I thought your phone did that for you.

He's desperate to get back to his roots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2a6l6wM2k&ob=av2n

Have you ever been advised to lose the sense of humour before?

I've been told by authority figures and the like to be more serious my whole life. What a load of old shit.

Integrity and massive financial reward don't often go hand-in-hand. You got to do what you love, I closed down a blog when I lost interest in Brit Traditional clothing, I knew full well what I could've built it into. But then I don't blog for that reason, I just like to have a place to record the things I enjoy. This professional blog scene preys on readers/people who aren't too clued up on their subject and just getting into things to kind of just swallow shit journalism whole. I'm waiting for a 60 year old chap with tied back long hair and sandals to email me and ask me what the fuck I really know about sixties psychedelia.

Yer man Lloyd writes;

"Only because this highlights the problem with James. We have all this and potentially so much more but he will not comply with netiquette, etiquette or any reasonable standards of business practice.
I write this from London where it is past midnight in a family home and he has just telephoned yet again. Par for the course, as one golfer to another."

Keep up the good work Jim. Goodnight.

Only a PS - God Bless Lloydy !

He wants my Minet stuff. My tapes of Jean Reuben remembering the early 60s scene (pre- 'Minet' even) and for me to try to buy up Levi's old snapshots.



" Les Minets were very urban, very Paris. Dedicated to American clothes and music, but also with a strong English streak mixed in too. They were white, upper middle-class high school & college boys, there was also a strong Jewish element. The style came in two waves, 1961/62 saw the originators of the style at "Le Drugstore". 66/67 Was the hight of the style. 68 Saw it all over with the French look creeping in & then taking over. The term 'Minet' was coined in 1965. Before then the cult had no name... and by the time the cult had a name it was all over for the originators!
The music was American Jazz, Blues, and Soul plus English bands like the Who and the Stones later.
The look was Imported American Ivy League mixed with English Trad elemets. The English Trad look was huge in 63, but came and went a bit throughout the style. Much more constant was the American Ivy element.
What did they wear? All the usual suspects - Button-downs, white macs, loafers ('Weston' was a favourite brand) etc. Madras, Seersucker, knit ties, all the Ivy import specialities. They also mixed in vintage & second hand 'finds' into their look.
"Marina" was THE tailor in 62. By 63 THE tailor was "Renoma".
The Rue de la Pompe also became more and more important thanks to Renoma in 63. 64-68 Pretty much this was THE place to be, along with the Champs-Elysees.
65 'The Kennedy Look' was HUGE with more and more Minet shops with names like Harvard & Princeton opening up on the Rue de la Pompe. 'Dean' was another really important shop for US imports
64 a shop called Mayfair opened - more about it later (I'm saving that story as a bit of a punchline to all this!)
66 'La Locomotive' was THE Minet club. In London visiting Minets used Le Kilt, Le Poubelle (sp?) and Le Discotheque. Minets visited London all the time for clubbing and shopping. The French Institute in South Kensington was a major hangout also, as were parties in flats around that area.
Minet and it's 'Kennedy look' was huge in Paris, but was too big to last and the trend setters had moved on before 65 probably. After then it was all a bit 'High Street' and it lost its value to most of the original stylists.

OK - The punchline -

Jean Bouquin opened a shop called 'Mayfair' selling US imports in 1964 on the Rue de la Pomp. It was an unrenovated butcher's shop. Shetlands and button-downs on display surrounded by tiles and butchers blocks. Sound familiar?

(Just to spell it out for the rest of the world - John Simons did exactly the same thing in 1968 in Brewer Street, London with his Ivy League 'Squire' shop.  Quite a coincidence?)

And those are the bare bones of the Minet style.
American Trad far from home given a new meaning by those who wore it.
Miles Davis fans wearing 'The Look'.
Another cultural footprint left behind by the GIs influence in Europe.
Before WWII American clothes were just in America, then, starting in the late 40's, all around Europe little pockets of Ivy style start to appear. Very niche & small, all listening to Modern Jazz.
Interesting? "

New Man absolutely grew out of 1960's Ivy League Minet in Paris - They started by importing old Levis, especially in Cord & then copied them, lowering the rise and stripping out the crotch lining. They also extended the range of colours available into absolute madness. A search on Minet on here should bring up something on them.
My pal Jean/Levi used to shop there twice a week on Tuesdays & Thursdays to check for new deliveries from the US as business was so brisk that there was never anything worth having by Saturday. Often he'd just buy stuff to sell on to mates, frequently making double his money back.
From secondhand Levis & their own Levi copies NM then extended their range into all sorts of menswear as the 70's wore on.

But they started off with all the shop staff kitted out in Ivy League selling American imports to French Mods.

'Biggest prick in Ivydom' ?

'A stranger to the ten commandments' ?

This is how we talk about our humble employees ?

Word in the office is that I am now a 'mad genius'.  It makes me almost feel obliged to drop my trousers at the photocopier to give them their money's worth... 

I smell a rat.

He's sly. There'll be money in this for him.