Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

Hi JJ, I’m wondering if you could recommend a local tailor to get some alterations done to my suits. I’m moved from Edmonton and I don’t think it’s practical for me to bring garments back to her for tailoring so I need to find somebody local who will do a good job. I’ve recently lost a few inches around my waist so need to have my pants taken in on 7 or 8 suits. I’m getting married this summer and am wondering if you know of a local tailor that would be good to make a Tuxedo. I’ve resisted buying one to this point but feel this is as good a time as any to get one made. I traveled to Hong Kong a few years ago and got some shirts and a suit made and thought I might use the same tailor to make the Tuxedo but I’m a bit nervous about not seeing it before hand and the ability to make alterations as required. Do you have any suggestions for me? Finally, related to the second question, I’d like to know what the best choice would be for a more timeless tux. I haven’t looked at many styles...

Hello Mr.Lee,My name is Meera, I am a grade 7 student at B-------- elementary.  As a project,  I have chosen to research fashion.  Not what the fashion is now, but how it is decided.  I would like to know who decides fashion trends and how the ideas become what's all the rage in the stores.  I've heard you on the CBC radio and I thought that with all your experience with fashion, you could give me some insight into the subject.  -Meera Hi Meera. Sure, I can help.  Trends are not often set in Vancouver. But style editors do have an influence on where people shop and what they buy. Trends can be set at two points in the fashion cycle (there's no such thing but it sounds scientific):  1. Design and production (the high fashion route) or 2. On the Street by how people (ie trendsetters) dress. If a bunch of kids in London decide to cut up their jeans and use safety pins to decorate it, a la the punk scene in 1976, it can have influence on other kids and start a trend. Another of...

It's finally here. New York's oldest purveyor of prep fashion, like, the original, has opened its first Canadian store in Vancouver. At the opening party on Tuesday, I saw plenty of bow ties. Finally, I'm not alone. See me (circa 2007), see the boys at BB, plus I also saw one young man, an intern at Fashion Magazine, sporting a frayed, grosgrain. Shabby chic, indeed. I loved it. This is the year the trends takes hold. Mark my word (I've been saying this for the last three, mind you). More notes: One fashion editor  doesn't think Brooks Brother straw hat is worth eight times more than my find at the Bay (bottom). Four times, yes. Eight, no. If I had the cash, I would buy pairs of boy-sized penny loafers for my twin terribles ($118).  And I must get them those teeny tiny blazers. My boys will hate me later, it's true. I also loved the very affordable repp nylon watch straps. Buy a Timex, get a BB strap ($18) and you can take a break from your heavy and overostenta...

I spoke with Farzad the barber in Yaletown. Great guy with a great shop. He does a mean straight razor shave . Will have a complete piece on playoff beards for my next Fashion Monday on, er, Monday. Until then check out Farzad .

Dora Lee is a recent Kwantlen fashion design graduate. This month she won the LG Denim DIY competition . It was a national contest for under-25-year-od designers. The goal: dream up a pair for Sears' Nevada line of casual wear. Usually priced between $20-50, JJ Lee of Fashion Monday asks, "How do you put the chic in cheap?" With the always gracious Stephen Quinn, host of CBC's current affairs show, On The Coast , in Vancouver.

If you've always suspected that I'm too conservative when it comes to menswear, this may prove your point. Brooks Brothers is opening its first Canadian store in Vancouver and I'm absolutely stoked. As an alienated teen of the eighties, I was a pure, unadulterated nerd (not remotely in a cool way) or, on occasion, I aspired to appear as an art punk/new waver. Some of my peers would have had some elements of proto-Goth (I'm thinking of you, Ms. Watson) but I was too pop for that. Even when I went for half-shaved hair, torn shirts and black, army surplus high tops, or just plain ugly jeans with baggy t-shirts, I always looked with envy and lust at the preppies of Hudson High School and Chambly County High School. Somehow all of this manifested now as a passion for Trad or Prep clothes. I'm a HUGE fan of J. Press in New York. I do wear bowties and button downs but alas it doesn't change the past. I'll never have a tryst with M. Spriggs . She was simply beauti...

If you care about local fashion, you had to be worried when Colleen Miller closed the doors to Button Button last year. Well, rejoice: the Vancouver style institution has found a new location in Gastown. Vegetable ivory, horn, and exquisite leather buttons can be had again. Bravo, Colleen. I will be there soon, my on hold projects are back on track.

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 .