When you work at a magazine there are usually discussions about "bringing stuff to life" at some point or another. Like, how can we bring this feature story/pair of aladdin pants to life? It might sound a little cheesy but it's really just about making things that are swimming around in our heads seem palpable and real for everyone else. As far as the style department is concerned, contributing style editor Mobolaji Dawodu is the person who makes sense of all the fashion traffic in our office. We hunt and gather shoes, earrings, top hats etc and off he goes to India, Idaho or wherever to conjure up fashion story magic, with two huge duffel bags and a photographer in tow.
Zamari at Oak recently invited us to the Showroom's Spring 09 menswear preview and we thought it might be nice to apply our bringing-stuff-to-life rule to a different milieu. So instead of the usual straight-up review with pretty pictures of our favorite bits and bobs displayed on hangers, we brought Mobolaji along and set him a little 30-minute Stylee Friday challenge: pick three of your favorite menswear designers from the Oak Showroom and style yourself in an outfit from each collection. Of course there was an overwhelming amount of new and lovely arrivals, including standout collections from FADER favorites Hood By Air and Stansfield. So narrowing it down to just three golden nuggets in half an hour definitely wasn't easy.
1. Hyden Yoo S/S '09 — Bonnie and Clyde
2. Harmon S/S '09 — Rockers
3. Oak S/S '09-- The Dirty Dozen