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On hot summer days, a polo can be tender mercy indeed. It requires little to no ironing, making it the perfect travel shirt or ideal for lazy Sunday mornings. In an increasingly casual world, the soft, unstarched collar frames the face better than a crewneck t-shirt, but it’s free the button-up’s stiff ceremony. Most of all, the polo makes for the perfect stay-at-home garment. It’s stretchy enough to leave you comfortable while napping the couch, it’s presentable enough for unexpected Zoom meetings, and it’ll make you feel better about living life at home. Chinos are an obvious pairing, but shorts are where it’s at. Knitted tops with 5″ shorts might be this season’s perfect uniform.
Proper Cloth’s polos are made from Canclini’s luxurious cotton piques. They’re made-to-measure and available in nine colors for warmer days. Light blue will be your most versatile color, while sage green and dusty sand will lend a more earthy hue to outfits. Dark blue polos are also surprisingly useful — they can be layered underneath sport coats in tan, green, or brown, and can be teamed with chinos or shorts in the same color. Proper Cloth also has some new casual pants in various styles, colors, and materials, if you’re looking for pairings.
Born in Iran and raised in Sweden, Navid Mokhberi, who’s now based in California, has always loved the simplicity of Scandinavian design. So when he set out to start his new leather goods company, MCKNGBRD, he teamed with Danish designer Sebastian Holmbäck and luxury accessories designer Jocelyn Mason. The company’s leather cases are tough, elegant, and expertly produced by experienced craftsmen at a small Los Angeles factory.
On their website, you can see their leather cases, which are designed to house and protect laptops and iPads. They’re made from a variety of Italian leathers: waxed and tumbled Nappa leathers, a scratch-resistant Saffino, supple Italian nubuck, among others. A quiet magnetic button makes for a seamless opening and closure, allowing you to access your items easily while ensuring your electronics don’t accidentally slide out.
The company’s name MCKNGBRD refers to two things. The first is the versatility of these cases, which are elegant but also hardwearing. Their clean, simple lines allow them to look at home in boardrooms or classrooms, much like the resourceful mockingbird’s unique ability to mimic the sounds of its environment. More importantly, the name also refers to Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, where the hero Atticus Finch fights for criminal justice. MCKNGBRD contributes a portion of every sale to The Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization fighting to overturn wrongful convictions through the use of DNA testing. “This company has opened up new channels for me to help my community,” Mokhberi told us in an email. “I’m a strong advocate of doing as much as I can locally. That means working with local talent and building our product in Los Angeles.”
Paul Winston, the proprietor of Winston Tailors and Chipp Neckwear, likes to say that his family’s company serves a more traditional-minded customer. But since the company’s founding in 1945, they’re also made some pretty wild clothing. Paul’s father Sidney was known for producing things such as patchwork tweeds, madras trousers, and sport coats with vivid linings. And shortly after Paul joined the family’s company in 1961, he designed a small line of clever, pictogram neckties. The difference between sophisticated humor and bad taste, Paul tells us, is always “who and where.” “A chairman once gifted my ties to his board members, and that was considered good humor, but when the same ties are found at Nordstrom, they’re considered bad taste.”
A cheerful, novelty tie can be worn with upbeat Fresco sport coats and colorful chinos if you’re daring. Alternatively, you can also wear them with more conservative navy jackets and grey trousers to add some lighthearted humor. They’re too whimsical for the office, but for garden parties, brunches, and other cheerful gatherings? Why not. Prep, especially, has always been about having fun with your clothes.
Dapper Classics is running a Father’s Day promotion from now until the end of tomorrow, where you can knock up to 30% off your order depending on how much you spend (the coupon codes are listed on their website). While the company started off in socks, they’re also well known for their trousers. Made in New York City by the famous Hertling factory, these are among the best values when it comes to tailored trousers. They have a full run of pants in everything from summer-ready tropical wools to four-season merino. For Father’s Day, you can also pick up a pair of chinos (let’s be honest, dads everywhere love chinos).
The promotion also applies to thier gift bundle of socks, which include three pairs of mid-calf of over-the-calf socks made at Dapper Classics’ North Carolina-based factory. With US Presidential elections this year, and Fourth of July around the corner, your dad will find plenty of opportunities to wear the flag-motif socks above. Dapper Classics’ socks, particularly in cotton, are silky and smooth, as they’re produced from mercerized yarns. Mercerization is a textile process that strengthens yarns, improves their dye uptake, and imparts a silk-like luster. These also have a pattern that’s been finely knitted into the weave, rather than just printed onto the surface, which means they’ll hold up better to multiple washings. Wear them with anything — suits, sport coats, tailored trousers with sweaters, and dressier forms of casualwear — to show a bit of patriotic pride.
Rowing Blazers just received the fourth shipment of their facial masks, which are available now online. The brand is grateful for and humbled by all of the support and excitement surrounding the past two facial mask collections they’ve launched online. These masks are made in New York City’s Garment District using leftover scraps of blazer, suiting, and shirt fabric. They come in a range of colorful, preppy patterns and materials, such as Gordon tartan and various rugby stripes.
Rowing Blazers has undertaken other efforts to upcycle scraps of unused fabric in the past — using small pieces of “wastage” that would typically be thrown away after a production run to produce its American-made “End-of-the-Day” rugby shirt program. “I’ve always been a big advocate of using the leftover scraps of fabric from anything we make,” says Rowing Blazers founder Jack Carlson. “As someone who came into this industry from a completely different world (sport and academia), I was horrified to see how much waste the industry produces. So as soon as we had the green light to start making masks, I knew exactly what we were going to do.”
The company will continue to donate one mask to the NYC Food Bank for every mask they sell. They’re also continuing to donate 10% of all sales they make site-wide to Direct Relief. You can find the new delivery of their masks on their website. (Note, along with the masks, they also have some new baseball caps, which can come in handy if you, like me, really need a haircut these days.)
We all have clothes in the back of our closets that haven’t seen the light of day in years — and things this season we want to buy. To solve this problem, No Man Walks Alone and LuxeSwap have partnered up for a “trade-up” program, which allows you to sell your old clothes through LuxeSwap’s consignment service and turn those profits into No Man Walks Alone store credit.
The new program is straightforward. If you send your clothes to LuxeSwap, they’ll do all the hard work of selling it for you through their eBay webshop. And if you’re willing to take your profits in the form of store credit at NMWA, they’ll reduce their commission from 40% to 30% — and NMWA will top off your profits with an additional 10%. Effectively, that means 30% more value than you’d get otherwise. Store credit gets posted not long after the auction closes, and it never expires.
LuxeSwap also offers free inbound shipping for anyone in the United States, as well as a 50% reimbursement for folks abroad. That means that you can ship them your items and they’ll take care of the cost when it comes time to pay you for your auctions. With such a hassle-free process, cleaning out your wardrobe has never been more rewarding.
