Dressing for the Summer
I understand, I really do: you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be warm, it’s been cold for so long, and warm-weather-euphoria is bubbling through your bloodstream like champagne. At this point in spring every Classic Sir looks forward to grilling and hitting the beach, but so often I’ve observed even the most level-headed sartorialist [...]
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Why Men Love Don: Part 2
I don’t claim to have as many problems as Don. Heck, I’m not even sure I’m as psychologically real. I do, though, know that there is something immensely comforting about wearing a uniform; you know who you are, because you know what you’re wearing, and vice versa. Oscar Wilde wrote in his essay 1891 essay [...]
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Why Men Love Don: Part 1
If you’re anything like me–and because you’re reading this I assume you are–you made a kindergarten-style paper chain to mark the days until the premiere of season six of Mad Men. Few cultural artifacts have made such an impact on contemporary public consciousness as this show has, and few creations have had as great an [...]
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Learn How to Tie a Bow Tie
Simply knowing when to wear a bow tie is just not enough. Knowing how to tie a bow tie separates you from the masses who don’t know the finer points of tying one, let alone the basics. If you are a first time buyer, remember that there are two variations of bow ties. The more [...]
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Too Soft?
Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s my penchant for all things preppy, maybe it’s that fleece (the least preppy fabric) or anything resembling fleece gives me the howling fantods, but I have to finally come out and say it: I don’t like cashmere. I kind of hate it, actually. Put down your pitchfork. You, pocket [...]
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The Best Day Of The Year
Last Sunday, November 11 was, other than St. Crispin’s Day and Festivus, my favorite holiday. The wales align on Corduroy Day, the date that most resembles the “cloth of kings” (corduroy’s French translation). So, in homage, I’d like to spend a meditative moment or two in tribute to this classic autumnal fabric. No other fabric [...]
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September 2012
Classic Sir is proud to present September’s Gentleman of the Month, Mr. Marco Foster. He took some time to talk with us about Chicago Models, Fashion’s Night Out, and One Hope United. CS: You’ve been spotted at events all over Chicago. How do you stay socially active and keep in touch with what’s happening around [...]
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Ready to Wear
Bow ties have that unique quality of looking either completely fabulous or entirely dreadful without any middle ground. And we’ve all seen them, haven’t we? At a club or bar, or traipsing around downtown, there they are–rarities, like glints of gold glittering through an ash heap: a man sporting (and what other verb is there?) [...]
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A Playwright's Perspective
Bertolt Brecht, the very, very German playwright who penned such works as Mother Courage and Ambien: The Musical, correctly wanted his audiences to attend the theater coming from the local pub. In other words, he wanted the everyman, the fishmonger, the lowly tobacconist to go see plays. Yet anyone who regularly attends the theatre [...]
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Ready to Wear: Michael Bastian
“For his return, Bastian presented an homage to James Dean, whose squinting, moody visage, picked out in the designer’s logo, was splashed over the backdrop. The first model emerged, a fifties kid in dungarees, penny loafers (with pennies; Bastian is nothing if not detail-oriented), and windbreaker—the rebel without a cause of Roy Schatt’s famous photo. [...]
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