The London Lounge

pgolden--

Click on Photojournal, above. Go to second page of Photojournal. Click on top item. You're there!

To the younger guys: Pick up a pair of AE patent leather pumps (with grosgrain ribbons) and watch the girls swoon. (I assume AE still makes them.) Mine have served me for nearly thirty years. (The shoes, not the girls.) AE pumps do not cost an arm and a leg. One of the best investments I ever made!

understated, I too am interested (I might almost say "passionately so") in the AA/Esky fashion plates and their illustrators--especially the dean of them all, Laurence Fellows. Information about these people and processes is hard to come by. In his memoir Nothing But People: The Early Days at Esquir...

The best-looking blazer buttons I ever saw were wrought of gold, in a simple basket-weave pattern. They were on a jacket worn by a much older friend of mine. When I called admiring attention to them, he got my drift immediately. "Michael," he said, "these buttons have been willed to my nephew." Next...

Beautiful suit. Perfect for a blind date lunch at the Cafe des Artistes. Or shopping in the east eighties. Or inspecting the Jackson Pollock at the Metropolitan Museum. Or tea. Or an afternoon drink at rhe Bemelmans Bar. BTW, Alden makes a sturdy very dark brown reversed calf wingtip. (I wore mine t...

Matt--

Spiffy suit! Perfect for whiskey reversed calf. (To me, your new shoes look darker than chestnut. Not that chestnut wouldn't work, too.)

We are in danger of missing something important here. The "different patterns, same scale" guideline, properly understood, can really help in the vast majority of cases. Needless to say, no rule will solve all of our problems. Nor will its having done so in the past guarantee success in the future. ...

ibucephalus,

Adroit riposte!

Mike

As Etutee demonstrates, the AA/Esquire illustrations can be mined again and again for edification and amusement. For instance, the Donnegal ensemble in #6 contains yet another counterexample to the "different pattern, same scale" rule: The smallish tattersall of the shirting is effectively combined ...

Etutee, I am (almost!) speechless with gratuiude for the attention you have lavished on my pattern mixing query. Much food for thought here. Michael's remarks embolden me to articulate what many must have felt while absorbing your magnificent lessons: These posts should be gathered into book form. N...

etutee, Thanks for your rapid and informative response. Certainly you are correct in opposing the slavish adherence to "rules." A timely reminder. And the importance of intensity as a factor along with scale--which had escaped me--should not be overlooked. Interestingly, I'd thought the red pinstrip...

ETutee, Your posts are tremendous--pure pleasure to the eye, and food for the forebrain as well. I would greatly appreciate hearing more of your insights into the murky realm of pattern mixing. In particular, I'd like to know whether you adhere to Flusser's principle (which I suppose he derived from...