Fashion – Being Tyler Brûlé

Better summer: The Tote Bag

The summer season is upon us, and if you did manage to catch your flight to that idyllic summer getaway house right off the beach in Palma or taking a 2 day stop-off in Santa Margeritha Ligure en route to Tuscany, you’re most likely to travel with this seasons most essential accessory – The Tote Bag.

As we see it, there are a number of items that every proper Tote bag should hold. Starting off with the bag itself, in the ideal world it will be from Tomorrowlands collection of stylish bags. The content of it could hold a couple of incredibly soft and comfortable Aspesi bermudas, a handmade notebook from Misuzudo, some Sisely Sunscream (because of its lovely fragrance) and of course you’ll be enjoying the shade through your handmade Barbisio sun hat.

That’s some essentials that a cool and modern tote bag could and should include. The question is now, what’s in your tote bag?

Better societies: A Uniqlo owned Gap

A couple of weeks ago exciting rumours started to appear in the wonderful world of retail. That Japanese casual clothing chain, and long time favorites, Uniqlo was preparing a bid on the mismanaged US clothing company Gap.

Already in Issue 22, Tadashi Yanai founder of Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo, hinted that they would enter the US market through a large acquisition.

…the US is so big that there is no use in putting one store here and another there. So it comes back to the M&A story again. We want to purchase a company about the same size as us and use it as a platform to bring Uniqlo to all parts of the US.

The most obvious winners of this deal would be the American public. A society without neon colored polo shirts with popped collars is a society that can develop, that can move forward. Maybe even Monocle will recognize the benefits of this change, and we might see a US city on next year’s Most livable Cities list (alright we know Honolulu was on this year’s list, but really? Honolulu? Let’s call that a sponsorship…) . The best description of what Uniqlo would do for Gap is provided by The Cut

Because unlike Gap, Uniqlo is impossible to avoid. Need jeans in a pinch? Uniqlo. Have no plans to purchase anything but just feel like walking into a store with pretty colors? Walk into Uniqlo, walk out with an interesting, stylish $19 T-shirt dress. Can’t stand American Apparel but need basics? We could go on. It’s what Gap should be — though with Hamptons flavor and a slightly more subdued color palette.

The Brands: Incotex

incotex

Over the last few weeks, we have been wading through the retail jungles of Hong Kong, Vancouver and Sydney to pick up a thing or two before the skiing season in St Moritz ends, and the swimming season in Stockholm begins. It’s the same dilemma each year.

At times like this it feels good to know that although a post-shopping glass of Krug in Paris´ 3rd arr is a decent way of spending a Tuesday afternoon, the shopping answer to your question is always in Como. A Gi Emme is the store that always comes up trumps. And more importantly – they stock the eminent brand Incotex, an off shoot from the Italian fashion group Slowear.

Their chinos are simply incomparable, and also relieves you of a commonly spread plague known as SAS (and we’re not referring to the non-business class MD-80s that operate between ARN and CPH).

Tyler himself describes it like this:

Every season I’m seduced into trying some other company’s attempt at making the perfect twill trouser and they’re never even close to Venice-based Incotex. They get the leg silhouette just right and also ensure that wearers never suffer from SAS – saggy ass syndrome.

This disease could well be one of the most unpleasant inconveniences to have to witness for the surroundings. So before the WHO get their act together and puts the diagnosis on one of those lists, make sure that you flat fronts are Incotex – or Italian at least. After all, we’re not savages.