On the surface, we seem to be living in a golden age of craftsmanship. Luxury brands are enjoying years of steady growth, hiring and training new artisans and building new factories across the world from Texas to France. Content creators, luxury brands, journalists and influencers sing the praises of craftsmanship or at least mention it …
Check out my interview with Ville Raivio of classic menswear website Keikari. I really enjoyed answering Ville’s thoughtful questions about my background, what I’m doing now and the journey – both sartorial and non-sartorial – that led me to where I am now.
I first learned about Sicily through its tailoring. There are other more accessible paths to discover Sicily such as its cuisine, wine, literature, history and of course its Mediterranean climate. Yet another avenue is the Targa Florio, one of the world’s earliest sports car racing events when it started in 1906. I recently caught part …
“For me, clothing is more cultural. It’s about how these things came to be used, designed and created. I’m basically an anthropologist in the supply chain of menswear.” Quoted in Deni Bechard, “The Accidental Maven of Menswear”, Stanford Magazine (July 2019) I learned that this summer’s issue of Stanford Magazine has just been published, featuring …
An American in Sicily – what I did after discovering Sicilian tailoring Read More »
Clayton Christensen famously coined the more well-known version of this dilemma from the point of view of the innovator, specifically the tech innovator. For Christensen, the innovator’s dilemma is the problem of the second act, the sophomore slump if you will. Tech innovators tend to fail because they essentially free ride off of an initially…
Discovery is an elusive experience even for consumers armed with today’s tools like Instagram. More precisely, it is a highly quixotic and frustrating process for anyone searching for the new or novel such as entrepreneurs, explorers, inventors, artists, musicians, and craftspeople. For them, discovery means being contrarian in the face of accumulating mistakes and failures. …
It is heartening to see Sicily being covered as an emerging cultural or travel destination for tourists, designers, photographers and cultural connoisseurs. Earlier this year Vogue Italia offered up a photo essay of the burgeoning arts scene in Palermo. In April 2018, Travel + Leisure wrote about Palermo and Trapani. In May 2018, The New …
This week’s Economist highlights the EU’s plan to build a “Malmo-Palermo express” linking the north and south. The funding of a “Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor” is quite substantial. The reason for this investment is that the southern reaches of Europe around the Mediterranean have lagged on most economic measures behind the rest of western Europe for decades. …
Rarity and connectivity – the case of Sicilian tailoring Read More »
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