Out and about... Granville Island style

I'm recently back from a leisurely trip to the west coast. Vancouver, to be exact. While there, I fell in love with the English Bay, a very nice little bay indeed. I may not compete, as far as overall fondness is concerned, with the bay on Le Fleuve, which my ancestral home overlooks. But English Bay, with its mist and it mountains, and the anchored container ships waiting like slumbering beasts, great hulking marine beasts, waiting for the run into the harbour, is surely well up on the list. Said the Whale has a really nice tune about it, as well.

My first day in Vancouver, my family (a sizable chunk of it, anyway) and I decided to check out the public market on Granville Island, reachable most easily via pedestrian ferry.

My lifelong love of boats and I were most impressed, and my new-found love of Sperry Topsiders was not to be disappointed, either, although I had left mine safe at home, preferring to risk my beater boat shoes to the perils of the road.

More photos (and Topsiders!) inside the Hall...

Tie-Day Friday.

Inspired by several worthy gents on the internet, I decided I'd wear a tie on Fridays. I though, "hey, I'll call it Tie-day Friday, and it'll be fun". So I did. A few Fridays in a row. And I put it on facebook. SOme of my friends, they seemed to think it was a good idea, so I kept it up. Maybe they did too.

It's a bit of an attack on Casual Friday. I had started making sure I was less casual on Fridays quite some time ago, and when people asked why (if they noticed), I'd say, "'cuz it's casual Friday."

But the Tie-day thing, that's relatively new. I like it though, and I think it's here to stay. I'd be happy if it caught on, too, so if you happen to have a tie, wear it on a Friday, and let me know about it.

 

Once again... dear friends...

Two points here. On Monday, [you_have_broken_the_internet] posted a bit of a rant about the state of menswear blogs as it stands. En bref, they point was to produce original content, and not simply reblog everything that comes your way and call yourself a blogger. Actually, there were some really good points made, and while I have no real pretension to this particular site being any more than a idiosyncratic extension of my own ego, I took some of his words to heart.
Nevertheless, this site, Indexed, does produce it`s own content. And even if it usually doesn`t overlap much with The Hall`s main areas of interest, it did today, and, reblogging aside, I thought I`d share.
This debate rages constantly on the internet, and within my own discussions as well with friends, but I have rarely seen it so well summed up:

Old School...

There are times, friends, when one has to tuck one's pants in. No matter what they say in NYC.

Friday Night.

My sister made me that scarf.

Style vs. Fashion

I'm not going to flat out say that I agree with everything The Effortless Gent has to say about style and fashion. Sometimes, this debate seems to get a bit vicious, with the style camp looking down at the fashion camp. This is actually addressed in a post at Dappered this morning. Style, according to Dappered, includes class, and class means not judging others.
But there are a few interesting points raised, even if the Gent seems to get a bit judgemental. The Gent's ultimate point, is after all, to be oneself in one's clothes, to "Be real. Do you".  This is solid style advice, and can be applied much more broadly than clothing. Indeed, Dappered's admonition concerning class is a good one as well.
Good day to dress like a man, apparently.