Fashion and the European Man

Last fall we had the opportunity of working on a project where the majority of the crew was Italian.One of these gentleman was perhaps in his mid sixties.

Sporting roguish,"longish" grey hair, he would show up every day impeccably dressed.Nothing fancy,just a nice pressed shirt,perhaps un-tucked, with a vest, casual trousers,and as always, naturally, a fantastic pair of Italian shoes.To finish this off he would always have a great scarf that just made the outfit even better than the sum of all it's parts.He became our style icon.
Later that same fall,we were fortunate to return to Europe,after being away for far too long.Our first Sunday in Paris we desperately needed food in our little ,Bastille area, rental.

Up the street we found what we were looking for, nothing fancy but certainly enough to get us through til Monday morning.
As we are picking out produce and wine we see a couple of BOBO,20ish yr old guys.
One is dressed all in black.Tall with a long skinny coat(vintage?)to the knees, skinny pants and scuffed(not too) lace up shoes.To top it off he looked liked he had literally stepped out of the shower,his dark curly hair, wet!!

His buddy was more bohemian than bourgeois,with his cool colorful Andean jacket and faded ripped jeans and high tops.What made his look even cooler was that he was part Oriental and had those blue grey eyes,and long dreads, peaking from a knit cap.They had STYLE!

Our jaws dropped!It's Sunday morning and these guys look like they have stepped out of a fashion shoot.Yet their look was so easy, effortless, comfortable.

Clean, stylish,modern not trying too hard.They had just stepped out of the shower,thrown something on and raced out the door.No fashion crisis here.

We would come to see and envy,this "effortlessness", European men possess in dressing,during our much too short time in Paris.
It seemed to be so "naturelle" here;would it be possible to bring this easy,casual,effortless look home?

Tough call... we are still working on it.

Above are some shots of what we are talking about.
Taken by Canadian photographer Tommy Ton
as well as Sartorialist,Scott Schulman.