"Insta-Tour", Teil III: Jason Jules aus London, England - Instagram: @garmsville

Teil III der "Insta-Tour" bietet ein Interview, auf das ich besonders stolz bin.

Der in Menswear-Kreisen geradezu als legendär zu bezeichnende Jason Jules (@garmsville) war bereit, mir ein Interview für die Insta-Tour zu geben.

Jason ist im Wesentlichen Marketing- und PR-Experte, gibt aber auch immer wieder ein großartiges Male Model ab, koordiniert Events, berät Bands und Musiker, und, und, und... Für mich ist Jason einer der authentischsten Menswear-Experten überhaupt - vor allem, wenn es um Freizeit- und Streetwear geht:

©Michael Newington Gray / GQ Magazine

You originally come from Public Relations and for a long time you promoted club nights and music events... how did you get in the end into the menswear world?


To me it’s always been about story telling. When I was doing clubs, I wanted to create a platform for people to share their stories - their vision – from DJ’s to bands to graphic designers to promoters and set designers. My goal was to listen to them and then try and provide a space – with an audience – where they could simply tell their creative story in the most authentic, enjoyable way they could. It was the same when I did PR for bands and fashion labels or wrote about music or art or film – what story are they trying to tell and why is it important? As a freelancer I always tend to follow my interests. So, when I decided to write about clothes for my blog, I approached it with the same attitude…clothes have stories too. I don’t think at the time I started Garmsville people were looking at clothing in that way, they saw them as objects within a fashion context and I was never concerned about them in that way. It wasn’t about trends but about authenticity and relevance, just like a band or an art exhibition or a film. Right now, one of my projects - called ‘The Happening Agency’ - is helping brands and independents create their own websites – the principle, that story telling is at the heart of what I’m interested in, is at the very foundation of that project too.

©Courtesy of Drake's Haberdashers

Today seems to be all about communication and self expression, maybe it always has been. Which of those three fields - PR, music, Fashion - do you consider to be the most powerful in expressing ones personality? Does one have more influence on you than the others? If so, what is it?


After a while all these things blend and become second nature – like a photographer always sees the world through a lens, I see the world through the idea of styles and story telling – or as you would term it communication and self expression.


For me personally music was always very important and my style was a very long time influenced by the look of bands I admired… you seem to have a similar attitude... true or just a feeling I have?


I think the musicians that inspired me most as a kid prioritised image in a way that made me realise that while music and style impacted each other, they could still travel a long very different trajectories. Bowie and Roxy Music rang the changes in their visual style and in their music too, but what resonated with me most was the idea that they simply didn’t seem to care about what others thought when it came to what they wore or sounded like. They were super individual on both levels. I never wanted to dress like Bowie or Roxy, but I clocked that blurring musical and stylistic boundaries allowed them to create new possibilities for themselves and for a working class kid from East London – that was the most exiting thing ever. Once I realised at a very early age that music and clothes could be used to affect peoples attitudes socially, culturally and also internally – pretty much everything changed for me.


You are known for having a faible for Ivy League Style… where does that come from?


I loved Ivy style way before I knew what it was called or where it came from, watching Fred Astaire films when I was about four years old and wanted to dress like him ever since. At four you don’t have a context for anything, but what attracted my to Astaire wasn’t just the clothes but also that he looked better than every one else in those clothes – I guess the dancing helped – not only the dance sequences - but also his swagger, his poise. He was acutely attuned to his own physicality and its appearance - something that all people into clothes hope become, I think. All through my childhood I wanted to dress like him - taking certain aspects of what he wore and then trying to make them mean something within my ‘wardrobe’. As I grew older, I was inspired by other musicians and actors – from Sidney Poitier to Steve McQueen and Miles Davis - but the initial spark was Astaire. It was only years later that I realised he was regarded as this style icon by others and that much of what he wore was Ivy League in origin.

©Alex Natt / Kirk Originals

Your overall style is very „fashion forward“, but always contains a big „classic“ influence. I really appreciate that. Do you think about your style a lot or is it just a natural feeling for clothes that leads to your distinctive looks?


I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about clothes a lot. I do. I think about clothes. I look at clothes. I talk about clothes – a lot. But when it comes to wearing clothes it’s more a fun thing, I try to indulge myself in that respect, never repeating combinations of what I wore before, always mixing things up. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not that important, not in the real world, but it’s important to me, in my world and it’s my take on clothes that allows me to access the real world, to a certain degree at least, on my terms.


Can you tell me about your „ Favourite Designers and Brands“ at the moment?


There are a fair number of brands I’m really excited about at the moment – Drake's, Adret, Timophy Everest, Ring Jacket, Universal Works, Monsieur Merkli, The Relaxed Man, Art Comes First, Dawson Denim, Soboye, Scott Fraser Collection, Studio Nicholson, No Vacancy Inn, Mark Powell, Abedora, Brian MC Ginn, Grenfell, Nicolas Daley, Wembley Menswear, Horatio and TSPTR. In terms of women’s wear I love Vija Rhodes, Cecilia Robinson, Bella Freud, Petit Kouraj, Sasha Knight and W'Menswear. 

©Courtesy of Drake's Haberdashers

Your admiration for the legendary John Simons is obvious. When did you have the idea of making a film about him and how long did it take you in the end to realise it? (that reminds of... still not having a copy!)


Haha – it’s definitely worth seeing, even if I say so myself! I came up with the idea of making a film about John in a time when I was making short films about a number of people I liked – I just wanted to capture the moment and maybe get some recognition for people I admired – that PR instinct again. Along with Art Comes First, I filmed Alley Capellino and Dave White from Rag Top Vintage and a few others and then I felt this super strong need to film John. I realised that lots of the people I know and lots that I never knew would be no where, stylistically, without the influence of John Simons and I figured, I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to him for being such a huge inspiration to me personally but to everyone else too. I’d already spoken with the likes of Paul Smith, Kevin Rowland, Paul Weller and David Rosen Robert Elms, John Hegarty and Dylan Jones and then, as the film went from being a ten minute short to a full length documentary, I realised I needed help to make it happen. In the end Mark Baxter came on board to produce and Lee Cogswell joined to film and direct.

©Courtesy of Drake's Haberdashers

Concerning street styles I often get the feeling that the bigger the aim for individualization in fashion, the bigger the risk of unwanted conformism. Do you share this perception? What is your advice for "fashionistas" not to get caught in that trap?


I can’t advise anyone about personal style really except to when it comes to wearing clothes I think the key is fun and pleasure. The business of designing, marketing styling, selling, etc is different to wearing. Wearing clothes - that’s about enjoyment and not really caring what others think or say. I think for men especially the idea of dressing for fun was for the longest time a pretty alien concept within the mainstream, it was about looking cool, keeping up with trends, looking successful and so on. But the people I look to, the people who I believe have amazing style – the famous ones and not so the famous ones - all see wearing clothes as a form of play and I think never they fail to look amazing as a result. 

Thank you so much, Jason!

"Ivy League"-Fans unter sich - ein Gespräch mit Jimmy Frost Mellor...

Um nicht immer im eigenen Saft zu braten, habe ich heute ein besonderes Gusto-Stückerl für die treuen Leser meines Blogs - ich freue mich, Euch an einem Gedankenaustausch teilhaben zu lassen, den ich in der letzten Woche mit Jimmy Frost Mellor führen konnte.

Links: ich selbst; rechts: Jimmy Frost Mellor

Jimmy Frost Mellor ist der Gründer und Initiator des „Talk Ivy“ – eines eigenen, kleinen Forums innerhalb des Forums zu Bekleidungsthemen „Film Noir Buff“. Er hat sich darüber hinaus einen Namen als Menswear Consultant gemacht, wobei er selbst die Genese vom einstigen „Saturday Boy“ bei „John Simons“ (wir kennen das hierzulande als „Samstags-Job“) zum gefragten Berater für Männerkleidungsfragen so sieht:

The 'Menswear Consultant' thing still makes me laugh - In reality I just talk about clothes a lot and always have. The only difference now is that I get to do it for money every so often. My latest role is as an Archivist, curating a John Simons collection heading for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Having already built up a reputation in various ways, online included, the first consultancy gig I did was for the new brand 'Harry Stedman' when they were toying with the idea of being an Ivy brand. This was in their very early days and I was approached by their MD to act as 'creative consultant' on the project working with their designer Becky Philp. I'd known both their MD and Becky from my previous involvement with the John Simons marketing team at the launch of John's new shop: I used to write blurbs and marketing releases for John. Working with Becky was a pure pleasure, even though I only got my expenses paid (sometimes) on the project, and so a friend of mine, Chris Lloyd who also works in menswear hit on the idea of pimping me out to other clothing brands with an Ivy interest too and so it all started from there. The Stedman project soon lost interest in Ivy but it launched me on the circuit of being for hire to 'Talk Ivy'. I've advised quite a few companies now both large and small on what Ivy is and isn't - Talked them through the details, shown them vintage and modern examples, written little bits for them. It's nothing but fun for me, turning my former hobby into a kind of business to sit alongside all the rest I do.

My obsession (not a word that I'm shy of, although your were very kind to just call me a 'big fan'!) with the Ivy style came from my obsession with Modern Jazz as a teenager. I was 13 and encountered this strange new music for the first time and got hooked. Purely by chance the musicians were wearing Ivy on the album covers - I got lucky, they could have been wearing anything!

It was a total style experience for me - Music, clothes, photography, typography all coming together on those records. I even got haircut ideas from them too!  Everything was new and different about them and somehow all worked together. I loved that.

Das macht ihn zum idealen Ansprechpartner, um auch ein bisschen die Historie des „Ivy League“- oder auch „Natural Shoulder“-Stils  zu beleuchten. Und so fragte ich ihn, wie sich dieser spezielle Stil in den letzten hundert Jahren entwickelt hat. Was ist die Essenz des Looks, wie hat er sich über die Jahrzehnte entwickelt und warum ist „Ivy“ so ein zeitloser „All Time Favourite“ in den Garderoben vieler Männer?

 

The core of the look is turn of the 20th century Brooks Brothers. They had the style first and were copied by others. A softness of construction is the hallmark of the style. Shirt collars and Jacket shoulders are especially soft. I think it's proved to be such a timeless classic because it works. It's a wardrobe that's always right, occupying as it does a middle ground of formality and casualness. It avoids extremes on the whole and so ages better than most fashions. The evolution of the Ivy style is an interesting one because, although lapels have slimmed down and ballooned up with fashion, the core style has remained pretty constant. There are off-shoots of the style too, things like 'Preppy', but you can't call them Ivy League style and claim them as a part of Ivy's evolution. The Ivy style is the classic style. It's influenced other things, but those Ivy influenced trends are not 'Ivy moving on' or anything like that. You can claim them as a part of the family tree, but you can't say that they are the classic style.
 

Brooks Brothers & Bass Weejuns

"Ivy Atmosphere"

Ivy League hatte bisher immensen Einfluss auf die Männermode, besonders heute sieht man wieder vermehrt Button Down-Shirts, Chinos, Penny Loafers… diese Kleidungsstücke gehören seit jeher in den Kleidungsschrank des klassisch anspruchsvollen Trägers. Mich persönlich hat immer schon interessiert, ob es einen direkten Zusammenhang zwischen „Ivy“ und der „Mod“-Bewegung der 1960er-Jahre gibt. Genauso überlegenswert erscheint mir die Frage, welchen Einfluss der Stil auf die Mode speziell in Mitteleuropa und Italien der Nachkriegszeit hatte.

The story of Ivy outside America is remarkably similar everywhere it cropped up. It was absolutely one of the cultural footprints left by the American GIs after WWII. And again it often went hand in hand with music. There are endless stories and they're all the same of the American air force bases across Europe and the new clothes and music they introduced the local populations to. They had new styles of clothing and music that post-war Europe was hungry for - Especially if you were young and forward looking and thinking. It's practically a blueprint for the rebirth of Modernism after the war. And from Modernism you then get Mod.

All that Jazz...

The Who & The Yardbirds

Wenn man sich alte Filme ansieht, kommt man um den Stil nicht umhin: von „Sabrina“ 1954 über „Breakfast at Tiffany´s“ 1961 bis hin zu „Bullitt“ 1968 - sie alle sind und waren stilgebend für ihr Publikum. Zum Einfluss von Filmen und Zeitschriften und ihre Wirkung als Multiplikatoren für den Ivy League - Stil hat Jim Folgendes parat:

Movies, magazines, the black market for items from the American air men's PX stores, music - especially album cover design: They all spread Ivy and they were all popular culture items - Not high culture. In America Ivy can be worthy and staid but nowhere else I don't think. It's always going to something different away from it's original associations with the 'correct wear' for the American Gentleman back home in the US. It's an aspect of the style that I, and more Americans than you might think, embrace. Even in America itself when Ivy became a component of popular culture being worn by film stars and eventually almost everybody it was far removed from its very 'proper' origins too. The advertising imagery remained the same, but the clothing was quite simply up for grabs by all at all price and quality points. If you love the style for itself I think you love that too.

Hollywood and the Ivy Look

Nachdem wir ein gutes Stück zurück in die Ivy-Geschichte geschaut haben, ist eine aktuelle Frage wert, erörtert zu werden: Ist bei all dem klassischen Anspruch der Ivy League Stil trotzdem jung und frisch? Modern oder altmodisch? Die einzig richtige Antwort, der ich voll und ganz zustimme, gibt Jim so:

You can wear Ivy in a fresh OR an outdated way. I suspect that just boils down to how well you wear it.  Maybe it all depends on how fresh or outdated the wearer is ? You can wear classic Ivy today in a relevant way if you wear it well. Any classic style is like that. You don't need to add any gimmicks with a short shelf life to make it count.

The roll of the collar... is the most important thing!

In den vergangenen Jahren hat der so genannte „Preppy“-Stil großen Aufschwung erfahren. Oftmals ist es für viele schwierig, den Unterschied zwischen „Ivy“ und „Preppy“ auszumachen und die Diskussion darüber füllt viele Foren-Stränge. Sind nicht Ralph Lauren, Mark McNairy, Thom Browne und Tommy Hilfiger die Helden moderner amerikanischer Design- und Stilkultur?

Preppy is a later fashion thing. I'll agree that it's popular and I'll agree with your list of people that some people like. Hand me a can of petrol and a box of matches and I'd burn the lot of it down. Modern American style and Classic Ivy are very different. I know what I like and it's not any 'updated' or 'classics with a twist' business. Classicism doesn't work that way. Update the classics and you destroy the timeless aspect of them as you limit them to today. They are no longer classic.

But fashion has always been the enemy of classicism...

Um von der Theorie in die Praxis zu kommen: wo kauft man nun am besten ein, wenn man dem „Ivy–Stil“ anheimgefallen ist? Ich weiß von „O´Connell´s“ in den USA, das aber sehr teuer ist, und natürlich von „John Simons“ in London, das sich immer als gute Quelle erweist. Seit Neuestem gibt es hier auch einen Web Shop (ich selbst habe mein Brooks Brothers Hemd noch „klassisch“ per Telefon bestellt). Meist sucht man doch auch nach günstigeren Alternativen – wie sieht es hier aus mit beispielsweise „Lands´ End“ oder „LL Bean“? Sind „Brooks Brothers“ oder „J. Press“ immer noch führend was „Ivy League“ betrifft?

I'd recommend everybody to shop around. There very little I would buy from Brooks Brothers or J. Press today. They've lost it, if you know what Ivy actually is - Here's a clue it's also called the Natural Shoulder style. Linebacker shoulders don't cut it.

Landsend, LL Bean - Why not? And go vintage too. Connect with people who are also into Ivy on places like the 'Talk Ivy' forum on FilmNoirBuff online who have clothes to sell.

Personally I only shop at John Simons now or wear vintage.

Everybody has to find what suits them best.

I'm always happy to exchange thoughts about clothing and style issues, especially with someone who, due to his lifelong passion for "Ivy", has acquired a lot of knowledge and overview and – most important- also loves to share these with others. So thank you Jim for all the insights, your interesting answers and all the fun!

It's always nice to meet somebody with an interest in the Ivy League look.

A pleasure to talk to you, Dominik!

Jimmy Frost Mellor, Specialist Ivy League Menswear Consultant and Archivist, originator of Smoking Cat Vintage Menswear, originator of various Ivy related things online.

So schließe ich den heutigen Beitrag mit einigen Bildern von mir selbst im „Ivy League“- oder „Natural Shoulder“-Stil: