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.

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!

Puma is realeasing a “Fresh Prince of Bel Air”pack - shoes, watch, and bag. Awesome. That show was hysterical. How wonderfully daring of you, Puma Brand Sneakers.

First, the goods:

Now, the video - The intro does a good job of capturing the mood of the show. Here is the extended intro, which I’d never seen before, though it seems like there is only one extra scene:

Pretty good homage to this great television show from the 90’s. For more info, check out: EuKicks.

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!

My grandmother, no longer with me on this earth, wore her cap to bed every night. She also could read your cards and tell your fortune, and wrote songs where creating the rhyme took precedent over making sense of the verse. I have often worn wool hats inside the house which makes my mother sigh that I remind her of her mother and thus, I infer, she isn’t sure of what to think of my hat. She wouldn’t wear it in the house, I also get out of this. This weekend I went skiing (and did not fall once thank you), and so last Friday, tramping through the rain, I stopped at Crossroads and found myself a new hat.

Crossroads, as you may know, is one of the greatest stores in San Francisco. I haven’t written about it yet, so perhaps I will do so tomorrow - I am trying to keep focused from post to post. Basically, it is a mix of used and new clothing, always in style and always reasonably priced.

At Crossroads (The one in the Filmore District) I got this hat by WeSC. WeSC stands for “We Are The Superlative Conspiracy” and they are one of these new types of clothing brands/art/activist groups. They feature on their website a pretty cool image of a bunch of cool looking people hanging out in the park, combined with collage-ish cutouts. Their top level links get you to their Spring Summer Collection (Its January!) and a list of activists - actually a portfolio of skaters, artist, musicians, and other folks who I guess endorse WeSC.

You might be trying to figure out if I am on the side or against WeSC - well, that is kind of what their name makes you ask as well so I will leave you guessing. I will say that the hat wasn’t expensive, and besides Crossroads there are plenty of places to get a good deal on their stuff. But here are the pictures of my new favorite piece of clothing: my wool WeSC cap. Love you Grandma Katie.

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.

I hope this reaches the interested in time - the San Francisco Based Fashion Design House and Online Shop, Improperazzi, are showcasing their work tongiht at AsiaSF via the STILETTO party. As I have never been to AsiaSf, I will quote from the 7×7 website:

This SF landmark dishes up Cal-Asian cuisine along with gender-illusionist entertainment, shattering the conventional idea of “dinner and a show.”

I want to go RIGHT NOW. But I’ll have to wait for tonight.

STILETTO is the Friday/Saturday night party hosted by Andrew Parker where you can get your fill of photography, film, DJ action.

Finally, back to the fashion: Improperazzi is an edgy shop, on the street style end of the fashion spectrum. They have print tees for men and women, bags and hoodies. Their website is awesome. You should really look at it right now. It is made to look like a skeezy tabloid lying on the table at an even skeezier bar. Their clothes: A small collection, the tees are all printed or screened - skulls, scissors, Asian Flag inspired, repeating patterns. Many of the prints have a dark humor about them. The bags, from their site, look like regular bags that they spray painted with stencils. Only one hoodie, a big skull - I wasn’t as much of a fan as of the tees.

Check out the show tonight, or at least check out their striking website.

San Francisco weather almost requires hoodies for guys and girls. You can get away with wearing them over shirts, over dresses, from the most casual to the casually elegant outfit. But the thing about hoodies on girls - I guess I should qualify that by saying: Girls who have bigger bust measurement - is that they don’t quite look right.

Check out Jay-Z in his visit to Africa. I got this photo from http://holamun2.com/. Jay-Z looks great. Shades of yellow, brown, white, screen of a map of the world across the chest - hood falls nicely. But imagine a woman with boobs wearing this hoodie. No good. Just looks like she’s trying to hide herself away.

The issue is, I love hoodies. Embrodiered, printed, plain, knit, insulated - I love the look. Not that they don’t make hoodies for women, but it isn’t the same.

I suppose I’ll just have to admire from afar.

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.

Metro•Pop is a fashion magazine that I have really come to like. Not as industrialized as Vogue or Lucky, not as crappy as the millions of crappy zines out there, Metro•Pop strikes just the right balance, showing me the street style fashions that are really out there, on models that COULD be people I know. I don’t know them, but it isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility.

They give a lot of emphasis to fashion photography, and graphic design. They have many pages devoted to several photographers, in the same way that Vogue will do, but the photography is much younger, much more based on street style. The cover of the magazine is always stunning and intriguing, sometimes, like their recent shoe issue, they opt for abstract design rather than a hot woman. Sometimes the hot woman, too.

My only complaint: They don’t publish a date on their issues so you have no idea when the issue is from if you happen to pick it up somewhere.