If fashion is about appearance, then the calm, soft-spoken man who commands a central role in what could be called the nexus of the style monde seems in contrast with the fast-paced, frenzied fashion industry. “When I first started, Stan Herman liked to joke that I knew nothing about fashion,” says Steven Kolb, the bespectacled ringmaster of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, who has been described, almost universally, as being the nicest guy in the industry. Read more at Avenue Magazine.

Source: Avenue Magazine.

When I first started playing soccer in the early ’90s, my father used to tell me stories about his teenage league football in ’50s Manchester. Back then, they practiced with a soccer ball made of real leather, which, when waterlogged with Northern England’s mud and ice, became so heavy that it could break ribs.

From Esquire‘s Spring/Summer 2011 Big Black Book. Read more here, or purchase here.

Source: Esquire.

A Brooding Band of Outsiders.

With the dark and beige that has cast its pall over most of the Spring Summer 2011 collections, a wonderful thing it is to step into Scott Sternberg‘s world. From the bleachers to the beaches to the boarding school dormitory, Saturday’s Band of Outsiders presentation was a study in brooding pensiveness. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Antonio Azzuolo’s Strongest Collection Yet.

Spring/Summer certainly did seem to be the season for Antonio Azzuolo and his a.a. Collection. Over the past several years, the gifted designer, previously of Ralph Lauren’s Purple Label, Hermés, and Kenzo, has sewn out a niche for himself in the upper echelons of menswear. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Michael Bastian’s Mercenary Style.

A militaristic thread seems to be running through all the clothes that menswear designer Michael Bastian so expertly makes. At yesterday’s show, Bastian left the relative safety of last spring’s gaucho mountaintops for the warmer, more aquatic feel of this season’s collection. Read more at Paper Magazine.

ONCE AGAIN, WE FIND OURSELVES AMIDST the glamour and excitement that is New York Fashion Week—the shows! the clothes! the parties! the celebrities! the grinding out of four to six articles per day, for eight days running, after having dosed oneself with enough Venti Soy Cappuccinos to fell a bull elephant. Or, at least, so be the evidence as found on my work desk from last Fashion Week, pictured above. Aside from the image, other extended thoughts on the matter may be found here.

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Fashion Week,

GB, HR.

The Original Fashion Week Thesaurus.

Though blogging-about-blogging has been my default “lazy blogger” category, the Fictionarium was transformed into a Fashionarium for this past week, and it’s been nothing short of a madhouse. Thus, I thought it might be a fine idea to provide a wrap-up of the flurry of tweets that I twaught, shows that I covered, and articles that I wrote, with the added nugget of  the original hand-written Fashion Thesaurus (pictured above). And so, for those of you didn’t catch my very, very annoying link updates on Facebook, I’ve included everything below. Click, comment, enjoy.

“Under the Big Top”

Last year, a friend referred me to a freelance gig covering most of the shows at Bryant Park. I’ve found nothing quite so fascinating as the eight days I spent picking Empire waists out of a line-up. Read more at The Huffington Post.

Antonio Azzuolo’s a.a. Collection.

It was all about shorts and suits chic at Antonio Azzuolo’s a.a. Spring/Summer presentation. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Rag & Bone.

On or about March 1910, the apocalypse came during a horseback ride through Wiltshire. Read more at HintMag.

Generra.

If muted, khaki colored simplicity is the marching order of the day, then what of a brand known for their thermochromic, hypercolor T-shirts of the early 1990s? Such is the question for Swaim Hutson. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Loden Dager.

It seems that this season, the boys of Loden Dager have abandoned the clambakes and beach breaks of the coast for the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, if not Marrakesh. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Band of Outsiders.

The Band of Outsiders show was a welcome escape from the perpetual drizzle that has been plaguing New York as of late, and not just for the beach and sunshine themed presentation. Read more at Paper Magazine.

Michael Bastian.

With del Potro’s machine gun forehand leading him to victory at last night’s US Open, how very appropriate it was that yesterday’s Michael Bastian show proved to be a three act match, and a great one at that. Read more at Paper Magazine.