A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

Any day now it’s gonna be snow sport season across half the globe, so speed-screening the 1969 flick Downhill Racer is just the trick to slicken any stud’s winter style up quick – on the slopes and off.

In Racer, Robert Redford does his usual stoic-dick brand of schtick as Dave Chappelet, the newest member of America’s then-uncelebrated ski team.

From his dead-end hometown in Colorado to various mountaintop hamlets throughout the Alps, Chappelet’s wardrobe centers simply around sporty, proto-70s basics.

The powder blue chambrays and sherpa-lined overcoats of Chappelet’s farmboy past pair up effortlessly with the showier swank of his jet-setting future, through high-necked sweaters and mirror-lensed shades.

Essentially, as long as you stick to Chappelet and his teammate’s main palette of navy, red, and white, you’ll whip your winter look up to top speed in record time.

True champs will dare to go that extra mile and get their frostbitten hands on some old-school aftershaves, a perwinkle period van, and a Swedish snowbunny or two to slide around the slopes with.

Get ready ‘n set all like that and Coach guarantees your style’ll earn imaginary medals all winter long!

It’s that freaky/fun time of year when dressing-up like someone else is encouraged, regardless of your age. (Although dressing like dead, outdated or imaginary dudes is something I personally recommend doing all year round).

As it’s Halloween month, BBC America’s been playing Kubrick’s The Shining seven or eight times a week, and re-watching it for the first time in forever has led me to seek out a little Cabin Fever Chic for my late fall wardrobe.

Faded plaid flannel would be the most Jack Torrance-ish shirting I could hope to hunt down, but the perfect 1979-ish print’s been hiding from me (somewhere deep in that snowy maze, I suspect).

This button down oxford from Club Monaco seems to suggest a shamed prep-school teacher turned hotel-caretaker though, and is just the right shade of old Colorado Tan. Woven with a subtle undertint, it almost makes the shirt literally “Shine”.

These red-soled suede shoes from Quoddy were my first steps toward my transition into a Torrance. I can just as easily see Jack pairing them with pajama bottoms and a cableknit fisherman’s sweater as I can imagine Wendy tying them on over some red tights and a corduroy jumper dress.

The real trick in turning into a 1980 Torrance though is wearing a thick, insipid turtleneck under just about everything.

And then accessorizing with either a roque mallet or a hatchet. (Club Monaco just sold out of theirs, so I’ve been walking around town miming that I’m clutching one instead).

I’m 167 pages into the original book now. It’s not as inspirational as the film, sartorially – but it’s sadder and not so sarcastic. And hopefully by the end I’ll maybe work out how to rock bloody bathrobes as ready-to-wear.

Until then, creeps, REDRUM and Happy Halloween!

Images of Paul Newman are staples of the men’s style sites and one of my favorties is a photograph of the actor straddling a dirt bike wearing trim white denim and slip on boots.

I’d assumed the image was taken off-duty some weekend on Newman’s central California compound, but as channel surfing recently taught me, it’s actually a publicity still from the 1971 film Sometimes A Great Notion. A film my fall wardrobe and I are now using as our official mood board for Fall 2011.

The film’s plot revolves around an Oregon logging family facing ruin in the wake of a bitter union strike, but the finer points of the narrative faded deep into the background as I focused intently on the rugged (cars and) costuming.

Wardrobe Department basics included workshirts and sweatshirts in 70s sublime shades of celery green, and cuffed or cropped denim in dirty cream and cornflower blue.

Accessories included lambskin gloves, woolen night caps, amber lensed shades (and ultra-tough trucks).

Pretty much the only item from the foresting-chic film that I wouldn’t swing my ax at this fall (without a drastic career change first) are the logging dudes’ enameled hard-hats. (But what hats they are!)

Otherwise, every other piece Paul and his tree-chopping co-stars stomp around in are the perfect fit and in the ill-est tints to be taking into one’s wardrobe about now.

Catch the flick on cable if you can, or stream it through Starz over on Netflix. Most importantly, direct tweet me immediately if you can think of a source for faded celery-colored sweatshirts.

This is what we looked like.
This is what was important to us.

We went searching for boots and bags and better bow ties,
and on the way we found ourselves friends.

This is a document of what it felt like in our American-made world
when we came together for goods we believed in.

Thanks to Larry and to Mac & Kat for setting up this Minnesotan magic,
and for letting me capture it for everyone to see.

NorthernGRADE

Taken in 2001, while pretending it was 1964.

I played Daniel Patrick all that summer. A baseball-loving night-school teacher who fell for a young co-worker pretending to have lyme disease.

We didn’t have style blogs back then, so what else was I expected to do with my time or my skinny wool ties?

Over the course of two nights and one cat nap I watched the much revered 3 hour and 47 minute motion picture classic “Lawrence of Arabia” for the first time.

I didn’t adore all of it, and I don’t think I understood all of it either but now Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence is stuck in my head.

An introverted egotist and supposedly celibate sadomasochist, the 1962 film was based on Lawrence’s autobiographical tome The Seven Pillars of Wisdom which I now am intent on reading.

The film and Peter O’Toole’s playfully poker-faced performance within it create a coy and quivering image of the man T.E. Lawrence may have been. But whenever it appears The Lt. Col.’s psychological make up is near enough for us to finally, fully know – everything slithers up off the sand and back into mystery like a desert dune mirage.

So I’m gonna read up on the man, in his words and in those of others, and see if I can maybe figure him out. The best mysteries in life are the ones of who people are.

Depending on which edition I find on eBay, my copy of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom might be a little bit beautiful but it certainly won’t rival the glorious tooling featured on the cover of the first 1922 printing of the book.

Within twin scimitars it reads in gold: The sword also means clean-ness + death.

It’s this very sense for the dryly dramatic that made ol’ Lawrence the larger-than-life legend he would become.

Sorry to have been so scarce lately. In the name of art, or at least entertainment, I’ve been busy pretending to be someone I am not. A Canadian from another decade who accessorizes like this:

Actually vintage Nikes.

Golden watches.

Semi-sunglasses.

And bland canvas belts.

Technically it’s a costume, but who am I kidding? If the shoes weren’t two sizes too tight, I’d be wearing it all in real life anyways, once shooting concludes.

Channel your inner Wes Anderson with these blazing yellow booklets, storyboard-ing your every well-composed wish into cinematic reality.

Previously sold out but back in stock once again!

Growing up, I was told that my Grandpa Rees was a lawyer for the government. More frequently, I was told what a terrible jerk he was.

As the self-appointed family historian I recently digitized nearly two hours worth of 8mm film footage from my Rees ancestors that I had partially watched, once upon a time, as a barely-caring teenager.

Included in the footage is a brief section of my Grandfather at work in Washington, DC. Fleeting, underexposed images of him walking to his desk are followed by clearer scenes of him outside, shirtless, firing a pistol at criminal-shaped targets as part of his training as a member of the C.I.A. How many kids can say they have footage of their grandfather doing something as awesome as that?

Not until after he died did I know that Grandpa Rees had worked for the C.I.A., and fired pistols, and was interesting and adventurous and cool. That had all been kept a secret. All I had been told was how horrible he was.

For the first time ever now, I really wish I had known him better and made up my own mind about him.

If I’m lucky, once or maybe twice a year I’ll see a film I enjoy enough to want to add the DVD to my permanent collection. I Netflix-ed the HBO Grey Gardens film last week and I’ve been haunted by it ever since. It’s not necessarily a flawless film, but it’s a fully fascinating one. It admirably attempts to explain what the 1970s documentary by the same name did not – how did two high society sweethearts, close relatives of Jackie O., stumble into such sad and suffocating squalor?

The HBO film arrives close to answering this question, and yet the reason why I keep thinking about the piece is because it doesn’t completely add up. It’s not explained, entirely, what happened to those women, or why it happened, rather. But maybe if their strange story could be explained and utterly understood then it wouldn’t be so fascinating anymore.

A recent story at The Selvedge Yard about Arden Van Scykle and his 13 Rebels motorcycle club dared me to track down an old leather Brando-like cap even though I feared such a piece could no longer be worn post-1977 without a guy just looking like a Village People person.

On e-bay, such caps weren’t as easy to find as I’d have thought, but there was one perfect piece which I made mine for under 10 bucks.

For starters, I wanted to wear the hat like Arden would’ve. With high-waisted jeans and my belt buckle shifted one loop over. (Half the cast of West Side Story did that to their belts last week too. Must’ve been proof of rebel-hood back in the day.)

Next up I should figure out a way to wear the cap as myself, not as a member of some cinematic crew. Not sure what would be right though. I’m thinking thick materials and layering will be necessary to match up with the hearty heft of the cap’s leather.

I guess my cap and I will meet up with you in our new look, further down the road, brothers.

There’s something car-crash crazy about Vincent Gallo. I’m always craning my neck around to see what he’s careened into most recently.

A few years ago, I was able to attend a screening of Brown Bunny at which he was interviewed before the audience after his difficult film played. The man’s quite skilled at saying loathsome things while making you reluctantly fall in love with him, and he has undeniably superb style.

The first of the Coppola filmmakers puts Vincent to work in the intensely Italian-looking Tetro. Its been ages since I’ve gone and seen an “art house” film. Tetro might be just the vehicle to change that.