The Cut has led us onto an interesting feature in Time, where they talk about how America is the global conqueror of the menswear market. They feature an exhaustive list of menswear designers including Tom Ford, Burberry’s Christopher Bailey, Band of Outsider’s Scott Steinberg, Adam Kimmel, Thom Browne and Michael Bastian. The standout feature was on Tom Ford, as he brings out Karl Lagerfeld to explain just why his line is so great.

When asked about what he liked about Tom Ford’s line, Lagerfeld replied, “[the] fact they are made differently, and also, in ready-to-wear, this kind of quality didn’t exist. They are beautifully made. They are weightless on the body”.  Check out the entire series of articles at Time.

WWD reports that British designer, Paul Smith will be opening his first "freestanding" boutique in the the U.S. in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn later this month, which will sell "marked down items." "In doing so, Smith will be the first major designer to set up an outpost in the hipster-laden neighborhood known for its indie spirit, offbeat boutiques and vintage stores. The ‘fresh’ retail neighborhood appealed to  the company, a Paul Smith spokesman said Tuesday. It is also only one subway stop outside of Manhattan."

The Paul Smith Store will be located at 280 Grand Street.

Unboxing and technology dissections are so common these days that there are websites which track and report on them almost on the daily. How many times can I watch a guide on unpacking an Asus or iPod? But even I was way interested when NotCot published their dissection of Esquire’s 75th Anniversay E-Ink Cover. “As a random Sunday amusement, couldn’t help picking it up from the newsstand, and as much as i resisted, i lasted a few minutes before i HAD to rip it apart and poke at the digital guts. So on the next page you can see video of it before and after, pictures of how it works, and scans as well!”

View the full gallery of Esquire’s 75th Anniversary E-Ink dissection at Notcot.

The NYT’s On the Runway Blog is reporting that rumors are floating about the exit of Martin Margiela from Margiela. "The influential and enigmatic designer, is preparing his final disappearing act. Over the last year, Mr. Margiela, known as fashion’s “Invisible Man” because he never gives interviews and has rarely been photographed, has told colleagues that he wants to stop designing and that he has begun a search for his successor at the house…In one move that has set off intense speculation about the company’s future, Mr. Margiela, who is 51, initiated a meeting here early this year with Raf Simons, another well-regarded Belgian designer who was renegotiating his contract with Jil Sander at the time." (photo via friller)

Read the full write-up at On The Runway.

A quick public service announcement from the people at Atsui. Measuring yourself for belt size may seem like a practice which is a bit out of the ordinary but when you are buying online, it sure does pay to ensure you get the right length. Not all belts are measured equally. 

Read the Atsui guide to measuring your belt size here.

In more Mad Men news… On a show that gets just about everything right with it’s fixation on the seemingly superficial details of a bygone era, which could have overwhelmed a series with second-rate writing or a weak cast, seemingly forgot about the closing credits.

As Panopticist has pointed out, when the last frame flickers off the screen and the credits start to roll, ‘font freaks’ have noticed something maybe no one else would have. The end credits are set not in the iconic sans serif used in the opening-credits sequence, and not in, say, Helvetica, which was designed in 1957 and became popular soon thereafter, but in Arial, history on Arial.

Maintenance for Men believes that everything requires maintenance, including a man’sbody. They offer everything a man would mean to keep themselves fresh andclean and even have some really inovative products that will surprise you like a chemical compound to heal nicks and cuts shaped like matchsticks, complete with book. Via Kempt

Our good friend, Michael Williams, over at ACL, invited us to join him Friday afternoon for a designer Q&A session with Steven Alan, Rachael Comely, and Thuy Pham of United Bamboo at the Mini Space venue as part of Fashion Week. Moderated by GQ’s style editor, Michael Rappaport, the Q&A session seemingly had no specific topic for dicussion other than to present a forum for the designers to give their thoughts on various topics – starting a fashoin line, dealing with factories, separating themselves from their work, and most interestingly how the (de)valuation of the dollar has affected their business practices as well as design.

Mr. Williams has a great write-up on his take of the event over at ACL, so be sure to read it.

Style Guy, Glenn O’Brien, has always influenced millions of guys with his monthly Style Guy column in GQ, and he recently became part owner of Interview magazine, his old stomping ground in the Warhol days. But it is his earlier work is what is getting the attention lately. From 1978 to 1982, Glenn O’Brien hosted a New York City cable TV show called TV PARTY. That show, which David Letterman once called "the greatest TV show ever,"  is the inspiration for the Band of Outsiders collection. Co-hosted by Chris Stein from Blondie and directed by filmmaker Amos Poe, television went where it had never gone before. Shot in the style of its subject matter, TV PARTY is an ode to the cable television show that is as much a piece of late ’70s culture as it is a definition for it featuring interviews with famous regulars such as Debbie Harry, Amos Poe and, of course, the host Glenn O’Brien. A documentary of the show which captures the playful spirit of this radical talk show that touches on themes of music, politics and ’sub-realism’ is available here. Via WeAreTheMarket

T Magazine is coming to fashion week with a limited-edition canvas bag of its own. They’ll be giving out 1000 of them at some of the biggest New York shows, and each tote will hold copies of their men’s and women’s fall fashion magazines. The front of the bag features our signature T rendered as a Goth doily, of sorts, by the French artist Michaël Dal Vecchio.