With emptym's kind permission I'm setting up a thread for Keikari's extensive interview series. I'll update it with snippets and photos after adding some new profiles so casual readers can follow some more or less familiar names and faces. So far I've collected 135 tailors, cordwainers, retailers, artisans, bloggers, writers and arbiters of elegance, and hopefully I'll reach a thousand within a decade. Some background: the series began in August 2009 when I felt that style sites and magazines were featuring the same makers, merchants and rakes time and again. This left out many men with intriguing backgrounds and a wealth of experience, though some had set up blogs to inspire and share their insights. I approach these interviewees due to their accomplishments, persona, taste or intrigue, and some of them are bound to raise eyebrows. I believe the tailor Darren Beaman wasn't a very welcome addition, but he's part of the story of this odd world of online style forums. Perhaps some profiles and their answers, or what's left out, will spark some debate in this thread.
The latest victim is Nicholas Storey, who's written three books which, by his words, are tongue-in-cheek collections of anecdotes and history of accessories and fine living. These include History of Men's Fashion, History of Men's Etiquette and History of Men's Accessories, though he's the first to acknowledge that the titles are inaccurate, chosen by his publisher, Pen&Sword. He's also an active member of Filmnoirbuff's forum and settled to Brazil in 2006. Below's a portion of his interview.
'I don’t really regard my interest in clothes as a hobby or a passion. I think that clothes should be background to our daily activities and that they should be appropriate to those activities but clothes should never be an end in themselves. There is, somewhere on the internet, a photograph of some chap, in full evening dress (including a topper), in a plastic-furnished ice cream parlour. That’s just nuts. People should dress appropriately for the time, place and company; in the best clothes that they can find but wearing full evening dress for a visit to an ice cream parlour is just as inappropriate as wearing jeans to the opera or to a high-end casino – and a good deal more ludicrous.
I enjoy beach fishing, which I am sure that my fly-fishing friends back home would regard as highly suspect, if not infra dig.. There is little in the way of country sport, in terms of hunting and shooting here and, one of these days, we will take a trip down to Uruguay or Argentina, where these things are understood and practised. I am not sure that, after living in a climate where, except for five to ten days of winter (when the temperature drops to 15-18 degrees Celsius) nearly every day of the year is like a fine south European summer day, we could face the English winter again, when country sports are in full flight there.'
The rest can be found through my forum signature.
The latest victim is Nicholas Storey, who's written three books which, by his words, are tongue-in-cheek collections of anecdotes and history of accessories and fine living. These include History of Men's Fashion, History of Men's Etiquette and History of Men's Accessories, though he's the first to acknowledge that the titles are inaccurate, chosen by his publisher, Pen&Sword. He's also an active member of Filmnoirbuff's forum and settled to Brazil in 2006. Below's a portion of his interview.
'I don’t really regard my interest in clothes as a hobby or a passion. I think that clothes should be background to our daily activities and that they should be appropriate to those activities but clothes should never be an end in themselves. There is, somewhere on the internet, a photograph of some chap, in full evening dress (including a topper), in a plastic-furnished ice cream parlour. That’s just nuts. People should dress appropriately for the time, place and company; in the best clothes that they can find but wearing full evening dress for a visit to an ice cream parlour is just as inappropriate as wearing jeans to the opera or to a high-end casino – and a good deal more ludicrous.
I enjoy beach fishing, which I am sure that my fly-fishing friends back home would regard as highly suspect, if not infra dig.. There is little in the way of country sport, in terms of hunting and shooting here and, one of these days, we will take a trip down to Uruguay or Argentina, where these things are understood and practised. I am not sure that, after living in a climate where, except for five to ten days of winter (when the temperature drops to 15-18 degrees Celsius) nearly every day of the year is like a fine south European summer day, we could face the English winter again, when country sports are in full flight there.'
The rest can be found through my forum signature.
