Blog – Page 2 – Nick Hilton

As Frank Zappa Said, “It Can’t Happen Here”

June 4, 2014 Nick Hilton

The Twin Extremes of Menswear Disappointment

I went to a men’s store recently because I wanted some new clothes. I’m upset because…

Either:
They told me that styles had changed, and that to keep up with the latest trend I should “update my wardrobe…”

Or:
They told me that I should wear the classic styles and that suit a man of my age and position in life. They told me that fashion is nonsense and that I’m better off with the old “tried and true…”

So:
I bought some stuff that makes me look silly. When I wear it I feel like I’m standing out, like I’m in a weird costume, not appropriate for my life. I spent a lot of money and I trusted those guys and I regret it.

Or:
I came out with clothes exactly like I’ve always had. I really can’t tell the stuff I bought from my old stuff. It might be better quality, but there’s no way I can tell. I spent a lot of money and I trusted those guys and I regret it.

What’d I Say?

May 28, 2014 Nick Hilton

Have you ever read an old interview that you’ve given or something that you’ve had published somewhere and felt, like, uck; “What was I talking about?” I have. No fun.

So all the more satisfying to be doing some research for a blog piece I’m working on and come across an interview that appeared on a Finnish site called Keikari.com a year or two ago. I think the most satisfying thing about it, besides not sounding like a complete Bozo to myself, was that I still believe what I said. It means I’m getting down to the core of myself, somehow, getting rid of the chameleon skin that changed to meet the next reporter, or fit in with the next big thing, or trend, or whatever. Not that it’s Voltaire or Mark Twain, but it’s really me, and that’s kind of reassuring somehow. Take this quote:

NH: Only the authentic thing, the original, will do. NO BULLSHIT. Ever. That is the essence of classic style: it’s the real thing. Fashion, as I understand it, is new for newness’ sake, pushing the envelope, like modern in the artistic sense, great for hanging on walls maybe; but clothing should not call attention to the wearer. That’s indicative of character traits that are just, well, not on. Ostentation, excess pride, lack of solidity. What does the clothing say about the wearer? Not to say trends are bad; things change. But good style adapts the trend into itself and moves the individual along a continuum. Skirts for men, for example, are exciting fashion, but bad style.

Maybe I’d leave out the expletive next time, but mostly I’d say the same thing today. And then there was this exchange:

VR: What’s your definition of style?

NH: That which gives the wearer an air of confident, dignified grace. Style is the personal definition of the individual; it is the refinement of the person, the definition of his or her character. Clothing does not have style; people do.

Yes!

The most painful alienation a person can suffer is alienation from himself. I know; I’ve been there. So to read something I’ve said that I think “That’s pretty much exactly what I think!” is kind of exciting. You who’ve never had a moment of neurotic self-criticism may not recognize this, and so God has blessed you. For those of us who come to it later, though, it’s sweeeeet.

If you’re interested enough to have read this far, you might want to turn to the interview itself: http://www.keikari.com/english/interview-with-nick-hilton/

The Un-specialty Store

May 22, 2014 Nick Hilton

Kislin’s Red Bank

There used to be a place on Front Street in Red Bank called Kislin’s Sporting Goods. It wasn’t like anything anywhere, before or since. They sold boots, tools, camping gear, basketballs, neat’s-foot oil, model airplanes, kerosene heaters, dolls: an astonishing array of wildly different merchandise not put in the store by any particular category or any discernable arrangement. It was kind of dark in there. They had a couple of light fixtures way up in the ceiling and this vast cavern full of shelves and piles of stuff apparently put down wherever there was room. Little League uniforms were over there by the varnish. An old guy, Mr. Kislin maybe, just sat – we thought he must be crippled, because he never moved – while a guy named Bob, his son maybe, went and got whatever you asked for. Browsing was definitely out. A hatchet? Be right back. Gardening gloves? Hold on. Kislin’s started out in 1908 as a sporting goods store, but had morphed into a sort of wacky outdoorsy-department store for everything no one else in town carried. As if the old man were listening every time somebody asked for something (“Tee shirts?” “Airplane glue?”) and then ordered it so he wouldn’t miss a sale.

That’s where my Mom took me for my chinos.

Dickies, they were called. Cotton-and-Dacron, wash-and-wear, straight leg, tan pants. Kislin’s kept them piled up against the tent poles. Nothing high-falutin’ about Dickies, but I wouldn’t wear anything else. Forget Haggar, forget Lord & Taylor, forget everything. We went to Kislin’s for Dickies and that was that, until probably eighth grade.

They went out of business a few years ago. The old man had died long since, and his son Bob opened up a sporting goods store in the Eatontown Mall. He called it Bob’s.

Toward a Definition of Quality

May 12, 2014 Nick Hilton

I got some feedback from the “Country of Origin” piece I put up here a while ago. The gist of it was that these upstart countries like China hadn’t developed the expertise to produce really fine apparel; they hadn’t been at it long enough. And “Heritage” brands that sell Asian products are engaging in a sacrilegious bait-and-switch game. These kinds of comments are just xenophobia in disguise. The idea that the Chinese — or anybody, anywhere — can’t make quality is ridiculous. Because if you have a true definition of quality the country of origin has no part in it. So let’s talk about what defines quality in apparel. The intangibles of the product, the label, the brand name, the country of origin, don’t mean anything. The aspects of the product that are created by marketing, customer perception, or celebrity endorsements will have an effect of the success or failure, the end users’ enjoyment, and the price of the product; they have nothing to do with the quality. Nothing. Quality is real; and value is its measure of worth.

Excellence in apparel is comprised of three things: beauty, durability, and comfort. A garment has to look good, feel good, and last a good long while.

Let’s start with beauty, the most subjective and personal aspect. While no one particular taste or style is definitely more beautiful than another, there are some indispensible visible features that must be present. Together, the fit, the silhouette, and the richness of the material contribute to the visual appeal. Bumps, folds, fullness, and wrinkles are not beautiful, not matter what the style. You might like chartreuse plaid three-piece suits; they’re beautiful if they look good to you, and on you. We could argue that a definition of classic style is that which is beautiful to the widest audience, but you get the point.

Comfort and durability are the most important tangible aspects of any garment; in fact they are inherently mutually exclusive. Durability would call for coarse and heavy cloth sewn together by heavy-duty machinery. Comfort requires the opposite: the softest, most luxurious fabric and interlinings, the least amount of padding, the most delicate stitching. Quality in apparel requires more of one element, always at the expense of the other. We like cloth that is light and supple but that holds a crease and keeps its shape. We want comfortable fit, but the most flattering cut for our personal silhouette. We want to keep something for a while, but have it be a pleasure to put on always.

Once the designer, the fabric technicians, the pattern maker, the sewers, and the manufacturing management understand what constitutes quality, it doesn’t matter where they are or what language they speak. Since these aspects of quality require great research and development, trial and error, and most important, an understanding of the customers’ quality criteria, they are expensive. It is rare that people want to pay for quality, and that is the one and only reason that the world – not just the USA – is full of shoddy goods.

Country of Origin

April 2, 2014 Nick Hilton

We’ve been hearing some anti- “Made In China” sentiment around the store lately. I have a problem with this.

True, over the years we have been burned with some worse-than-shoddy Chinese goods which we should never have purchased. But I’ve had crap from Italy, too. Shouldn’t have bought that either. It was always an attempt to replace something good with something less costly. Chinese make some dynamite vases. And phones.

Personally, I have an anti-crap bias, and crap is crap, no matter where you make it.

The consumer says “I won’t pay that for this!” Then retailers complain to manufacturers about prices being too high, so the manufacturers go to China (or India, Bangladesh, Phillipines) to get things made more cheaply. And everybody tries to pretend that the cheaper product is just as good as the more expensive one but here’s the dirty little secret: if it were just as good it wouldn’t be cheaper. Sorry. At least in the apparel industry, where the reality is what you touch, what you see. But if that’s all you can afford, then you buy it and you convince yourself it’s just as good, but you know you’re only fooling yourself.

It has nothing to do with where it’s made. Or it shouldn’t anyway. If the Chinese decided to make a really great shirt – I mean as good as, say, Robert Talbott makes – they could for sure. Would it be cheaper? A bit. But they’ve shot themselves in the foot, because “Made in China” is synonymous with MUCH cheaper, so everyone would say it’s a rip-off. But that’s another story.

So don’t be put off by Made In China. Or Made In Yonkers, Tehran, Moscow. That’s just xenophobic nonsense. But if you want to know why it’s good, not good, worth the price, etc., just ask.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

March 19, 2014 Nick Hilton

Recently, I accompanied my father on a visit to his doctor. As we were sitting in the antiseptic waiting room, a somewhat shabby looking man entered and proceeded through the doors to the inner office. He was wearing an old worn blazer, a pair of ill-fitting grey pants, a rumpled shirt, rep tie. I assumed he must have been the patient before my father and, being of a certain age, was returning from a response to the call of nature. A moment later he opened the door and summoned my father into his office. Immediately, I became concerned for my father’s health.

This doctor was recommended to us as a leader in his field yet his appearance had a negative effect on my judgment of his authority. If he doesn’t respect himself enough to care how he appears why should I? Like it or not, people judge us by our appearance. What you do is important, isn’t it? Take pride in your appearance to show yourself and others that you take it seriously. Respect yourself enough and people will respect you.

Savile Row

March 14, 2014 Nick Hilton

We stay at Browns Hotel in Albemarle Street. Jennifer has loved the quaintness and the discreet atmosphere of the place ever since she took on the task of reinterpreting the look of Burberrys’ “English Lady” sportswear collections for an upper-East-Side Bloomingdales shopper, when she had to be there a lot. The rooms are cozy and the service incredible. Once we were delayed by an airline strike and we arrived at Browns, enervated and beyond exhaustion, at 3:30 on a Monday morning. In our room about two minutes, there came a knock on the door and a waitress with a full trolley of tea, hot milk and sandwiches. “Just thought you’d be needing something after such a journey,” she said, turning quickly to go, without even a hint of the Okay-it’s-tip-me-time.

I’d been on the job for a while before it occurred to me I might have something to learn, humility never having been my strong suit. So one beautiful March morning I set off from Browns for Anderson and Shepherd, Ltd., to my father’s (and my grandfather’s) way of thinking, the cat’s pajamas of tailordom. I snuck in, sort of awed by the place, on auto-pilot, really. I’d been in the business forever, pretty sure I’m an expert, but in this place I felt like a little-leaguer in Yankee Stadium. Piles of fabric bolts stacked neatly on tables and a mirror in the back. No racks, no “try-ons,” no samples to show workmanship or silhouette. It was all a matter of trust. The implication of all this was, if you had the balls to come into this place you must know what you were going to get to begin with. Mr. Nelson approached me. imagesA&S sign

“Sir?”

I mumbled about never having been in before, but my grandfather blah, blah, blah. The mention of a family member’s being a customer was all it took. With this the slight, red-haired gent started hauling away at the piles of goods to find me the right, all purpose, all-weather Anderson and Shepherd starter suit. We settled on a charcoal gray nail-head pattern from Wain Shiell. 2500 pounds sterling it was to cost, give or take. I didn’t bat an eye; too scared. I had been on the other side of the deal for long enough, telling people their Norman Hilton suit was going to cost them 2500 bucks. I knew how to play it. Flinch when he tells you the price and you take yourself out of that magical realm where you and the salesman know that the goods is worth every penny. This is the special understanding that develops between the connoisseur and the purveyor of the goods; it says The Satisfaction This Product Gives Is Worth Any Price. A wink, a nod. No problemo.

He then escorted me to the spacious measuring room, where another chap joined him and he spoke the measurements while the second guy – a notch lower down in rank, and thus, in the English mentality of class and status, not worthy of introduction – wrote the numbers Mr. Nelson spoke. And such a lot of numbers, more than just over-arm, chest, coat-waist and seat, they measured for the button placement, the ½-back width, each shoulder to the floor.

It went on and on. I paid my deposit and went home to wait.

More Bang for Your Tux

February 20, 2014 Nick Hilton

Those of us who only need a tuxedo for New Year’s season get to don our sartorially black tie once a year. So what happens? You buy the tuxedo and wear it for the night, go home and pack it away? It’s time to get a little more for your money. Tuxedo jackets are a great way to step up your style. When worn with a pair of black jeans and a white shirt, it’s perfect and simple. You don’t have to do much to spice it up since the jacket is going to scream louder than anything else your wearing. Midnight blue dinner suits have been a trend and are a little easier to invest in because they work with almost all denim. Polish off the look with a cool loafer and you’re ready to strut.

The same goes for velvet jackets. Velvet is a great fabric especially for the typ

e of chilly days that we’ve been experiencing. This is all about taking clothing that is already in your wardrobe and making each piece work a little harder
.

The Dirt On Jeans

February 12, 2014 Nick Hilton

Jeans are tricky. I can’t think of anything we wear – or any consumer product, actually – that has evolved to such an extent without looking much different. That’s the tricky part. Like wine, all jeans kind of look the same; but the more exposed and educated you become the more there is to differentiate one from another. With jeans you have to know about fabric and fit to appreciate the differences between Army-Navy dungarees and what they call Premium Denim.

Workmen’s pants are made of heavy, strong, and rigid cloth because they are designed to simply to cover the body, to provide protection in a work environment, and to last forever. They are blue because Levi Strauss who invented them favored indigo dye, which is strange because it is very caustic and not very color fast. Anyhow, as a result of being made of dense and inflexible material they have a baggy seat – the kind you might see some cleavage over – and no real discernable characteristics of fit whatsoever.

The Premium Denim pants are made of technologically sophisticated cloth, spun, woven and dyed to be made into pants that fit in a way that conventional trousers never can. And “can” is the operative word. They should hug your butt as much as possible without feeling tight or looking stupid up front, and they should give a longer, leaner, more fit look to your legs and lower body. Some guys try to tout “Premium Denim for Man-Sized Men” but it’s almost an oxymoron if you’re out of proportion. Sorry to say, jeans can be a Level 2 or even a Level 3 thing, but not for every body. Better jeans may stretch a little, and they will certainly have been washed before you buy them to achieve a soft, lived-in feel. In fact, the wash technique and the resulting color and drape of the legs is the lion’s share of why they cost so much more.

I have seen really expensive jeans in stores with holes “worn” in them by laborers with forks and files and stuff. If you want to pay extra for that, I have a bridge we should discuss.

The tricky part has to do with the fact that even though you might take the time and trouble to learn all there is to know about Premium Denim, and you might have shelled out a couple hundred bucks for that pair of beauties, to Mr. Jones next door it still looks like you’ve got on an old pair of Levis.

FYI “Jean” is the name of the cloth, derived from the old English “jene fustian,” a name for a heavy cotton twill first found in Genoa, Italy. And if that’s not enough information, remember this: denim is a corruption of the French “de Nîmes,” the name they gave to the same fabric the Genoese thought they’d invented. Coke and Pepsi all over again.

Gatsby’s Ghost – A History of Modern Style – II

July 12, 2013 Nick Hilton

Norman Hilton Widgeon Sport jacket

What’s a Norman Hilton?

He first learned “St. Grottlesex” style from his New England pals at Princeton in the late 30s. Then, after the Navy in WWII and earning a Harvard MBA, he started Norman Hilton Country Jackets, using his grandfather’s New Jersey clothing factory, and pretty quickly became the leader in off-the-rack Ivy League tweeds. Suits came along in the early 50s, the Country Jackets name went away, and the Norman Hilton label was legendary.

He was, he would say, an overnight success, but it was his love of the craft that made the time seem to fly, because in fact it took years. Always, always, he insisted on three things: 1) nothing but the best – fabric, tailoring, finishing; 2) the silhouette of the jacket should comfortably follow body lines; and 3) the most elegant possible image in marketing.

8509-R1-17-7

Today, a Norman Hilton garment, available only through Nick Hilton Princeton, represents the same great taste in cloth, excellence in fit, and quality of workmanship as the original. There is no other American-made product that is tailored with the same care and expertise. The typical custom-made garment in this collection takes six weeks to produce and costs $2000 and up.

8509-R1-02-22

The Norman Hilton Country Jacket line has been revived recently, offering our ready-made and on-line customers the authentic quality of Made in America, fine quality tweeds and comfortable fit as what made Norman Hilton that legendary name in quality men’s clothing. Norman Hilton ready-to-wear jackets retail for $700.

Norman Hilton cutting