StyleLikeU » Preppy

Timo Weiland & Alan Eckstein

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:59:56 +0000

The fun-loving nature of Ferris Bueller is obvious in the “mishmash of color, stripes, plaids and polka dots” that Timo and Alan claim defines their style and designs. Timo says of their aesthetic, “We believe in ‘what your parents always told you never to wear.’” This includes turning upholstery fabric into pants, combining beachy muted stripes with sharp poppy-colored blazers and juxtaposing unlikely color combinations like red with pink. Despite their innovative and carefree approach to the classics, Timo and Alan also possess a definitive old world charm. Trench coats and grandfatherly button-up shirts reveal their old souls, the “Grumpy Old Men” in them. In fact, the singular and iconic rapport between the stars of that movie, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, is highly indicative of Timo and Alan’s relationship. Matthau and Lemmon had their own solo careers and made films individually, but it was as a team that they lit the screen on fire. Like them, Timo and Alan had other career paths before finding each other but ultimately decided to take the plunge into the fashion business together. The former had a consulting business and the latter, according to him, had a “failed” attempt at a music career in college. Still, I always say “there is no success without failure,” and Timo and Alan have found their creative and business groove as a duo. Despite the relentless pressure of being entrepreneurs, the inspired banter they share makes it seem effortless. They could barely contain their dynamic energy when posing for their SLU photos, constantly holding back smiles while camping it up, holding sunflowers in their beat-up Converses, oxfords, berets and all.

If you like Timo & Alan, you may also enjoy Cameron Moir, Yvan Rodic, and Taylor Moore.

Natalie Joos

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:54:17 +0000

When I scouted Natalie at a show during last season’s fashion week, I had no idea that she was a highly esteemed casting director in NYC. However, I could see instantly, that she had that comfort in her skin and in her style that makes my head turn. It has been a lucky twist of fate for me in doing StyleLikeU, that I usually don’t know (and don’t care) “who” I am stopping to approach for a closet interview, other than the instinct that they pique my visual radar. Not trying too hard can often be when the magic happens, as it was for Natalie when she decided to come to New York, from London (originally, from Belgium), early in her career life. With two suitcases, and an open attitude, Natalie says that she came with no expectations, and was approached by “all of the right people” as a result. “I am just going to do this,” and “I never said, ‘if’ it doesn’t work out, that I am going to go home.” Natalie says that she dresses in characters, depending on her moods, which is what she did as a child in the small village that she grew up, which had “lots of castles and green.” Already into Dior at thirteen, ( which her mom would reproduce for her), her appreciation for effortless and seminal pieces is as intense as ever. I am still dreaming about her black double-breasted Givenchy jumper, and I share her passion for expensive shoes. Natalie loves vintage, but, for her, the most current in designer shoes, just one pair can set the tone of everything. I am completely fascinated by the fact that Natalie wrote her college thesis on “The Ideal Standards of Beauty and the Influence of Mass Media.” It basically analyzes the high and low “conjunctures” of body image and how it changes over time based on the cultural influences. “There were times in history, where being fat was a sign of being wealthy.” Natalie is in congruence with my own feelings, that we are heading to a time where we celebrate “real” people, for lack of a better phrase. I like to look at it as we are entering a Renaissance, where we value the indivdual as a whole, and the outside as a reflection of what’s inside, both equal in importance. For example, someone like Natalie, who’s inner and outer, effortless, beauty, brings to life something as simple and classic as Ralph Lauren’s version of a Pendelton cardigan, she makes you want to own one.

Check out Natalie’s blog, Tales of Endearment

If you like Natalie Joos, you may also enjoy Julie Kauss, Ashley Wick and Frederique van der Wal.

Yvan Rodic

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:23:29 +0000

What happens when a kid whose passions are archeology, traveling and photography grows up in Switzerland, where the only fashion that exists is “modest and low-key” and it’s unacceptable to be cool? A state of the art blog is born (one of my favorites) called Face Hunter, which holds me like glue, in much the same way that National Geographic’s portraits or a Vermeer painting can. Yvan’s subjects are found in every nook and cranny of the world and his pictures are slices of life featuring the most originally dressed, the ones who express everything through their fashion, no matter how subtle or overt. He finds a girl reading in a doorway on a quiet street, dressed simply except for her very noticeable red suede wedges, as captivating as I do.

Yvan is very “Swiss” in his humility regarding his own wardrobe. “I dress how I feel, and it’s not incredibly avant-garde or experimental because my work is about shooting cool people that should look cooler than I am. But I guess at the end of the day, I appreciate the people who are just themselves. I don’t need to costume myself.” However, I think he is incredibly chic in his own form of hip geek: shrunken blazers, cropped pants, pastel colors, buttoned up shirts, slim trenches and the most sophisticated variations of the desert boot in charcoal gray suede and navy leather. But it is the person that makes the clothes and Yvan’s charm brings life to everything he touches, with his profound commitment to the adrenaline rush that he gets from the uncovering of new and preferably less traveled places and their cultural tastemakers. He travels the world with a fervor bordering on Twitter speed – in the last three years he hasn’t spent more than ten days in one city, including his home base in London. Authenticity and anticipation are words of the past, according to Yvan. “It’s like a 1960s science fiction movie… The world is moving too fast and everyone is connected. I am doing and thinking at the same time… it’s the most beautiful thing.”

Yvan Rodic is his personal photographic blog.

You might also enjoy Milton Puzey, James Ott and Kristopher Daddona

Samuel Hindes

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:17:44 +0000

Samuel’s first single, I Heart NY, is blowing up. When I went to the apartment where he grew up to interview him, he was still in the perfecting stages of tweaking the most recent mixes. He told me that the songs won’t be done until he can go out to the store and buy the album or download it on itunes, “because then everyone else will be hearing it.” So, I guess they must be “done” now. This is really the story of the “underdog” rising. Unlike high school, where Samuel was kicked out, music is not an obligation, but comes from a love of storytelling and singing (“alot of the songs on the album are true” and are written by Samuel.) I love how he was “discovered”, kind of the old fashioned way. The label, “respected the fact that we started ourselves..It’s actually a pretty cool thing that everyone on our label has been like, ‘your collective… it’s very grassroots, it’s very us.’ We never had anybody tell us something that we couldn’t do.” Like his music, which is clean, simple and understated, so is his style. There is not an ounce of pretension, clothes are meant to be worn, get dirty, be comfortable and most of all, to be relatable. Samuel is “not a big fan of going over the top.”

If like Samuel, you may also enjoy Max Vernon, Lexie or Rachel Smith, and Justin Giunta.

Piera Gelardi

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:36:08 +0000

Piera is attracted to talismen, or powerful objects that embody good energy, like her early twentieth-century vintage purse that she says is her metal kidney, and her Giles tassel necklace. But to me, they are emblems of the powerhouse that Piera is. I now know what it takes to launch one’s own business, and I am in awe of Piera’s entrepreneurial spirit and foresight in starting Refinery29 at a time “when very little else on the internet occupied that type of space.” She “dared to jump,” and says that “thinking back to when we started, it gives me that sense of possibility that is addictive” (words we can all stand to hear right now). Her fetish for amulets and their magic has not only helped her in business, but she says that clothes almost divinely find her, like her stunning red floor-length Anne Klein pleated skirt that popped up on eBay in her size when she searched for anything by the designer. In the same vein, I love how uncontrived Piera is with her style: the way she puts a pair of Southwestern-style vintage Keds with a Gucci nautical cardigan, and how she has turned her birthday (for ten years now) into a “wear pink” party, because no one would dare leave to go anywhere else in NYC in pink. With the success of Refinery29, Piera’s living space is now her own – gone are the days when she let her coworkers into her apartment with a towel on her head, though she appreciates them as much as the heirlooms she has inhertied from her grandmother’ world travels.

If you like Piera, you might also enjoy Darcy Miro, Kim Johnson, or Marka Kiley.

Filip Nocko

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:03:46 +0000

It’s hard to fathom growing up in a place like Communist Poland, where the shops were filled primarily with vinegar and butter. And when you see the burst of color and pattern on Filip, it’s proof that the imagination, no matter what your circumstances, can take you anywhere. He artfully combines fast or high fashion with almost any color and every texture. The combination of a Club Monaco take on the tartan cardigan, a polkadot Commes des Garcon polo, and a Topshop plaid bow tie is one example of how Filip layers classic-upon-classic until it becomes a new eclectic standard. Making preppy surreal, he puts suspenders over an argyle sweater, and ties a Moschino scarf around a Vivienne Westwood pullover. Socks are an important new fetish for expressing Filip’s not-too-serious take on dressing. They are almost without fail, a tastefully whimsical exclamation, like the ones that mimic a spectator shoe. Many of Filip’s unusual finds come from his beloved Century 21 – “I am obsessed. I applied for an internship for a discount.” Making his playful mark on what can be the somber clothing palette of the Big Apple, the “boy with the blue sneakers” is how he became lovingly known.

If you like Filip, you might also enjoy Koos van den Akker or Ludget Delcy.

Nick Fouquet

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:41:56 +0000

Nick is the spitting image of his free-spirited hero Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Rugged and tanned, in his chambray shirt and Peruvian cowboy hat tilted back, he is inspired by the quote, “Quo non ascendet?”, or “To what heights can I not rise?”. Lofty in his goals, Nick wishes to surf a tsunmai wave, and unrestrained in his lifestyle, his favorite person on SLU is Zarzan, because he has no boundaries. The outer limits are where Nick has gone already, fearlessly backpacking alone for a couple of years from South America to Nepal, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, and many places in between. It’s hard not to love the authentic stylistic touches that come along with traveling to indigenous countries, like a hat made of palm fronds that Nick wears with his toile pineapple pants and studded classic french espadrilles. Not a lot stops Nick from leaving any comfort zone, and once back from his third world excursions, he found himself paddleboarding around Manhattan with professional surfers, which landed him in a loft in Chinatown for a stint before getting evicted and moving to the mountains of Colorado on a whim. The influence of the West can be seen in the most irresistable real-deal Indian beaded moccassins and signature silver lapis cuff with wooly mammoth tooth details made by his uncle. Nick’s present utopia is Venice Beach, where he lives in an adorable bungalo by the beach, complete with hammock and citrus tree. I love how Nick feels clothes come to him as easily as they go – “It’s like a layer of yourself that goes on and falls off.” For him, it’s a symbol of renewal. Nick attributes his open attitude to his travels – he feels it’s necessary to experience new things to live and grow. A moment that he feels has most changed him was a night in Nepal, after two weeks of treking and eating rice and beans. He was welcomed into a house by a local family, and after dinner, the ten-year-old, in her usual ritual, went to another room to pray to her Hindu god. There was something about her faith for Nick that had an impact – she seemed happier than anyone he had ever known and notably, without a BlackBerry in sight.

If you like Nick, you might also enjoy Ash Epps and Nick Cohen.

Shayne Oliver

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:55:31 +0000

Shayne seeks the meaning and philosophy behind everything – to say he is a thinking man’s designer is an understatement. Some examples: his favorite film director is Maya Deren, who has made a film about crashing her own self-image (she’s her own killer), one of his greatest sources of inspiration is the Carnival artist Peter Minshall, who takes elaborate costumery to deep and historical levels (he uses the color red, for instance, to explore beauty and evil, angels and demons), and Shayne designed, for one of his collections, a shredded “church-going” Southern gentleman’s jacket to symbolize salvation, “that last moment when you have had enough and you just feel like you need to be freed.” He loves that clothing can be a costume because of what it represents to a person, and he strives to break it down and translate it into a new language. Shayne created his line Hood by Air partly in response to the hypocrisy he observed while hanging on the street with the skater boys, whom he noticed had just as much attitude about their style as someone into high fashion, (while pretending that they were so different from someone who does care.) It prompted him to start making t-shirts that literally told the truth, “I am this.. and why not just say it?” In keeping with his need for things to remain real, the name “hood” is in reaction to “ghetto,” (which he feels means victim) and is more about getting to where you need to go with what you have. Shayne values the allure of things, the yin and yang of everything, rather than the more limited and tired definitions of masculine and feminine. As a result, he makes elegant and classy what could be a dowdy one-piece woman’s Chinese suit from Ann Taylor, with his “nasty hooker boots,” of course. “It’s those edges that make a man even more of man, to take a risk, and say I am going to go ahead with this.”

If you like Shayne Oliver, you might also like Mario Monroe and Olof Erlandsson.

Olof Erlandsson

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:53:54 +0000

Olof Erlandsson for Stylelikeu.com from StyleLikeU on Vimeo.

Olof’s ability to synchronize different eras of classicism while maintaining a masculinity and femininity at the same time in his dress is exemplary. He is at once Medieval viking, with his Nordic bone structure, dramatic long hair, and hooded shrouds, an early nineteenth-century European gentleman with his high- waisted trousers, buttoned knit henleys, and blazers, and 2010, in his almost perfect blend of fragility and strength. So agile in his ability to transcend the gender stereotypes, he is often mistaken for being a girl and for being the heroic warrior, Legolas in Lord of the Rings. And so adept in avoiding fads but staying current, Olof does not buy anything too recognizable from a designer (such an important and hard lesson to learn if you want to avoid sinking into ordinary-ville). Instead, he opts for the always eternal riding boot (that he wears with his pants tucked in) and important antique gem stoned rings (that he wears on his index fingers and are what send me over the moon). In fact, Olof has such a strong comfort in his identity in dressing like the cultivated transatlantic-man that he is, that he spends forty-five minutes every morning eating the breakfast of champions (green tea, yogurt and granola, two Swedish sandwiches, and grapefruit juice) and five minutes on getting dressed. There is a great lesson here in not getting too caught up in trends and then ending up with an identity crisis.

If you like Olof, you might also like Shayne Oliver and Geoffrey Young.

Naomi Nevitt

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:26:35 +0000

Naomi from StyleLikeU.com from Stylelikeu on Vimeo.

In college, Naomi’s thesis was on “Situationism and Graffitti,” and the idea that art is supposed to be something that everyone can partake in and make their own. Given Naomi’s fascination with the artistic dialog between the artist and his or her audience, it is not a big surprise that she has ended up as the new social media specialist for a fashion PR company. Her job is to inform the brands they represent of the new power base of the bloggers, and the influence on culture of their personal and instantaneous interpretations of style (she told me a great story about Tavi and how she stashed an upside-down Barbie in a dress inside of her Miu Miu jacket pocket, so that it looked like a flower). Naomi, like myself, is ecstatic that the internet has created a new space (similar to the subject of her college paper) where the viewer can see how creative people interact with clothes in their own respective universes. For her, as for many people, how someone wears a bag eight ways, one hundred ways, or for a lifetime is more interesting than how that bag is placed in an editorial. She herself has a very original and self-possessed approach to dressing that has everything to do with her life and interests. Naomi looks for clothes that are seasonless (like her overall denim dress), or things that she can wear for an extended periods of time (like her best friend’s cardigan from high school that’s falling apart), or things that have character (like her Egyptian necklace), or things that she can wear on her bike rides to work (like her clogs). When she was living in Paris, she was greatly inspired by by the French school boys in their striped sweaters and perfectly cut peacoats, and thanks to this blog, we get to see how that influence can inspire us in her breton tees, baggy men’s trousers, and jumpers with oversized boy’s button-downs. When Leonardo da Vinci gave the Mona Lisa a little smile, instead of the usual blank Madonna stare, it rocked the art world. Naomi is on it in terms of how we are now consuming fashion. It’s the meaning behind the visual now that intrigues us, and not just what is at face value.

If you like Naomi, you might also enjoy Ally McCormack, Lauren Buxton, or Alessandra Calabi.