Thome Browne Rules Of Style

Following up on Saturdays rules of style by Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg, here is Thom Browne's take. Long known for his controversial shrunken suit aesthetic he offers a very different perspective:

1) I don’t understand why everybody thinks that dressing casually is so much more comfortable. I’m as comfortable in a suit as I am in anything else.

2) Good champagne—good, not expensive—has been my cocktail of choice for as long as I can remember. I like them all—Bollinger, Taittinger, and others. I also collect champagne coupes; I have more than 10. They’re one of the few things that I collect.

3) Chariots of Fire, Death in Venice, North by Northwest, and The Thomas Crown Affair are some of my favorite films—and they’re all particularly inspiring for menswear. I watch movies all the time but I don’t like to go to the theater. It’s just too much.

4) Guys shouldn’t spend a lot of money on a haircut. I go to Chelsea Barbers in New York, where I pay about $30. The price went up, but I’m very loyal to the woman there.

5) It’s sad that the cell phone is replacing the watch as a time-telling device. I wear a vintage watch that’s really skinny.

6) When it comes to shoes, you don’t really need more than a few pairs of wing tips or oxfords. They’re classics. And I wear only black shoes in the city. Brown ones are for the country.

7) Men don’t know enough about being courteous toward women. You should get into a cab before a woman so she doesn’t have to slide across the seat. And you should always go first into a revolving door so she doesn’t have to push—unless it’s moving, then let her go first.

8) Seersucker and khaki suits are the key to looking put-together in the summer. I also wear shorts year-round. And I would never say never, but I don’t wear sandals. With shorts, it’s wing tips and tennis socks.

9) I like menswear from the late fifties and early sixties. It’s the uniformity and the lack of choice from that era that I respond to. It’s also the last time that there was such a distinct American style. Now it’s all jumbled up and homogenized.

10) I love white linen sheets, but they need to be ironed, so that limits my use of them. Otherwise, I like really good, starched white cotton sheets. They have to be white.

Scott Sternberg Rules of Style

I really enjoyed this top ten rules of style by head designer of Band Of Outsiders, Scott Sternberg. I don't agree with all of it, but it is entertaining. Enjoy!

1) Opening a conversation with "What do you do?" makes you sound like a shifty, social-climbing dickwad. Small talk is for sissies, but if you're stuck with it, you can certainly come up with something better than that.

2) Talking about what brand you're wearing is gay in the bad way. Just keep quiet and play dumb if someone asks. Talking about what a great deal you got on the aforementioned item is worse. If you must, tell your mom, because she has sale empathy and will take your victory as her own. It's sick.

3) I don't think a tie is a relic, not yet. It's purely masculine—that one garment that allows you to go a little outside the box. A tie with a well-cut suit makes you look put-together and confident. It's an auto-chic, easy uniform.

4) Cigarettes are a vile, dirty habit. Joints, on the other hand, are perfectly acceptable.

5) Whenever you start a new project or a new job, don't tell anyone what you're working on, because it can change direction a million times and once you start telling the world about it, you get constrained by your own mouth.

6) That skin-toned paste your girlfriend gave you to treat your pimple is makeup. Don't kid yourself. You're a girl if you use it. Figure something else out.

7) Rabid atheism does not lead to attractive or acceptable cocktail-party conversation. You know who you are and you need to chill. We get it, okay? God is for dummies. Now shut your hole.

8) It's just not cool to fart on a plane, even if everyone's ears are plugged from the altitude and they can't hear where it came from. Heed my warning: Airplane-fart karma is a bitch, and you will find yourself at the receiving end on a sleepless transcontinental red-eye soon enough.

9) Style fills the gap between how you see yourself and how you want other people to see you. It is not a mysterious quality reserved for Cary Grant or Liberace. You have a sense of it in there somewhere. It's just a matter of finding a way to express it without seeming like you're trying.

10) Rules, as they say, are meant to be broken. Don't get too caught up with what I—or anyone else—tell you about your personal style, except for No. 8.