And then there's Hugo to show us otherwise. Being cool is not only a Nordic privilege!

We, the Swedish, are all effortlessly cool

If this is not street style, I don’t know what it is

Cool Marines [and the pride of wearing that uniform (the most beautiful one I know)]

Cute as hell (I didn't tell them, but I had already noticed them when I was walking down the street, some 100 feet away)

Sexy mother fuckers*

* refering to an attractive person. someone who is extremely hot. someone you want to do the second you lay eyes on them (in urban dictionary)

Imaginary conversations with my grandfather on Father’s day

- So... tell me about that blog of yours.
And I thought that if I had been born in the 20s, as crazy as they were, I would hardly understand. And so I told him, but with evasions, projecting my voice to the side as someone who’s talking but doesn’t want to be heard. I’m always very enthusiastic when I talk about my blog, but with my grandfather I felt slightly embarrassed. Not that I’m not proud of my blog. As a matter of fact, despite the angry comments I receive from the anonyms, heteronyms and pseudonyms that every now and then come here to remind me about the shitty blog that I have, to me, this shit, seems like the only noteworthy thing I’ve done in my whole life.

I know grandfather. This is not starting very well. Something called a blog probably doesn’t deserve much credit from you. The same goes with photographing people on the street. And photographing them merely for what they’re wearing only makes it all seem worse. But when I called you the other day, right before giving the phone to you, grandmother told me that you had gotten all emotional when you heard my voice on the radio. I didn’t know what to say. I know you were strict with my father and to be honest, it’s not easy to picture you getting all emotional. I never saw my father cry and to be completely honest, he wasn’t always gentle with me too. But in a way I admit that discipline will make a boy become a more adult man. And the truth is that I don't imagine myself an all that sweet father. Maybe I don't even want to be one. And that’s just the way it goes, isn’t it? There will always be complicated stuff between a father and a son. Being a grandson will always be easier.

You know, these people I photograph, are always people worth looking at a second time. I look at them once, as a reflex I look at them one second time and only then do I approach them. Sometimes the process is so quick and unconscious that I don't even realize it. I also know that everything would seem more legitimate if the reasons that make me look one second time were the curves of a woman or a piece of uncovered flesh instead of a coat, some boots or a hat. I’m going to tell you what this text is all about. About the need I feel to explain you my sensitivity. And telling you that my sensitivity is also part of my manhood. But I only feel that I must do this with you. As if you were the only man to whom I hadn’t proven myself as a man. Because deep down we feel the need to prove ourselves to our ancestors. Every time you see me you ask me about women and every time I see you I give you vague manly answers. And truth be told, it was with you that I was ever close to having the “the birds and the bees” conversation. That embarrassing conversation that my father was gentle enough to excuse me of. If this makes you more comfortable, then I must tell you that when I look at the past I realize that sensitivity and lust were always tied in my life. The best fucks were always the ones where the dirty words seemed the most tender, where the moments when I hold a woman in my arms after the orgasm always felt as good as those divine two seconds that precede ejaculation. I suspect that nowadays a man has to be as efficient nurturing a woman as he is fucking her. He has to be voluntarily as supportive as he is defending her and as dedicated in loving her as he is in protecting her. I know that for you it is very important to have a manly grandson. In my own way I guess I am one and without pretending to fulfill someone else’s image, but I confess that I would like you to have that image of me. I don’t imagine myself demanding this from a son or grandson, but what I demand one day from them doesn’t have to be the exact same thing that I demand from myself. And what I demand from me is to impress you. After my father, I want to impress you. More than women, friends or readers in a blog, it's you, grandfather. I want to impress you

Interesting guys

If I were ten years younger I would have definitely fallen in love

Colour doesn’t scare me!

Lisboa Fashion Week

The very stylish guy who tailored my business cards

The idea of the business cards followed me since the beginning. I thought it would be nice to deliver a business card to the people I photographed or approached with the intent of photographing. No more papers, pens, “please write here on my back”, “It’s a “The” before “tailor””, “not “Lisboa”, it’s L-i-s-b-o-n” etc, etc. The process would become simpler and definitely more elegant. On the other hand we were in January (2009), I had only published half a dozen posts and I wasn’t sure if this idea, that would probably only last a month, was worth so much trouble. Anyway the cards were created first. The answer came later.

Rui Quinta is not only “the guy that created the cards”. Rui was one of the few friends I talked with before starting The Lisbon Tailor and the one who said “great idea, go for it” etc, etc. That’s one of the many reasons why his number is the first I call when something good happens regarding this blog. That’s one of the many reasons why I will keep on calling him. Because, once again, Rui is not only “the guy that created the cards”. Rui is the friend I call to ask “do you have any Tailor business cards with you?” when I realize I have next to me Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Salgado (the Chairman of the Bank where I work) who is more or less to me, please forbid me the exaggeration, like the Pope is to any Roman Catholic. Rui shows up two minutes later with half a dozen cards and allows me to make a true fool of myself as I present [myself] as a subordinate to my supreme boss and talk a little with him about this project that has nothing to do with the financial world. Because I believe that, when used with caution, silly acts help us triumph. Because it’s the acts, silly or not, that this blog is made of. And since I’m already making a fool of myself, I must do it with style. If the silly part is on me, at least now you know where the style comes from.

A mi me gustan las chicas simples

Istanbul in Lisbon

This weekend wasn't just about rainy days

When an overcoat makes the attitude

Le Petit Prince

(one day, all grown up and without a scarf, he got tired of taming the Rose and of flirting with the Fox, left his asteroid on a low-cost and went to London)

Have you ever been in a situation when someone is talking with you, but a voice, another voice or maybe your own voice, starts speaking louder than the voice of the person in front of you? And there we are staring at someone, nodding cynically while our mind slips away… I think this boy — very friendly I must say - told me that he had a camera just like mine. He probably said something like that, I can’t really say, because the voice was telling me about a trip to Paris and not to London in December 2002. In that trip a friend was always quoting the character [this kid reminded me so much of] that I ended up reading The Little Prince again. But I was not easily convinced. During the trip I was more worried about the intestinal problems that the fool sitting next to me had. With that and also with the Croatian girls that we met during the stay. When my friend would start with quotes from The Little Prince I would answer with a vaguely “Ok… Ok” and would turn my attention to one of the two or three Croatian girls that I wanted to tame (or whatever you want to call it). We thought it would be funny to spend New Year’s Eve in the Elysian Fields (how clever is that?), but I got lost from my friends in the middle of the confusion. A friend of mine once came up with a funny sentence about Croatian girls (true or not, it doesn’t matter) that said: “Croatian girls aren’t foxy, they’re very foxyyy!!”. That argument didn’t convince me much and I spent 3 hours trying to avoid the girls and desperately searching for my friends. And I realized that one of the worst things that can happen to us is feel lost in the middle of a festive crowd. It was then, feeling completely miserable in a night that was supposed to be happy, that I lived one of my biggest moments of happiness – pure and instant happiness served in small concentrated doses like adrenaline – when, without much hope, I found and embraced my friends.

And yes… I think it’s true: “we’re forever responsible for what or who we tame”

And yes… I guess it’s also true that the fool with the intestinal problems was really me

Notting Hill cowgirl

The beret… He wears it well

I must confess that I have a certain fascination about these berets. Perhaps because they remind me of British men. Perhaps because they remind me of the men from Alentejo. The first is a fascination from childhood - that I still feel when I walk the streets of London – that reminds me of check patterns, that delicious accent and the knowledge that the true gentleman… is the British gentleman. Like the childish fascination about Roger Moore, like the admiration I have of Gary Lineker [that in his whole career wasn’t given a single yellow card (how is that possible??!)] proving that even when it comes to football that island is not only made of aggressive savages (by the way… take a look at these guys…). The second is an obvious consequence of my family origins in Alentejo and of the regular presence of a group of friends of my parents proud in showing an accent that some have lost and others never had. Imagine one of those ads in the British countryside, in a very typical pub where a group of friends is singing chants and treating each other as mates as their faces become more and more flushed. That’s what more or less happens in my parents house but with an Alentejo flavor.

I’m particularly pleased by seeing young men with these berets. And if they didn’t look silly on me I’d wear them everyday. I like these berets so much that a year ago I had already posted, A man and his beret. I leave you with the concept of crossing urban street wear with a rural accessory. A fully customized man.

A small [that makes big] detail in a middle-aged woman

Mix and Match

The idea was to get a fancy title praising this girl's ability to mix and match such different patterns but I'm so sleepy that I can't do any better than this

There’s something (special) about her

Still about the neck...

I'm not very enthusiastic about accessories but those that can be worn on the neck are by far my favorites. They make all the difference... and sense

Valentine is one fucked up guy

(to my friends)

Valentine is one fucked up guy. He can leave some people happy and some people nostalgic. Some days ago I got suddenly nostalgic because I didn’t have anyone to call to before scheduling my holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I love my freedom. But I must confess that I missed that compulsion, before asking my co-workers when would they take their holidays, of making a certain call to a certain someone to come up with plan A, B and C for scheduling trips, fun moments in an unknown destiny and sex in a hotel room.

Half of my friends around 30 try to understand if they would rather have spent yesterday’s night trying to show their love to that special someone, or trying to dose alcohol and charm in the singles party that we organized. Half of my friends doesn’t know if they would rather spend the weekends in a sweet and repetitive state of calm, or trying to sleep with half the city with whom they still haven’t slept. This globalization nonsense is very funny, but the concept of being connected all the time and to the whole world can be a little scary when we're talking about love. We’re surrounded by 1001 requests, 1001 possibilities and 1001 alternatives and that makes being single an admirable new world of funny opportunities, exotic parties and unprecedented sexual experiences. And it’s precisely the existence of all those opportunities that gives more value to the moment when we decide to choose someone to share our life with. Let’s face it, nowadays it’s rather strange when someone complains that he or she didn’t have the chance to know the world (and who lives in it) sufficiently to be able to make the right choice. The other day a friend was telling me about his new girlfriend and my first instinct was to ask him if she was in Facebook, whilst half of my brain yelled at the other half "You too, Brutus?". When he told me that she didn’t, I thought that was one of the best qualities a girlfriend should have. After all, that would avoid those situations when we make a fool of ourselves snooping around on their Facebook page trying to figure out how many people much more interesting than us (and by that I mean someone with a profile picture much more appealing than ours)a) has she added after breaking up with us.

Thirties seem to have their charm. The abdominal line is still comparable to that of the younger guys that we'll soon be able to see on the beach and the grey hairs that appear without warning seem to give us more charm. We live more and have more access to information but nothing ensures me – and I must confess that this thought is already starting to scare me – that in 10 years time we won’t be trying to sell the exactly same speech, while we admire the same abdominal line more expanded and we concentrate not on the grey hair, but on the lack of it. This is when I remember with concern the speech of an old co-worker, an eternal bachelor, that was able to disturb me with his gloomy pride about the number of married women he boasted having already “banged”. The same disturbance that I felt the other day in the Serralves buffet because of a beautiful woman in her forties that was sitting there. The look of such a distinguished woman made me feel distinguished too and I can imagine that having someone younger staring at her could only make her feel more alive. A female friend was telling me that this is all very normal and that the important thing, like everything in life, is to draw limits and find a balance. This is not that clear to me and I can imagine that Yin-Yang balance sliding unexpectedly to a balancing act adequate for the circus or, if you allow me the dirty moment, to a public toilette. I only know that moments later, when the husband and children arrived, and that man noticed what he was interrupting, I looked away more out of shame than from fear of getting a well-deserved punch. The same punch I would sustain myself from giving if I were to find a kid, with hair on his face but still with a childish spirit, busy revitalizing my wife’s sex appeal.

Miguel Esteves Cardoso once wrote that “Love is one fucked up act” and I can only assume he didn’t wrote it to sell copies to 15-year old girls like the one I was in love with when the book was published. I’m the first one to admit being guilty of plagiarism for using his words but that was not what I felt last week when I went to visit the friend that translated my texts for the English version of the blog. I had decided to use all the resources available to convince him to do it again but when I got there I was beaten by a toothless 15-month old baby running clumsily into his arms. And at that moment I felt ridiculous. Ridiculous for even thinking that he would be wasting the time he could spend with his child translating my silly texts. We went to school together, shared the same desk and did the same annoying pranks that tested the patience of our English teacher. When he went to live with this girlfriend I was still trying to figure out what it was to have a girlfriend and on the day of his marriage I mainly thought on all the freedom he was giving up on. But today my opinion has changed and to be completely honest, part of me envies him. At this point I remember another friend and of what he told me one day. One day, another day, when a girlfriend let her naked body fall next to his and whispered on his ear in such a sweet tone that he only knew on his mother:
- It was amazing Zé.
And at that time, much more than the orgasm, he thought she was thanking for everything else: the companionship, the tenderness, the protection, the times he smiled for her smile, the times he cried with her tears and for all the things he never had to do but that she knew he would be willing to. Of course there are a lot of “Zés” and also a lot of imaginary friends but we also know that in my life, in your life or in the life of my imaginary friend it's those moments that last. More than flirts, wild nights or crazy stories to brag about in guys dinners. Even more than the cut out scenes of a life that are not to be exposed in a blog. In the end it’s like I tell you, Valentine is one fucked up guy.

Chic

The Architecture student

Ayres grandfather

Porto Rosé

Light tones in a dark city

Ayres Bespoke Taylor - a young portuguese man in Savile Row

Ray Frensham - Is this gentleman eccentric?

Maybe, maybe not. You decide

If he is not fashionable, who is?

African flavour

...and so does black

Green suits us just fine

United Colours of London

The Portuguese duffel coat

Made to Measure - SuMisura

http://www.sumisura.pt/

With only one garment...

The Gentleman