Archive for September, 2009

Living in tropical city like Jakarta, a gentleman will always encounter a problem of balancing the number of clothes that ought to be suitable and sufficient to fit the necessity’s of living in a big city like Jakarta.

In my experience, its even more trouble some for a young professional like my self whom remotely familiar with the dressing rule for gentlemen occasions.

I hence write this piece, as to provide some guidance for those in needs.

In general, men’s wardrobe can be easily grouped onto the following distinct category, the shirt, trousers, suit, tee, tie and shoes. All other detachment and in between can be categorized as accessories.

Of these major grouping, once can further divide the item into causal, or formal category. In more detail grouping, there are no other thing more important than finding the balance of number, composition, and the pair for occasions.

Now to completely address all the division in one long piece, will be very tedious and impractical, thus I took liberty to divide it into several pieces as described in the next post.

I am a 27 years old guy, working my ass up the corporate ladder in quest of money, power and woman.

 But before I conquer this world there are other smaller, yet just as important conquest, finding my own style.

 Coming from the not so fashionable family background, my sartorial knowledge is strictly limited to short sleeve shirt and jeans with pair of snickers.

 But as I enter the world of banking, along with its shiny attributes, I come to understand the true meaning of looking good.

 It took sometime for me to find my own mixes. And after some trial and error, mix and matches I come to this simple yet useful library of clothes.

 The key of proper dressing is to match the occasion, highlight the purpose and the place. And these my highlights

 The Office

Five days a week, eight hours a day no less. To balance the routine and matched the surrounding I need clothes that not only convenient but also durable enough for frequent and repetitive laundry. And while the expensive shirt will definitely provide comfort, it will not be able to compete with cheaper shirts of economical scale. And hence, finding the affordable yet well built shirt prove to be challenging.

 At first I settled for a shirt branded MOC. The price of approx. IDR200k each. From the brief look, once can conclude that the material was mixed of cotton and polyester. The tailoring was okay but not excellent, and some flaw is noticeable  occasionally. The fit however, is outstanding, naturally I looked good in it, But enough with the details, in short my work wardrobe is mostly consist of dark striped white shirt if the same brand.

 The trousers, at first I settled with the off rack brand Carthago. But after my first foray with a tailor ended rather successfully. I immediately replace my off the rack with the tailored trousers, all in grey with different shades.

 I was initially reluctant to wear plain shirt, but after once incidents where my striped shirts were not ready for the day, I was forced to wear one. I choose at the time, a french cuffed, plain purple shirt, combined with subtle patterned sterling cuff link,

 However, all the moribund above were practically used if it is not complemented by proper footwear.

 By default the proper shoes for office should be conventionally laced, in either oxford or derby. But since the last decade, a smart slip on with a moc toe (square toe) has gain significant popularity.

 And so comes the first shoes in my wardrobe, a black slip on with moc toe from Mario Minardi. The shoe cost only approx. USD80, but it was proved to be a very worth wile investment,

 Now after two years of intensive wear, and minor works on the insole, it still works wonder. As of now, I’m resting the shoe and replace it with black square toe derby from Everbest.

 The three components above, highlight my work wardrobe. The shirt, the trousers, and the shoes all in classic – conventional mode.

 The office dress, as my writing has highlight, should be simple, conventional and unassuming, And while the term “you dress for the job you want, not the job you have” is true to the essence, and have my complete and undeniable agreement, it should be noted that in the office, one should be judged by his ability and not his clothes.

If you look at the pages before  this one, you will realize how unstraight and uneven my writing was, not that this one fare much better. Truthfully I never have a knack to write on a plain surface. For whatever reason I consistently failed to write straight.

So what I do is printing lines on a sheet of paper that will act as a virtual guide line. It takes time off course to readjusting my handwriting.

After a few paragraphs I realized that I need more time to reshaping my confidence and eventually my stroke. Also I need to remain my self not too write too fast.

I could not recalled, when was the first time I felt certain attractiveness towards sartorial love, nor when was the first time I become so deeply entrenched onto sartorial details.

And for those of you who still wondering what on earth sartorial means, this is an excerpt from Webster.

Sartorial comes from the Latin word “Sartor” means “of or relating to a tailor or tailored clothes”.

In simple world it can be roughly translator as love to fashion but in this modern trendsetter or follower environment, it relates more to much more style.

Now, if there is one point where I can clearly differentiate the line before and after the enlightenment was perhaps the day I joined the bank.

Right before I am working in the bank, admittedly I’m a total ignorance. My wardrobe is limited and very limited to checked shirt and dark or blue jeans. There were off course, occasional trouser of doubtful qualities.

But working in the bank, my eyes opened to the concept that dressing (for man) is more than just hiding, protecting and covered your private parts. But more eventually, it is a media of flowing respect and uplifting image to height that you desired.

That I learned the easy way.

One year after I joined the bank, I was sent to the HK and UK for two months training. There I met people of various origin and ethnicity, and diversity. One thing that I notice though, these colleague of mine, irrespective their background were keen, and disciplined, and keen believer of dressing rules. Proper suit, matching tie and good fit.

Back from the training. I’m curious to explore their attitude of dressing, what differentiate between me and them, and many other things. And in the middle of this explanation, I struck at one website called mansflair. And behold the revelations come.

To say that the website is a collection of blog is definitely underestimation. The website a mecca of sartorial importance. The articles, though contributed by various authors, unitedly voiced the one and same message, that is business of dressing is not just about sending the message and impressed someone, but also the act of showing respect and properness, and telling people around you that you respect them by how you carry yourselves around them.

Reading through the articles, I slowly build my knowledge, often imagining my self on how would O looked strapped in certain combination of color.

It also gave me details and rare insight to the particular issue that barely addressed in the other medium.

Needless to say, the website and its articles change my entire attitude about clothing.

To quickly jump this writing, after two years of my first encounter with the website, my wardrobe has grown, in quantity as well as quality. From single three buttons suit to a navy and a mid gray.

My shirt, ties and shoes also undergo much similar improvement. To talk about them will each requires some significant portion of pages. Pages that I have not ready to filled in this morning.

Someone asked me, whatever his ground was, ” to me, what is the most beautiful photograph I have ever took ?”

 For quite sometime, my mind was rumbling around, browsing through the virtual collection of archives in my mind. Let see, is it the colorful explosion of the red sun flower ? Or is it the velvety hue of leaves ? Or is it the symmetrical composition of an architectural price, or is it the blue sky that I took above the golden field of grass ?

 I guess, I can answered it right away.

 Earlier in my life, I thought good picture is about exploding color, lucky composition and a perfect structure that will impress the viewer.

 I guess, I’m wrong.

 One of the most impressive picture that I ever took is a picture of homeless, feeding the doves at the front of the Brisbane city hall, in the middle of the day.

 This was the picture that I remember forever, the joy, the excitement and the satisfaction when I looked at the picture again and again. The picture is in black and white, the shades of gray are the ussual with nothing in particular, but all in all it was exquisite and deep, its meaningful and it tells stories, even without the narrative.

 The Stories

Black and white, in my opinion, tells much more than the colors. In color, people tend to focus at the beauty of the scene, the nuance of the picture. Whilst in black and white, people focus on the subject, even more, the different shades of grey, between the black and the white are telling even another stories.

 The beauty of the black and white can even be obtained since the development process, ever since the film was taken out of the cartridge and carefully developed before it was printed.

 The process itself is a stories and and mystifying one.

 As the digital photography take into shape, the black and white has not lost its momentum.

 A simple picture tells almost the life itself, capturing the sense of being and the humility of human kind. After all, the world is just a complex statue of life.

The Keyword is Simplicity.More too often, people put much emphasis on the beauty, physical beauty of the scenery, instead of the deeper sense of beauty that emerge from deeper within. And whilst the elaborate beauty usually requires advance equipment, and utmost luck to captured, the natural one does not, and here where the practical photography comes into equation.

 The Art of Practical Photography

Some 9 years ago, when I learned my first photography experience I relied on the cheapest Canon SLR available in the market. And as my hobby grew, my lens collections followed suit.

 At first I have only a standard zoom lens that come with the body. Some 6 months later I’ve added m tele zoom, followed by another different kin do tele zoom some years after.

 But you see, eventhough for sometimes, these lenses are in use, most of the time they were left behind. I found that changing the lenses and focusing my effort on technique such as using the correct lens length are rather tiresome, and take the enjoyment of the relaxing part of photography. Slowly but surely, I found that SLR with the equipments that come with it is no more then hushed to my hobby. I  found that I spent to much time thinking about the technical side of the photography instead compared to the stories. Even worse, I found that extra weight that I carries around, consisting of my lenses, were useless and had no added value.

 To me practical photography is a concept where picture were taken almost candidly, and that your skill and knowledge is so embedded to your mindset that whenever you take a picture, you spend no time in considering the technical aspects of photography.

 In other more obvious point, is that in practical photography, your equipment is second your insistence and hence you will only need to bring a simple camera, that has enough robustness for you to apply your skill and to adapt with the situation.

Such practice,will allows you to spend your more and very valuable time to enjoy the scene, the people and the surroundings, and consequently allows you to capture a more honest and direct scene that best represent the actual condition and emotion.

More often than not, these are the kind of picture that will raise admiring brows and curiosity to the subject.

 Today, considerable amount of my pictures were consist of collection of black and white edited picture of people and landscape.

 With its simplicity and directness, the picture has never failed in capturing the imagination of its viewer.

 More importantly, whenever I set my intentions to take a picture, I will only need to bring my trusty pocket camera.