Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

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...

Wednesday, October 12 - I’ll be reading from The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit at Calgary’s Wordfest . Taking place at noon, it is a free hour-long event in the lovely confines of the boutique Hotel le Germain in Calgary. Details here . Thursday, October 13 - In addition, I will be appearing in a panel with Lynn Coady and Emma Ruby-Sachs on social publishing: …The artists will discuss the blurring of authorship in an interactive environment where the reader and fan can offer feedback, ask questions, and have conversations that may influence content creation. They can also compare this to the solitary act of writing that has traditionally been how writers create. I am very excited to be discussing this evolving phenomena with Coady and Ruby-Sachs. My focus is how my friends and family via facebook, tumblr, and twitter activities are becoming fodder for my work as a fashion journalist and memoirist. Details here .

Today's column: Discussing Damian Van Zyll de Jong one of the founders of Native Shoes with CBC Radio One host Stephen Quinn ON THE COAST CBC VANCOUVER

I spoke with Carly Lenarduzzi of Mintage Vintage in Vancouver about a few tips on how to buy a classic prom dress that's a blast from the past. I shared them with Stephen Quinn of CBC's On The Coast  in Vancouver. She's online on Etsy and has a store in Vancouver: www.mintagevintage.com carly@mintagevintage.com 1714 commercial drive, vancouver, bc 604.mintage

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...

John Fluevog gets the retrospective treatment this week at the Museum of Vancouver ! For CBC's On The Coast with Stephen Quinn , I interviewed Fluevog this week about his 40 years designing and what makes a good shoe.

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.

Sometimes, I worry that I'm wasting my time writing about fashion. Then I realize, there are few men who actually have a feel for writing about menswear. Case in point - this little here article from the Calgary paper...what is it? The Herald? Anyway, I'll assume it was filed by a disgruntled crime beat reporter whom they are torturing into retirement by making him write fashion pieces. I personally like writing about fashion and see it as a pure joy. Tell me if you detect any joy in story . Is this a beauty or what? The whole mess reminds me of something the very fine fashion thinker and sometimes literary pornographer Russell Smith wrote about Indian blog content mills . Both the Herald piece and the example Smith offers share an impenetrable cluelessness, a total quality of daftness... "Watches have hands. They are called analog. Ironically, even though "digital" watches are called so, they have no hands. In Latin, digit means fingers. Fingers are attached to...

My most recent article on leather made it to the National Post . I'm not sure if it's hitting the print edition. Either way, it's nice to know the stuff is getting out beyond Vancouver, once and a while. Lately, I've been wearing a brown leather jacket in a denim cut. It hits two inches above a lower waistband but hits just right with my GWGs. Ah, my GWGs. I've set out to wear them nearly everyday and abuse them as naturally and often as possible. I bought them at the Army and Navy in New Westminster for $29.99. This summer, I swam in the Pacific with them on twice. And I've only washed it once. I've had them since June and only now are they beginning to show some nice whiskering. The experiment continues!

If you're looking for Measure of a Man - my Ideas documentary on the history of suits - you'll find it online here .

Receiving a sweater as a holiday gift can be a big let down. Really, how many of you have had enough with those light, v-neck pullovers of cashmere or mohair that dress well for work and evening-time play? Yes, they are comfortable, contemporary and they do look nice underneath a good sports coat but they also lack surface detail, drama and a sense of substance. Sometimes sweaters like that feel too much like t-shirts. They just don't have enough gravitas and perhaps this holiday there can be nothing worse than another one of its ilk lurking in wait beneath the boughs of a decorated tree. If you have such woolen trepidation, fear not. The winds of change are a blowing. Cut this article out and let your gift buyers know sweaters are manning-up this season. Knitwear 2008 is sturdier, chunkier, and, strangely, kind-of paternalistic in a hip kind of way. It draws inspiration from male archetypes such as navy fighter pilots, rugged outdoorsmen, the Amerian G. I.'s that flooded campu...

Regardless of today's high temperature, it 'tis the season to be wearing sweaters and I spoke with a twin set of designers - Anthony Castro and Scott Walhovd of the local label and boutique, 212 - about the warm and fuzzy. Bold...fetish...architectural are the trends governing womenswear this season but how do they apply to this season's sweaters? They do and they don't. The idea of bold silhouettes can't manifest in knitwear the way they can in leather goods or structured tailored clothes. That said, Sweaters are chunky with bold collars and details. Another trend s a low-slung aesthetic. It's like gravity has taken hold of dramatically cut soft materials and dragged it down to create the slouchy look. Think swooshes, downward hem lines and neck lines. It's a relief after years of high-cropped clothes like belly shirts and layered looks that have segmented women's bodies between the bust and waist. Now, it's time to look at layering action around ...

Call him David the Tailor. And then drop your jaw in awe. David Wilkes is of a rare breed: a young man willing and able to hand sew men's suits so that the fit and stylings are perfect. He was featured in the CBC documentary, Tailor Made, as was I (see below). I had a chance to talk to him about the unique menswear he creates...but first I asked, "How old are you?" Listen .

Britt Wyatt of Dutil Denim in Vancouver sizes up my derriere and gives me the skinny on men's jeans for Spring 2008. Listen to the writ of the Britt.

Finding the right fit for a wedding dress means picking a gown proportioned for your body type. Pulling a picture out of a magazine is one thing, trying on the look with your mother and your bridesmaid in tow is another. Why go through the frustration? Here's a helpful guide to matching body types to this year's bridal wear trends. VBD spoke with Sally Georgees of Sposa Wedding World in New Westminster about picking the right look for your body shape. Listen .

Football playoffs aside, it is kick-off time for brides-to-be. Wedding dresses take six to seven months to order, fit and adjust. So the first weeks of January become the buy or die moment for women planning summer nuptials. Thousands of brides heard the whistle and descended upon Wedding World 2008 at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center. That's where VBD had a chance to speak to some brides about their search for the perfect wedding dress. Plus a few points from Pearl Chen from Bello Wedding World to help you avoid wedding dress search meltdowns. Listen .

Contexture brings new life to dying technologies, all the while, finding ways to accessorize your paper coffee cups. The Vancouver designers behind Contexture, Trevor Coghill and Nathan Lee, have been getting the star treatment with a New York Times style magazine spotlight. Here's VBD's visit with Lee and Coghill.