About a jacket

A few days ago my godson asked me for advice about what his first suit should be, and I told him on the telephone: “dark blue, two buttons and two vents”. The same suggestion I would give to my friends when - on the day before their first oral exam in college or their first job interview – they told me they wouldn’t like to wear the same suit that their mom had bought them one day for their cousin’s wedding.
Dark blue will always be my choice for a first suit. It’s possible that grey will come up as my second, but a checkered suit will surely be my third choice. When you buy a checkered jacket, you risk yourself to: a) losing another afternoon trying to find the right tie, b) having your boss looking down on you and c) getting complements from the only women in the world that will never stop doing it – your grandmothers. How should I put it… a while ago I saw a blog called this is our thing. Well, the checkered coat is definitely “my thing”.

Sunny day, rainy look

Lapels are so passé

Three moments

Three simple moments, three graceful moments (and three different sandal models)

Tallinn girls

April showers (the girl and the lady)

The women in red

The movie was shot in ’84 and the memory I have from it can even be more remote than the one I have of Maradona taking his hand to the ball two years later in Mexico. In fact, it took several more years for me to switch priorities between girls and football – the only truly scientific criteria to define the beginning of men’s puberty. Basically I remember a character with a stupid face and a huge flying red blur. The moment being portrayed here is more sober, but every time I see a woman in red it reminds me of the movie.

I didn’t ask her, but I could bet that the trench coat we see here is from H&M. Ten years ago I would go nuts every time a Swedish friend brought me a sweater from there, and several years later, with the backpack on my back and a train ticket semi-stuck in my boxers, passing through other European countries where I would find this store with Inter Rail prices. It’s been 6 years since the first store opened at Chiado. Meanwhile, many others opened, but unlike what usually happens, that didn’t stop me from coming back.

The Burberry detail

If it was winter time I would dedicate a post to white trench coats. It’s an old attraction, from those days when I used to read Dick Tracy’s comic books and I would be impressed by any hero that would beat up a bunch of bad guys and showed up holding a good looking woman. But today I’ll stick with that neckpiece detail. Hardly any American label could ever compete with the elegance of that British pattern. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy those fat letters referring to the big American universities, and I’m even willing to pay 20 or 30 dollars for such a souvenir, with “Yale” or “Berkeley” stamped on and (I’m pretty sure) Hanes or Fruit of the Loom tags on it. I just don’t feel qualified to pay out 100 or 200 euros to advertise whatever brand it is on my chest. But for that pattern…
P.S.- I’ve checked it out in several sources, it really was Thomas Burberry that invented the trench coat (1880)

Siamese twins

Man in white

Dressing all white is not easy. And even though the weather invites me to, I always end up saying no. The challenge is simple, trying to look in the mirror without it making us feel as if being part of a boy band. But when I saw this gentleman that didn’t even cross my mind, and I doubt that his mirror would have anything to add. Only when I turned around I wondered “how come I never dress like this?”.

Amine

He’s French, and he’s been in Lisbon for a year. Amine speaks with a kind of innocence difficult to find. He asked me what I thought about the price of the t-shirts. A good salesman doesn’t ask if it’s cheap, he claims it. I just suggested that he could make a discount if someone bought a pair (us, consumers, we always like to think we’re paying less than someone has already paid before). shukr@live.fr

Does it get better than this?

This blog is only 3 months old. It’s about 50 posts and a little more than 80 photos depicting people that – to be as generic as possible – have drawn my attention for good reasons. Not necessarily for the most important criteria, but definitely for good reasons. Obviously I have my own favourites, but there were a couple of times that I felt something different. As if inside that aesthetic spectrum, it didn’t get any better than that. These pictures are just a simple portrait sequence, but they made me feel that way again. This was the first time (click to see).

Jeans & All Star

This is the type of girl that goes to university and has 200 “seniors” offering to be their “Godfather” (I guess that’s how they name those boys that demanded being called “doctor” by the same girls that, the next week, they would be buying coffees at the fraternity bar). When I first started this blog, I thought that I should avoid something I thought would be the most simple and obvious – shooting cute boys and girls. In the beginning it seemed nice, but not shooting Pureza and Carolina would be a bad dogma instead of a good principle.

Putting Usher on a corner

Osklen boy

For those that usually pass there, you might recognize this face. The store is very famous. I can’t remember the last time I walked in there, but I don’t even have to do it to be sure that it hasn’t lost its attributes.
In Portugal, there are two ways of judging anything that comes from Brazil. It’s possible to hear the word “Brazilian” being used in the most depreciative way, and seconds later listen to someone’s sophisticated vision of that country, its tropical enchantment or the natural charm of those that live there. It’s as if, for the Portuguese, there are two countries far away from each other… The Brazil of the “crioulo” and the “Sertão”, and the Brazil of Floripa, the São Paulo Fashion Week (that Osklen attends since 2003) and the German last names. I just don’t understand if we prefer the last one because of its charm or because it has more money (or can’t we just tell one from the other?).
When I look at the pictures covering my bedroom wall I get the feeling that the summer five or six years ago was sponsored by this brand. Those days, walking into that store – as far as I’m concerned, surely when it was on sale – with such a clean look, relaxing music, nice Brazilian accent and irreverent clothing, it wasn’t indifferent to no one. Half a dozen years later, it’s still something remarkable. It’s not just because it can mix coolness with sophistication better than any other brand in the market. Much of that merit also comes from this boy and its mates that approach you, laying a hand on your shoulder and asking you with their accent “suits you just fine, doesn’t it?”. The same question (disguised as a statement), in any other shop, would leave you cursing over that harassment. But in that shop, it draws you a smile, like this… as genuine as this one.