nomanwalksalone:
BOOK REVIEW: BEST OF BRITISH
by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans
The stylepocalypse must be nigh: menswear books of varying quality and interest are veritably raining down upon us. I continue to be surprised that there is a paying market for expensive picture books like the new Best of British, which has one single page of superficial text for each of the 14 brands featured and a bunch of photographs that, in some cases, approximate what could be found with a quick Google image search. (For instance, the images accompanying the book’s chapter on Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard appear similar to (and feature what look like the same sample garments as) those on A&S’s website.)
Best of British owes its genesis to three creators: Toby Egelnick for the “concept,” Horst Friedrichs for photos, and the engaging and peripatetic blogger Simon Crompton providing “stories”. The reader should be forgiven for thinking the book actually lives up to its title - i.e., that it actually aims to showcase the best of Britain’s traditional craft makers of men’s clothing. Instead, Best of British’s acknowledgments betray its creators’ desire to focus not on the best makers but on those brands that are “iconic.” Unfortunately, in many cases, icons – those brands that have been able to make the biggest names for themselves through maximizing their profiles, keeping profits and margins higher than their competitors (sometimes at the expense of quality), canny marketing and the creation of cheaper products for masstige – are by no means the best, leaving aside the difficulty of even trying to get at what “best” really is. In the case of one featured brand, knitter and cloth weaver Johnstons of Elgin, I’d say they’re pretty damn far from it.
Afficher davantage
“leaves a space in the market for a candid assessment of makers and brands by an enthusiast with personal experience free of commercial entanglements, if such an individual can be found”
@obeyfeline is such an individual, and we eagerly await his forthcoming book.