Style Icon - Bruce Pask (fashion director at The New York Times Style Magazine)

 

 Men's fashion director of The New York Times' T Magazine. Mr Pask also styles and consults for numerous magazines, department stores and designers. He has costume designed for the theatre, most recently for the 2010 Broadway revival of Promises Promises, by Neil Simon. 

 What I love about Bruce Pask is that he makes wearing a suit look casual but effortless. Most likely you won't see him a suit jacket with the matching pants; he'll opt to pair it with shorts, jeans, or khakis. The way he wears his jackets on his shoulders has this heroic cape-like quality that just goes to show you he's always comfortable, and not taking fashion as seriously as some of his contemporaries.

 “My big wardrobe adjustment is making a jacket into a cape, just taking it on and off because outside it’ll be so beautiful and inside it’ll be so stuffy. And it may look a little pretentious wearing a jacket on your shoulders but for me it’s just about temperature regulation, I just get so sick of putting on a jacket and taking it off all the time. It’s just practical.”

 

Bruce Pask's Style Tip

“Most men buy their suits and sport jackets too big for their frames. I suppose they may think there's a correlation between their size and their masculinity. My advice is to try on the jacket size you think you wear, then try on one smaller and see how it looks. See how you feel. It is so much more visually appealing to fill out one's suit than to swim in a larger size.”

 Bruce Pask's Favourite Suit

“I must say that I am a big fan of the J.Crew Ludlow suit. It's a perfect fit for me off the rack. It's a nice, close-fitting body with just enough, but not too much, shoulder. I love the slender straight leg. The Ludlow in grey flannel is my go-to suit.”

 Bruce Pask's Watch

“I wear a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date, on a steel bracelet with a grey face. I like the smaller size and neutral color as it doesn't emphasize my very thin wrists.”

  Bruce Pask's Essential Wardrobe Item

“I have an A.P.C. heavy grey wool flannel sport jacket, single breasted and crisply tailored. I wear it with everything. While a navy blazer, even in a heavier flannel fabric, can look quite dressy or even conservative, the same jacket in grey has a more broad interpretation. Depending on the trousers I choose, my jacket can look casual or dressed up, but always appropriate.”

 Bruce Pask's Favourite Brand

“I am a big fan of a lot of labels and designers, but if forced to choose one I must say Dries Van Noten. I am always enamoured with the way that he can examine classic garments, fabrics and silhouettes and recalibrate, reconceive and redefine them while still respecting a man's simple need to look, well, manly. Last season he designed a heavy twill khaki trouser with a matching belt modelled on a trench coat’s belt...grommeted, a bit longer, with hardware. I thought it was ingenious.”

Interview:

Was there anything that particularly excited you in Milan?
I thought that the Prada show was one of my favorites of hers almost ever. First of all it’s one of these things where she’s so thoughtful about setting and the mood that it creates for the reception of the clothing and I thought that she more than anyone really understands that having that giant astroturf and having individual foam seats put everybody in that summer mood – which kept playing on the soundtrack. She had all this amazing fluorescent florals and the Lily Pulitzer on acid but then also modulating that with beautiful tonalities and mixing a double breasted jacket in navy with black pants – so there’s a nice really considered tailored moment with a louder golf-y, leisure time moment. I just thought it was really one of my favorite shows almost of all time. It was really special.

So in terms of clothing on the runway, what have you really liked in Paris?
Dries is always a favorite for me, I loved it. And I thought that this season was really beautiful, taking all those neutrals, and then hitting it with a little orange but then doing all these Cabana stripes and then putting them on their side. Then again he balanced it with this really elegant suiting. And then the converse, something like Givenchy which I think can be quite polarizing, I thought that was his best show ever.

What’s your take on the current state of menswear?
I think in general it’s such an exciting time for men. Over the last ten years the progress we’ve made with men being so much more comfortable shopping, men caring more about how they look without it feeling like this emasculation, I think the expression we’re seeing in clothing designers and their explorations have been quite exciting, and then also in the realm of that uniform of quote, unquote, tailored clothing, and how that’s progressed because post-crisis it was a tough moment for suiting, the work place changed dramatically, we’ve got a new creative class and a new freelance class that has really risen to fill a lot of employment gaps so what a suit needs to do during the day has really changed a lot and it’s been amazing to see these real Neapolitan tailors and Italian tailors adapting to this necessary, multi-functioning wardrobe and jackets are getting really deconstructed and unlined and emphasizing that it can have more of a life than just 9 – 5 and it needs to have more of a life because men want this added value. I think that’s been really exciting and also with the attention that the business is getting, I know that with retailers, men’s is becoming a rapidly developing element, and in department stores and online, so it’s been thrilling to be a part of for me.

So what are you wearing right now?
These are really old Prada khakis. The shoes, which I’m obsessed with, they’re espadrilles and I love that they’re a lace up with a leather sole. They’re from this Belgian company called NDC. The sport jacket is +J and the shirt I got in Japan at the giant Muji store there. I love the collection there, I wish we could get more of it in the Muji in New York.

Do you have a go-to drink here in Paris?
I’d have to say I’ve had enough of the champagne, I’m happy for the generosity but when I went to dinner last night I was with some friends and we couldn’t wait to have a pint of beer – it was very refreshing after a hot day.

Source:Glit,GQ,Google Images

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