Put This On

Benjamin Harrison talks to G. Bruce Boyer about the menswear of the 1930s. Boyer curated the male half of the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum's show Fashion in an Age of Crisis: Fashion in the 1930s.

Gucci Gucci Louis Louis Fendi Fendi Prada… what happens when a hundred artisans’ shops become a few global megacompanies? We went to Milan, Italy, to talk to small-scale makers who work in the shadow of fashion conglomerates like Prada. It’s one of our most ambitious episodes and the grand finale of our season. Take Antonio Pio Mele, a cobbler who makes shoes by hand in a small shop in central Milan. He’s grateful that huge brands occasionally hire him to make samples, but he’s angry they rarely pay him on time and that their “bespoke” operations are rarely genuinely bespoke. Scholar Alex Pietrogiacomi provides some philosophical context, and photographer Simone Falcetta explains how consolidation has changed the fashion world. We also talk to Milanese dandy Pino Pipoli, Dave Hill offers a rudiment about black suits, and the beautiful Valentina Galbiati gives us a guided tour of Milan’s most influential and beautiful boutique, 10 Corso Como.

Put This On is in Milan, one of the world's fashion capitals. We visit Carlo Barbera mill and Luciano Barbera, its legendary leader. We talk with the owner of the world's most remarkable men's accessory store, G. Lorenzi, and a Milanese dandy, Salvatore Battello of W-D Man. Then we show you which shoes go with which color suit, and Dave Hill offers a rudiment.

Put This On, a web series about dressing like a grownup, visits London, where we visit with a few of the distinctive personalities that help make London a special place.

Put This On visits London to look at the ways it has been shaped by (and has reinvented) its menswear traditions. We visit W. Bill, the legendary tweed vendor in a basement just off Savile Row. We talk with the painter and musician Ian Bruce about how he's reshaped the legacy of the SoHo dandy. We visit the Drake's factory to see how a tie is made. Then we go to Savile Row, and chat with tailor-owner Richard Anderson and owner-designer Patrick Grant about the tension between old and new in the world's original tailoring street. Plus Dave Hill offers his thoughts on sport sunglasses in Rudiments.

In New York, Jesse goes thrifting with the guys from Street Etiquette, plus what's inside a suit coat, Rudiments with Dave Hill, Lewis Lapham, Jay Kos and more.

In New York City, we learn about 'Lo Heads, meet Jason Marshal, visit Worth and Worth hat shop and learn how to pack a suit.

Sean Crowley is a neckwear designer who lives in Brooklyn with his collection of thousands of vintage neckties.

Dave Hill hits the Ralph Lauren show at Fashion Week to make some friends and do some blow.

Author Bruce Boyer says that there's nothing wrong with being rumpled.

A brief travelogue from Donegal's Molloy and Sons, a father-son tweed manufacturer.

Our intrepid correspondent Dave Hill visits New York Fashion Week, and leaves only rubble in his wake.

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Episode seven of Put This On explores personal style - elegant, quirky, distinctive and everywhere in between. Field correspondent Dave Hill visits the annual meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club, held each year on 11/11, the date which most resembles corduroy. Then Roxana Altimirano brings a new Nerd Boyfriend segment, with an investigation of an icon of eccentric style, Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 of Outkast. Plus: a conversation with one of the world’s most elegant men, Gay Talese. He’s not just one of America’s most celebrated magazine writers and the man who invented the contemporary magazine profile. He’s also one of the best-dressed men in the world, the son of an immigrant tailor who imbued in his progeny a love of fine clothing. Besides that, he’s got his own lapel shape!

We visit CEGO Custom Shirtmaker in New York, learn about dressing for your body type from Alan Flusser and alter a dress shirt in Los Angeles.

GQ's Style Guy, Glenn O'Brien, talks to Jesse Thorn on Jesse's public radio show, The Sound of Young America. O'Brien's new book is called How To Be A Man.

In this special micro-episode of Put This On, we present a conversation with menswear expert Alan Flusser. Flusser has written the seminal American texts on getting dressed: Style & the Man and Dressing the Man. He runs Alan Flusser Custom in Manhattan, and famously dressed Michael Douglas for the film Wall Street. Alan's not a designer or a tailor - he's more like a consiglieri, guiding men towards their best appearance.

A visit with a true style traditionalist at a true bastion of traditional style, J. Press. Then a visit with a traditionlist who's also a revolutionary, Thom Browne.

Jesse visits the barber, shows you the classic wet shave and teaches you how to prevent yellow underarm stains.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson needed pants, so he called the Haggar clothing company and asked for some. The call was recorded (like all White House calls at the time), and has since become the stuff of legend. Johnson’s anatomically specific directions to Mr. Haggar are some of the most intimate words we’ve ever heard from the mouth of a President.

An interview with Paul Feig, dressing for a job interview, Roxana and Nerd Boyfriend, and more.

Jesse visits Willie's Shoe Service in Los Angeles and shows us how to care for and shine our shoes.  Adam teaches shoe-tying technique and how to store footwear.

Jesse and Adam visit Rising Sun Denim, where blue jeans are made by hand with early 20th century sewing machines.  Plus what jeans to buy, how to care for them and some basics on wear.  (iPod Video)