Michael Bastian
A shirt's not just a shirt. It's the experience of what goes into that shirt.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Christmas
I'm a New Yorker, so I don't own a car, but I rent a lot of cars.
I have a very wonderful bath ritual.
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.
Women are more open to trying on a new personality every season; they can go from goth to bombshell to librarian, whatever.
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 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.
Men and women shop very differently, and where women are open to edgy, conceptual looks, very, very few men are.
I feel like design school might ruin people, particularly if you're a menswear designer, as there's not much focus on business.
The minute a male model looks like he's doing a runway walk, it falls apart. It should look like they're just walking.
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.
My goal is to elevate the whole casual end of the guy's wardrobe.
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.
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.
A cheap suit is a cheap suit; there's nothing you can do about it.
You don't want to have a boring runway presentation, but you don't want to show stuff nobody is going to wear.
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.
The hardest thing in the world to do is to take something everyone already knows and make it a little better.
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 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.
You get to a certain age, and you learn what looks good on you.
Just being out in the world gives me ideas.
The beauty of men's shoppers is that they're super loyal.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
You can have a real ongoing dialogue through social media that wasn't possible before.
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 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.
Good clothes are good clothes, and they don't need whales and tricks and too many jokes. Sometimes you just need something to wear.
I've always envied Thomas Jefferson's bed at Monticello. It's in a tiny alcove, bound by walls at the head and foot.
I get my best ideas in that state of suspended consciousness just before sleep.
I stay in a lot of hotels, and the best part of travel is getting back to my own bed.
I never doubted my place in the world.
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.
I still don't think I'm a fashion guy. I think I'm a clothes guy. I'm a little obsessive.
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.
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.
I don't know if I would use that word, 'trailblazer.' That implies that this huge crowd followed me, and that certainly is not the case!
I've always had this idea that I would love to do a Boston-inspired collection, whether it's for my own line or whether it's for Gant.
I feel like everyone should buy less but buy better.
I love doing these little collaborations. We collaborate with Stubbs & Wooton on the shoes for Michael Bastian.
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.
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.
Edie and Lew Wasserman were chic as hell.
Guys are leery about putting on something they don't think is them. They have a fixed idea of themselves.
I like the idea that we settle into what looks best on us. Then it becomes a game of finding the perfect version of those things.