For whatever reason, up until last night I had never seen West Side Story in any incarnation. The Heights, a renovated 1920s theater in my old neighborhood had a restored 70mm print of the original screening all this week, so I finally found out what the fuss was all about.

Much has been written about James Dean’s iconic red jacket in Rebel Without A Cause but the snazzy citron number Russ Tamblyn wears as Riff throughout West Side’s opening scenes hit me as even more inspiring.

Paired with sullied sky-blues and dingy grays, the use of a Riff-y yellow todays strikes a fresh and yet firmly retro note.

Yesterday-yellow doesn’t seem like the most wearable color initially, but really, paired with tans and blacks, military greens or white-ish creams, there’s few colors that wouldn’t rock right with Jet yellow.

I remember Apolis Activism had some acidic-tinted denim pants that Riff could’ve rolled in. I’m gonna beat the streets and see if they turned out anything else in that same shade. I got turf to protect, y’see, and I best look the part.

It should be evident by now, based on earlier entries, that when foreshadowing my future outfits, the visions I’m after have little to do with actual events on my life’s actual itinerary. Admittedly, I’m prone to projecting myself into pretend productions of stage and screen which world premiere nowhere but inside my own mind. 

In that same spirit, I introduce today an ongoing Treasury series in which a single fashion find is fleshed-out through its pairing with other items of interest into a full-fledged, fictional figure, complete with a Treasury-issued name, age, and fatal character flaw.

These sage-y Sperry shoes set the stage for our first fictional figure.

The clinical, nurse’s shoe slant was what first drew me to this footwear. I initially envisioned pairing them with synthetic-minimalist pieces for an asian-modernist laboratory look, but it’d take me a decade to amass pieces in that aesthetic and an additional decade to actually wear any of it.

In the end, I spun the shoes into something (someone) saltier and less sterile. Enter, stage left, Mr. Fredolph “Dolph” Felix.

Shoes – Sperry
Cardigan – Brooklyn Industries
Fedora – Christys Crown at Urban Outfitters
Sunglasses – Linda Farrow at Oki-Ni
Cardholder – FineAndDandyShop.com

Sofia Coppola’s new film Somewhere will be shot at the famed Los Angeles hotel this coming June and July.

Loveliness will surely abound.

It might drive some people crazy, but I like to accidentally stumble into a movie on TV somewhere in the middle, fall in love with it, and then get to go back and re-watch it again from the beginning, at some later date. It’s like green-lighting your own happy little prequel.

Today I fell into the second act of Mon oncle Antoine, apparently considered the best Canadian film ever. From what I’ve seen so far, I can certainly imagine there’d be other Canadian films that could be better…but not that seem more boy-blog-worthy.

The mellow, mischievous film centers around an untraditional family who works at a general store…
In the 1940s…
In francophone Quebec…
On Christmas Eve!

A movie after my own heart.

I couldn’t find very amazing images on the internet. None of the screen-grabs presented here even feature any of the 4 main characters. (Consider it non-spoiler-ing at its boldest?)

But trust me, the film offers enough plaid flannel, wooly britches, dark denim, and slushy sloppy snow to kill your spring fever and get you jonesing for winter again and its macho, fashion classics.