The cape (J. LISBON)

This time, you may not only see the look but also get each of the items that compose it

p.s. - this picture is not the result of a chance encounter, but of a production made for the store born from this blog

J. LISBON

The truth is I don’t even know where to start. I think I can start by saying I didn’t just meet João by chance on this track and that he wasn’t wearing that outfit; that it was me who asked him to turn up before the sun  was gone and that it was also me who brought this jacket, these trousers and this pair of boots. At a time when so many people are questioning the permeability of editorial publications into commercial dynamics, I thought it would be interesting to trace the narrative going in the opposite direction. I made up my mind that I would create a commercial space where anyone visiting would run the risk of finding genuine and informative content. I made up my mind that I would manage a store without forgetting how to manage this blog.

I travelled to places as different as Madrid, London, Florence, Felgueiras, Vila Nova de Famalicão and Charneca do Lumiar (industrial areas that most of Portuguese don't even know). I found this blog’s images on foreign brands’ mood boards (at meetings that didn’t go too badly) but I was also fobbed off and let down gently (after meetings that didn’t go so well). And today, on the very day when I sacrifice the editorial purity of this blog, for the sake of the business it would not have been possible to create without the blog that is being so sacrificed today, I present to you the business that could not exist without this blog. Because, after all, it is daft sentences like this that you can continue to find in that business. Because, after all, just as you do here, you will find there Lisbon streets, models who are not models, home-grown productions and unedited images. And, broadly speaking, the visual identity that has been immortalised in this set of portraits that have come to be known as street style. The visual record that, swept along on a whole online dynamic, turned ordinary man into style icons and made snapshots of everyday life into inspiration on a global scale.

It is just this. A clothes store. A clothes store for men. A clothes store that, riding the crest of these 5 years of Alfaiate (Tailor), has shown that a real product experience can be offered via the internet. That it is possible to create an online process of product discovery that goes beyond the image of a standard-size guy taken against a pastel wall, with the head cut from the shot. That it is possible to discover a product through the same yardsticks and visual contexts that we will have to live through with that product. That it is possible to read a review written by somebody who, long before sitting down to reel off information about a product, has actually worn it. That it is possible to ensure control of all this provided I limit myself to the masculine reality. So much so that, before vouching for it, I bought the jacket that João is wearing from its designer. So much so that, before dreaming of writing this blog, I was already wearing those trousers. That is why I say I look on this business as if it were the Alfaiate. The blog that inspired a business. A business called J. LISBON. A business I hope is to your liking. Because, however much I am convinced of your interest (and this blog has helped me understand that the most important approval is the one we ourselves ascribe) nothing you can say beats a good slap on the back. Here is J. LISBON at first hand 

#8 (Prenzlauer Berg)

Andalusian late afternoon

Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, Portuguese version

I have a suspicion that this will become a habit

I've told them:

- I'm not here to take pictures but I'm gonna make this photo

The sweetest thing

Mariana

Natalia

Pitti Uomo (Michael, day-by-day)

It was my 1^st time at Pitti Uomo. A brand had asked me to capture the atmosphere at the fair through my photographs. Pitti was impressive. There were so many interesting brands and visitors. However, I have to say I felt somehow overwhelmed by all the cameras, lens and photographs, in such a way that I felt the last thing I actually wanted to do there was to take photos of someone. It was as if everything there was in the precise antipodes of moments like this and this. As if everyone there was unaware that it is actually possible to find inspiring people in the least likely of places. In places where everyone we approach is reluctant to accept our invitation. It is as if they are suspicious. However, after a 30-second chat and a genuine smile, they finally allow themselves to be photographed by a perfect stranger. When I saw Michael on those stairs I thought it was one of the few images that could be taken away from all that crowd, that bustle and bearded vanity fair. The next day I saw him again in the same place and then realized that there were two other moments to capture and so I said to him:

-    - It’s difficult to believe but… your pictures are the only ones I want to keep for myself.

Just him, for every day of the fair. Without the glamour, the ideal setting or the slightest editing. Just him, on the stairs, close to his brand's stand