(March 2010)
Style
The Best Men's Shops in L.A.
Photograph courtesy of Surfing Cowboys These well-curated stores demonstrate that there's more to the city's style than tattoo T-shirts and distressed jeans. Surfing Cowboys Vintage furniture and beach-bum-worthy hoodies. 1624 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 310-450-4891; surfingcowboys.com The Stronghold Rugged classics by Filson and Pendleton, plus its own denim label. 1625 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 310-399-7200; thestronghold.com Craft Alden shoes and Moscot glasses, along with Japanese heavyweights like Sugar Cane jeans. 513 N. La Cienega Blvd., 310-855-3976; craftworkwear.com READ MORE: Rules of Style from Celebrity Stylist Ilaria Urbinati The L.A. Style Crisis The Latest From Confederacy, Los Angeles
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Tech
A Retro-Modern Video Camera
Photograph courtesy of AC Gears You may have forgotten about the deep-color charms of Super 8, but the Japanese firm Superheadz hasn't. Its Digital Harinezumi 2, which looks like a cross between a spy cam and an Instamatic film cartridge, shoots nostalgically grainy footage—with audio. Superheadz Digital Harinezumi 2, $170, audiocubes.com —Tom Samiljan READ MORE: Find the Right Pocket-Size Camcorder Five Must-Have Retro Gadgets Our Favorite New Rugged Tech
Style
The Coolest Rolex Watches Ever Made
Photograph by Nikolai You won't find these all-black vintage Rolexes in stores. In fact, the Swiss watchmaker has never made a black timepiece. They are instead the brainchild of Alejandro Alcocer, the founder of Daydreamer Projects, a 10-year-old creative collective that produces imaginative one-offs in food, fashion, and design. For this initiative, Alcocer got his hands on 50 watches from each of six sport models released by Rolex before 1990, including the Submariner and the Explorer II. He had a metals company that specializes in treating medical and military instruments paint them matte black. The result is a series
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Design
The Flow Armchair by Jean-Marie Massaud
Flow armchair by Jean Marie Massaud for MDF Italia Designer: Jean-Marie Massaud, a French innovator known for sleek, understated furniture and geeked-out fantasy projects like his blimp hotel. Replaces: Your Eames shell chair—it will always be a classic, but it's time you invested in a piece that's all your own. What's More: It's a warmer version of its plastic predecessor, with a draftsman-style oak base and foam cushioning hidden inside the seat. (approximately $1,600, mdfitalia.it) —Monica Khemsurov READ MORE: London's Latest Design Destination Why You Should Buy Japanese Furniture By Truck The Hottest New Design Collective: Kibisi
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Food + Drinks
The Gin Diaries: Behind the Scenes at the Breuckelen Distilling Company
Brad Estabrooke, founder of the Breuckelen Distilling Company, was a typical Wall Street banker. That is, until he got laid off in December 2008 and decided he'd rather make gin than find another office job. The 31-year-old began working on his Brooklyn distillery in March 2009, and he expects it to open for business this May. Over the next few months he'll chart his progress—the good and the bad—in an exclusive diary on Details.com. This week, he takes us back to when it all began. I had actually been thinking about opening a distillery for some time. I read an
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Books
The Selby in Book Form
In 2008, fashion photographer (and former Details staffer) Todd Selby began invading the homes of über-hip designers, models, DJs, and artists and posting the results on TheSelby.com. In his first book (Abrams, $35), he presents his most colorful and eccentric findings, including Karl Lagerfeld's floor-to-ceiling personal library, Christian Louboutin's Paris atelier, and Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler's impossibly louche (and loudly accessorized) Ping-Pong room. You will laugh and envy in equal measure. —Timothy Hodler READ MORE: Where to Find the Best Used Books Your Reading List for April Akira Kurosawa Retrospective
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Design
The Missing Links: Acrylic Furniture, High Design Exercise, and the World's Oldest Whiskey
Spring has sprung, and your coffee table is dressing for the weather. Sample the world's oldest whiskey with Thrillist. This "hump day" time-waster, courtesy of Chicagoist, feels strangely motivational. Just when you were beginning to understand the fairer sex... Meet the X-woman, a whole new species to decode. This sleek exercise bike from Mocoloco is a win-win: ride it and look like a champ, or don't, and look like an art collector. After vaporSky, roses will never be enough. Lemondrop's [Redacted] Guy is stuck on an old flame, who's still a total smokeshow. Suddenly you're a wine connoisseur, with
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Style
Enlist These Fatigues
Ever since GIs returning from World War II made chinos cool for civilians, menswear designers have been looking to the armed services for inspiration. But this season fashion houses are adding their imprimatur to army greens, using supple cottons, modern silhouettes, and smart details. A cropped field coat with silver hardware, khaki-green suede boots, and a trim stone-colored shirt with epaulets are some of spring's sharpest shooters. Enlist them all, just never more than two at once. Clockwise from left: Waffle-knit T-shirt ($23) by Gap, gap.com. Watch ($395) by Victorinox Swiss Army, swissarmy.com. Military shirt ($535) by Dolce &
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Food + Drinks
Food Fight: A Real Chef Goes Head-to-Head With Nintendo DS's America's Test Kitchen
My friend Dan has been teaching me how to cook for a few months. Dan has been cooking for close to 20 years, and he apprenticed in a kitchen in Argentina. Nintendo DS's America's Test Kitchen, a popular PBS program turned into an instructional cooking software "game" with 300 step-by-impossibly-detailed-step recipes, can also teach you how to cook, but does so without mentioning how many stamps are in its passport. I decided to pit man against machine to see who was the better instructor, the flesh-and-blood, South American-trained gourmand or the company that brought you The Legend of Zelda. For
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Travel
The Master of the Three-Ounce Bottle
Photograph courtesy of 3floz.com Thanks to the new travel-centric website 3floz.com, you never have to rely on the shoddy supply of mini toothpaste tubes and dandruff shampoos at the drugstore again. If you can't bear to fly without your pre-shave oil or face serum, the site will hook you up with TSA-approved grooming products from brands like Malin + Goetz, The Art of Shaving, and Baxter of California. —David Kaufman READ MORE: Laptop-Free Travel New Boutique Cruise One of the Best Young Chefs in the World Works at an Airport
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The Daily Details Continues
