Flannel gets a boost at the hands of the Followill clan, three brothers and a cousin who form the popular band Kings of Leon. The band from Tennessee has created a new fashion line with the Paris-based fashion collective Surface to Air. The result is countrified hipster collection that includes flannel shirts, a black leather jacket, patched jeans, a red bandana and a black fedora. Those who want in might be in need of a passport the line will only be available at the Copenhagen boutique Paris Texas. The store's blog has complete pictures of the collection and reports that pieces will hit the store in early December.

[via Black Book]

Like this shoe? I hope you have an iPhone.

Mark Ronson collaborated with Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini to design this exclusive beaut for the launch of the new Gucci iPhone App, as well as a new Gucci pop-up shop tour called GUCCI ICON-TEMPORARY.

If you haven't heard of pop-up shops, they're designer stores which exist for just a couple of weeks -- sort of like a trunk show, only it's way more involved, and there's way more money involved, as they open up a whole store. Big name designers have been opening these kinds of stores all over the world.

GUCCI ICON-TEMPORARY will open up to the public October 24 in NYC on Crosby Street and peddle sneakers for just two weeks. The store will then tour to Miami (December 1st), London (2010) and Tokyo (2010). If you're in the US, one model of the Gucci Ronson sneaker collection will be available only to iPhone and iTouch users who've downloaded the Gucci App (click here, it's free).

The Gucci App also features music playlists by Ronson and Giannini, as well as access to the Gucci Little Black Book, which has "best-of information for hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs in more than 20 major cities around the world. Also included in this section is a list of Giannini's own favorite spots around the world," and the Gucci Music Channel.

We love it when music and fashion collide.

"I spent many many years as an avid sneaker collector, so I wanted to make sure these Gucci shoes were truly special, both from an aesthetic point of view and a collectible one," says Ronson. "Frida and I also agreed it was important for there to be a unique musical element to the project, so I'm going to be collaborating with artists, making limited edition tracks for each store opening."

The Gucci Ronson sneakers will come with their own exclusive packaging and a 12" vinyl record with tracks selected by Mark Ronson himself. Visit the GUCCI ICON-TEMPORARY website for more information.

The battle to save Escada continues. The NY Post reports that the owner of Faconnable may buy the German fashion house. Beirut-based M1 Group purchased Faconnable from Nordstrom for $210 million in 2007 and Escada's similar upscale fashion demographic would make it an excellent companion brand. But there's more than one suitor at Escada's door. Others interested in the brand include Megha Mittal, daughter-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, the billionaire Indian steel magnate, Sven Ley, the son of Escada's founder Wolfgang Ley and Vestar Capital Partners which owns another comparable brand, St. John Knits.

Ley is working with the former head of Gucci, Giacomo Santucci, and Italian investment group Borletti. Reuters says that Ley's consortium, ZSL Partners, has offered to pay almost 80 million euros for the fashion house and would bring Santucci on as the chief exec. putting a man with some serious fashion experience at the helm. Borletti also owns the Rinascente and Printemps department stores in Italy and France.

M1 Group's plans for Escada would involve combining the back-end" operations of Escada andFaconnable to create a single lean, mean fashion machine behind the scenes while keeping the creative on the brands separate. M1 Group and Mittal are both said to support current CEO Bruno Salzer, formerly of Hugo Boss. Insolvency proceedings over Escapa opened Sunday at the Munich Municipal court and a decision could be forthcoming within the next few days.

Plenty of celebrities start fashion lines but few take the step of opening their own stores. William Rast, the casual clothing brand founded by Trace Ayala and Justin Timberlake and operated through subsidiaries of People`s Liberation has announced two new full-price retail stores at the Westfield Century City Shopping Mall in Los Angeles, California, and the Westfield Valley Fair Shopping Mall in San Jose, California as well as an outlet store at the Desert Hills Premium Outlets in Cabazon, California. The brand has an ambitious plan to open around forty retail stores in major metropolitan locations over the next several years.

The William Rast branded retail stores will each be approximately 2,000 square feet and will offer William Rast contemporary apparel collection for men and women. The company also plans to offer a full range of licensed William Rast products in each store. Justin Timberlake is well on his way to a branded empire, he also has his own golf course, a tequila brand and owns several restaurants.

One of our favorite menswear collections for fall is from preternaturally stylish Nautica founder David Chu's LINCS line, which he relaunched earlier this year as a full sportswear collection. The name is of course derived from golf, but Chu has expanded its horizons considerably this season. He aptly describes it as "a modern expression of style inspired by a life in and out of the country club - of travel, of sport, of classic chic." The theme of the fall collection is a modern take on the "gentleman explorer," characterized by classic rugged yet elegant styling in a color palette of loden, navy, and charcoal, with fabrics like waxed cotton, cashmere, wool and flannel.

"LINCS is grounded in authentic, classic style, but updated with details and textures men can relate to," Chu notes. "Many of our shirts for example have a contrast color / pattern detail that's subtle. You'll find a surprising detail or color at the cuff, on a collar, or the inside liner. Part of the LINCS concept is the fusion of sporty, easy authentic looks together with performance fabrics and the technical. In outerwear, you'll see a classic piece like a blazer, but designed with quilted nylon and stuffed with down for a look that's rugged and elegant." Also worth noting are the very reasonable price points. Outerwear is between $199 - $399, sweaters are about $119 - $129, shirts are $89 - $99, pants are $79 - $89, available at select Nordstrom, Dillard's and specialty stores.

Key looks include a military style parka in waxed cotton with a sheared rabbit collar (above), a blazer-style coat made of quilted waxed cloth, a loden cashmere cardigan with a leather buckle at the collar, a tan safari-style parka with a removable navy liner, and a quilted navy nylon rip-stop down-filled blazer with suede detailing under the collar. "When I named it LINCS, people automatically thought it was a golf line, but it's not," Chu notes. "LINCS is about sport, about design, and more importantly, this person's lifestyle and an extension of it, which includes easy pieces that can be tailored and elegant, but mixed in with more casual elements for a dressy, but sporty look."



Chu also has his eponymous David Chu Bespoke line, featured in The Classicist's "Best of Men's Style" roundup, a custom-clothing atelier located on the penthouse floor of his "Townhouse" HQ in New York that embodies the deisgner's "ultimate statement on style, sophistication, and the well-lived life," blending the best of Savile Row and Neapolitan tailoring. In addition to Bespoke, Chu is also working on a new project with famed golfer Jack Nicklaus to develop the Nicklaus brands worldwide under a unified creative direction and make it more of a lifestyle brand with a distinct point of view. More on that later.

Let's not confuse luxury with the spending of wealth. Even high end goods, when arrayed on a retail rack become merely another store purchase. The pre-fabricated feel of that experience is decidedly undifferent from purchasing a fast food burger for a dollar. When you're paying for a designers work that's produced in standard sizes by factories, what exactly are you buying that's so different than you'll find at Target? A label? Our father's brands may not exactly going to set our hearts aflutter, should we wish to be snappily-dressed young men.

True luxury is more accurately described as getting exactly what you want. Your things are customized to your tastes. It doesn't have to cost a fortune for goods exactly tailored to you; making luxury unique from price. Speaking of tailoring, that's just the area that Boston's Blank Label wants to address. Being based in the cradle of the American Revolution has apparently rubbed off on the upstart clothing maker. The brand launches today, October 31st, and it's aimed at changing the way young men buy clothes, with prices that young men could actually afford.

Starting with custom men's shirts, Blank Label will eventually branch out to offer more clothing. The shirts are handmade by experienced tailors for Blank Label. The materials and workmanship are pleasing, and the website lets you build your own shirt with the options you want. French placket? Sure! High style always looks better when it fits correctly, something that's difficult to do when you're buying a name off the rack, designed for the most common compromise. Not having to compromise or settle for something someone else designed? Sounds like luxury to us.

Fashion historian Caroline Rennolds Milbank examines the history of warm weather wear in a beautifully illustrated new book called Resort Fashion from Rizzoli. From the first "beach pajamas" designed by Coco Chanel and Lilly Pulitzer and Pucci prints, to sailor stripes and the Kennedys' laid back yachtsman style, to Michael Kors and Tory Burch's beach-inspired designs and of course the evolution of the swimsuit, Milbank crosses continents and generations. The seven chapters break the looks down by category: At Sea, Stripes, Prints, White, Playclothes, Summer Dress and Bathing Suits, with photos from destinations like Palm Beach, Montego Bay and St. Tropez by legends like Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Norman Parkinson, Helmut Newton, and Scavullo.

Versace has been a brand in transition for a while now but new CEO Gian Giacomo Ferraris has been shaking things up lately. His latest move is an announcement that the Italian fashion house will lose 350 jobs worldwide by the middle of next year as part of a cost-cutting initiative that also includes a thorough evaluation of Versace's store network. The brand recently decided to close stores in Japan, formerly one of the biggest luxury goods markets.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is expected to post a pre-tax loss of €30 million ($44.4 million) on revenue of €273 million. This is a sharp contrast to 2008 when Versace posted a net profit of €9 million on sales of €336 million. Part of the decline is due to a fall in sales in the company's wholesale business and the financial collapse of IT Holding SpA, which produced clothing for Versace under brand licensing agreements. Versace re-launched the secondary line Versus at Milan Fashion week earlier this month.The brand will move forward with new runway designs and will instead focus its fat trimming in the areas of production, distribution and logistics. That's good news for Donatella Versace, the brand's designer who also holds a 20 percent stake in the company. Her daughter Allegra Versace Beck has a 50 percent stake bequeathed to her by her late uncle Gianni Versace and her other uncle Santo Versace has the remaining 30 percent of the company. Ferraris came aboard this spring after Donatella Versace's repeated battles with Giancarlo Di Risio.

Duncan Quinn, the London-born, New York-based menswear designer whose Savile Row-with-a-twist togs are favored by the likes of Sean Combs, Entourage star Adrien Grenier, LeBron James and alt-rockers Green Day, has come out with a new collection of killer looks for fall. Quinn's inspiration for the season "comes from a misspent youth and perennial love for the gentleman, the rogue and the gentleman rogue," the designer notes, citing as influences Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair and Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million. Suits are made from the finest fabrics, in chalkstripes, sharkskin, mohair and cashmere, woven in England to Quinn's specifications in understated colors like black, charcoal and gunmetal. Above is a bespoke gunmetal wool and mohair suit with a ticket pocket ($5,000), worn with a pink cotton herringbone french cuff shirt, "gangster chic" motif silk tie, fleur-de-lys enamel and sterling silver cufflinks and a bespoke wool and cashmere overcoat, photographed outside Robert de Niro's Greenwich Hotel.

Do only the very wealthy pay retail these days? Seems like it. With so many discount shopping sites that sell high-end items, mere mortals can get said high-end items at low(er)-end prices. But is is there room for yet one more of these sites? LuxGoddess.com is hoping so. It recently joined the likes of Bluefly, ShopBop, and Gilt to offer upscale items at reduced prices. Here's what makes LuxGoddess different, however: It donates 10% of its proceeds to Bright Pink, a national nonprofit that provides education and support to young women who are at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

Calling itself "the premier site for today's fashion trendsetters looking for great deals on their favorite designer brands," the site carries well-known brands, with a number of items pulled from online stores, and covers the standard categories of apparel, shoes, beauty, and accessories. There's also a sale rack, which is a user's personal sale rack, based on her size and brand preferences.

Master leather craftsmen in Argentina can satisfy your cravings for fashion, quality, comfort and originality with custom boots. Clients can choose the style and leather to suit their taste and custom measurements ensure a beautiful fit and happy feet. There is also a truly bespoke option where one can design their own boot to exact specifications, including special details such as buttons made of precious metals. The end result being a one-of-a kind haute couture pair. If you can dream it, they can make it.

Anna Lunna offers women the opportunity to enjoy boots that truly reflect her personal sense of style. The company offers clients their choice of 16 styles, 5 different heel heights, 10 different heel styles and 17 leather colors from which to create the perfect boot for day or night, ranging from a casual day look to a dressier evening look. Once you order your boots the company will rush you an Anna Lunna 8 Point Fit Measurement Kit so that the boots will fit your feet to perfection. The finishing touch is your boots will arrive in about 6 weeks with your name personally engraved inside.

All this individuality comes at a cost with ankle boots retailing at $4,500 and knee high boots retailing at $5,000. While you are spoiling your feet in customized luxury you can take comfort in the fact that the brand is committed to giving back to the community. They claim to do this not only by employing third generation bootsmiths, thereby keeping their craft alive, but by contributing 10% of the proceeds of every boot sold to WORTH, a program that empowers impoverished women around the world.

What makes a pair of rubber boots worth over $400? The ones from France's Le Chameau are not your ordinary wellies. For one thing, each pair is handmade by a single boot maker from start to finish using only 100% natural rubber, which provides superior resilience and elasticity compared to synthetic rubber. Besides forming an excellent barrier to water, natural rubber offers a high resistance to wear, cutting and tearing, and results in a much better fit and a more comfortable boot all around. They're also lined with the highest quality full-grain, glove-soft calf leather which prevents that clammy feeling and heat buildup other rubber boots are prone to. Many models also feature a full-length proprietary waterproof zipper making them extremely easy to put on and take off, while the soft but aggressive tread grips almost any surface.

Of course Le Chameaus are also damned stylish; they recently appeared in our Fall Sporting Style feature starring the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, and while gaining popularity with connoisseurs here, in Europe they're the hunting boot of choice for everyone from royalty to gamekeepers and as much a part of estate shooting as a bespoke shotgun. In 1927, M. Claude Chamot hand-crafted the first pair of Le Chameau boots in his factory in Northern France. It takes nine months of intense training to become a Le Chameau boot maker. Unique skills and techniques are passed down through generations, from master boot maker to apprentice, ensuring that each pair of boots is created with the same care, quality and craftsmanship as in M. Chamot's day, with the benefit of modern technology of course. Under normal conditions a pair of Le Chameaus will last for decades, making the best boot money can buy well worth the price.



The classic olive green Chasseur hunting boots are our favorite, but a range of models is available for both men and women. There are special versions for cold weather and even some fur trimmed ladies' models in interesting colors. On a historical note, these type of boots are known as Wellingtons or wellies after a softer, closer-fitting style of cavalry boot originally designed by the first Duke of Wellington, who had the first ones made of leather in the early 1800s. They were not made of rubber until the 1850s when Charles Goodyear invented the vulcanization process for natural rubber. You can check out a video of Le Chameau boots being made here.

The 2009 Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra has been revealed. Marisa Miller does the honors this year modeling a $3 million diamond-studded bra created by Damiani. The 2009 Harlequin Fantasy bra is hand set with over 2,350 white, champagne and cognac-colored diamonds in a harlequin pattern. The bra also has a heart-shaped 16-carat champagne diamond dangling from the Very Sexy Convertible bra. The bra can be worn in five ways: strapless, halter, crossback, one-strap or classic. It has a total carat weight of 150 carats and sells for $3 million. The bra will be on display during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on December 1 on CBS.

[via People Magazine]