The Skull & Crossbones motif has been very hot the past few years. So hot, in fact, that I was hoping it had finally jumped the shark. I'm sure some of you will say it already had, which it did; but, that doesn't mean it doesn't still sell, which, to a retailer, means it hasn't yet run its course. 

All of a sudden, Somali pirates are all over the news, and we could be in for a few more years of skull-themed ties, belts, cufflinks, and pendants. News casts have featured words I am pretty sure I have never heard uttered by professional anchors, including but not limited to "Indian frigate" and "pirate mothership". While I can't find the audio I heard, Wired wrote it up here.

I shouldn't be making fun of it, really. But the pirates say they're strictly in it for the money, and it's hard to read that interview with a real live pirate and not ponder the notion that one man's pirate is another man's Coast Guard (no disrespect to our customers that are U.S. Coast Guard). In their defense, they (the Somali pirates) did just release a Greek ship they seized over 2 months ago with all 25 crew members unharmed.

It is the time of year when many organizations buy gifts to reward their top performers. Given the year they've had, perhaps we'll add Somali pirates to our growing list of corporate customers...

...we can reflect on all of the things we are thankful for: Family. Friends. Health. TARP. Jessica Alba. Small batch bourbon. Google Reader. In that order.

Bill Lavin, whose belts we have been carrying for years now, releases dozens, if not hundreds, of new belts every year. It's tough for us to keep up. Worse yet, he doesn't seem interested in taking the time to name his belts anymore. The early days brought belts with names like "Free-Wheelin'" or "Tribute to Buddha". If you look at his dressier belt line, none of the them have names, and we're equally lazy when eager to launch new products. Hence, the romantic sounding 3-404x Belt (and others just as badly named in the Bill Lavin dress belt category). 

In our rush to get up a slew of new belts, I didn't have time to think of a profound name for a new belt printed with scenes & excerpts from three of our nation's founding documents (the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights). I called it the Tribute to Significant American Documents belt. Surely, there is a more patriotic or flattering name for a belt of this...significance.

So, as you reflect on this Thanksgiving, you might noodle a better name for this belt. Submit it as a comment here before midnight on Sunday. In return, we'll thank the best submission with a $50 gift certificate to our site. Godspeed, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Over the weekend, the Economist profiled President-Elect Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner. You might assume we liked the article because of this passage: "The current treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, is reworking the $700 billion bail-out plan on the fly" (emphasis ours), but that statement, for reasons that should be obvious, doesn't make us optimistic. Actually, this was the section that caught my eye:

Mr Geithner looks a lot younger than his 47 years (though not as young as he did before the crisis began). He skateboards and snowboards and exudes a sort of hipster-wonkiness, using “way” as a synonym for “very” as in “way consequential” and occasionally underlining his point with the word “fuck”. In temperament he seems similar to Mr Obama: he is suspicious of ideology, questions received wisdom, likes a competition of ideas and is keenly aware of how uncertain the world is.

In our Shop by Lifestyle section, we've had a "Hipster" lifestyle. Some have construed this to mean that we think we have stuff that would appeal to the anti-establishment, trucker hat-wearing, Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking, vinyl record-collecting, dripping-with-irony "hipsters". That was never our intended audience.

In our worldview, "Hipster" refers to a psychographic profile for a gentleman that appreciates the finer things in life, but eschews many of the traditional rules of fashion or etiquette in order to create a style all his own. Our hipster might be a 40 year old guy who chooses to wear Agave jeans, Michael Toschi SUV2s, an Ike Behar casual shirt, and a vintage watch (for irony). This is a stark contrast to the Old School gentleman that wears a conservative suit, shirt & tie to work, or the Professor who wears a V-neck sweater over a sport shirt with cords and loafers.

From publicly available photos, Geithner's wardrobe is what I would consider an Old School/Wall Street fusion, but we bet he's in jeans & a t-shirt on weekends. If the Economist can refer to a Secretary of the U.S. Treasury as a "hipster", we're in good company.

Since I know you are all very concerned with my shaving regimen, I wanted to provide a brief update on my experiences with Safety Razor shaving. Three weeks in now and I'm now beginning to enjoy it. Here's what I've learned so far:

• Cream is key. While they call it "wet shaving", cream seems more important than water. With a Fusion or Mach III razor, you can take a pass with no cream and do little harm; with the safety razor, it seems to be much more effective with cream. The good news is that I have developed a very serious, emotional bond with my badger brush now.
• Don't swallow...or move...or even think while you're shaving around your Adam's apple. After a pretty serious "gun shot wound" to the throat on the 3rd day of shaving, I now take the neck much more cautiously.
• When $#*% happens, alum block works much better than a small piece of tissue paper.
• I've spent $0.45 on blades. Now, I don't shave every day, but with the blades being "double-edged", I get twice as many shaves out of a single $0.15 blade than I originally expected. With the money I've saved, I hope to buy the country of Iceland.    

Learning to master a straight razor may be in my future after all...

Kirby Allison is an officer and a gentleman. Kirby is the young entepreneur behind the Hanger Project: a company dedicated to creating hangers that are as beautiful as they are functional. That, in and of itself, is enough to interest me since I used to require that all of my dress shirts were hung on identical wooden hangers organized by color, with solids first, then stripes, then checks. I don't do that anymore; not because I don't think I should, but because now I am in that position that many of you are in: too many shirts to organize properly by one's self, but not enough to justify hiring a closet butler.

Hanger Project's products (try saying that 10 times quickly) speak for themselves. It's somewhat shocking that someone hasn't made some of the innovations that Kirby has designed into his hangers. This is more about the gentleman behind the company. Kirby came by our old warehouse & showroom a few months back (have I mentioned we opened a store in the Financial District?), and we talked a lot about the men's market in general over cigars. I gave him my opinions as to what he should develop next (the ultimate shoe-trees, an elegant shoe shine kit, etc.).

Before he left, I gave him a book I thought he should read. Yesterday, a package arrived for me with the book, a hand-written thank you note, and a very special cigar: a Padron 80th Anniversary. This is certainly not common among our vendors, but it is not uncommon either. Since we've opened, we had the President of Michael Toschi helping us unpack grooming products, our Fairway & Greene rep folding dozens of golf shirts, Martin Dingman's National Sales Manager re-doing our wallet display, Truefitt & Hill sent some special gifts, and Hlaska's Production Manager making our Hipster section more hip.

It's been a long week trying to manage an eCommerce business and a store, so a couple hours with one of Jorge Padron's finest is just what the doctor ordered (assuming you have a doctor that prescribes cigars). Thanks Kirby!

You don't start a business like this if you don't already enjoy reading men's magazines. I have, at times, been subscribed to GQ, Esquire, Robb Report, Men's Health, Details, Maxim, Men's Journal, Playboy (for the articles), and a handful of others that have since disappeared from the landscape (Vitals, Player, FHM to name a few).

When Condé Nast announced that they would be publishing a "men's" version of Vogue, my first reaction was cynicism. Like feminine grooming brands that come out with a line for men (I'm talking to you Nivea), here is the quintessential women's fashion title being unnaturally bastardized in the hopes that men will want to pick up a magazine that has forever been associated with the female sex, and of course, a Madonna song. 

Except that, after reading the first couple issues, I quickly became a fan. I felt like it was a well-balanced mix of content & advertisements, especially if compared to each 3 lbs. issue of GQ in which 2.5 lbs of it is ads. Unlike some of the other titles mentioned, I would try to get through it within a day or two of receiving each issue.

Alas, Mens' Vogue is being reduced to a bi-annual issue to come in the Spring and Fall. Much of the staff has been let go, and their blogs seem to have died at the end of October. After we bail out the auto industry...and the airline industry...hopefully retail is next...and then we can evaluate the merits of propping up publishers.

If you are a glutton for punishment and want to hear more about Condé Nast's difficulties, you can read the full article -- ironically posted at one of the websites of their own publications complaining about the "draining effect" of the Internet -- here. Men's Vogue - may he rest in peace.