Branding the man: why men are the next frontier in fashion retail

With all the denim available out there, there are few brands that have really stopped me in my tracks. I love my APC jeans (New Standard), but it was when I was living in Hong Kong that I discovered Nobody. The soft hand and awesome finish and wash instantly made them my favorite jean. Full disclosure: I’ve lost about 10 pounds which means that now they no longer fit. Even more full disclosure: While dancing at my +10pound weight, I ripped the ass and had to beg a tailor to fix them. I’m now really Nobody because I can’t wear them anymore.

Not to fear, this Wednesday, ScoopNYC celebrates the launch of Nobody’s Australian Heritage Collection with a special event hosted by Nobody’s Creative Director Wesley Hartwell. Since I’m stuck here in San Francisco right now, it means you’ll just have to go and check to see if they have the black jeans I so desperately want right now.

Don’t forget to RSVP!

What: Nobody celebrates the US men’s launch of their Australian Heritage Collection at Scoop

Date and Time: Wednesday, September 16th 7pm – 10pm
Address: 873 Washington Street (between 13th and 14th Street), NYC
RSVP@scoopnyc.com

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I’m just about to leave for New York for fashion week and to do some press for my book. Going to New York is a kind of pilgrimage — to art, culture, and of course, fashion. In more recent years, my trips to New York are less frenetic and driven. I am less a participant and more an observer.

I like it this way: to be alone and anonymous and observe New Yorkers being… well, New Yorkers. While I love going to museums and exploring the latest shop or neighborhood of the moment, I also love just parking myself somewhere and watching the performance on the street. It always looks as though a casting agent had come along, given them their roles, and a director calls “cue the background!”

Everyone in New York tells you how exhausted they are. I am convinced, it’s because New York is all about the moment — for everything. For everyone. Unlike any other place in the U.S., and perhaps even the world, New York is about the “Now” ; never about the “Before” or even the “Later.”

It is all about what you are doing Now. It is all about who you are Now. It is all about what you are wearing Now. No one really cares about who you were Before, or who you will be Later. Being in the Now all the time is exhausting. For the people who live and love fashion, it is even more exhausting.

But it is also what makes it all so entertaining. A walk down almost any street in Manhattan — a city which, for better or for worse, has gentrified itself nearly to the point that it is rare to discover anything that hasn’t been discovered by everyone else — reveals a parade of people wearing their very best Nows: outfits meant to appear accidental, fabulous, and very much an interpretation of who they are…. now.

See them a year from now and that look will be so yesterday — so… before now.

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