Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

This is a vintage Joseph Abboud lambswool jacket from the 1980s. It is unstructured and HAD huge honking shoulder pads. It is of course inspired by the unstructured jackets of Armani. If you've only read about coats of this vintage, wearing a high-fashion sports coat from this error era (duh) is all about a feral posture. The coats are designed for men with heavy back and forward hunched shoulders. Insouciant swagger. Another note is the middle button is very low slung. It hits about belt high and not mid-sternum as in contemporary jackets. You will be seeing button dropping down again soon and  I'm beginning to like this style. It creates a longer lapel line. Though as a bowtie wearer it can show too much shirt (I don't mind show three shirt buttons but four is just too awful.). The last few days I've been slowly altering the jacket to make it meet more contemporary tastes. First off, the wool is gorgeous. A very loose woven, nearly feels like a knit. To mak...

Certain fashion trends, even if they’re ballyhooed and blogged to the heavens, fail to lift off. Some just take time to build. For example, take wide-leg trousers. For the past four seasons, retailers have been tempting women to peel off their skinnies and buy newer, more swishy pants. The trend has been packaged as neo-hippie groove, North African harem pant chic, and as plucky yet romantic Amelia Earhart androgyny. The reception, however, continues to be lukewarm. Women prefer squeezing into their tight denim. The male approach to change can be even more glacial, no matter how hard fashion labels and retailers strive to quicken the tempo of men’s clothing consumption. Once men adopt a look, such as the spread-collared shirts, they find it hard to let go. Even if it makes many of their heads look terribly fat. So, with that in mind, change can be a good thing. Here are a few fashion-savvy types with their fall trends. You may find some very familiar. All are worth adopti...

It's here . Featuring mixed prints from large florals (top) to small florals (skirt), the nicest arms in the Free World, a overly boho patchwork trapeze meets kimono dress and a husband who isn't gaining weight but IS wearing heavy bullet-proof armour (see tuxedo).

Joan Jett hair hit the runway in New York's fashion week. I saw the real Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and the Pacific National Exhibition with the boys. It was a sad night. Her mother had died the night before and dedicated the performance to her. To get a feel of how it looked, here is Joan in encore mode from a concert from last summer during happier times.

This fashion immediacy thing — yes, if you can order the clothes immediately, if you can see them and press a button and they can be shipped to your house, I get fashion immediacy.…I don’t get the need for this immediacy. In fact, I think it’s bad. The way the system works now, you see the clothes, within an hour or so they’re online, the world sees them. They don’t get to a store for six months. The next week, young celebrity girls are wearing them on red carpets. They’re in every magazine. The customer is bored with those clothes by the time they get to the store. They’re overexposed, you’re tired of them, they’ve lost their freshness, you see somebody wearing it and you say, “Oh, that’s that jacket that was in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Or [a] customer doesn’t want to wear that jacket that was in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In addition, all of the fast-fashion companies that do a great job, by the way, knock everything off. So it’s everywhere all over the streets in three mont...

It will create a very thick knot. Only best to wear with a wider lapeled jacket.

Natalie Purschwitz has done something unheard of in our times: she wore clothes for a year made by her hands only. Not just clothes. Underwear, socks, shoes, even home-made sunglasses. Bras exploded. Clogs killed. Some days she just wanted to go shopping. She had become a person on the outside of our culture of instant fashionistas and super consumers. She wanted to quit. But she never did. And today she finishes off 365 days of wearing her makeshift clothes. CONGRATULATIONS!!!! To see her journey of self-made styles, check her blog, Makeshift . Final Makeshift Day, H&G website update, BC Creative Achievement Award and upcoming show at JCNM At last - it's the final day of makeshift. It's been a long year for me. If you ever hear me making any remarks about doing something like this again, please dissuade me or suggest that I consider a shorter time frame. I am so sick of homemade socks. Though exhausted, I do feel some satisfaction at having fulfilled my goal. It was s...

The break down. While notch lapels are not my favourite. Shawls and peaks are. This example of a trim notch with a nice James Dean-like skinny bow tie (the only way to interpret the skinny trend in a bow tie) is youthful and modern. Perhaps too much shirt is showing but what can be done? A higher button stance would lead to showing more of the white triangle at the bottom. This matters as this isan era when most men choose not to wear a cummerbund. I often go without, however, one time a photographer insisted I open my dinner jacket. I refused. The best man became piqued and I obliged. Later that year I bought a cummerbund. (And I wear it! - JJ, 2012) One solution to the belt -ine triangle problem is to wear high-waist pants. In any case, for semi-formal wear, where one should never open their jacket in polite company, this would be a great solution. If only I became a real tailor, I could do these things myself.

Dev Patel is featured in GQ . While the spread concerned itself with Fall's new suits, what I liked about the images was how young and fresh his suits looked without making the cardinal mistakes some men are making as they attempt to modernize their suits. I dislike how some are trying to match heavy English spread collars into suits with narrow lapels. If one likes a wider spread, go for a medium spread with shorter (Edwardian-styled) collar points. Also, if one adopts thinner ties, the horizontal spread collar won't work. There's too much shirt space to fill. There's one CBC weatherman (Kalin!) in Toronto who does it far too much. Wide spread, narrow lapel, skinny ties. Not good. Medium spread with short points on a shirt is the way to go.

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 ...

(Fashion Monday audio here or read on!) If it's about "BUY OR DON’T BUY?" I say it’s a buy. I spoke with Wendy de Kruyff, owner of Dream Apparel in Vancouver. Wendy says most women are wearing clogs in Vancouver as a mix of both fashion shoe and a comfort shoe. Wendy says she’s seeing this season with skinny jeans. And as I was speaking with her, a customer walked in with clogs with wide leg pants. In other words, it’s a versatile shoe. Because it’s a natural shoe with a wood sole, it’s good too keep things natural and fresh above it. Shiny black leggings may not work for most. Jenna (who is a co-worker and posed the question) is a perfect person to show a lot of leg, up to mid-thigh. Overall, I really like the look with a simple summer dress. Consider seersucker or chambray. Vancouver designer Allison Smith of Allison Wonderland came out with short shirt dresses in chambray. It would be lovely with clogs and it's on sale at Dream for $150. BUYING GUIDE: Clogs are ...

Vancouver designer and fashion blogger , Terri Potratz, posted a neat video featuring images from her Larry collection's shoot for Fall/Winter 2010. By Bienvenido Cruz . Scrolling Through Aperture from Bienvenido Cruz on Vimeo .

Not the best weather, admittedly. But there's nothing that says men can't be ready to hit the beach. Today, guest host for CBC's On The Coast, Lisa Christiansen, and I answered listeners' email questions about men's swimsuits and good beach grooming. I turned to Swimco and Absolute Spa for advice. Here's our delicate conversation about Speedos, grooming and how to look like Daniel Craig. Sort of .