), but the rent went up and left Mr. Ho looking for new digs. If you go there now, you'll find an empty shop and no sign as to where he went (shameful landlord). Well, he has found a new cobbling corner - a few blocks east at 292 Robson Street near Hamilton, across the street from the CBC and TV Towers. He played a big part in my shoe education. Church's, John Lobb, Edward Green, Dack's Made in England. He told me, if you find them, buy them. And I did. Amassing quite a fine collection of cap-toes and winged brogues. More importantly, Mr. Ho takes care of my shoes and he does it with a love of what he does. Three decades and still marching on. Congrats on the n...

Yesterday, I was organising the clothes for a UBC Alumni event at Banana Republic on Robson and Thurlow. I believe I was there for five hours. Nevertheless, it was fun. The concept is to speak to young alumni about dressing at the next level (not dressing for a job interview) but how to dress for the workplace and advancement. Actor, writer, trouble-maker and heart-breaker Tetsuro Shigematsu will be my partner on stage and the incomparable social columnist Fred Lee will be there as well. No John Molloy here - "Dress For Success" - that way of thinking kind of makes me gag. More importantly we look at how to dress grown-up with out dressing old. Now, the important stuff...what will I be wearing? So glad you asked. I will be sporting a gray flannel pencil stripe suit with a notch collar. And, because I like taking risks, I'm pairing it with a red (dominant) and blue micro plaid shirt. Both items will be from BR's Heritage Collection . It says Heritage - but the cut is ...

I just bought a tailor's form. It's a padded male torso and neck that sits on a chrome stand. The jacket is now draped over it. The dummy will allow me to pin and baste stitch possible alterations. Think of it as sketch drawing on the suit with needle and thread. The rig is very light and I find I move it around from the centre of the living room to near the bookcase to a corner in the bedroom depending on my need for light or to be closer to the clock radio or to protect it from kitchen smells while I'm cooking. Sometimes in the middle of a chore or writing, I'll forget I have "him" or where I've put "him" and out of the corner of my eye I'll see my father for just a blink.

(photo credit: davidwilkesbespoke.com/Jonathan Cruz) David Wilkes, bespoke tailor, who will be featured in my fall menswear piece for the Vancouver Sun, not only got the big thumbs up from Douglas Coupland, now the writer is praising Wilkes at GQ UK ! The word: Your website contains an index of "Couplandisms," one of which asserts that "Once you establish a look, and once everybody recognises that look as your look, you never have to think about fashion again." What's your look? Headwise, I always kind of knew that everyone goes grey in our family very early—and I was like, it works for me. I started growing my beard and it changes the shape of your skull and your face, and I started seeing my mother's side of the family in myself for the first time. I always get jealous of Prince William because he looks so much like his mom, so that's why I keep this [beard] but it makes me look so old fashioned—I look like an Antarctic explorer or an old Civil War pho...