Menswear Style Podcast
The Menswear Style Podcast is a leading men’s fashion and menswear podcast exploring men’s style, clothing, grooming, lifestyle and the business behind some of the world’s most exciting fashion brands. Hosted by Peter Brooker, each episode features conversations with menswear designers, fashion entrepreneurs, innovative brand founders and industry experts from across the global fashion and apparel industry. Discover the stories behind established and emerging clothing brands, from the first idea and challenges of launching a fashion start-up to building a successful international business. Guests share their experiences and insights across fashion design, sustainability, manufacturing, marketing, branding, eCommerce, retail, social media and business growth. Whether you’re interested in men’s fashion and style, discovering new menswear brands, starting your own clothing label, or learning how successful fashion businesses are built, the Menswear Style Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the modern menswear industry. New conversations with the people shaping the future of menswear, men’s style and fashion.
Menswear Style Podcast
Dan Rookwood of Mr Porter, Author Eric Musgrave & Nick Carvell of GQ Magazine
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In this episode we speak to the Editor of the US Mr Porter website Dan Rookwood, Author and former Editor of Drapers and FHM, Eric Musgrave and the Associate Style Editor of GQ Magazine, Nick Carvell. We debate the issues of writing for digital versus print, the clickbait process and what they each do to get themselves in the right frame of mind to write each day.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Menswear Style Podcast with me, your host, Pete Brooker. So last time around it was Fighting Talk, this time it's Writing Talk as we talk to editors and freelance writers. First up, it's the editor of Mr. Porter over in the US, Dan Rookwood. He gets to tell me what's the worst job he ever had.
SPEAKER_06My job was just to put the metal clasp on all these all these boxes and just hammer two nails in and just line it up. Uh and it was it was it was tedious beyond belief.
SPEAKER_07Dan Rookwood there. That interview coming up shortly. My opinion is I hate it. Hemingway! Why? Why do you hate it? What's wrong? Is it the subject matter?
SPEAKER_00No subject is terrible if the story is true. If the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and great under pressure.
SPEAKER_07Okay, good job, but you know why don't I work for Mr. Poor? Maybe it's just because I'm not that good a writer.
SPEAKER_00If you're a writer, declare yourself the best writer, but you're not as long as I'm around. Let's go and put the gloves on and settle it.
SPEAKER_07Later, Hemingway, later. We'll also be talking to the founder editor of FHM and the former editor of Drapers, Eric Musgrave. He's gonna tell us about his writing style and also the excruciating pain of losing an entire designer wardrobe to a house fire.
SPEAKER_02So I actually found when I uh totted up everything that my wardrobe alone uh counted for more than my whole um household content insurance.
SPEAKER_07I'll also be talking to the associate style editor of British GQ, Nick Carvel, as he explains to me what makes a good headline for digital and print.
SPEAKER_01Even if it's something that's going into print and I'm writing it for print, I think would I click on that when it goes online? If I wouldn't, that's not the headline, and that's often not the angle I'll go for either.
SPEAKER_07So a jam-packed episode for you today. But we're going to start with that interview with Dan Rookwood, the US editor for Mr. Porter. So on the line now we have Dan Rookwood, the US editor for Mr. Porter. How are you doing over there, Dan? Uh very well, thank you. How are you? Um I'm brilliant, yes. It's it's raining um quite heavily here. So I'm just about to venture out into the British rain. What's the weather like on your side?
SPEAKER_06Um actually another lovely New York summer's day. So um I think pretty typical weather for both of us.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god. Oh brilliant. Well I can only dream. Um so similarities then, other than the weather obviously not being one. Have you noticed any similar trends between the London and the New York scene? Um, do you miss anything about the London scene at all?
SPEAKER_06Um the the look is actually pretty different, I would say. And in the two and a half years that I have lived here, I would say that my wardrobe has changed almost completely. When I lived in London, um I was much more of a sort of a buttoned up sable row suit, uh, you know, benchmade shoe kind of guy. Um, and here that looks a little bit like fancy dress. And it's also um, particularly in a in a muggy New York summer, completely impractical, um, likewise in a very um snowy and icy winter. So um I dress much more kind of practically here and seasonally. Um, and the the look here is, I mean, I think uh love it or hate it, and I think most of us hate the term, but I think this is sort of where athleisure or athleisure as they pronounce it here was born. Um, and it's that sort of um sports luxe um kind of thing, and that's very much the the the look here. I know that that has has permeated around the world um and and that things are kind of um becoming more casual uh around the world in and and in London too um these days, but that's um it's certainly the the the the trend here, I would say.
SPEAKER_07Does that annoy you in any way that we're kind of washing down the the look with t-shirts and perhaps torn denim? You know, we're not paying m as much attention to what we wear as perhaps we used to.
SPEAKER_06Um Does it annoy me? No, because you know that is fashion, it's cyclical, it it it's uh it comes around and it goes around. Um I think that for people who uh enjoy um wearing suits um and ties and all the trimmings, uh they will continue to do so, and um that's that's great for them. I I feel that for me it's just become a little less less practical. I still really enjoy doing it, uh, and I think I'm probably still known for doing it in in New York because that's how I kind of introduced myself um when I when I arrived here. But um, you know, it's just it's just one of those things, isn't it? I think if we all dress the same or you know, year after year, it it would get a little bit dull. Things have just changed up a little bit. Um I think some people uh might be disappointed by that if they enjoyed the the sort of the smarter, um, the smarter look. But I think what this has done is it has elevated um casual wear. So uh, you know, the the kind of stuff that people might wear um in private, you know, at home or to the gym has suddenly become um a lot a lot more considered, and uh so I think the rest of the wardrobe has sort of um caught up, I suppose. And that's no bad thing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So um what brands on the Mr. Porter site would you say are your personal favourites? Do you have any? Um are the ones that you shop for the most?
SPEAKER_06Gosh, what a question. I mean, we we have so uh so many great brands on there. It's like choosing between your children, I suppose. I mean, I I guess um, you know, I still I still love uh brands like Oliver Spencer, which I've long loved. I mean, I think um, you know, that's kind of been my my sort of aesthetic for uh a good long while now. Um and what I mean what else do I buy? I mean, what am I wearing today? Um that's a good question.
SPEAKER_07So what is what you're rocking at the moment, this uh this very current.
SPEAKER_06So I've got I've got um some Common Projects Achilles uh white um sort of tennis shoes. Uh I am wearing um some um blue chinos, which I think are J. Crew. I've got a blue-blue denim um chalcoat, which is my little tribute to uh the photographer Bill Cunningham, um, who is the the the founding father of street style photography who died at the weekend, and we've got a little tribute um on the site to him, which I wrote today. So I thought I'd wear that jacket in tribute to him. And I'm wearing a Breton striped t-shirt. So it's uh it's all a quite a sort of a uh a rhapsody in blue today. Um and some some Tom Ford um spectacles, which I've just received for my birthday uh last week, which I'm enjoying wearing.
SPEAKER_07Fantastic. Uh I mean whereabouts are you, if you don't mind me asking. Are you in in the office or at home?
SPEAKER_06I am in the office, uh, which is number 100 Fifth Avenue, very uh very nice address, um, just right off Union Square uh in in New York.
SPEAKER_05I see.
SPEAKER_06Um and I'm just I'm just looking down um Fifth Avenue as I as I talk to you uh towards the Empire State Building. So we're about five minutes we're about five minutes, well no, probably a bit more, but that's seven, seven or eight minutes walk from the Empire State Building here.
SPEAKER_07Sounds like a beautiful vista. So um in regards to the writing element for Mr. Porter, do you um do you read any other writers? I mean, I know you obviously you write yourself and that's perhaps how you cut your teeth, but do you actually have time to read any other articles, blogs, magazines, etc.?
SPEAKER_06I uh irritate my wife intensely because I'm a voracious reader of uh magazines and newspapers. Um I'm constantly um uh looking at the work of other people. That's how um I get inspired myself, and I'm also um, you know, talent hunting, uh trying to recruit the best writers for for Mr. Porter. So so uh no, I mean it's it's yeah, I just have um I have stacks of of magazines and newspapers that um my wife constantly wants me to put in the recycling. Um and I get very um cross if she does that before I've kind of gone through them. So yes, it's um what I don't do as much as I would like to, especially now that I am a new father to twins, is I don't read novels as much as I used to, and my commute is much shorter here uh uh fortunately than it was in London. But um my reading time ho of novels has drastically uh diminished, but I I still do get time for shorter form uh reading of of magazine features and uh yeah, I l I love that a great deal. And I I actually find that to get myself in the groove to write, I will read some uh uh work from some of my other favourite writers just to kind of uh get me in the in the mood and get the sort of creative juices flowing. I I feel that's that's how I I I write best. I've I've done that ever since I was at school. Before an exam, I used to I used to read a passage of a great book just to sort of get myself in the zone, and uh I I continue to do that to this day.
SPEAKER_07That's interesting. Um not that I'm obviously putting myself in your parallel, but I have s uh a similar method where I'll pick up something from AA Gill, I've got a lot of his stuff lying around, uh, then bung on some classical music and then perhaps try and, as if by osmosis, think that I'm up there or I perhaps am AA Gill and uh try and punch something out in that theme. So it's interesting that uh you have you have a similar tact. Uh yeah, I think it helps. Do you have anything like a certain time of day that suits you? Like uh do you punch out a thousand words in the morning, but like Fleming and then go drink a load of cocktails down uh down at the harbour?
SPEAKER_06Uh that that what a life that was. Um the mornings are definitely my my uh in fact I would say the sort of the the the book ends of the day. So very early mornings or very late at night, um they tend to be the only uh sort of quiet times that I get when email's not pinging in and and um hopefully when um babies aren't aren't crying and and needing to be modified. Um so yeah, my the the the the times that I have to myself to write um are are becoming more scarce. But I I tend uh to write my my best stuff um very early in the morning uh as soon as I as soon as I wake up and I just go for a bit of a thousand word sprint. Those thousand words might be complete rubbish, but at least they're they're down uh in the computer document and I can uh review and tweak and refine later. But um if I don't if I don't do that then that thousand words can take hours and hours to write rather than uh maybe an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I guess it makes sense. Uh so how do you uh view the decline of the print industry as it and and has it had any effect on your decision making within Mr. Porter?
SPEAKER_06Uh well, you know, it's I think that we've had uh a time when we've had so many print magazines and and newspapers and it's just the sort of um you know the survival of the the fittest that there will be fewer of those and there are fewer of those um than than before. However, there are still new magazines and uh and new periodicals I see popping up um from time to time. I still I still think that people uh want uh the the the the tactile uh newsprint between their their fingers. Um they still want something to read uh on a long journey. I still think there is a place for that, but it will be um more for the sort of uh I guess the the prestige titles and the ones that really kind of put the the the hard work into crafting something that's meant to last more than uh you know a day or a week. Um so I still think that there is a place uh for that. Um however I could see I guess what was happening and I could see um how exciting uh a brand like Mr. Porter uh um was uh and and wanted to sort of um join that team and I'm very glad that I have done so. It's been a brilliant two and a half years and I feel like um we're doing exciting things. We're investing um in editorial, we are you know paying writers and photographers um you know the proper fees for things. We are giving people an outlet to um to write creatively and um I think that that we are we're kind of doing a good thing in um men's fashion editorial at the moment and uh I I'm really proud of it and um long may it continue and develop.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh it's for me it's like uh just the smell of a magazine. Yeah, the new when you get something new and you kind of open it up. It's like getting into a new car and you have that feel of the fine-grained leather and you can smell it, and you think, Jesus, this is it. This is kind of what it's about, really. Yeah. Evoking different feelings like that. Something healthy.
SPEAKER_06I think the the the smell the smell of some magazines uh is is better than others. I mean there are there are a lot of a lot of men's magazines that just smell of of of um cheap aftershave in you know uh samples that I actually turns my stomach a little bit. But I get what you mean um that the the smell of of proper newsprint sometimes it can be it can almost sort of uh wind you, it can almost take your breath away when you first when you first um open uh a a really kind of where the paper stock is really great. Um and yeah, I think that there is there is definitely something uh to be said for um for those kind of magazines sticking around. And I think we all have our have our favorites um and we all have them kind of stacked up in our on our coffee table or in our bookshelves, much to our respective partner chagrin. I suspect I'm not the only one in that school.
SPEAKER_07Uh definitely not that uh Dad, I've just got a couple more questions before I let you go. Uh one, um probably the most tenuous one. Uh what was your worst job as in your your crappiest work experience? God, I'm so glad I'm not on that building site anymore type job.
SPEAKER_06Um it was um working on a production line in a factory in uh uh Hellhole uh part of Maidstone in Kent, which um my mother kind of made me do in order to earn money to go travelling. She was like, You're gonna earn your own your own money to go and do it. And uh it was it was an absolutely awful, awful, awful job. What was the factory? Um I uh we were we were making um we were making C D presentation boxes for Beatles box sets. That's what we were doing. But my job, my job was just to put the metal clasp on all these all these boxes and just hammer two nails in and just line it up. Uh and it was it was it was tedious beyond belief and I did it for m far longer than I I I I guess it it became a sort of uh um I don't know, a point to prove between me and my my mother at the time. And I did I did stick it out and I did earn the money to go travelling and I'm glad that she made me do it because it did um teach me the value of of money and it did teach me to work that bit harder at university, uh which I went to um after that gap here. Um but it was it was not a nice not a nice time at that.
SPEAKER_07Um Well, I know all about production lines, so um I feel your pain. Uh not to be a one-upper, but my job on a production line in an alcohol factory was to put dead scorpions into bottles of vodka. Uh that was I had a bucket of dead scorpions, and as bottles would go past one by one, I would have to drop a dead scorpion into a bottle for about eight hours a day. Wow. I don't think I've ever gotten a big thing. Yeah, okay, you win. Yeah, you win. Uh yeah, oh uh lastly, I always I always ask this because I'm a little fascinated, um probably morbidly so, but do you have mates that always ask you for discount? Always. Always and and do you kind of assess your mates in terms of how much discount you give or whether they're worth it or not?
SPEAKER_06They're um very, very strict, uh, Mr. P. So it's uh it's a blanket no. I'm only allowed to do it for um for immediate family. Um so yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a kind of an easy question to answer, or albeit a disappointing response for them. But um but yeah, it's uh we do have a a staff discount, but it's only for personal and immediate family use, um unfortunately. They run a tight show. Unfortunately for my friends. Okay. Uh yeah, you know, it's it's just you know, it's a business and they run it very uh very carefully, and so I completely understand that.
SPEAKER_07Dan Rookwood there, the editor for Mr. Porter in the US. Uh so the debate rolls on digital versus print. My girlfriend's trying to get me into a digital format, giving me the Kindle, and I'm saying, look, I prefer something palpable, I like the book, I like turning the page, that nostalgic feel of having a book or a magazine in your hand. Maybe I'm just too old school. What do you think, Jack, about how there's been such a huge key change of mentality about people going over to technology and reading stuff online now as opposed to books and magazines? But I don't want you to do anything about it. I'll just ask in your opinion. I understand. Okay, no problem. I'll tell you what, I'll go away, I'll make some finger sandwiches, maybe get some digestive biscuits and a cup of tea on the gun, I'll come back and maybe you're gonna let me read a couple of chapters so let me know what you can work on. Okay, I think that's okay. So just no doubt just forward.
SPEAKER_03Don't hear me, don't hear me doing your work.
SPEAKER_07Okay, I guess that I mean what if technically I hear gunshots in here and you screaming and you being killed for the I mean then. Okay, you know what? This was a bad idea. We'll we'll we'll just move on from here. Let's have a word with Eric Musgrave. We have Eric Musgrave on the line, the founder editor of FHM, former editor of Drapers, and the author of Sharpsuit's Pictorial History of Men's Tailoring. Uh I hope I got all that right, Eric. Yeah, that's it. That's that's correct. Yeah. Excellent. Okay, well, thanks for taking the time out to speak to me today. Um let me just ask you a couple of questions uh regarding your time at Drapers. Um How has your life been outside of Drapers since you stepped down as editor? I believe that was last year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I uh I've actually been the editor twice, and I started my glorious career there way back in 1980 when it was called Draper's Record. So I've actually done three stints on the title. Uh, the last one running from uh July 2013 till um October 2015, so about two and a half years. So I'm now back to what I was doing um uh in the period between my two stints as editor. Uh my first stint was from 2000 to 2006. Uh so I'm uh a writer on the fashion industry, um, and I also am a fashion industry consultant.
SPEAKER_07I see, okay, great. And what's it like being a freelance writer? Do you have to have a really good discipline, a good work ethic, as in get up at the crack of dawn, uh hammer out about a thousand words before breakfast?
SPEAKER_02What's it like for you? Um no, in fact, the the bit of my career now that I'd spend writing is is is quite small and it's quite specialized. Um, I um like to do opinion pieces sort of uh similar to the editorial column I used to have in Drapers, where I give my view of something going on in the fashion industry. Uh the reason for this is that the the money is so rubbish as a to you get paid being a um a writer that it's um pretty much impossible to make a living as a as a freelance writer, I would I would argue. But doing an opinion piece doesn't take that long, doesn't need a lot of research, and people are buying my insight and my 36 years of experience. So the money they pay kind of justifies the time that it takes to do it.
SPEAKER_07Um and just in regards to other blogs and other writers, who out there is worth picking up and listening to and and reading? Do you do you read anybody else's writing at all?
SPEAKER_02Uh funnily enough to say uh that I would class myself as a as a writer, I uh spend very little time reading uh other people's stuff. I would only be reading any fashion info, uh so specific research on anything that I'm writing. Um of um uh blogs I have a look at, uh probably the most common one is um Permanent Style, um, which is uh a bespoke tailoring blog. I've got a personal interest in bespoke tailoring, but I sent a speed read it. Um and um that's about it really. I don't read any men magazines these days, as I've got uh dozens and dozens of them in my house on read, so I don't need any any new ones.
SPEAKER_07And regarding magazines. In the printing industry, do you think there will um there'll be a renaissance anytime soon of the printing trade, a little bit like vinyl has done with music?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think the reports of the death of print are a bit over-exaggerated. Uh, if you go into any branch of WH Smith, you'll see literally hundreds of magazines that still have a very viable future. Uh a magazine uh rather like a shop and the internet. Um the magazine is is, I would argue, the choice of millions of people uh who probably choose it above online. And for me, it's not a decision about being one or the other, both do a job, but I think uh a magazine physically, aesthetically, is a beautiful thing, and from that reason alone it will continue to to thrive. I think the problem publishers have is they used to make profits quite easily, and now it's slightly harder to make profits because of the change in the um how the advertising spend goes. But in terms of the the interest in magazines, um I think the um the allusion you made there to vinyl is a good one. I think a young audience who perhaps hasn't um been familiar with magazines will almost grow grow into magazines, and so I've got no I've got no worries about the future of uh of print.
SPEAKER_07Oh, brilliant, that's great news. In fact, that's really brightened up my morning for some reason. I mean I've got um a a bit of a weird love affair with anything in print, uh anything basically that is palpable that you can actually have in front of you. I'm not ad adverse to anyone switching over to Kindles or online sites or anything like that. Obviously, that's how uh how I make my my corn. But if you if you kind of do away with that format altogether, you know, that I think there will be something lost. It's I just believe that when we all go back to the trees one day, we'll need something physically in front of us that we'll be able to read and uh well your reference there to Kindle is quite interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Because you know, when the Kindle was introduced, it was that was going to be the end of the book, end of the bookshops, etc. etc. So, you know, uh several million or whatever it was were sold and then it hit a plateau, and that plateau has, if anything, just slightly lowered, um, because everybody who wanted one got one, and everybody who didn't want one hasn't got one, and that's the end of it, basically. Uh I think somebody like Waterstones recently announced that it wouldn't be selling Kindles anymore, um, it wouldn't be stocking them in their shops, um, because everybody who wants one has got one. And it's it's a very small minority of the reading public.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, okay. Well that's in a way, that's good news. I mean, like I say, I wasn't any I mean, my girlfriend's got a Kindle and she keeps on trying to get me to sign up to her Amazon account so that we can read the same stuff that she's got. And I'm not against anyone with a Kindle per se. I think it's great that people pick up stuff to read. But uh in the midst of all this, I don't think we should really lose sight of what the written word is. Um and I think where it belongs naturally. But that's just my own.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll tell you, I won't one thing, just going back to what what I what I read, what I do like doing rather than reading specific um specific things, because I do uh follow several publications, including your own, on um Twitter, but uh often just the sheer faff of um you know downloading something on while I'm sitting on a train with a dodgy signal that's even dodgier than what the one we've been experiencing this morning, me sitting in my house in Kent. Um I just can't I just can't be bothered. But what I do love the internet for is uh when you just have an idea, you want to research something, and off you go. So, for example, recently I I was requested to um write a piece for free. This is the world of the freelance these days, uh, for an American um uh blog called Put This On. And they contacted me and said, Would I write about my favourite ever garment? Um so it's quite a big choice when you're as old as I am. So um I decided I would write about an old US Navy deck jacket that I used to own. It's a very thick and warm khaki number, kind of waist length, and um I picked it up in America on I think my second trip there in 1977, and it was a really brilliant jacket, which basically I grew out of and grew too fat for it. So I got rid of it some years ago. Uh and I've only got uh as far as I can make out only one picture of me wearing it. So anyway, I um knew what it was called. Uh sorry, I knew I needed to know a bit of the technical details for it, so I just hammered in US Navy deck jacket and up popped, as you can imagine, loads and loads and loads of information and even some for sale, uh, one for sale on eBay that was uh I think $1,700, which is about £800, um, or even a bit more. Um, so I rather wish I'd kept that jacket, but I was then able to read its history really quickly. Now that would have taken quite a lot of slogging about um in the old days of trying to find a specialist library uh trip to the library right there. Yeah, books on you know US uh naval uniform. So from that point of view, I mean some people um uh listening to me singing the praises of magazines would think I'm some sort of uh online Luddite, which I'm not. But I'm just saying that magazines in their own right are are done properly, are beautiful things, informative things, uh educational things, and uh long may they continue.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna put a bit of myself. The um it's a really good uh uh idea for a piece though, your favourite things past that you've worn.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, it could be it could have been present, it didn't have to be past it. Just when I when I looked about it, funny enough, uh having had a history having had a a whole career in in clothing and you know being well known for my my love of clothes. Um way back in I think 1999, I had a fire at my house, um, some uh fuse box over overheated when I wasn't there, and the long and the short of it was was uh the house luckily didn't burn down, but there was a huge amount of smoke damage, um including wiping out all my wardrobe.
SPEAKER_05Ah, killer.
SPEAKER_02And it was a very sad afternoon when uh because the the clothes and the shoes were there, they hadn't been burnt. Um a loss adjuster came around, a loss assessor came around, and I literally had to pick up every garment with wearing gloves because they were so filthy with all this soot, and uh say, okay, well this is a uh this is uh uh an early Evisue denim jacket and it's probably 180 quid, and then just throw it out of the window onto the lawn. Uh just because I didn't realise how much I had, and obviously, in doing my job you get things at very advantageous prices or for free, but if if when you were sort of assessing them for replacement, you have to put full retail value. So it was a bit of a salutary lesson when suddenly I realized that my wardrobe was about £23,000 worth. Uh this was 20 odd years ago, uh nearly nearly 20 years ago. So it was a salutary lesson to anybody listening to this: get your get your uh household insurance sorted out because that caused quite a few problems, and they actually didn't didn't quite rightly they didn't honour the whole the whole amount because um they said you're not you haven't been paying us enough. But uh the interesting point about that was when I got a call from my neighbour saying my house was on fire, and and I was um I'd been told the fire engines were there, it all was all under control, but I need to get I needed to get there. The only thing that I was actually bothered about was um photographs of my children. So so the clothes uh which which are which were fine, luckily, they're in a box within a box, so they managed to survive the smoke um uh in uh smoke sort of um dirtiness. Um but yeah, it was just a salutary lesson as you know what, it's only clothes.
SPEAKER_07That's actually quite sweet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Um I mean I I was just thinking, whilst you're saying put your insurance up on your clothes, I was thinking maybe a a big huge walk-in safe. You know, you have like walk-in wardrobes. Yeah, just maybe a walk-in safe. Uh you know, instead of jewelry and uh gold bars that you've got all your denim and your tailored suits.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or your or your trainers if you're that way inclined. Yeah, I mean it's um yeah, I mean I do I do I do sometimes think, oh, I wish I'd still had that. Oh that was great, and it's you know it's gone, a one-off thing that you'd found somewhere. But um, you know, they're just they're just things, aren't they? They're just possessions, they're not they're not in ultimately they're not important.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you can't have your possessions owning you, as the cliche goes. Um just uh just quickly, Eric, uh just to sum up, I was um I was gonna ask you a little bit about your style when you write, um, and you know what what kind of things you do to prepare yourself for a writing day, uh, what music you have on in the background, your scenery, etc. Do you mind uh do you mind?
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, no, I mean I um I do like writing. I mean, you know, way back at school, you know, English uh was a favourite subject of mine. I was always a bookish kid. I really love words, and I uh even if I'm writing a very short column for someone, um I you know it's got my name on it, and I feel I ought to a very I want to do a very good good job, and I feel I ought to do a very good job. So that means making something that's complete, so you get the start, middle, and finish. Uh hopefully it's entertaining, that's a very important part for me. Hopefully it's informative, and hopefully I'll use um more than a very limited uh vocabulary and try and make it an an interesting read in its own right. Uh now sometimes that uh goes fairly easily, and other times you sit there thinking, right, I've written three paragraphs and it's all pretty much rubbish. I'm just gonna start again. Um so I did that recently with one I was writing last week because I do I do do some writing. I was writing a very nice story about some um uh for the Kigsaw uh women's wear uh business, um about a very nice pure Shetland wool um uh little mini range they're doing they're doing for autumn, all totally organic, all fully traceable, all done in the UK, everything is processed in the UK and knitted in Grimsby on 1960s machines. And I uh was just trying to get the angle right to kick it off, and it took a bit of toing and frowing, and then finally something clicked and I was happy. And then you often find once once you've got the first couple of paragraphs down, it begins to flow fairly easily. Um now talking about uh music, I'm a I'm a huge mu music guy, as I jokingly say, as long as it only music up to about 1973, after which I lose lose a bit of interest.
SPEAKER_07But uh straight after the the death of Credence Clearwater Revival, then after that, something along those lines, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so I um yeah, all the time I've been working from home, I I've got you know 1300 tunes on iTunes, so I can I can have that playing in the background. Uh I used to spend a lot of time half listening to the massive Desert Island Discs archive on Radio 4, um where sometimes you're really pleased when an interesting track comes up, and a lot of the times you wonder at the appalling taste of people with their music.
SPEAKER_07But I often think I often think you've arrived in life if you get asked to do desert island discs.
SPEAKER_02That's a dream of mine, but yeah, that's that is absolutely my ambition. It's sort of two two things, or may or maybe three things that you you would do as a as a as an English man, certainly, to to say, okay, I've been recognized. One one would be to get a knighthood, one would to be have a pub named after you, although that's sort of they're they're they're rarer than they used to be. Third thing would be to go on desert island discs. I mean, once you've done that, you can pretty much die happy out of the floor.
SPEAKER_07Or this is your life, maybe if they bring that back.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, they don't do that anymore, and it got it got a bit cheesy, and I'm not sure that I'd really like people to be dragged up from 50 years ago. But uh the other thing I've going back to the music, the other thing I've hit on uh in recent weeks was um the archive of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, which is Bob himself, who was uh who's funnily enough, his birthday is the day after mine, and May 23rd, he's May 24th, and he's uh he's got a few years on me. He was 75 this year and I was 61, but he has got this uh great archive uh where he um used to do these hour-long programmes, each of which would have a theme, such as California or divorce or hunger or drinking, and all the story all the songs would be linked to that subject, and he would chat about them. And a lot of them were um most of them are kind of vintage going back to from the I would say the probably the twenties is about the earliest he plays up to the uh up to the present day, but most of them are 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, my sort of uh my great period. So that I have on. I've done uh I think I've done about there's there's a hundred and one of them, so there's a hundred and one hours of listening uh for your listeners to enjoy. And uh I think I've done about 53 so t so far. But by the time I get to the end, I won't have remembered what's on the first one, so I'll just go back and start.
SPEAKER_07That's that's a nice long playlist. Yeah. Okay, Eric, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Um, I really appreciate it. People can go find you at your website, I presume, which is ericmusgraves.co.uk.
SPEAKER_02That's one, yeah, that's me. Yeah, yeah. I also do a blog occasionally, not as often as I would like, called the Musgrave Manifesto, which is also it's on there and people can sign up for it. And I do promise to try and do them more often than I do. It's just things that come my way that I find interesting, usually with a usually usually with a menswear slant, um or certainly of of interest to men. So uh yeah, be delighted to get new people signing up anytime. And uh thanks for the invitation, Peter. I've enjoyed it very much. And apologies for the technical. But anyway, don't have that problem with magazines.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, exactly. Okay, thank you, Eric. Enjoy your day.
SPEAKER_02All the best, Peter.
SPEAKER_07Take care, mate. Bye-bye. Eric Musgrave there. And now a quick word from our sponsor on writing, Mr. Sean Connery.
SPEAKER_03You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head.
SPEAKER_07Excellent, thank you, Sean. And now as promised, we're going to end with an interview with the Associate Style Editor of British GQ, Mr. Nick Carvell. Okay, so on the line now we have Nick Carvell. Nick's the Associate Style Editor of British GQ. How are you doing, Nick? I'm good, thanks. How are you doing? I'm very well. Thanks for taking the time out to speak to me. Not at all. Okay, so uh before I start any interview, I normally like to ask what you're wearing.
SPEAKER_01What am I wearing? Okay, um I'm wearing a pair of sorry about that. I'm wearing a pair of uh white leather Jack Passells, um, a pair of green uh Michael Bastian trousers, a HM conscious uh white cotton popover, and a uniform wares watch and a Shambhala jewels bracelet, and a grandfather, a ring from my grandfather.
SPEAKER_07Uh, just to bring it all home, give it that personal touch. Nice, cool. Well, um also just a little follow-up to that. I'm always curious to know how many pairs of jeans guys in the trade own. So how many pairs of denim jeans are in your wardrobe right now?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, I've I'm in the process of moving house, so I've just had a massive like throw out session uh of my jeans. Um sorry, should I say a massive charity shop session, I suppose, throw out session. Um I currently have um two, four, six, eight, nine, ten. I think I have ten pairs of jeans.
SPEAKER_07Okay. How many was it before the throw out?
SPEAKER_01Uh more. Let's just say more. But no, um I I go through jeans really, really quickly. Um, unfortunately, I'm one of these non-model-shaped guys who was born with um thighs that have always rubbed together. So my jeans always go in the crotch really quite quickly. I can never have a jeans for more than about, you know, about a year.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because they always just go in the centre. And I've tried to get them repaired before, but if you repair jeans in the sort of crotch area, they always feel a bit like you're wearing a nappy or something, they're just not comfortable. So I get through jeans really quickly.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah. I I kind of have the same shape, which is uh because I run quite a bit, that makes it more of a pain for me to run. So like when I do like 10Ks or like the odd marathon that I've done. I always I'm always envious of the dudes that with the skinny legs, you know, with a kind of gap between the crops because they never have the thigh gap. Yeah, exactly. They never ever call to get infinite amount of Vaseline or you know, to prevent the chafing. But we've uh I've slightly digressed, sorry, Nick. Um so just uh quickly, if you wouldn't mind telling me about your day-to-day role in GQ, what what's it like for you on a daily basis?
SPEAKER_01Um well, I uh I come to my uh desk here in Vogue House, which is in the centre of London, just behind Oxford Street. Um, a very sort of historic old building. I go to the first floor, which is where GQ is. Um and my day consists of coming in in the morning, um, looking at what's happening in the news and seeing if there's any sort of fashion angle that I can bring to it. Um sometimes that is a direct uh news piece. For example, I ran a piece yesterday on the fact that Hayda Ackerman is supposedly heading to uh uh Baluti uh to head that up as creative director. Um, other times it's a bit more uh niche, shall we say? Um, you know, the other day I was reading an article on the business of fashion, and about sort of halfway down the article, it suddenly goes into it was all about styling the presidential candidates and the fact that um again, allegedly Hillary Clinton has brought Anna Wintor on board to be her style consultant while she's running for president. But in that story as well, it says that um uh Donald Trump wears pretty much exclusively uh Beluty suits. Uh briony suits, sorry, not Believe suits.
SPEAKER_07I read the article, so it's okay.
SPEAKER_01You know it better than I do. Um so anyway, so I wrote a piece on how you know, with his um incredibly uh isolationist uh American isolationist rhetoric, it's actually interesting to compare the fact that he wears these sort of $7,000 Brione suits that admittedly he buys himself, but aren't an American designer, and you compare that to um the Obamas or um Hillary Clinton and you look at how they're wearing sort of exclusively um uh American designers in the sort of run-up to the presidential election, what that means for their sort of rhetoric. And so um sorry. Sorry, I I haven't gone, I suppose I haven't gone through my day. So that's the first part of my day. Um, and then um I just get to writing for the rest of the day. I have a few uh meetings that I have to do. Um I have uh uh an intern that works with me, and I have to sort of um look through what he's doing and approve that before it goes online. Um I meet with brands and I also work across print as well. So normally there's something I need to be doing for print in the afternoon for the actual magazine.
SPEAKER_07Right, okay.
SPEAKER_01So at the moment I'm writing a massive sort of piece on on Craig Green for the magazine.
SPEAKER_07Oh, I see. So does it work where if say you had the idea for uh for the article, for the feature, do you then have to get the go codes from someone above you to run it? Or or do you do you have the license to pretty much do what you want and they trust you?
SPEAKER_01I think when it's when it's day-to-day stuff, they they trust me. Obviously, my my manager here at GEQ is the fashion director, Robert Johnston. So I run a lot of ideas past him, but when it's like small things like updates, I don't obviously take up his time by running every little thing um past him because he would get very sick of me very quickly. Um but the bigger things I will definitely run past him or Dylan, yes.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so um so you kind of cross-pollinate then between the features that you do online and also the written stuff for the magazine. Are they how much of a different animal are they, the the print in the magazine?
SPEAKER_01Um I think sorry, the digital in the magazine. I think in the past, um I think in the past people have perceived there's this massive difference between what you put in a magazine and what you put online. Um and I think increasingly that isn't the case. Um I think in fact, you know, I've had two jobs while I've been here at GQ. I've been both fashion editor of gq.co.uk, and then earlier in the year I became associate style editor of GQ, which encompasses both uh print and digital. And I think increasingly my experience of being an exclusive digital journalist up until this point in my career has really made me think about how articles work in a way that I wouldn't have had in print. Um, you know, in digital, you have to think about not only how that is going to look on the page, that article you're writing, but you have to think about how it's going to be sold to an audience who might just be seeing a tweet. Um, you know, the visuals that mean they might just be seeing a part of the article on Instagram or Snapchat. Um, I think it actually makes you think about it in a very um A very matter-of-fact way. Um, and also it helps you really narrow down what your angle to the piece is. Um, you can't really, you know, you can't really write a sort of airy fairy headline for online. Like you need to be writing your headline. The way I always think about headlines now is I think of my headline as a tweet.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01So if I think like, oh, would I click on that? Even if it's something that's going into print and I'm writing it for print, I think, would I click on that when it goes online? If I wouldn't, that's not the headline, and that's often not the angle I'll go for either. Um, I have to think of an angle that that would work online because ultimately, print is obviously, you know, if I'm writing it for print, that is primarily the thing I'm writing it for. But I need to know how it's going to live forever online as well and how it's going to attract traffic in a really competitive marketplace.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, sorry, I just lost you there for a second. Uh where is the line drawn for you then between having a really good tweet for a headline without venturing into the murky depths of clickbait and sensationalism?
SPEAKER_01Um I think it's I think well.
SPEAKER_07Or is there or is there no line?
SPEAKER_01As a as a fashion journalist, I think it's quite it's writing a clickbait-y headline is uh it it's kind of tricky. Like you're not dealing with these sort of massively controversial um sort of political things maybe in in fashion as much. It just needs to be, if it's style advice, it just needs to be a headline that is you know, is not punny and is actually explains what you're going to explain. So, you know, it has to be a basically a twist on that. Like, you know, we did this piece yesterday, it was like six short, sharp haircuts for work. Like, maybe if you know, in a in you know, 20 years ago, if that was being done just as a print thing, it would have been a bit more like I don't know, it would have been a pun or something like that, because ultimately you're looking through a magazine that's more visual. But I know that to sell that online, like what a guy's gonna search for when they go to Google, well, they're gonna look for short haircuts for work. So it needs to have those words in it as a title, which I think actually helps when you're coming to print stuff, as I say, because it really helps you narrow down well, what am I trying to say? You know, um is you know, with the with the Donald Trump thing, what I'm trying to say in this piece is why it matters that Trump wears a Brioney suit. So that's what the headline becomes, like why it matters that he's wearing a Brioney suit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I I I guess it's also um is it possible for you to have the headline first? You think, oh okay, well that's a really cool, snappy headline, and then I'll work backwards and make an article out of it, or do you typically always have the story first?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, no, I think you have I think you have to have the headline first. I mean, this might just be the way that I write. I've I think ever since university I've always written in that way. And maybe my brain is wired that way anyway. Um, but I think you absolutely have to head have the headline first because when you are writing um a piece, that gives you the direction that you want to say. It's like that is the headline should effectively be your absolutely distilled down headline, uh your distilled down argument, sorry. Um I think you can get more clickbaity. Like I suppose that Donald Trump piece, I could have done something like why it's terrible that Donald Trump's wearing a Brioney suit, but you know, I chose not to because I don't think that needs to be said. I'm just saying like in a balanced way, this is why it's important.
SPEAKER_07And also I guess it it becomes a little bit saturated after a while if you know GQ becomes associated with clickbait stuff, then it kind of lowers the bar, not just for GQ, but also people lose that trust and that confidence of finding other articles.
SPEAKER_01Um also, you know, we're not trying to be, you know, we're not we're not trying to be like a BuzzFeed or something. You know, we're trying to do what what we're trying to do, which is, you know, has always been for GQ high quality journalism with an with a view.
SPEAKER_07Speaking about high quality journalism, Nick, how many people do you get pestered by to apply for a job with you? Do you get like CVs and your email and your inbox every day?
SPEAKER_01Um you know what? Not hugely. It's it's funny. Um and it might be different for you know, it might be different for for Robert Johnston, my um my line manager here. Um but I'm always surprised at how few I get. Um and especially when, so for example, at the minute, you know, I'm looking for a replacement for my six-month fashion writer intern. Um but you know, whilst I think my colleagues on the features team and uh they would get bombarded, um I've I'm always quite I always find it quite hard to find really good, like young, up-and-coming, keen menswear writers. I think it's such a niche that no, I don't get a huge amount.
SPEAKER_07Oh Nick, that you know, I can't call myself young anymore, but I hate to think of your inbox unpolluted with uh with the lack of CV, so I'll have to bang mine in the post. Yeah, do it.
SPEAKER_01We send it over, we'll see what we can do. We have as I say, we have this six-month internship coming up. We'll invite you over.
SPEAKER_07Uh well, I'll be there in a shot. I will literally be I'll teleport myself there. Brilliant. Okay, thanks, Nick. Thanks for taking the time out to speak to me. Uh if you want to check Nick out, then uh I guess the place to go is gq.co.uk. And also if you want to uh go over to his Instagram, it's Nick Carvel on Instagram. Is that okay? Yep, that's perfect. Alright, brilliant. Alright, Nick. Well, I'll let you get back to it. Uh look forward to seeing the future articles. Um bung the C V in the post.
SPEAKER_01Thanks very much. Have me soon. Bye bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_07Bye bye. Nick Carvell there. Thank you, Nick. Okay, so that about wraps it up for another episode of the Menswear Style Podcast. If you want to head over to the site, it's www.menswear style.co.uk and find us on the social at menswear style. And I'll leave the last words to Timothy Spool. But what they don't know is this people will read again.
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