Pilothouse Preps.

The St. George School Sailing team. Newport, Rhode Island.

Old school pics, timeless style, marvel at their smocks, foul weather rubber coats and pumps. I've seen these blogged before, and shamelessly pinched after noticing again here .

When somethings effortlessly cool as this it's worth sharing.

WYWT

Out with my pal Eddy (Merckx). In a vintage Peter Storm rubber cagoule that's probably older than me. Stansfield heavy plaid shirt - so heavy no jumper required, Connoisseur Subbuteo scarf, mustard corduroys, Falke socks - colour a happy coincidence, Minnetonka moccasins, Hawk game bag, and a Kangol tweed cycling cap not visible.

Jibbing the Special.

Often we hear tales from those older and wiser about those halcyon hooligan days of yore, the times where 'Stanley' made an appearance, twenty ran two hundred, exaggerated tales which got more unlikely each time they were told. But one yarn you used to hear but seldom saw was pulling the alarm cord and jumping off the train as it makes it's unplanned stop, done for varying reasons, i.e. to avoid detection from an awaiting platform full of police, to avoid paying for tickets en masse, or to get into uncharted territory the back way, to show up unannounced.

Well here it is, evidence from the early eighties as Portsmouth ( they took lots of photos ) get into Wakefield the other way.

The Pioneer.

To the man on the street, the name Nigel Cabourn is likely to draw a blank.
But for anyone working in the menswear industry, the name of the British menswear designer, fashion consultant and collector is likely to bring a sigh of hushed reverence.
"Ask Joe Public and they've never heard of me," concedes Cabourn.
"But then sometimes people don't hear of people trying to do something special. Most people haven't heard of Steve Cropper out of Booker T and the M.G.'s, but he's probably the best guitarist on the world. It's a funny world."
Cabourn is the man who left fashion college to launch Cricket, a seminal 1970's menswear label that gave us the budgie jacket and loon pants and reinvented Harris Tweed; who gave Paul Smith one of his first jobs; who, like Smith, is a cult figure in Japan, where product heritage is often more important than the fleeting trendiness of the label; who has one of the world's largest private collections of rare utilitarian menswear, sometimes paying up to £3,000 for individual items. ( "I can put the expense down as research, " he smiles ); and whose own designs - time honoured, archive inspired pieces updated in fit and fabric for today - sell out almost overnight, despite hefty price tags. "It's not that I'm clever, it's just that I have a very good eye for functional vintage," Cabourn says. "it's about taking ideas from maybe four or five garments and then getting the contemporary pattern cut really right. A lot of designers have collections they work from, but I've invested in some of the greatest menswear you've ever seen, everything from mountaineering outerwear to American sweats and Second World War Japanese uniforms.
Buy a real piece of vintage and 15 years later you're still noticing details for the first time. You can't say that about clothes by many of the big designers today."
Certainly Cabourn takes his research seriously. When he designed a parka in homage to Edmund Hillary, Cabourn flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, and obtained special permission to photograph the coat Hillary wore on his climb up Everest. Cabourn is equally committed when it comes to British manufacture. He already employs domestic labour where possible, and a new entirely British-made range is in the pipeline, it won't be on the racks for long.
"What we do isn't really about fashion. If it turns out to be fashionable then so it is," says Cabourn who is wearing an old Levis Shirt, 1951 US Army cargo pants, vintage Red Wings, one of his own waistcoats and Ralph Lauren socks ( "With a logo on, which I hate," he says. "why would anyone want to wear a logo I don't know" ) "We're just into making the very best item of it's kind - the kind of thing that fathers might pass down to their sons. We don't do it to sell a lot of it."

Words by Josh Sims.

Portrait by Neil Gavin.

Originally published in the Observer by Tank Men's Fashion supplement Spring 09.

& carefully retyped by One-up.

Icons of our time - Edmund Hillary.

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was born on July 20th 1919 in Auckland, NZ.
A famous mountaineer, explorer, author and humanitarian. With a 6 ft 5" towering frame, a shy and quiet Hillary took more of an interest in the great outdoors and in particular climbing, from a young age than he did in school and college. Fuelled by reading books on his mammoth daily two hour train journeys to and from school.
Hillary worked as a beekeeper in the summer months, allowing the colder months to pursue climbing. His first major climb coming in 1939 reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, in the Southern Alps.
During the Second World War Hillary joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force and served as a Navigator on the flying boats in both Fiji and The Solomon Islands during the Pacific conflict.
Having been injured in a boating accident, he returned to his native New Zealand.
Participating in several expeditions, Hillary scaled New Zealand's highest peak of Aoraki/Mount Cook in 1948. But it was in 1953 where Hillary was to become a famous name.
As a member of John Hunt’s British Mount Everest Expedition, Hillary reached the summit of Mt. Everest with fellow mountaineer and long time acquaintance (Sherpa) Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
For this he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. They were the first people to reach the summit on the Nepal-Tibet border. A complex climb was made even more difficult with political restrictions from the Chinese control of Tibet, leading to Nepal allowing just one expedition per calendar year.
The Hunt expedition totalled up to four hundred people, including more than three hundred porters, twenty Sherpa guides and thousands of pounds worth of baggage, setting up base camp in March '53 this was to be a huge team effort.
Hillary and Norgay reached the roof of the world at 11:30 local time after a gruelling climb up the Southern face. after many failed expeditions and tragedies before them.
Mr Hillary described the peak, which is 29,028 feet (8,847 m) above sea level, as "a symmetrical, beautiful snow cone summit" with climbing pal Sherpa Tenzing burying sweets and biscuits in the snow as a Buddhist offering to the gods. Hillary took the famous photograph of Tenzing holding his ice axe aloft at the summit. "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off." - Hillary's first words to lifelong friend George Lowe on returning from Everest's summit.

Hillary and Tenzing in 1953.

Hillary through the years.

Cutting a swagger in various seasonal get-ups.

With Tenzing and wearing a Powderhorn parka, late 70's, Right: under the cold sun 50's.

Recognition for the cult and unintentional style icon Hillary came in many guises. British designer and long time collector of original authentic garments, Nigel Cabourn reconstructed a replica of Hillary's 1953 Everest Parka first released in 2003.

Cabourn himself flying out to Hillary's New Zealand home to photograph the original coat.

Hillary set in stone, a statue facing Mount Cook, one of his personal favourite peaks.

Hillary's face on currency 1992.

And a magazine advert showing Hillary endorsing Rolex watches.

After the famed Everest exploits, Hillary climbed ten other peaks in the Himalayas on further visits in 1956, 1960–61, and 1963–65. He also reached the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, for which he led the New Zealand section, on 4 January 1958. His party was the first to reach the Pole overland since Amundsen in 1911 and Scott in 1912, and the first ever to do so using motor vehicles.

In 1985 he accompanied Neil Armstrong in a small twin-engined ski plane over the Arctic Ocean and landed at the North Pole. He thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest.

Awards: Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on 6 June 1953 member of the Order of New Zealand (ONZ) in 1987; and Knight of the Order of the Garter (KG) on 22 April 1995. He was also awarded the Polar Medal for his part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Humanitarian work: Following his ascent of Everest he devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded. Through his efforts many schools and hospitals were built in this remote region of the Himalayas. He was the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation, a United States non-profit body that helps improve the ecology and living conditions in the Himalayas. He was also the Honorary President of Mountain Wilderness, an international NGO dedicated to the worldwide protection of mountains .

Hillary passed away in January 2008, he was granted a state funeral.

Part source wikipedia

YMC.

Today I took delivery of this reversible YMC blouson/harrington from S/S 07 a collection based on the spirit of '69 and a contemporary take on the suedehead style. A simple two pocket short lightweight smart harrington, gingham on one side and a nice clean white on the other. What makes this stand out for me is the button down collar.
I've not really bought much from YMC, I've had the Angling jacket which they released again this season, and was always a highly regarded piece.

And it was rude not to snap up that wax hunting jacket with more pockets than a man could ever need, they did last Autumn, for a bullseye.
Whilst it's still as cold as a witch's tit around here, this one won't be seeing the light of day for a while. But it's a nice little number for the summer. One with a double use, which is always a bonus for those as easily pleased as one's self.

More Old's Cool.

Another casual jaunt down memory lane, photos from the mid eighties from the top Leeds at Wigan, law enforcement at Birmingham in 1985. Pompey up at Sheffield and Boro, Stockport playing up at Caernarfon in the cup, Leeds arriving in the capital, Wigan and Leeds at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Leeds ignoring the warning signs at Millwall and lastly an un-named clash of differences which I believe to be Rochdale (facing) Wigan.

A Prophet.

Saturday gone, I managed to catch the fairly well hyped, and award winning A Prophet (Un prophète), as stated previously I can be a bit of a fussy film goer/miserable twat, but regardless of someone loudly crunching his way though a packed lunch and two noisy apples in the very seat next to mine, despite the fact there were spare seats further down the row, you can't quite beat the cinny. So it's film review time again. But yeah, who on earth takes apples to the pictures?

Picnic munching film goers, lack of elbow room and arse cramp aside, I'd wanted to watch this over the last week and heard good things about it from those who had before me. There's nowt like a good gritty, grim Gallic-Corsican prison drama of a Saturday afternoon. Porridge this wasn't.

This may or may not, or probably will contain spoilers:

Directed by Jaques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped 2005) and with relative newcomer Tahar Rahim in the central role as Malik El Djebena, the somewhat epic A Prophet centres around a young Arab hood on his way into a tough six year stretch in France's toughest correctional facility, a previous young offender in his first adult prison. On his own from the off he is soon singled out by the prison's Corsican mafia, as always in this twisted, corrupt system they run the show. Authority means merely a uniform to those in the know.

At the same time he is singled out by those of his fellow faith, disgusted by his obvious lack of interest in his religion. Reluctantly taken under the wing of the very menacing incarcerated Italian inmate gang boss César Luciani (Niels Arestrup) he is blackmailed with little or no choice to whack a recently imprisoned Arab inmate named Reyeb who is set to testify against César in the coming weeks. This leads to the defining scene which everyone will talk about for years to come, very well played out and suspenseful until the horrendously graphic outcome, Malik is persuaded to befriend his target, to go to his cell and become sexually friendly in exchange for hashish, at the same time concealing a razor blade in his mouth, after much practice, he goes to Reyeb's cell at his carefully chosen moment he has to slice the jugular of his victim thus guaranteeing he won't be getting back up. Hurriedly, things don't go as smoothly as planned but he gets the job done in a bloody pulp of a mess, certainly not for the squeamish. This scene was as graphic as can be, so much so gasps were heard and heads were twitching in the stalls surrounding me.

This hired hit gives Malik total protection, which then charts the rise from innocent inmate to an untrusted Arab go-between, via a transformation into a ruthless hustler where bending the rules of the system are the least of his worries. Malik makes a transition from religious outcast to an unlikely mafia kingpin orchestrating business both on the inside and outside, but always haunted by ghostly nightmares and visions of the murdered Reyeb, constant reminders of his shunned Islamic faith heavy on his conscience.

Malik educates himself, an education which builds his very survival. Illiterate, he learns to read via classes provided and quickly picks up on the language of his Corsican inmates, secretly finding out about their business. While all the time discreetly building up his own harsh network, looking after number one with no remorse of the fate of his chief tormentors.

Perhaps it isn't hard to see why this has been compared against the likes of The Godfather and Goodfellas, and it is a clear example of epic European cinema doing it the correct way, doing it their own way - genuine stories, genuine characters.

Shot with stunning realism, dirty and devoid of any Hollywood style glamour and truly barbaric at times, A Prophet is one which may yearn for another viewing sooner rather than later. But I dare say at exactly two and a half hours this one dragged on ever so slightly, feeling just that little bit too long. Never the less this was certainly one of the better films I'll see this year. 4/5