Breaking Update: Hollander & Lexar

Props to Dotts for finding this NYT article on my new favorite men's store.

Monday: Hollander & Lexer

Hiiiii. Sorry this is late. It's taken me this long to get over the best shopping/non-shopping experience I've ever had on the East Coast. Over the weekend, I dedicated myself to learning downtown Brooklyn--more specifically, Boerum and Cobble Hill. The people, shops, bars and food I found there stunned me into a dazed and awe-filled silence. To be broken by:The chicest, tallest, loveliest gentleman on Atlantic Avenue. His shop, Hollander and Lexer, sells beautifully crafted and timeless men's clothing and shoes. Here is an idea of what they carry. Unfortch, H&L doesn't have a website...yet. I think we should get on that. I am having visions of something really, really pretty. With apologies to Dotts, work me. Work me.

We talked plastic surgery. His friend Marco, a male version of Jocelyn Wildenstein, calls from Paris at 6 a.m. wasted on Absinthe Royales in futile attempts to lure the genius behind Hollander and Lexer back to Europe. When I open a bar, we're going to have specials on Absinthe Royales every Monday. I just made that drink up.

You're probably wondering by now whether H&L offers a house line. Trust me, it was the first thing I asked, too. If pressed, I'd wager that a spring collection is in the works--but for now, a crisp, flax-colored linen shirt is all we have to stem the tide of our desire.

Tugging my rolling suitcase through the tree-lined, Utopian streets of Boerum Hill, I began to wish for a life in Brooklyn. I could ride my bike everywhere, reject plastic bags at the grocery, date an artist, and drink Absinthe Royales after hours at Bar Tabac. Then a frazzle-haired native woman yanked me from my daze, yelling that I was on the wrong subway train; heading even deeper into the borough rather than back to Penn Station, and the eventual predictability of Capitol Hill. I shuddered, and spent five more minutes wandering, vaguely terrified, through the grimy station until I found the 3 train to Manhattan.

God bless you, Washington, D.C. metro. You make me feel capable on a daily basis.

Off to Texas tomorrow for the day!

love,

cameron