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I've been to parties where I've seen guys mess up. They've been dying to bust out those crazy embroidered corduroys all year long, and it doesn't always fly.
When you think mid-seventies, you think of Studio 54, but there was a whole other thing going on. Where I was, it was more deep-woods preppy. Real-guy preppy.
With tailored clothing, you can really see where the money went. How it's constructed, how it fits your body - this becomes very apparent in tailored clothing.
I'm a designer with a little 'd' as opposed to a big 'd.' It's a job; I'm more about contributing to a man's wardrobe, offering the things that I look for myself.
I just love walking around the Upper East Side and seeing those guys who didn't just take an extra 10 minutes in the morning to get ready, but an extra 40 minutes.
If guys step back and are just honest about what they think looks good on them, it’s really hard to lose. You can spot guys who take on personas that are not theirs.
My big mission in life is to get guys out of those big, baggy board shorts down to their knees. It always looks like they're trying to hide something, like skinny legs.
At a certain point, this is a brand. It's got to be bigger than me as one little person. We have a lane - and it's a good lane - and want to drive faster down that lane.
When you live in a city where you're always in and out of a car or a building, I feel it's... better to treat a heavier, tweedier sport coat almost as you would outerwear.
People talk to me about celebrities all the time and which ones do I admire, and it's so hard because you can't tell who's doing it for themselves and who hired a stylist.
The minute you see a guy doing one of those Naomi Campbell catwalk-action kind of things, it falls apart. A lot of hips and the scissor walk? No! Men always need to be men.
The easiest thing is to create something no one has ever seen before. There's a reason no one's ever seen it - because someone tried it, and it didn't work in the real world.
I consistently go back to myself: What am I looking for or wanting to wear myself, right now, that I don't already have? I always figure if I'm looking for it, a lot of guys are.
If everything is a little baggy, then everything will look sloppy when you layer one piece on top of another. Your sport coat should easily fit over a shirt and a fine-gauge sweater.
Great ideas are very much 'of the moment,' and endlessly mulling them over just takes up too much of your brain space and might block your next great idea. Act on it, give it away, or move on.
Most guys open their closet and tend to wear about 10% of what they own - and they wear that 10% over and over again. So the trick is to be honest with yourself and figure out what that 10% is.
My favorite animal on the Galapagos is the Galapagos Marine Iguana. The first rule of iguana-dom is that iguanas hate the water, yet somehow, these poor iguanas landed there and had to figure it out.
All it takes is for one person to say, 'Wow, that looks great on you' - and then they wear it for the next 10 years. That's the great thing about guys. They just need that little bit of encouragement.
Celebrities, the beach, and Coachella, that's what everyone thinks about when they think of Los Angeles. Then you see these people living in Bel-Air and Beverly Hills, and they're so chic and have so much style.
I kind of have a uniform for office parties and Christmas parties. What I do is put on a basic tuxedo shirt with a solid navy or black tie, a tweed jacket, a red pocket square, and some sort of fancy shoe or velvet slipper.
Designer pricing should hurt, but it shouldn't kill you. You wince when you hand over your AmEx, but once you get it home, you never regret it. You divide it by how many days you're using it, and suddenly it becomes affordable.
I've always had this thing for swimming pools - I think they're much sexier and far more glamorous than the beach, in a way. You dress differently when you're spending a day at an amazing pool than you would dress for the beach.
I'm always much more inspired by random people on the street. I live down by NYU and The New School, and I'd almost say close your eyes and pull a student out, and they're gonna be a little bit cooler than the average celebrity.
One of the weird things about being a designer is guessing what the world will want about a year in advance of when they will want it. It becomes almost a psychological test in a way - how do I feel now and how do I want to feel then.
I know how to cane chairs - how's that for a useless skill? My mom once took a course and taught me how to do it when I was stuck at home sick with the flu. Now I'm all set if I ever decide to drop out of fashion and join an Amish community.
Michael Bastian is a designer line and priced a certain way because of where it's made and the materials we use, and Gant is the more accessible version of that: more sports-inspired, more branding. It has the same DNA; it's just a different time and place.
I'm a big believer in small, dark, cozy bedrooms. I would describe myself as introspective - I feel things first, and then I think them through - and I need the enveloping comfort of a little squirrel's nest when I have to retreat from the world to recharge.
I'd like to think my brand shares some of those characteristics we like to think of as classically American - a certain straightforwardness, honesty, a sense of humor, inclusiveness, practicality - all those great Yankee traits. And I don't mean the baseball team.
I think the secret of my brand is that I speak to the guys who just get it. They don't want something all logo'd and tricked out. But they go to the gym. They still go out; they want to look hot. And they want an upgrade, but they don't want to look like their dad.
As a group, the fashion industry has been one of the strongest in the effort to fight HIV and AIDS. There are many groups dedicated to fighting this disease; GMHC's Fashion Forward is just one of them. But I think everyone in this industry fights it in their own way.
I once had this idea that I wanted to make the perfect boxer short that's not too long, not too short, with pearl buttons, made from real shirting fabric. They were coming in at $215. Well, not even the richest guy in the world is going to pay more than $125 for his underwear.
If you're a New Yorker, there are two things that are most important: a car and a washer and dryer. Literally everyone else in America has those things! It's so weird to them that these are our luxuries. You can eat at Per Se every night, but I don't have a car or washer and dryer!
It's easy to get wrapped up in the season-to-season business, but to have real longevity in this field, you've got to always maintain your point of view and what makes your brand unique. Your business is always going to have ups and downs, but there needs to be a certain consistency.
I think women are much more open to new ideas but approach a line more from a more personal and skeptical place - you need to seduce them into your clothes, whereas most men just like to be told what they should be wearing. Women are a bit like cats and men like dogs in that respect when it comes to clothes.
When I began designing my Spring '13 collection, it wasn't even Spring '12 yet. Snow was actually still on the ground in New York, but I knew I wanted this particular spring season to be freer, more colorful, easier, more about feeling good, and I wanted there to be a sexier feeling than we've been known for in the past.