Winter is harsh in Finland, on the Hoherodskopf peak in the Vogelsberg Mountains in Hesse, Germany. (photo: Jutta Rübesam) (click on photo for larger image)

But Jutta Rübesam’s Nhubia is stylish and prepared, complete with muffler and overcoat. (photo: Jutta Rübesam)

(photo: Jutta Rübesam)

Justice Antonin Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia provoked puzzlement among libs throughout the land by wearing what Gawker described as “a really weird hat” and the New York Daily News as “a beret on steroids.”

The mystery was elucidated by Richmond University of Law Professor Kevin C. Walsh, who explained:

The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner.

It is not unlikely that Justice Scalia was intentionally making a reference to his own support of religious liberty in connection with the Obama Administration’s attempts to force Catholic institutions to act in opposition to church teachings by mandates requiring funding of employee birth control and abortion.

Hans Holbein, Sir Thomas More, 1527, Frick Collection, New York.

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White tie with dinner jacket.

Even more bizarre was the newly-inaugurated president’s appearance at Inaugural Balls incongruously wearing a white bow tie with a dinner jacket.

There must surely be White House specialists in protocol available to advise the ill-informed on what is and what is not correct in matters of this kind.

One correspondent of a list I read suggested that President Obama may have intentionally chosen a white tie (sometimes worn to indicate status as staff with a dinner jacket at evening events) as a kind of riposte to former President Clinton‘s unkind 2008 remark to the late Senator Kennedy dismissive of Senator Obama’s candidacy: “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”

Of course, it also might simply have been a casual expression of modernist contempt for traditional norms and customs.

The ineffable Yoko Ono marches on. This time applying her unique talents to men’s fashion.

USA Today:

Yoko Ono launched a menswear collection on Tuesday that she says was inspired by John Lennon’s “hot bod.” Among her designs are pants with large handprints on the crotch, tank tops with nipple cutouts, a flashing LED bra (yes, for men) and that pair of pants with a sheer backside.

The collection of menswear for Opening Ceremony is available the company’s U.S. stores in New York and Los Angeles now, its London store on Nov. 30 and its Tokyo flagship on Dec. 9.

Ono’s clothing line is based on a series of drawings she sketched as a gift for Lennon for their wedding day in 1969. …

Prices run from $25 for a poster to $200 for a jock strap or $750 for boots with an incense holder or open toes.

As Kurtz used to say: “The horror, the horror.”

From Fashionably Geek:

The pretty model can sort of walk in these things, but they seem to make her knock-kneed, and they make me wonder why she would want to.

Hat tip to Leah Libresco and Tristyn Bloom.

The L interview:

I’ve never worn sneakers or sweatshirts in my life. And I wore blue jeans—pretty much the same pair of blue jeans—every day, throughout college. And I decided the moment I graduated from college that I would never wear blue jeans again. And I have never worn blue jeans again.

Unlike Whit Stillman, I have worn sneakers and sweatshirts: exclusively while working out in health clubs, never on the street or at home. I think I was just very slightly older than him when I too came to the conclusion that there was no place in adult life for blue jeans and switched permanently to khaki slacks for informal wear.

Dressing like a Preppy has been a successful marketing approach in men’s clothing for several decades, but offering to allow you to smell like a Preppy? (Those of us who once frequented locker rooms in the Yale gymnasium are shaking our heads at this one.)

Perhaps, this company has finally figured out how to compound the ultimate scent effective in the seduction of the opposite sex: the pure, distilled essential aroma of old money.

Hat tip to Tim of Angle.

Ivy Style

Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary of York, elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York, and fifth in succession to the throne, startled the world by wearing a hat that looked as if it had been designed by Dr. Seuss.

Princess Beatrice’s hat is, I’m told, the kind of thing called “a fascinator.”

The New York Times offered a slideshow featuring other ladies’ (more becoming) hats as well.

Hat tips to Walter Olson & Amy Alkon.

For the Russian billionaire, Narcosyndicate chief, or Third World dictator who has everything: a diamond-encrusted, single button suit designed by Stuart Hughes of Liverpool, purveyor of the “world’s most luxurious communications and bespoke elements.”

Hughes specializes in solid gold iPhones and similar knickknacks and tailoring is a new area for him, so the actual cutting, sewing, and fitting are being done by Richard Jewels, a 27-year-old Manchester designer of Nigerian extraction who opened his own fashion house last year.

Referred to as the “R. Jewels Diamond Edition,” the world’s most expensive suit is “made from a blend of Cashmere wool, silk & diamonds, and requires 600 man hours of assembly. 480 diamonds (0.5cts, colour G, VS2 quality, totalling 240cts) are “strategically positioned” around the suit. Clients receive all expenses paid trips to luxury destinations such as the Arc en Ciel in St Lucia, presumably for fittings, as part of the deal.

It is not actually mentioned, but the photos suggest that the lucky Mafioso will receive a diamond-trimmed pocket handkerchief accessory as well.

Three of these suits are planned at a cost each of £599,000.00 ($892,250). Buyers can soothe their consciences by reflecting that 10% of the price will be donated to Haitian relief.

Telegraph

Born Rich

The Chap

Stuart Hughes demonstrates an impressive yobbo accent, and inability to stop saying “OK,” as he proudly displays gold iPhones, iPads, and Blackberries.

Hat tip to James Coulter Harbison III.

George Lucki, a friend from Polish heraldic study circles, posted on Facebook a Photoshopped version of Jan Matejko’s Portrait of Artur Wladyslaw Potocki (1850-1890) with his own head replacing the original.

Actually, I think Mr. Lucki’s countenance looks even better than Mr. Potocki’s in the portrait. In fact, I did not recognize it as a Photoshopped image, until George told me.

This would be a very becoming outfit for formal evening wear, if one could only find a tailor able to do an equivalently elegant set of zupan, kontusz, and pas kontuszowy.

The Revolution has not been effectuated and the left is turning on him. Former Beatle Paul McCarthy gushing over Obama is so two years ago, writes Toby Harnden in the Telegraph.

[I]t was not just McCartney’s dyed hair and 1960s songs that seemed so retro. His adulation of Obama struck the wrong chord because few outside the White House bubble are in that place any more. It is now permissible – even fashionable – to have a go at the man once hailed as the Messiah.

Nicholas Carr has the bad news.

I remember when it was kind of cool to be a blogger. You’d walk around with a swagger in your step, a twinkle in your eye. Now it’s just humiliating. Blogging has become like mahjong or needlepoint or clipping coupons out of Walgreens circulars: something old folks do while waiting to croak.

Did you see that new Pew study that came out yesterday? It put a big fat exclamation point on what a lot of us have come to realize recently: blogging is now the uncoolest thing you can do on the Internet. It’s even uncooler than editing Wikipedia articles or having a Second Life avatar. In 2006, 28% of teens were blogging. Now, just three years later, the percentage has tumbled to 14%. Among twentysomethings, the percentage who write blogs has fallen from 24% to 15%. Writing comments on blogs is also down sharply among the young. It’s only geezers – those over 30 – who are doing more blogging than they used to.

Rather awful shirts.

The Boston Globe describes this as old news, but I had not heard. Harvard University is licensing its name to a division of Wearwolf Group for use in labeling a line of men’s clothing.

The clothing line, to be labeled “Harvard Yard” will obviously be marketed to people who are unaware of the existence of J. Press, the Andover Shop, and Brooks Brothers. They will think they will be dressing like preppies attending Harvard, but they will really be dressing in accordance with the idea some gay guys who didn’t go to college at all have of how men at Harvard should dress.

Is Harvard really so badly off that they need to sell their name to get money for scholarships? Couldn’t they just get Drew Faust and some of their female faculty out there in bikinis doing car washes?

The Harvard Yard line will arrive in stores next spring with shirts selling for $160 and up, pants starting at $195, and blazers selling for $495. Eventually the company plans to add women’s wear to the mix. None of the Harvard Yard clothing actually bears a Harvard logo. The clothes have subtle touches to show their pedigree, such as crimson stitching around buttonholes. Shirts, sweaters, and jackets are also named for buildings on campus and streets in Cambridge.