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If you been on Styleforum in the past month, you know that veteran Styleforum member gdl203 is opening up a new online menswear store, No Man Walks Alone. Excitement is building, with the SF affiliate thread already swelled to over 50 pages. I interviewed him at the store's warehouse in New York City. This is the first part of our discussion, which will be published in three segments.
David Isle: How did you first learn about the brands you're carrying in the store?
Greg Lellouche: Either through the forum or shopping at other places. There are a few online stores that I think have very good taste. But there are a number of brands in the store that are not forum darlings or even well represented anywhere online. A brand that to me is a good example of an underrated casual brand is Oliver Spencer. I think he's got a very good eye for mixing tradition patterns, fabrics, English tweeds, and a little bit of a mod feel. And he still manages to keep everything feeling relaxed and approachable. He has a runway show but everything on it is very wearable.
There are a number of brands like that that really have nothing to do with the forum. Valstar is another example, I think. But it's a small company – they have only twenty-something employees. They don't make a lot of coats, and they make them well, so they tend to be a little higher priced than what would look like an equivalent bomber jacket, but it's made much more nicely with expensive English wools, cashmere blend linings, horn buttons, which you might be used to seeing on classic tailored clothing, but not on more casual sportswear.
So No Man Walks Alone a mix of brands from the forum and others that I've experienced in my own purchases. And a couple that I've discovered at Pitti – for example, Inglese shirts. I wasn't familiar with them at all, but stopped by their small booth at Pitti and was really impressed with the handmade details on the shirts that I had never seen in RTW. Then I visited their workshop and got very excited about it.
DI: There are also some brands in the store that might be really well known on one side of the forum, but not yet on the other, whereas you're pretty familiar with the obsessions of both sides – like the Buttero sneakers for example.
GL: Yea – or even Inis Meain is a good example. You have the more heritage-oriented guys on the streetwear side like zissou who'd be tooting the horn of Scotish and Aran knits and the old knitting companies but people on the classic side don't pay much attention.
That's one of the things that's been bugging me on the forum – I think it comes down to the architecture of the forum, which is kind of sad. On the forum you have two clear “sides,” but everything is really on a continuum rather than binary. I don't wear the same thing on Sunday as I wear during the week when I go to work. I don't buy into the idea that because you're bespeaking suits and wearing Drake's ties during the week then you must wear penny loafers and moleskin trousers with a tweed jacket on Sunday.
I don't know if it's a New York City bias, but people here wear sharp suits during the week and a baseball hat and sneakers on the weekend. You have to have the ability to feel comfortable in casual wear too. And that doesn't mean you have to be the guy who dresses down completely. That's the very reason why I want to offer weekend wear – to show people that there's really nice stuff there in between the tweed jacket and a polyester windbreaker.
And just because you wear Lobbs during the week doesn't mean you have to avoid sneakers unless you're playing tennis. People have been wearing sneakers with jeans for 40 years now. But you can wear a horrible-looking made-in-China sneaker that are designed in 100 colors, or you can wear a better designed, more interesting sneaker like Buttero or Common Projects or even Superga, and look really good.
Moving away from this binary mentality was always an important aspect of the store. It's not a site where we teach you about classic menswear and tell you you're not a man if you wear sneakers.
David Isle: How did you first learn about the brands you're carrying in the store?
Greg Lellouche: Either through the forum or shopping at other places. There are a few online stores that I think have very good taste. But there are a number of brands in the store that are not forum darlings or even well represented anywhere online. A brand that to me is a good example of an underrated casual brand is Oliver Spencer. I think he's got a very good eye for mixing tradition patterns, fabrics, English tweeds, and a little bit of a mod feel. And he still manages to keep everything feeling relaxed and approachable. He has a runway show but everything on it is very wearable.
There are a number of brands like that that really have nothing to do with the forum. Valstar is another example, I think. But it's a small company – they have only twenty-something employees. They don't make a lot of coats, and they make them well, so they tend to be a little higher priced than what would look like an equivalent bomber jacket, but it's made much more nicely with expensive English wools, cashmere blend linings, horn buttons, which you might be used to seeing on classic tailored clothing, but not on more casual sportswear.
So No Man Walks Alone a mix of brands from the forum and others that I've experienced in my own purchases. And a couple that I've discovered at Pitti – for example, Inglese shirts. I wasn't familiar with them at all, but stopped by their small booth at Pitti and was really impressed with the handmade details on the shirts that I had never seen in RTW. Then I visited their workshop and got very excited about it.
DI: There are also some brands in the store that might be really well known on one side of the forum, but not yet on the other, whereas you're pretty familiar with the obsessions of both sides – like the Buttero sneakers for example.
GL: Yea – or even Inis Meain is a good example. You have the more heritage-oriented guys on the streetwear side like zissou who'd be tooting the horn of Scotish and Aran knits and the old knitting companies but people on the classic side don't pay much attention.
That's one of the things that's been bugging me on the forum – I think it comes down to the architecture of the forum, which is kind of sad. On the forum you have two clear “sides,” but everything is really on a continuum rather than binary. I don't wear the same thing on Sunday as I wear during the week when I go to work. I don't buy into the idea that because you're bespeaking suits and wearing Drake's ties during the week then you must wear penny loafers and moleskin trousers with a tweed jacket on Sunday.
I don't know if it's a New York City bias, but people here wear sharp suits during the week and a baseball hat and sneakers on the weekend. You have to have the ability to feel comfortable in casual wear too. And that doesn't mean you have to be the guy who dresses down completely. That's the very reason why I want to offer weekend wear – to show people that there's really nice stuff there in between the tweed jacket and a polyester windbreaker.
And just because you wear Lobbs during the week doesn't mean you have to avoid sneakers unless you're playing tennis. People have been wearing sneakers with jeans for 40 years now. But you can wear a horrible-looking made-in-China sneaker that are designed in 100 colors, or you can wear a better designed, more interesting sneaker like Buttero or Common Projects or even Superga, and look really good.
Moving away from this binary mentality was always an important aspect of the store. It's not a site where we teach you about classic menswear and tell you you're not a man if you wear sneakers.
