By André Larnyoh.
Hi Isaac. Tell us a little about yourself?
I’m 21, I run global sales for Husbands Paris and I’m a philosophy student at UCL.
How did you manage to run global sales for Husbands at the age of 21?
I mean it sounds very impressive; it isn’t. I started out working on shop floors part time while I was at secondary school, and then I effectively took a gap year where, rather than going to go find myself, I started working on Savile Row at Drake’s.
Then I went to work for Husbands. I worked in the store as a sales guy before taking over the online made-to-measure service, helping clients who couldn’t come to Paris to place MTM orders. The natural extension of that was doing trunk shows, and moving away from the shop floor also made sense because I was coming back to London to study, so Husbands were kind enough to find a role that allowed me to work remotely and continue to help the company.
How do you balance the two?
I write a lot of essays on long-haul flights. I don’t get much sleep sometimes, but I tend to have the attitude that I’m young enough to have the energy to do these things and ultimately, maybe when I’m older I won’t.
Husbands have been really wonderful in how they have nurtured and listened to me, and I’ve learned a lot from them. Also British universities have quite low contact time; I have counterparts in France or the US that have a lot more, and wouldn’t be able to do what I do.
I think it’s very much luck of the draw that I happen to be in a country with underfunded universities!
OUTFIT 1
- Jumper: Husbands
- Trousers: Bespoke by Joshua Dobrik
- Scarf: Husbands
- Boots: Vintage Saint Laurent
From what I know of you, this first outfit is you at your most casual – a pair of Oxford Bags, a navy sailor jumper and a jaunty silk scarf.
The most annoying thing about this outfit is that I don’t have anywhere to put my stuff! Someone once said that a blazer is a man’s handbag and I agree, I wear jackets out of convenience. I hate carrying loads of stuff – I’d really like a black Birkin but I can’t afford it.
The trousers are true parallel legs – cut completely square from the ball of the seat. They’re made of 21oz overcoating I bought at a Harrison’s remnant sale; they’re indestructible.
I like this outfit because it has a slightly 1930s silhouette, with very big trousers and a quite slim, fitted body – it doesn’t get into the drapiness of the 1940s, it still feels controlled. The look does make me feel a bit like a sailor, but I’m used to dressing in an old-man kind of way.
What does casual mean to you?
I’m not sure it exists for me in the way it does for others. I treat a lot of my clothes in the way other people do a pair of jeans. I see them as everyday items – I like the idea that I can wear a jacket and it becomes a casual garment because of the way I wear it, in spite of the fact it has a roped sleevehead and everything. I don’t agree with the idea that if you want to be casual you need to have a soft jacket.
A lot of people when they’re 21 think their style is never going to change. Do you wonder whether yours will in a few years time?
Yes it’s always at the back of my mind. Even a year ago I was wearing trousers with 30cm hems and jackets with crazy shoulders. Now I’m wearing things that are a lot more 60s, more Hedi Slimane inspired.
I suppose I’d like to keep growing, though I do think the way I dress has stabilised. I’m more into the idea of subtlety, in terms of being that guy in a grey suit, black tie and white shirt who is always in a kind of uniform and so people have to focus on him as a person, what he’s saying.
Does the way you dress change depending on whether you’re going to class or going for a trunk show? Or even going for a normal meal somewhere?
I do tend to always wear tailoring. All my trousers are tailored; I don’t wear jeans really, although I think they’re cool. Going to class I quite like the mystery of walking around in a suit. People don’t know whether I’m a consultant, an academic or a PHD student or some random guy who snuck in. I find that quite funny.
Why do you think jeans are cool but you won’t wear them?
I think it’s just the practical reason that my brain would explode if I got really into jeans as well! I think so much already about worsted suiting that if I have to suddenly start researching jeans it would be overwhelming.
OUTFIT 2
- Jacket: Husbands
- Tee: Vintage Fruit of The Loom
- Trousers: Husbands
- Shoes: Cheaney
- Sunglasses: Vintage
It looks like the width of your trousers has shrunk significantly here… Slimane’s influence?
When I wear really big trousers they look cool, but I do become ‘the really big trouser guy’. I started looking at a lot of old Hedi Slimane runway shows, and there’s an emotion I feel that he was able to convey at Dior Homme that I found quite moving.
Also everything’s big and baggy at the moment – I walk around university and everyone’s wearing these big Urban Outfitters jeans and I want to differentiate myself against that, so that’s another reason to wear more slim trousers again.
You’re more interested in ‘high’ fashion than most menswear people. Where does that come from?
I think living in Paris. The UK, as much as it might pretend that it does, doesn’t really have a fashion industry.
People in France will go to one of the best universities and then work for Hermes, and that’s seen as a very respectable career path. Whereas here, if you get a good degree and then go into fashion it isn’t seen in the same way – and that goes with the general devaluation of the arts in this country I think.
How else do you think the French and the British differ?
I would say that in France, certainly in Paris, there’s a lot less focus on colour – people are more restrained. As a result, I think at their best they wear cuts that are more interesting, hence Celine, Saint Laurent etc.
Whereas Vivienne Westwood – that’s a lot more about fabrics, colours and perhaps less about silhouette. People complain about LVMH’s markups, but ultimately these big margins allow for very interesting studio work.
I get pissed off with some menswear because I feel it’s very surface level – merely trying to tick boxes and cater to what’s in at the time. Suddenly soft shouldered jackets are declared the zeitgeist and everyone’s selling them.
It’s more interesting to react against that, or to dig deeper into cultural inspirations and understand what made these clothes so alluring when they were first created. At its best, fashion does that in way that menswear doesn’t.
You once told me that you felt too many menswear brands want men to dress “like little boys”. Care to expand?
The people who were getting into menswear in the 2010s, which caused a lot of brands which are now quite big to expand, were in their 20s in often high-paying jobs. They wanted to be taken more seriously and so they tried dressing older.
Now they’re all in their thirties and forties and want to dress younger, so brands are reacting to this and there’s been an inversion. Brands that used to be tailoring-focused are now selling fleeces, jersey and so on.
It’s very personal, but an orange fleece or pieces in a bunch of pastel colours, are things I associate with children’s wear and toys. They’re colours and textures which don’t feel particularly adult. Clothes are emotional objects and we can’t rationalise it. They create an involuntary reaction.
I grew up in a school where a lot of people wore streetwear – that wasn’t my identity, suits meant a lot to me because my grandfather was a tailor. Maybe my interests are so niche that I have common ground with no one. I’m ultimately showing my own prejudices – I just don’t find these things attractive.
Have your views on tailors changed over time?
Sure! For a long time I thought tailoring was very linear – ready to wear, then made to measure, then bespoke, then certain tailors that made the best garments. Now I realise no, a ready-to-wear jacket can be really cool because it’s worn in a different way – the way Tony Leung wears it in In the Mood For Love for example.
That’s where Margiela was interesting – making the replica Tokyo Salaryman suit in spite of the fact that it wasn’t the best from a tailoring point of view. Seeing garments as cultural objects, rather than just a sliding scale of whether the lapels were hand padded or not.
What are some of your other influences apart from your grandfather?
I find people like Leonard Cohen or Francis Bacon really interesting because they’re not focused on clothing, they just wear what feels right. Equally, photographers like Daido Moriyama, a Japanese photographer, I find inspiring. I try to dress like I feel I could be photographed for one of his magazines, or ‘records’ as he calls them.
There was also a show I saw at the Whitney Museum in New York recently, of a photographer who took lots of pictures of Baptist churches in the US and I found the outfits in them really cool.
OUTFIT 3
- Jacket: Chittleborough & Morgan
- Shirt: Hume London
- Tie: Lanvin
- Trousers: Husbands
- Boots: Vintage Saint Laurent
- Sunglasses: Vintage
Red is a very “in” colour at the moment…
I know and I’m really scared of that.
Why?
I’m worried that some pipsqueak twenty-one-year-old in 10 years time will be talking about me in the same way I’m talking about guys wearing double-monk shoes and plaid suits back in 2012. “Oh he wears red shirts, that’s so childish.”
You’re quite good friends with shirtmaker James MacAuslan, whose brand is Hume London. What do you like about his work?
I spent a lot of time talking to James about the collar I wanted to make with him. He makes things that are quite fun and I think that’s something that’s missing from a lot of West End shirts.
What’s so special about the collar?
It’s a spearpoint collar but it doesn’t feel too 70s; it’s more 90s, more closed. It’s also not fused so it doesn’t have this really big feeling, it has a high collar stand and I have quite a long neck so that helps make things proportionate.
Talk us through the rest of this last outfit. It’s punchy.
There are quite sombre colours there, but then you have this primary colour that shines through. I like the straight trousers running down into the boot; heeled boots I find very striking. The three-ply Fresco trouser is indestructible so I wear it all the time – on long-haul flights, to night clubs.
The jacket means a lot to me because it was made by my good friend Nick when he was finishing his tailoring apprenticeship. We found a Nutter’s pattern that fit me very well and every time I wear it I think of him; I think of our friendship.
So why do you refer to this as a party outfit?
It’s a bit tacky and I quite like that. I’m wearing a red silk shirt, it’s the loudest I own so it says “I’m at a party”.
What do you tend to spend a lot of money on? And also little on?
That’s an interesting point actually, I’m not one of those people that wants the best of everything, I think that’s a bit cringeworthy. Better to be in a bespoke suit but have a shitty Bic lighter. Have one thing which is a bit crap, like have a Casio watch or even worse a Sekonda watch!
I spend very little on interior stuff because I move around a lot, and I don’t have to spend too much on clothes. So I spend most money on books and going out.
Now that dark colours and heavy suiting play such a large part in your wardrobe, as opposed to Fun Shirts and soft hopsack jackets, what do you find it does for you as a person?
I suppose I feel cool when I wear these clothes. They give me a particular pleasure that I find it hard to turn into language. It’s this thing that makes me feel part of the inspirations I’ve mentioned, these aesthetic materials that I find really fascinating – whether it’s an issue of L’Uomo Vogue from the 70s or an album cover – and I think “Oh. I’m part of that aesthetic.” Feeling part of an aesthetic I suppose is similar to what I first felt when I started wearing fun shirts. You get this sense of community.
Isaac is @isaac_.timberlake on Instagram
