Pete Wentz, Bassist and Lyricist for the band Fall Out Boy, and all around reneaisannce man, has agreed to partner his clothing company with Nordstrom. According to an article in the Portland Business Journal, Wentz’s company, Clandestine Industries, will make and design the clothes, which will be sold in the juniors department at Nordstrom’s. When asked what he thought about the partnership, Wentz replied, “I am stoked to collaborate with Nordstrom.”

After reading this article, I did a little more research (i.e. went to wikipedia) and read up on Pete Wentz. In addition to being a bassist, lyricist, backup singer, clothing designer, clothing company owner, he is also a children’s book author, an owner of a record company, and the owner of a film company.

Pete Wentz Looking Fly (photo by GBDAM)

Some might critisize Wentz for “selling out,” as he is clearly not just about The Music. But I don’t feel that way. The only way to do that would be to associate any use of business savvy with selling out, which I don’t do. But then maybe I just don’t believe in the concept of “selling out” any more. I think that a person has a right to try to make something of him or herself, and a right to try to make money. Especially here in America.

Furthermore, I’d like make a general point about small businesses by talking about the world of journalism. On one hand, the media is completely built up and systemized to the point where news companies are owned by weapons manufacturers and the word of main stream journalists is almost impossible to take without a grain of salt. On the other hand, the voice of the individual is louder than ever through blogs, message boards and podcasts. But a blogger must take responsibility for his or her own income, thus benefitting from the financial structures in existance: sole prop, LLC, C Corp. This is the way that a individual can protect him or herself from being sucked into the other side.

Drawing this back to Pete Wentz, man of the world, I think that he is doing the right thing - recognizing that music, fashion, media is all connected on a financial level in a very smooth and flowing way, and that anyone who wants to position him or herself to take advantage of this connection, can do so. Pete, I’m stoked for you.

I was just starting to root for Paris Hilton, what with her going to jail and all, when I find out she is working on a new reality show with MTV:

According to New York Magazine’s ”The Cut”, which is their online editorial section,

the real Paris Hilton is currently working on a reality show for MTV, in which twenty guys and gals will compete to be her “best friend forever.”

Really?

OMFG, Paris, Really?

I guess I am getting old. The article is actually about how at Fashion Week in India, some of the designers were mocking the attitude of some of the young and fabulous in America. Read it here.

Guys, go put Resevoir Dogs and/or Pulp Fiction on your netflix because you are about to start to put together (if you havn’t already) a plain black suit with skinny black tie combo.

GQ has been bringing this up for about three issues. ThisNext tells us that it “Seals the Punk Look.” Seal wore a skinny black tie to the grammy’s this year (see previous post).  Justin Timberlake uses this look all the time. Brad Pitt too.

Vanessa Valiente, personal stylist, describes the ins and outs of the skinny black tie. She says,

On the occasion when a suit is necessary the skinny tie is so hot and so easy.

Check out the rest of her informative article here.

Hypebeast, the street style blog with just the right balance of street to style, showed me these unbelievable Adidas Gazelles today:

They have a few other pairs, but this is my favorite.

Gazelles are the shoe that all of my soccer playing buddies from high school said were ”The Best Shoe Ever.”

And now they make them in pastel!

For those of you who were confused, here is a handy article on how to tuck your jeans into your boots.

Everybody is doing this these days so you better get practicing. Our friends at La Fashionistas have some advice too.

Basically, don’t do it with any kind of jeans except skinny jeans beacuse otherwise you will look like a hot air baloon.

The purple from the 80’s is one of the shining stars of that decade. Rising highly above other trends such as two-way bangs, crack, and cuffing your jeans, that lovely shade of purple, so bright and hopeful, but at the same time so edgy and bold, is happily welcomed back. When I was in high school, during the 90’s, the hot color was boring forest green. I truely feel that I lost out.

The website 80’s Purple (http://80spurple.com) is a clothing site where you can find very cool brands such as freshjive, freepeople, and paper, denim and cloth. Their brands, in fact, can be seen on a graphic on their front page. Seriously, though, the best thing about their site is their design. I can’t even explain it but just go there right now and mouse around. It is so cool.

Interestingly, I just noticed a link for eyewear. Men’s clothes, women’s clothes, and eyewear. I love it. And in fact, my sunglasses just broke. Sweet!

Moosejaw is an outdoor apparel website - a really good one - you can always find good deals and their site is quite well designed. It is the little details that matter - easy to sort items, cute extra content that gives the site a personal feel - like your buddy is running it.  They also have a little outlet site called The Lowdown. Everything there is on sale, and a lot of it is very cool. Besides checking out their sales all at once, you can sign up for a daily email so that each day you can see an item which has been marked down at least 60%. Today’s item was a pretty cool pair of men’s pants:

Analog Men’s Boundary Pant (Fall 2007)

Stil in Berlin is one of the best street style blogs out there. It is mostly photos and shows the fashion of Berlin, Germany - My German friend told me ‘Stil’ means ‘Style’, but with a slightly different connotation.

It means more like, in the style of. Like, in the style of baroque vs. rococo.

Say that outloud and it is funnier.

In Germany right now, it is really cold, so most of their pictures are of people wearing stylish heavy coats. Here is a link to their August 2007 Archives so you can get a sense for what those Berliners are wearing under their jackets.

After posting the Washington Post fashion slide show on the presidential candidates sense of style, I found an more indepth, more objective look at the candidates style by the Style Guy of GQ’s men.style.com.

Democrats
Republicans

The Style Guy is one of my favorites, and I highly recommend all guys interested in fashion to take a look at his work.

As a street style evangelist, I am always looking for great blogs and sites promoting street style. Of course, my first loyalty is always to my company, Stylastic, but I am always looking for other sites that hit the fashion nail on the head.

I found this LA one - HiStyley. Points for the name for sure. HiStyley’s philosphy is fun, small quantity, high quality street photography. Tittyboo, the proprieter of the site, has a great eye and, from the information about the site, is really respectful of people’s privacy.

Street Style Fans, I recommend you check out HiStyley immediately.