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VESTIS MAGAZINE Editorial Director: Thomas Dai Art Director: Meryl Natow Publisher: Anna Remus Marketing Director: Margaret Jiang Fashion Editor: Eriko Kay
FROM THE EDITORS: Early in the fall, when this project was still in its nascent stages, a few of us gathered in Kirkland D-hall and made a promise to each other that before the year was up, we would have produced Harvard’s first fashion magazine. You, dear reader, are holding in your hands the result of that promise. Making the move into print is no trivial matter, and in creating this magazine, we wanted to reaffirm the core values of our organization. The Harvard Vestis Council is an organization dedicated to connecting people through fashion and personal style. As such, we wanted the inaugural issue of Vestis Magazine to express the notion that true style is not about a given brand or a given price. Rather true style is a reflective quality, cultivated through intuition and sustained thinking. To be truly stylish, we firmly believe one must also have a powerfully resolved sense of self. As people who at one time or another have attempted such deeper introspection on the contents of our closets, we are delighted to present this magazine to you. In these pages we hope you find a sense of the Harvard we know and love, a school whose style is as diverse and multi-faceted as its student body. Long live print and long live Vestis. Sincerely, The Harvard Vestis Council On the Cover: model Kieran Gallagher wears shirt by Jil Sander Navy. Photographed by Nick Tan. Makeup by Claudine Cho.
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BOY A boy is a young male human, usually child or adolescent. When he becomes an adult he’s described as a man. The most apparent thing that differentiates a boy from a girl is that a boy typically has a penis while girls have a vagina. However some intersex children with ambiguous genitals, and genetically female transgender children, may also be classified or self-identify as a boy.
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Blazer, Marc by Marc Jacobs, backpack, APC, chinos, model’s own, loafers, model’s own
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Tweed Jacket, vintage, rollneck, Loden Dager, jeans, Levi’s, shoes, model’s own
Blazer, ASOS, turtleneck, vintage, jeans, Rag & Bone, shoes, Converse
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Coat, Carven, shirt, model’s own, tie, Zara, pants, model’s own
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Blazer, ASOS, turtleneck, vintage, jeans, Rag & Bone, shoes, Converse
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Blazer, Zara, turtleneck, Uniqlo
Photographers: Shunella Lumas & Thomas Dai Styled by: Thomas Dai Models: Darragh Nolan, Theodoretus Breen vestiscouncil.com
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HABERDASHERY When it comes to Haberdashery, the men of Hugh & Crye know what’s up. We sat down with Pranav Singh, founder and shirting expert, to get his low-down on finding that perfect fit. INTERVIEW BY ANNA REMUS You offer men, “dress shirts that actually fit”--For you, what are the top three things you consider when designing a shirt that really “fits”? We size our shirts for lean and athletically built men. So from the start, we don’t make a promise that we can fit everyone. We have a specific type of guy in mind. As for the shirt itself, it’s been the culmination of much research and listening to our customer. Our shirts are designed to have higher armholes, slimmer sleeves and a more tailored cut through the chest waist and hips. Responsible environmental practices are one of the cornerstones of your company. What made you so concerned about this issue, when so many others in your industry are not? Well fortunately for us, it was something we could incorporate from day one, being a new company with no bureaucracy. We think about it in two ways: the first is responsible consumption, what we believe is a balanced approach to consumerism. Give a little back every time you purchase something. And the second is responsible sourcing. Quite simply we want to source from the suppliers that care about the environment, their employees and the communities in which they operate. Do you have a quick tip for matching pocket squares with shirts? Matching pocket squares is a matter of preference, so we think its best to go with your tastes. Our pocket squares come in a lot of interesting and awesome patterns that look great when paired with most shirts. What can we expect from H&C in the future? We’re launching blazers in May - same sizing system as our shirts. It’s going to be epic. clockwise from top left Blazer, J. Crew, shirt and pocket square, Hugh & Crye Blazer, bespoke, shirt, tie and pocket square, Hugh & Crye, pin, the Harvard COOP Suit, SUITSUPPLY, shirt, tie, and pocket square, Hugh & Crye, watch, Timex for J. Crew Blaze, vintage, shirt and tie, Hugh & Crye, jeans, Levi’s photographed by Tyreke White
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The Things We Carried 14
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from previous page Ties left to right, J. Crew, Alexander Olch, J.Crew
Photographers: Thomas Dai and Meryl Natow
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1. Tie, Zara 2. Glasses, Anne et Valentin 3. Collar, Urban Outfitters 4. Gloves, Moschino 5. Watch, vintage 6. Bracelet, H&M
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1. Bowtie, Alexander Olch 2. Coin Purse, Marc by Marc Jacobs 3. Ring, The Opulence Project 4. Watch, Timex for J. Crew 5. Tie, J. crew 6. Pin, Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems 7. Sunglasses, Thom Browne 8. iPad case, Dodocase for J. Crew 9. Scarf, Anthropologie
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1. Bangle, vintage Versace Versace* 2. Watch, Cartier 3. Candle, Cire Trudon 4. Necklace, J. unknown Crew 5. Earrings, vintage 6. Glasses, Ray Ban
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autumn LeaVing
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She left the window open when she left, tied up her hair and walked out the door. The hair stayed though, clotting darkly in my shower drain, making patterns on the yellowed porcelain. Weeks before she left we took the photos at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. The tomb stones made long, October shadows over Gentian Path, and she shivered in her white wisps of lace and tulle, her hair the same bloody red as the trees. I watched the leaves blow in drifts about her ankles and thought that few things were quite as beautiful as that blowing of leaves, all that former life now gone to ground—reds and yellows, mottled browns, dry, crinkled beiges—all turning in an autumnal gyre, pushed along by the wind. There was an old tweed jacket I had brought along for the shoot. Grey herringoned, with age writ large on its shoulders. She shrugged it on as one would a large sweater, closing the top button over her dress, which hung precariously on her clavicles. Our theme that day was something to do with fall and mysterious endings and the gypsy magic of the woods. She wrote to me later that we will grow from these seasons, one day, that we will discard these memories like tissue paper wrappings, like the floating skin of days gone by. She wrote that we will be a part of something bigger than ourselves, not just people on the periphery, or strangers at the party, not just the particles colliding, the Brownian motion of cities and people. She wrote to me also that the large is small and the small is large. And so it has been in my life. At the window, I watch the leaves recede, memory sunk deep in all those broken edges. In winter, I read Ulysses like any good, literary boy does and pick her hair with tweezers from the drain. I put the tweed jacket back in its garment bag and lay the pictures out on my desk top, watching them shift colors across the screen. vestiscouncil.com
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Photographer: Dean Shu Stylist: Thomas Dai Model: Metok Hughes-Levine All Clothes: Free People
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Shanghai, Last Summer At the Shanghai IFC Mall in Pudong, there is a moratorium both on haggling and on the types of people who do it. Price is of little consequence to the shoppers here, who drift almost effetely from store to store, spending money in a wash of rose-tinted renmenbi. Bags open, wallets unfold, and currency is afloat somewhere (everywhere) in the mall’s airy central gallery, where the silence is both palpable and strange, so uncharacteristic of Chinese malls and Chinese people. When the shoppers are done they go for lunch at Ding Tai Feng, one mall over, where you can eat Shanghai’s politest plate of miniature soup dumplings. The proper technique for doing so is to hold each wobbly dumpling lightly on your spoon before rupturing the semi-transparent skin with your front teeth and lapping up the soup, scalding hot. You eat the leftover meet and dough last, in one, easy bite. Pudong sits across the Huangpu river from the rest of Shanghai, and that murky distance helps mediate its iconic skyline, the subject of so many magnets and postcards sold at Shanghai’s international airport (coincidentally also called Pudong). Forming the base of Pudong’s International Finance Center, the IFC mall caters mostly to the Shanghainese elite, along with traveling business men from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the West, out-of-town money who every weekend crowd the bar at Vue on the Bund asking for whiskey sours. The mall’s exterior resembles an amorphous, sprawling crystal with hundreds of glassy facets arranged around no apparent center. Its interior, painted a sterile white, is built up in curvaceous frosted layers, like tiers on a wedding cake. A cursory glance at the mall’s directory yields the names of several dead French people—Chanel, Dior, Balmain, Lanvin—along with a Japanese bakery called “Ginza Sweets” and “Donut King”, an Australian import. The Prada store on the mall’s first floor is stocked with pieces from the house’s last runway collection, along with the accessories and shoes that are the brand’s bread and butter. When I walk in, the mannequins are wearing tailored coats, shirts buttoned all the way up and pants with a high crop, all in contrasting geometric prints that are both Byzantine and brazenly modern. Very art deco one might say. Very nouveauriche as well. To go with the clothes are clunky, vaguely orthopedic Mary Janes with contrasting rubber trims and, for the
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men, shiny, black brogues covered in gobstopper jewels. I pause over the low tables where discreet vachetta billfolds and polished wingtips nestle amidst whisper soft cashmere scarves and sports shirts in minimalist white poplin. A forest green leather document holder elicits an unintentional gasp, as does a version of Spring 2011’s creeper shoe in tortoiseshell patent. The shop attendants watch me obliquely but do not come over. They know I am only looking. A young, pretty Chinese woman and her balding, older boyfriend (husband?) are shopping with two of the attendants in tow. Such unlikely pairs are often seen browsing at the IFC: slim elfin women in tight little dresses and platform heels, and their male benefactors, who are invariably sunken-eyed, short men in baggy tee-shirts, washed jeans and logolittered Gucci sneakers. I watch as the woman hefts a tan leather frame bag, PRADA stamped discreetly at its clasp, as if appraising its net worth, while the man absentmindedly tries on sunglasses. He tells an invisible associate on his iPhone that he will be in Beijing by the morning. They will have lunch and discuss the latest blueprints. Leaving Prada, I go into a few more stores but buy nothing. I kill time just looking at window displays, observing how the lighting draws one in, casting flattering shadows on the woven intreciattio totes at Bottega, the shaved shearling trenches at Burberry, the quilted 2.55’s in sorbet shades at Chanel and the Faberge egg tunics dripping in pearl embroideries at Balmain. There is a lot of surface on display at the IFC mall, competing textures that mask an overall flatness to the scene. The escalators, softly ascending and descending, have a velveteen smoothness about them. I ride them up, floor by floor, not really shopping, just looking around. At the top of the mall, automatic glass doors slide open without a sound and I walk out onto the IFC’s expansive roof, which, like much of the mall, is absolutely devoid of people. The weather is relatively nice that day. Humid without suffocating, hot without any real heat. I walk up to a metal and glass railing and look out on a city I am about to leave, a city mostly metal and glass. It is near sunset and Pudong’s crowded skyline begins to light up in the crepuscular translucence. A fervid shimmer coats the buildings, limning in orange light the Oriental Pearl Tower, which looks like a rocket
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idling on terra firma, its great fuchsia nodes dominating every view. It is quiet where I am, while on the ground the masses roil, Mandarin flying fast and furious. Their movements are indecipherable from on high to me, just a fragment of the frame, which in that moment is elegant and decidedly Chinese. Up on the IFC roof, I am alone except for two girls holding hands, their babydoll dresses and Crocs concordant shades of pink. The private terrace of one of the malls many restaurants is visible below my vantage point. I look down at the well-dressed couples eating their overpriced Thai food. I watch the men and women pick at their food, chopsticks awkwardly flexing. She may comment on the smoggy sunset, he on the recent stall in construction. I wonder if they feel my eyes on them, I wonder if they know we are all together before this particular tableau, this particular Shanghai dusk.
like these, times when I find myself before yet another sunset, yet another city I do not know any more than it knows me. The urban skylines are always beautiful, the sunsets more so, and yet in my congested mind something is forever wanting to unravel, to come undone from this recurrent scene, to exist a part from it for a time, if only in thought. This point of contrast persists, and at times I welcome its presence, so I can close my eyes and return to that elemental landscape I belonged to first, that separate peace one holds inside, which, gently perspiring, we know as youth’s ongoing fermata. When the sunlight at long last dies, I zip up my jacket and head back inside.
Home, long ignored, now invades my thoughts, and suddenly I am lying in a field in the middle of nowhere, consecrated in summer dew and cicada song, the sounding of a creek in the near distance. I find that my mind beats a rapid retreat to the bucolic in times
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