Steven Hitchcock

Steven & Celia

The Label

A writer's jacket





The Goods

Linings

Pocket Square

Brown & Blue

Cleverley Side Gusset


My favorite tattoo


No relation to Alfred. Just as well. The world hardly needs another film director but is starving for tailors. Steven started with Anderson & Shepard at 16. He's a young looking 38 but has been working the cloth for 22 years. A blogger as well -- a post on his typical day can be found here.

I met Steven and his girlfriend Celia yesterday afternoon at the Benjamin Hotel on 50th and Lex. We discussed Steven's shop on Savile Row, tailoring, goods, linings, Cleverley shoes...The usual suspects.

Steven prefers a soft tailored aesthetic and that only makes sense coming from A&S. The beauty is hidden in the details as opposed to a more obvious Huntsman or Poole silhouette. I'm a fan of both. Why be monogamous when you don't have to.

One Night Stands & Zippos

This picture of Central Park should put you in a reflective mood. If you're reading this, bouncing your knee and biting your finger nails -- consider coming back later this evening. Maybe with an adult beverage. Put on some music and slow down. Just a little. I have something to tell you.

I was talking to Stew, a blogger (Blood & Grits) I have a great deal of respect for. Not only as a writer I admire and envy, but as a man who can simplify complicated things. Be they, cooking pig trotters or giving insight into life or finding really cheap hooch. In short, I think Stew is a poet. A couple days ago Stew asked,

"Why the fuck is every blogger compelled to take photos of his submariner and post them right along with the pictures of "the serene bedroom" with bedside tables littered with stained espresso cups or teacups with PG Tips bags hanging like limp dicks from their lips?"

I told you he was a poet. I tell Stew about a blogger who showed me a Vietnam era Zippo he bought off eBay. I noticed the unit insignia on the lighter was from a division that had been disbanded in the 1950's. Stew said,

"Shit happens if you have no knowledge of the artifact you pursue. Knowing the artifact and simply acquiring it are mutually fucking exclusive. But today, to have is to know. A simple blog post stakes authenticity or at least makes a claim of being "in the know." Most of the time, as you say here, it shows one actually knows little of what one claims. Fucking Internet."

That's it. You can stop reading now because all I'm going to do is repeat what Stew said, but I'll use a lot more words and be far more confusing. It's so good I stole it. I would add that curiosity is key to a well lived life. Buying a picture for the sake of hanging it on a wall is like having a one night stand with a stranger. Sure, it's pleasurable, but not for very long.

I was interested in European advertising posters about 12 years ago. I was living in Chicago and there was a dealer across the street from the Art Institute. I looked at posters but bought four books on poster history. The dealer rang the books up and said, "It's nice to see someone who's really interested and willing to research before buying." I though he was busting my ass for not buying a poster, but he added, "Most folks just want something to hang over the sofa. They could care less about where it came from, who designed it, the significance of it..."

A funny thing happens when you accumulate a lotta shit you don't know anything about or have any connection to. It quickly moves from "The Get" to "The Get Rid Of." For bloggers it becomes a prop for electronic Show & Tell. Sadly, while authenticity is touted it's usually sacrificed. If you don't know what it means or stands for -- how the hell can you appreciate it?

I would add that the experience of the purchase -- that is, "I stayed up 'til two in the morning bidding on eBay for this" is not the experience I'm talking about. However, learning what it is, researching the background and history, wondering who owned it before you, or even better, knowing who owned it...These simple things make the connection.

I'm trying hard not to get too curmudgeonly about this, but I guess the question is this. Are you curious? In the end, curiosity didn't kill the cat but kept me alive while being in a world I didn't think much of. No matter how bad things got, I always wondered, "What's gonna happen next?"

'O-Dark-Thirty'

'Morning Prep' by Robert Bates, USMC

Ron Capps, retired Army and Foreign Service officer and currently director of the Veteran's Writing Project, asked if he could use my story, 'The Indian Chief,' for the Spring issue of the VWP's literary journal, "O-Dark-Thirty." Having no idea who Capps or the VWP was, I did some digging and was surprised by what I found -- An organization dedicated to publishing stories by military veterans, their family members as well as free writing seminars, many offering free travel to and from.  The web site is here and the Spring issue of the journal is here.

The Zombies Be Dancin' Tonight

by M. Shannon Johns (click images to read)

There was a story in the NY Observer years ago about a young photographer who took street pictures in NYC and hand crafted a little book with an orange cover and sold them on the street and in a few retailers.  The story is mostly about how she offered the book to Andy Spade to sell in his Jack Spade shop.

Shortly after I married, I moved to my wife's hometown of Chicago and worked for an insurance company down in the loop and around the corner from the Berghoff.  We'd made plans to have dinner there one Friday night.  It was my first visit to the Berghoff.   She was running late so I stood at the bar, ordered a pitcher of dark beer and waited.  The guy standing next to me asked the bartender for a cigar and I watched as the doors of an old humidor were opened and a massive cigar, eight or nine inches, was handed to the customer who promptly lit up.

This was too good to be true --  As a fan of cigars since the Army, I was well aware that 'bars and cigars' were few and far between… so, I struck while the iron was hot.  I asked the bartender for a cigar but requested something smaller. "This is all we got," he said,  holding up what looked like a black ruler.  I tell him I'll take it and the king size double maduro is handed to me.

The guy next to me smiles with his cigar and passes down a box of matches.  I torch the thing up and it's not bad -- Perfect with the dark draft beer.  I take in the Berghoff and fall in love with the honest history and charm of the place.

My wife had told me The Berghoff opened in 1898 and, until 1969, the bar was for men only.  That night, it was a pretty Yuppie crowd.  A young woman walked by, looked at my cigar and said, "You look pretty stupid with that." As she walked past, I shouted out to her, "Now I know why they kept women outta here for so long!"  She turns back and laughs and walks on.  The guy next to me applauds.

I remember he was in his early to mid - forties and black. He had a soft face and he was quick to smile.   We talked about cigars and beer and women and the Berghoff.  He asked what I did and I asked what he did and he said he was a writer.  Well, not really a writer…more a poet.  He pulled a rubber banded bunch of little books out of a canvas bag and offered me one.

I flipped thru it and was taken by the dancing zombies with the Chicago skyline.  He asked if I wanted it and I said sure.  "They're $5 a piece," he said.  A little thrown off, I reach in my pocket and hand him a five.  He puts his cigar in his mouth and stuffs the bill in his pocket.

He tells me he makes a living doing this and I shake my head.  He says he really does and he's not bullshitting me.  I tell him I believe him…I just wish I had the balls to do what he's doing.  My wife of four months comes in and I introduce her to M. Shannon Johns.

We chat for a bit and Mr. Johns moves on with his cigar and glass of beer to meet some friends.  I've kept this little book for many reasons.  Some as shallow as thinking the illustration would make a great T-shirt but knowing I'd never do that.  Not without asking Mr. Johns.

That photographer who offered her book to Andy Spade was Carla Gahr.  She showed him the little orange book in late Spring. He said he loved it and would see what he could do but she never heard back from him.

In July, Miss Gahr opened the NY Post and was surprised to see a book similar to hers entitled, "Honesty" being sold by Jack Spade.  You can read the story here.  It's buried but scroll down and you'll see it under the headline, "When is a Spade Not a Spade."

Inspiration is a tricky thing.  I still think about Mr. Johns selling his books on the street.  The nobility of that is what's inspiring to me.  I guess, in many ways, I'm doing what Mr. Johns did... except he got  five bucks a book. I'd kill for five bucks a post.  Anyway,  lest you think of being inspired by this little book of Mr. Johns,  I'll leave you with a thought for your conscience from Tobias Wolff,

"The plagiarist has already been punished; the very act of plagiarizing means that you have confessed an inability to do something on your own, which is a pretty harsh verdict to bring on yourself. No one else can condemn you more than you have already condemned yourself."