I have been considering paying a few dollars for access to US Esquires online archive.
I am pretty sure its packed with Ivy goodness.

I dont think he does it very well at all...im not against the subversion or anything really on a moral level..I just dont think hes got an eye..just look at the pattern and colour choices..they just dont balance..not even in a dissonant way..its like someone trying to be edgy and complex but failing.

Someone with more money than sense who buys expensive clothes, wears them a handful of times (or less) then gets rid. Unfortunately such people are not in short supply nowadays.

However I have no idea whether or not such people actually buy his stuff. A post earlier in this thread suggests that his products have not sold very well. I've met plenty of people who are completely useless at what they do, never make any money for the people who employ/hire them, yet on the basis of their self-belief still get endless opportunities. This book may well be an example of that i.e. who the hell would actually pay good money for a copy?

Then again, maybe there is a market for it - I really wouldn't know.

That's like saying Will.i.am is just trying to make it in music.

/\  on one hand I think there are too many instances of the designer intentionally wrecking classics to jarring rather than pleasing effect and on the other I don't like seeing him more reviled than others who've trashed good things without any irony whatsoever .....

/\ haha, ... 

well yeah we all ripped him when he was doing stuff with J. Press ...  I feel like there is plenty of room to be a good designer within the form of Ivy and preppy and that he has never tried to do that, make good tasteful Ivy prep clothing, but has instead used the style like a painter of intentionally ugly pictures that also lack a redeeming message, if his desire is pour epater le bourgeois I get it but never bought any, I did not like the neon colors on the shoes,

I know of him through J. Press, that was the first time I knew of him ... then I saw he had some Incontinence pants and other sneaker stuff going on ....

most of his designs are not things I would go for but admittedly I almost always dress in very plain Ivy and '70s prep styles and in that regard certain things he's done look alright, say the penny loafer and the blucher moc for Bass were pretty decent, the Monte Carlo and the white/navy McNasty Lo for Incontinence pants were '70s-styled and I'd wear them, he did some freaky emblematic ties for J. Press et al., and some leather O-ring belts that were like one worn by JFK, Jr. in the '70s, a dirty buck he did for Union, a captoe pebble-grain boot for Acapulco Gold, some crazy English country brogue boots with white wedge soles and Taslan laces, a nice English brown suede brogue wingtip, another Incontinence pants Kazuki McNasty adaptation called the RomMcMasty .... most of his Incontinence pants stuff was usable actually ......

he goes way over the top though too often for me (yellow-soled Lavers for example) and many of his designs are atrocious but not everything he's done is unusable     

but I'd enjoy talking about all this stuff with him at lunch, as would we all I think ....

Last edited by stanshall (2016-03-14 00:54:46)

I would definitely wear his jacket in that pic... The Incontinence pants look good, too.

There are world known cooks that eat instant food at home. And good tailors dressing like shit... So that doesn't disqualifies him as a designer. It is only his output that counts.

That said I wouldn't buy the book.

Nah, I do not take as much interest in him. I highly disliked the yellow soles and all that camo stuff (although I saw a Penfield down vest - nothing to do with McNairy - in camo that I would probably wear)... All I ever really noticed was a collection for Woolrich Woolen Mills in 2012 where some items were interesting. But you know, designer stuff is very different to regular fashion stuff most of the time. There are self-styled "stylists" or "style experts" that love to bash people like YSL or Tom Ford just because they don't like what they wear/wore, but in the end Tom Ford has a good eye for great asthetics (that the James Bond suits don't fit isn't a Tom Ford problem, it is a problem of the costume designer (she seems to have no eyes) and YSL was one of the best designers ever. Ever. Ever.

I think I get what Mc Nairy wants to approach, kind of a casual look with classic items sort of twisted... Never tried anything on except those boots though. Prpbably all the cuts are awful, I don't know. Seems that what he is trying to achieve is done better at Penfield and Beams without a "known" designer, but I don't care too much. Not enough to hate him or to dislike him... If I find an item one day that I like and that is reasonably priced, I'd wear it. Just as my boots.

Im not talking about where he has taken things...im talking about the execution of it

So I bought finally bought the book.  Flipped through it. 

It's just a fun thing -- nothing profound, but well done (I'm half way through it).  What I like is some of his quips on the basics.  He's promoting the Brooks blue boxer and white button down shirt.  He's relatively sane on the idea of monogramming (which I'm actually returning to after decades of saying fuck that).  And some of the rules (which I myself have with a dinner jacket), like fuck the cummerbund and fuck the vest.  And fuck "Happy Socks" and fuck Shinola watches.  And fuck Rolex and go for the Tudor.  I've often felt the Oyster case is the a classic, iconic design, but the Rolex name is so bling that the Tudor makes a lot more sense.  There's a lot of little nuggets like that that I'm digging.  That said, those "cuffs" on the bottom of the trousers are ridiculous but they're so fucking ridiculous that it can't be serious.