#Menswear grails like “classic” hip-hop albums have the magical ability of turning a subjective topic into stone-carved, objective history. Just as no one can in good conscience argue against Illmatic as a genre-defining piece of work, the following garments helped mold the tiny digital culture we call #menswear. These are not simply items coveted for their aesthetics, but, rather, for their ability to shift paradigms both big and small. Whether due to unique fabrication, prohibitive pricepoints, limited runs or a lighting-in-a-bottle-just-at-the-right-time releases, comfortable lust eventually turned to desperate need, hopeful browsing replaced by something much more crucial. Thanks to most of the reasons that made them grails in the first place, these items soon became the subject of lore, fish stories and fables. “Did you see pic 8 of Tommy Ton's Pitti slideshow? How the fuck did he get one?!” It's funny, you almost don't ever want to acquire a grail lest it stop becoming a grail all together. The following items will forever be etched into the collective consciousness of #menswear, where they will continue to live on forever. Well, there and on all our blogs. And that's kinda how it should be.
1. graillead
2. 1grail
Michael Bastian Double Breasted Blazer
When this double breasted blazer hit the pages of GQ in 2009, the early #menswear 1.0 community took a giant Doritos Locos Taco-sized shit in its collective raw denim. With its grey elbow patches, cashmere, tartan lining, gold buttons and insane pricetag, it was single-handedly the best and most luxurious example of the time's extremely popular neo-preppy clothing to emerge out of the new wave of American designers. This was the cornerstone of arguably Michael Bastian’s best collection to date (F/W 2009), an offering that as a whole struck the perfect cord between Americana nostalgia and high-end luxury.