Meet Melbourne’s most smashingly attired tribe; Tailored Men in this, the second instalment in our series: Fashion Tribes (first published in Spectrum/The Saturday Age/The Sydney Morning Herald ) Click back later to meet Denim Nerds, Sneaker Heads, Racetrack Fashionistocrats and Bush Doof and Festival girls, five of the myriad tribes in modern Melbourne.
Words: Janice Breen Burns Photographs: Simon Schluter
There always were and will be Tailored Men. But not like these. This tribe is new and swelling fast. They’re mostly younger, with a more obsessive perspective than their tailored tribe predecessors, ie: the army of office block blokes who are reluctantly obliged to suit up despite two decades of menswear casualisation and who, come the weekend, climb gratefully back into their trackies and Tees.
This tribe is not them. This is the thoughtful, connected – via heavy use of social media – Tailored tribe who believes all that is knowable about a man is revealed in his grooming and clothes and acted upon by his beholders. Old fashioned tenets, yes, modernised for a new era.
This tribe laments most keenly, the slovenly man’s lack of imagination. “When you dress in a suit and tie, you look more valuable and feel more valuable,” says menswear designer and retailer Steve Calder. His own obsession (“Yes, obsession is the right word..he says”) with the cut, cloth and skilled minutiae of fine English and Italian tailoring, is typical of his tribe. “Dress that way, and people treat you very differently than if you’re in an old tracksuit.”
Not that there is anything wrong with a well bought, excellent quality co-ordinated and accessorised tracksuit.
On the contrary, the tribe can apply method, connoissuership and a tsunami of sartorial theory to virtually any garment and render it smashing. “What you wear is an extension of who you are, your character,” says social media influencer Roberto Malizia. He expresses his own heavily tattoed persona in a mix of rare-brand streetwear, including tracksuits, and impeccable tailoring. “I’m the beautiful dodgy one,” he hoots. And so he is, with a cool quotient unmatched.
Malizia’s slightly skewed “imperfectly perfect” way of dressing is a key tenet of style once nutshelled by Italian designer Nino Cerruti: “For a man to be elegant, he must dress simply with some mistakes. There is nothing less elegant than to be too elegant.”
Or to be too obsessed with brands, as some wanna-be Tailored tribesmen mistakenly are. Menswear retail manager Nami Nguyen, for example, can pluck some of the coollest brands on the planet from his racks but talks more lovingly of the “soul” inherent in the right menswear. “The beautiful details, the silhouettes,” he says, “They can tap into the romance of different eras: the 40s, 50s, 70s…You can capture that, siphon it through to modern style, make it your own.”
The Tailored Tribe’s ultimate bonus however, is their mark on the world: “Dressing this way affects the way you present yourself,” says social media influencer Larry Lim, “It’s like building a personal brand; it changes the way you talk and act.”
Menswear designer Sam Diamond puts it even more bluntly: “It’s about social status,” he says. “Physically, the suit itself highlights the masculinity of a man’s body; broad shoulders, strong chest, slimmer through the waist, but it also affects the way people treat you. It’s something I really enjoy.”
The Age, Spectrum. FAshion Tribes series , the tailored men. story by Jan Breen Burns. Pic Simon Schluter 18 October 2018.
Left to right: Larry Lim, 30, editor/social media influencer/The Simple Gentleman, wears MJ Bale suit, Julius Marlow loafers, The Fitting Room Alterations
Roberto Malizia, 27, Icon magazine editor/social media influencer, wears Fury suit, Vetements T-shirt, Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, own jewellery.
Nami Nguyen, 34, boutique manager, wears Masons tobacco linen double breasted jacket, shantung silk tie, brown wool Hollywood trousers, tasselled loafers and Navajo jewellery.
Samuel Diamond, 32, menswear designer, 32, wears his own brand Sam Diamond Tailors suit, shirt and tie, Christys hat, Berwick 1707 shoes.
Steve Calder, 28, owner Calder Sartoria, wears Calder wool/hemp jacket and linen trousers, AARCH loopwheel cotton T-shirt, Alden Cordovan loafers.
