By JON CARAMANICA
At a certain income level, conventional rules about style simply fly out the convertible making its way to Sagaponack for the weekend. Fit? Meh. A little airspace masks the rolls and curves of good living. Matching? As if. Looking fastidious means you’re trying too hard, or thinking about trying too hard.
It was this person, previously unknown to me, that I saw in the mirror at Peter Elliot Men. You can call it post-fashion, this disregard for how the other 99 percent live, and even on a brief exploratory visit, it was oddly liberating.
Up top was a rugby sweater, with broad yellow and gray stripes. Its V-neck had no buttons, because really, who could be bothered? The fabric was generous, heavy but airy, designed with just a bit of sag in mind. Below was a splendid, paper-light pair of pants, baby blue with thin white stripes edged in red. On the bottom was a pair of pink socks — shopper’s own.
It looked ludicrous, like something I might wear while karaoke-ing after dinner with Prince William and Kate Middleton on Mustique, the beach still salty in our hair.
And yet as an ensemble it was perfectly reasonable, alluring even. Each piece was lovely; together they looked as if I’d rolled out of bed and grabbed the first things I touched and couldn’t go wrong. Why wouldn’t I wear this every day, if only as a way of telegraphing to the world that I indeed had better things to do?
Peter Elliot feels like a clubhouse for that sort of person. A quiet, medium-size shop on upper Madison Avenue, it’s all rich wood in the fixtures and explosive colors in the clothes.
On a recent Friday, I spotted several members of that rarest of species: men shopping alone. Well-moisturized men in crisp jeans and starched shirts. They seemed like wealthy decision makers, high up enough on the totem pole of life to spend a lazy, humid weekday afternoon thinking hard about what they were going to wear that weekend, while back in an office somewhere, underlings in lesser clothes hammered out spreadsheet-dense memos and tried not to leak the details to DealBook.
They were well-tended-to here. The staff was respectful, opinionated and accommodating, helpful in navigating the store’s overflowing inventory of the accouterments of easy living: silk vests with a whale print, seersucker newsboy caps and ball caps, beautiful sharp ties with animal prints or stars or rustic plaids, woven rayon belts, curious bottle-cap cuff links. (The denim, stacked on shelves near the front of the store, was superfluous.)
Reams of sherbet-colored polos dominate the front of the store, giving off an insouciant air. On some of them, the heavily detailed chest logo is a small boy, dressed something like a jockey, walking in front of a fence, hands deep in pockets, relaxed as can be.
This being summer, there are summer things. Kiwi swim trunks, with giraffe and camel prints in pink and lilac, could easily satisfy the customer shopping next door, at Vilbrequin. Shoes by Native are like rubbery, water-friendly Vans, and aquatic loafers by Swims are an ingenious update on the Crocs model: all of the functionality, none of the cultural hex. (And yes, a Hamptons store just opened, in partnership with Atlantis WeatherGear, on Jobs Lane in Southampton.)
On a round table in the back was an array of seasonal corduroys, blue and yellow and orange and more, pants that I first saw illuminating the front window a couple of months ago. If you had tried to pass them off as part of the Levi’s-Opening Ceremony spring collaboration, no one would have looked askance at you.
Which is to say that, blousy cuts notwithstanding, the line between Peter Elliot Men (and Peter Elliot Blue, its nominally more youthful counterpart on Lexington Avenue) and downtown meta-prep isn’t all that thick. I bought a silk knit tie, off-white with several pairs of horizontal burgundy stripes, that could have easily been at Odin.
Still, this store struggles a bit with the modern age: it has no stand-alone Website (though it does sell some items through the luxury site taigan.com); and the business card handed to me by a sales associate, who was wearing a fantastic multicolored house-brand striped shirt, sported an Earthlink e-mail address, which I would have laughed at more openly if I weren’t still using mine.
Many of the store’s offerings are private label, some in collaboration with other brands: a boxy madras blazer by Hickey Freeman; bright socks by Marcoliani, a red argyle pair of which I snagged. There are also carefully selected items from outsiders: Kiton shirts and wispy cashmere sweaters by Brunello Cucinelli. On a second visit to the store, I happened upon a quiet sale at which much of that delicate Cucinelli was half-priced, including an austere powder blue puffy vest, and a lavender sweater, which fit beautifully and which now lives at my house.
It’s all of a piece. In fact, the only thing out of place in the store is the book of swatches — Italian dobby, sharkskin weave and dozens more — for custom shirts ($225 to $325) sitting on a table near the front of the store.
Building your own shirts? That requires agency. And yet one fabric — white, with thin purple and forest green stripes crossing each other — stood out, a bit more stoic than the store’s own awning-stripe shirts in bold colors, but whimsical nonetheless ($200). I ordered one: spread collar, traditional cuff. Monogram? No, thanks. Too obvious.
Peter Elliot Men
THE LOOK For unfussy gentlemen, the shop is a gold mine of spring and summer colors to be worn once the suit comes off.
THE MOOD You’re among friends here, if your friends are the sort with significant disposable income, leisure time and a gift for quiet flamboyance.
THE BLEND The house line is charming, but custom shirts, pants and suits are also available. For a small fee, the store will handle alterations on off-the-rack items.
In a recent article, Raghaven explains the luxury sector of the economy is enjoying renewed buoyancy through the first half of this fiscal year, despite the threat of “economic shocks in the second half.”
