Alan Au: How to Dress a Male Body With a Short Torso

By Alan Au

One of the most important things you need to take into consideration when dressing a male body is the size of the torso in question. Dress a male body with a short torso with help from a distinguished fashion professional in this free video clip.

Read more here. 

Q & A: John Carroll

By: Barbara Akowuah

For over 62 years , Beverly Hills based Carroll & Co. (www.carrollandco.com) has been dressing prestigious directors, producers, writers, and numerous actors. Carroll & Co. has custom-tailored clothing for Hollywood celebrities such as Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson, George Clooney, and Ryan Gosling to name a few. Examiner.com recently had the pleasure of speaking with legendary menswear connoisseur John Carroll about his storied career, red carpet trends, love of fashion, and more…

Q: Where did you grow up and what was it like there?

A: I was fortunate enough to grow up in Beverly Hills and attend Beverly Hills High School. Beverly Hills had its positives and negatives. Yes, there were the rich kids with the nice cars, but there were more middle class families like myself. Early on as a high school kid I took an interest in my father’s men’s store and worked throughout my high school years. It gave me a great foundation to begin my career.

Q: What are the wardrobe staples every man must have in his closet?

A: Every man should have a navy blue suit, a navy blazer, a pair of grey dress slacks, for the dress up times. A blue and black jean, one or two cashmere sweaters and a leather jacket for those more casual affairs. With these items, he’s set.

Q: What are some of your favorite pieces of the Carroll & Co collection?

A: Every piece of sportswear that we do from Luciano Barbera is a work of art.
Our Connaught Collection of Savile Row inspired clothing is a big hit. Meticulously tailored using the finest fabrics and very well priced. I love our classic navy blazer with scarlet red lining and our Carroll brass buttons. We do an Italian gabardine slack that is tailored and fits better than any slack I have ever seen. Cashmere sweatshirt from Scotland in 26 colors – a real winner. And for fun, our “cushy sock” has a following among our customers like no other item in the store. So soft and fluffy, you think you’re wearing a soft slipper.

Q: Describe John Carroll style in three words?

A: Stylish, Classic, Quality.

Read the rest of the Q&A at Examiner

Do What You Love: The Men Who Dress Hollywood

By: Jeanette Mulvey

Ever dream about finding a way to do what you love for a living? In my “Do What You Love” column, I ask people who’ve done it to tell me their secrets. Here’s hoping they inspire you to do the same.

Jimmy Au’s For Men 5’8″ and Under is the nation’s leader and pioneer in the design and development of short men’s clothing. Founded in Au’s his car in Hawaii, Jimmy Au’s has now evolved into the largest short men’s clothing stored in the nation.

Jimmy Au’s has outfitted stars for major film and television projects over the last 20 years. Dressing everyone from Al Pacino to Dick Clark and  Michael J. Fox to Mel Brooks.

Alan Au, who now runs the business with his dad, tells BusinessNewsDaily how he ended up doing what he loves for a living and how you can, too.

BusinessNewsDaily: Explain you what you do for a living.

Alan Au: I offer shorter men a way to look as fashionable and stylish as their taller colleagues and friends by designing and developing a clothing collection exclusively for men under 5’8” and offering it at our retail store.

BND: How did you end up doing this for a living?

A.A.: I grew up in the business, literally. When I was born, my parents (Jimmy and Nora) only had a little retail shop and couldn’t afford a nanny, so I was in a play pen in the tailor shop at the back of the store. By the time I was in high school, I was a full-fledged band-geek and proud of it. I felt certain I was going to be a music major. All this time I continued to develop my skills as a disc jockey . But as I got close to graduating, my father reminded me to remain practical. At this point I was doing quite well as a DJ. During my sophomore year I decided to change majors and what always felt comfortable was fashion. There was only one thing I could do that incorporated fashion, business and music… fashion show production. I pretty much abandoned my family’s clothing business in pursuit of building my DJ business while in school. I eventually sold my DJ business and went back to my family’s clothing business full-time. I help in all aspects, in particular, the marketing and production development.  Fast forward to today. I now co-design the collection with my father. I continue to love dance music and DJ for the youth at my church in a charitable capacity. I know where my heart is with this thing my dad started almost by accident so many years ago. I plan to take this to another level and expand and grow, so shorter men everywhere will have a chance to wear clothes that are proportioned, fit and stylish.

Read the rest of the interview at BusinessNewsDaily

The East Coast Gets a Taste of Jimmy Au’s

LCO Client, Jimmy Au’s For Men 5’8” And Under seems to have impressed the city of New York. The New Yorker recently did an exciting piece on Jimmy Au’s first trunk show on the east coast, perfectly portraying what the designer clothing is all about.

Short men in the United States are, some studies show, paid less than their taller peers. They are less likely to get hired for a job or receive a promotion, less likely to get elected President, and at a severe disadvantage in the height-obsessed world of dating. But perhaps the worst indignity is being forced to shop for clothes in the children’s department. The alternative is not much better—the standard adult dress shirt has so much excess fabric that, when a short man wears it tucked in, it creates the impression that he is wearing a diaper under his trousers.

While there are hundreds of stores in the United States specializing in clothes for “big and tall” men, there are very few designer-clothing stores for short men. One is the Beverly Hills clothier Jimmy Au’s, whose motto is “For Men 5′8″ and Under.” The proprietors of Jimmy Au’s were in town recently for their first East Coast trunk show, and they approached this magazine to request a “deskside” chat. Unlike the phoneside, e-mailside, or even fireside chat, a deskside is a face-to-face briefing during which a publicist (or his or her client) pitches a story to a journalist in an intimate setting.

To read the article in full, click HERE

Art and Artifact

TEAM SNAPS: “Arts and Artifact” gallery opening at The Photographic Art Center in Beverly Hills. LBN-STREET

 

Many of our staff attended an exclusive opening at the Art & Artifact Gallery in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010. Art & Artifact has quickly become LA’s hottest destination for distinctive limited edition photographic art & fine lithographic reproductions at dealer prices.  

The evening featured the newly discovered Frank Worth Collection of classic Hollywood Icons & Legends and the Daniel Furon Collection of vibrant impressionistic environmental photography.