Passion of the Craft: this is the way

There are those who follow and those who show the way - and I have always had an overriding desire to find out what makes the latter tick.

Enter Passion of the Craft - a ten-part series of videos focusing on those who influence the culture of today, and the way they go about it. The series features some invaluable nuggets of wisdom from the likes of Brendon Babenzien of Supreme, Vashtie, and Rob of Alife.

You never know, we might learn a thing or two. 

Passion Of The Craft  [Trailer] from THIS IS BANDIT on Vimeo.

Tommy Ton street snaps: focus on Visvim

Virgil boots

Tommy Ton is well known among the readership of GQ.com for his reportage shots of the fashion shows across the globe. He also seems to be quite fond of Visvim by all accounts, or to be more precise, his subjects are.

Grizzly moc

Answers on a postcard please

Canoe moc

Gabo

Navajo blazer (I think)

Yucca moc folk

More Tommy Ton street style here

Nike Matagi pack: winter not included

Let's fast forward a few months. The snow is piling up at the back door and the wind is whistling past the windows. It's a cold and bleak night and I need more logs for the fire. They're piled up at the bottom of the garden.

Quite a task to retrieve and not one for the faint hearted, but one which I am prepared for nonetheless, because I have on my toasty feet a pair of Nike Air Baked mid QS.

All fur lined and suede in a kind of eskimo slipper type fashion but with a trainer sole, these little beauties were clearly made for late-night dashes into the frozen wastes of the mid-winter garden to restock on firewood.

All that and back in front of the fire to toast some more marsh mallows before you can say "Linford Christie," and without even having to take them off.

That's what I call versatile. What do you mean I need a pair of wellies?

40 Thieves featuring Qzen: Don't turn it off

Don't expect much from the video, because that light swtich is all you get. I suppose it's some kind of reference to the title of the tune, a lazy disco number reminiscent of the kind of thing they were churning out in the Studio 54 days.

This tune's been around a while but this is the first time I've found anything on it that I can post. If I come across anything else, such as a moving image, I'll let you know.

Ralph Lauren makes a decent coat? Really?

Sometimes I'm flicking through the latest mag, not really paying much attention, when I'm optically grabbed hold of by the short and curlies to stare in wonder at the sheer genius before me.

This vision can take any one of a number of forms, some of which I choose to share here, as with this Ralph Lauren over coat.

Even if I forgive him for using Ken doll models with dodgy hair, I don't even like Ralph Lauren really. Theres nothing wrong with the clothes, and let's face it, he's cornered the market when it comes to preppy dressing. But he's too good. In making his brand just the affordable side of expensive and easily available, he's become the easy option.

Can't be bothered to seek out something rare or inspired? Fear not, just slap on a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, available on any high street.

So it was with a mixture of surprise and regret that I was looking at the perfect overcoat, the Chesterfield coat with vest, and it was made by Ralph Lauren. He only narrowly avoided being dismissed out of hand by the revelation that this garment is from his Black Label line - a more refined collection, and a bit harder to track down.

And damned expensive, I turns out. Which is why I'll let someone else have this one.

Nike Livestrong M65 jacket: catch one if you can

I don't really know why I'm showing you this, because if you don't pick one up today you're going to have a bit of a job finding one.

So if you're not already living in New York or Los Angeles, you might as well forget it.

The Nike Livestrong M65 jacket is available today (October 10) only, in select stores in the US, including Undefeated LA and Nike Sportswear and Dave's Quality Meat, both in New York.

For your $395 (£247) you get a lightweight nylon jacket, with ultrasonic welded and taped back construction replacing the stitching. This means it will fold down and stash into one of its own pockets.

Now personally I can't stand that egomaniac on wheels Lance Armstrong, but he does raise money for an admirable cause, and there's no denying the personal hardship he's been through.

So before you make too much noise about that price tag it's worth remembering that the entire proceeds from the sale of this jacket go to the Livestrong foundation.

The proceeds from the plane ticket you buy to get to New York will just go to British Airways. And cost about four times the price of the coat, but hey, there's always Ebay.

Blow me (up), it's a shopping bag

I still haven't made it to a supermarket till without having forgotten to bring one of the 2,000 Bags For Life presently spilling out of the kitchen drawer.

The thing is, it's not like I don't intend to take them. I'm an environmentally conscious person. I separate my waste.

But Bags For Life do not lend themselves to being re-used. First off, they look crap. The bags I'm constantly given are the most aesthetically unpleasing to the eye as I could possibly imagine. They have pictures of groceries on them for god's sake.

Besides that, they never seem to figure in my checklist before I leave the house. Keys and pants for sure, shoes optional. A Bag For Life? Not even on it.

But now I need to forget my Bag For Life no longer, because it will be attached to me at all times like a ripe hemorrhoid, dangling utility-like from my belt.

This is thanks to Greenaid, who have invented a re-useable shopping bag that rolls up and stuffs in a neoprene shell, shaped like a hand grenade. A weapon in the fight against climate change.

And just imagine the fun you could have with a hand grenade shaped piece of neoprene. Lob it into the basket on your trolley and watch the sea of Saturday morning grocery shoppers part before you as you make your way through the aisles. Play keepy uppey at the deli counter, volley it through the tills.

If you're really lucky you might even get the Counter Terrorism Unit to take you home with your shopping.

Hats off to headgear

Hats. I must have about 10,000 of them, baseball caps, woolly hats, hats for snowboarding, cycling, for pretending I'm a member of the special forces. I even bought one of those full face balaclavas once, for a fancy dress party. Went down like a bearskin at a Peta conference.

Headwear is the affordable accessory when there's nothing else to find. As well as ties, but I have a thing about ties, you could call it a fear. I am most unconfident in selecting a tie. So hats it is.

Thing is these days the time never seems right to be wearing a hat. Maybe on a Saturday morning when going to the end of the road for a paper. Or at a fancy dress party. Or a hat party. I've always thought it might be fun to get a pith helmet for a party. That and a blunderbuster and tropical fatigues. Any other time during everyday life, they just seem too, well, young.

Which is why I was relieved when I discovered Rapha and its selection of caps for cycling. Here was an excuse to wear a hat. Rapha produces racing caps, which are short-peaked cotton numbers; winter caps, which are warm and have fold-downable ear warmers; and last year the cycling brand released a line of tweed caps intended for nothing more than swanning down the road on one's cycle in a dandy manner.

Before I got the chance to really get any wear out of my tweed cap, I crashed the bike and under intense pressure from loved ones, invested in a helmet. So that's the excuse for wearing caps while cycling out the window. Granted, they do fit under a helmet, but at the expense of dignity.

But yet again I am tempted by Rapha's new range of Gentleman's caps. These are truly dandy. More dandy even than last year's tweed affairs. There's one in Barbour-style waxed cotton, a grey felt piece with an embroidered feather on one side, and even one in black with white polka dots, although that to me looks like something one might wear to compete in the 3pm at Aintree.

It's really only a matter of time before one of these is sitting on my swede, such is the lure of a new hat.

It will make me look younger, after all.

OK, that's enough of the summer

We're now coming to the end of September and I'm still walking around in shirt sleeves. Not good in the jacket department - my Visvim Ketchikan got an outing last week but more because it was new than due to any real temperature or climatic requirement, the exception being our Kew Gardens trip when it got such a drenching that I think it leaked. And it's Gore-Tex.

Thing is, at this time of year I want to be wearing a jacket, as my thoughts turn to wrapping up against the elements. The mags are full of autumn winter campaigns and models peeking over chunky scarves, head to toe in the latest duffel, while outside it's like the tropics. At least it is during the day. If you're out without a coat after dark you've a good chance of contracting pneumonia, unless you live in Newcastle when it has to be -10 before coats come out.

That's why this time of year becomes a minefield in deciding an outfit. Too hot for a sweater, too cold for a t-shirt. I've already failed miserably in predicting the temperature and ended up lugging a coat around or shivering in a short sleeved shirt.
In that respect I have one thing to say to the weather: Get on with it. We've had a good summer, got a bit of sun. July was crap but you redeemed youself in August. You know you're going to get cold so just get it over with. I've had enough of all these inaccurate outfit predictions.

The rate things are going I could start a new career as a weatherman.

One year of Dunhill at Bourdon House

The first rule of dressing for an event - if an invitation suggests a dress code of smart / casual, a gentleman will invariably err towards the smarter end of the scale, particularly if that event happens to be Alfred Dunhill's celebration of its first year at Bourdon House.

This is a fact I should have taken into account when deciding upon a simple shirt / jeans / shoes combo to go with my trench coat for the party. Naturally, the ensembled gents resplendent in sharply tailored suits were far too polite to make me feel in the least uncomfortable, but it was all I could do to stop myself from requesting a nifty little number from Dunhill's ample suit department: "Just add it to the tab, squire. Stick a tie in there while you're at it."

It only seems like yesterday that Britain's premium menswear brand moved from among its peers on Jermyn Street to take up residence in its new home just off Berkeley Square in Mayfair, but it has evidently been a year already.

Occassion enough for a party, billed as a debate between Toby Young and Andrew Roberts and focusing on two subjects, each proposed by Toby Young: 'History is bunk', and 'Snobbery is a vice.' The former topic, taken from an apparent quote from Henry Ford, no less, was on the face of it nothing more than an inflammatory statement, the touch paper to which was lit by Mr Young, with his argument that historians had quite regularly made a complete hash of recording past events, and quite competently snuffed out by Mr Roberts, who did not omit the fact that the actual reason we were sitting in that very room was to celebrate an episode in the history of Dunhill.

The second subject offered a more balanced argument, this time Mr Young got the upper hand, helped in no small part by the fact that his elevation to the status of Society Buffoon of London was not helped by his start in life at a lowly comprehensive school. Mr Roberts pointed out that we are all in some way or another, snobs, be it in terms of the school we attend or even the type of music we listen to. But his argument failed to swing the audience, even if his overwhelming drubbing of Mr Young in round one sent him home with a £10,000 cheque for the charity of his choice.

But the real debate took place prior to the debate. The question on everybody's lips was "won't those langostines make an awful mess of the displays as they are being pulled apart?" Not many dared to discover the answer by trying to eat one, tasty as I'm sure they must have been.

The whole event was a joint effort between Dunhill and GQ and the debate was presided over by editor Dylan Jones. This is the second such collaboration, following Dunhill's sponsorship of the Man of the Year awards.

For a far more comprehensive report on the evening's event's you can read GQ's here.

Porsche 911 Sport Classic

Porsche is one of those brands that has become a victim of its own success. Possibly the only supercar marque that can be regarded as truly reliable (the rest being mostly Italian), it has become the transport of choice of any bounder in possession of a credit card. The result of this is a car maker with enough money to buy Volkswagen and more Porsches on the road in Essex than there are Ford Fiestas.

So what is a prospective Porsche owner to do? The answer has been provided by the introduction of the best looking 911 to roll out of Porsche's Stuttgart factory since Steve McQueen got behind the wheel of a Spyder.

With a tailfin and wheels reminiscent of the RS Carreras of the 1970s, the 2010 911 Sport Classic is all you could wish for in a new Porsche. It has the best bits of the bygone days with the sort of spec and performance you would expect from a new car.

It packs a punch to match its looks, powered by a 3.8L flat-six lump with DFI producing 408 hp, a top speed of 302kmh, and a specially tuned exhaust system which amplifies that trademark engine note.

Truly gorgeous in a light primer grey with subtle dark grey stripes from front to back, only 250 to be made and €200k.

I'll have one for Christmas please.

Heritage brands raise their game

It seems that something good is coming out of the recession for the luxury heritage brands of Britain. Whereas for decades the likes of Burberry, Aquascutum and Barbour were quite happy to pedal out the same tired old macs and wax jackets, with no discernable reason for anyone other than the elderly or farmers to buy them, the recession has sharpened their claws, made them hungry for a new generation of customer.

We've had a succession of frankly groundbreaking announcements from the higher echelon of this fair country's clothing brands over the past couple of years. Who would have imagined that Barbour would collaborate with a Japanese designer, or that Dunhill, once a stuffy old label better known for its cigarretes, would employ Jude Law as its masthead and Kim Jones as creative director?

The momentum is gathering pace too, and has even moved up to the corporate side of things. Earlier this week, Burberry made it into the FTSE 100, thanks in no small part to an insatiable Japanese appetite for its trademark house check and the need of every tourist who visits London to go home with a Burberry trenchcoat. The arrival of creative director Christopher Bailey has also helped bring the brand back up to date.

Then yesterday it was announced that Burberry rival Aquascutum has been saved from impending doom by fashion entrepreneur Harold Tillman, who has bought the company from its Japanese owners. To complete the hat-trick Cheaney, a Northamptonshire shoemaker which had been under the Church's umbrella, has been bought from Prada by Church's founders William and Jonathan Church.

But the real progress is being made with the products.

Over at Dunhill, Mr Jones wasted no time in digging out the brand's archives and resurrecting some of the key pieces with added tweaks for the autumn/winter collection, his first at the brand.

The Barbour Beacon heritage line is a welcome departure from the traditional line. The label, whose jackets are the required uniform of the country set and anyone with a horse, has launched a capsule line of driving, cycling and motorcycle jackets with Japanese designer Tokihito Yoshida. On top of that the brand has opened a Heritage shop just off Carnaby Street.

Belstaff is leaps and bounds ahead. It was taken into Italian ownership a few years ago and the brand has since dragged itself out of the greasy biker pits into which it had fallen, to become the darling of the euro-set, although it didn't do itslf many favours by sponsoring Ewan MacGregor's jolly round the world on a bike. No collaborations in sight for Belstaff yet though.

This whole collaboration and guest designer business is something the luxury street brands of Japan have been doing for years. It didn't take long for Nike and Adidas to get in on the act and now it seems to be the done thing to refresh a tired brand. A bit like getting a makeover.

It certainly seems to have done the trick.

Is that a mammoth tusk or are you just pleased to see me?

Nobody can tell you why woolly mammoths really became extinct. They managed to live through the ice age so they were a fairly hardy bunch. Maybe the world got a bit too hot for them.

Those enormous beasts with their massive teeth and tusks the size of scaffold poles are consigned to history lessons and bit parts in Ice Age the movie. Which is kind of good, because at least we don't have to sidestep rampant woolly mammoths on the commute to work.

But they didn't die in vain, as Dunhill has discovered. The luxury menswear brand has sourced some nomadic herders from Russia who do a neat little sideline in digging up mammoth tusks. Most of the northern hemisphere is evidently littered with them. Being 30,000 year old ivory, they haven't rotted, are officially fossils, and make rather nice toggles.

They make up a small part of Dunhill's new creative director, Kim Jones's forage through the brand's considerable archives to resurrect and refresh some of the more classic forgotten pieces. The autumn winter collection is lined with exotic skins and uber-lux options.

All good for getting the conversation going around the fireplace, and as far as talking points go, having a bit of mammoth dangling off your duffle coat is as good a starter as any, you'll surely agree.

Too well dressed to riot

It was another bad night for football on Tuesday. The evening clash between West Ham and Millwall was always going to be a flashpoint, seeing as the two clubs top the league in bitter rivalry.

But it was a worse evening for terrace style. Whatever happened to the well-dressed hooligan?

Back in the eighties, the heyday of hooliganism, when running battles outside football grounds were part and parcel of a Saturday afernoon, how you dressed mattered as much as who you supported. You had to look the part, and in the initial days of what has become known as the Terrace Casual, that meant Fila And Sergio Tacchini tracksuit tops, jumbo cords and Dia Dora Seb Coe trainers.

As the years progressed so did the one-upmanship, and by the late eighties it was all about Stone Island (it was cool then), Armani, and Paul Smith.

Certain clubs commanded more respect than others. Funnily enough West Ham's Inter City Firm (ICF) was among the better dressed of hooligan mobs. Them and Chelsea. Millwall, on the other hand, never had much style.

Mackenzie t-shirts? Adidas hoodies? On camera? In the paper? It would never have happened. Back then, if you were going to invade a pitch you would make sure you were at your most pristine. You were going to be in the public eye, after all. And you would never, ever, lumber onto that grass in nothing but a pair of shorts and a beer belly. The shame.

My memories of football in the eighties don't really stretch to the games themselves. All I can remember is hundreds of us marching down the street, in our just-out-of the bag Stone Island parkas and Armani roll-necks, looking sharp.

I haven't been to the football in years, unless you count Southend v Chelsea last year, which I don't. Perhaps there is still a casual hooligan element. If there is, they've got more style and verve than to be caught on the pitch with their bellies out.

So either West Ham have let their standards slip since the sharp days of hooliganism, or all the troublemakers were Millwall. Whatever, those fans should be locked up for crimes against menswear, if nothing else.

B&O Beotime

No it isn't a musical instrument, or a handy weapon with which to tackle intruders. This is the latest offering from Bang & Olufsen, designed to wake you up gently in the morning.

The Beotime is an alarm clock with a difference. It has a built-in motion sensor, automatic backlighting, and a sleep timer which lets you doze off to music or late night programming in the knowledge it won't still be blaring into the smal hours.

For waking up, there's a discreet, and no doubt acoustically perfect chime, or the option to set a TV programme, radio station, or piece of music.

All in all the Beotime offers a somewhat soothing start to the day, which is no doubt why the pre-orders ahead of the launch in time for Christmas are already building up.

Price is £300 from your local Bang & Olufsen retailer.

New Rapha sponsors

Well I wouldn't have chosen them for my dream cycle team, but as far as sponsors go, Rapha has now got some very respectable names lined up on its shirt.

The new team shirt will be emblazoned with the Condor logo across the front, naturally, and will also feature new sponsors Sharp Electronics, Paul Smith Jeans and the Malmaison hotel group, which is a pretty decent collection of brands in my opinion.

Add that to the new design of black shirt with union jacks on the shoulders and the pink and white stripes around the body, or an alternative red, white and blue colourway and you have a team shirt that's destined to go down as an absolute classic.

Rapha brings it home again.

Scotch quail eggs in Mayfair

Next time you're around Berkeley Square in Mayfair, pop into Dunhill's London store at Bourdon House on Davies Street, take a seat at one of the tables in the courtyard and ask the waiter if he would be kind enough to bring you a plate of scotch quail eggs. Quite simply the tastiest side dish you would ever have the good fortune to put in your mouth.

If you're feeling a little more adventurous you might wish to sample the chicken, bacon and avocado salad or even hamburger and chips, all cooked under the watchful eye of Mark Hix, former executive head chef at The Ivy and served in a little oasis of calm amid the tension of the West End. You will not be disappointed.

They serve a wicked virgin Mary, too.

Dream cycling jersey

As the Tour De France enters its final phase, the conversation on the couch between Lizzie and myself turned towards the race jerseys.

For those new to the tour, riders compete to win different coloured race jerseys.

Four jerseys are up for grabs at any given stage:

Green jersey - the race leader on points
Yellow jersey - the winner of the last stage
White jersey - the best young rider
Polka dot - King of the Mountain, or the rider with the most points in the mountain stages

These days riders who have won a jersey are kitted out from head to toe in the relevant colour, and that includes the sunglasses. His team sponsors are also on his winner's jersey. So each rider must have his own outfit relevant to each coloured stage win, just in case.

The polka dot King of the Mountains jersey was voted best. Our judgement was based purley on aesthetic appeal.

On to our dream team jersey - that which I would design if entering my own team, and could choose the sponsors I used.

It would have to, naturally, be a Rapha classic team jersey. Black would be the first choice but seeing as this is already the Rapha Condor team colour, I'm thinking olive green with Rapha pink flashes at the neck and on the sleeves, trademark Rapha white band on left sleeve.

Sponsors:

Visvim, the Japanese clothing brand, would be a main sponsor - the V logo appearing on the right chest.

Dunhill, another sartorial fave, would occupy the space below Visvim

The logo of Acronym, the German brand know for jackets made from technical fabrics, would sit below the collar at the back of the neck

Monocle magazine would take the right sleeve

Thomas Pink would have a place around the hem of the left sleeve, below the white Rapha band

Miracle-Gro fertiliser would have a space on the back somewhere near my arse

And slapped right across my chest in 50 point bold would be the gourmet love of my life, Higgidy pies.

Now that's what you call a TDF race jersey.

The name of the team? Pie-Vis-ibility

Ulysse Nardin Chairman phone

It's nice to see a bit of optimism in these days of economic desperation, and what could be more optimistic than the launch of an 18k gold mobile phone?

The Ulysse Nardin Chairman is the kind of flamboyant creation that restores your faith in capitalism. If there's a market for a mobile phone which has been produced to the exacting specifications of a luxury time piece, with all its intricacies and attention to detail, in some of the finest materials on the planet, then things really can't be all that bad.

In addition to all the usual features you would expect from a mobile phone such as internet access and a camera, the Chairman has a built-in rotor to help keep the battery charged, incorporates a 2.8" touch screen and has to be the first ever mobile phone to employ fingerprint recognition security.

The price of this piece of mobile craftsmanship? €12,500. Recession? What recession?

This post is also featured on The Times business blog, Business Central.

Murakami and Pharrell Williams

What do you get when you put hip-hop genius Pharrell Williams and twisted manga-art type Takashi Murakami together for a few hours?

If this latest exhibition is anything to go by, you get a load of diamond-encrusted consumer goods containers in the mouth of a giant pebble (yes, another pebble) with eyes and multi-coloured teeth.

Surely you didn't expect anything sensible?

This isn't the only thing the pair have in common - they have both collaborated with Louis Vuitton on projects in the past.

Check out the interview below.