The delightful editor-at-large of Vogue US appears in the tenth issue of Fantastic Man.
Ms. ANNA WINTOUR, BOWLES's current boss, first spotted him around that time, during London Fashion Week. BOWLES was working for HARPERS & QUEEN, twirling about in a "CHANEL-esque cardigan jacket and skirt-like trousers" by JASPER CONRAN, accessorised with a 1955 CHANEL bag and an HERMÈS scarf knotted with piratical flourish at the side of the head. "She called me in for an interview, but clearly thought the better of it," BOWLES says. He did, however, eventually land a job at VOGUE and moved to New York, wardrobe in tow.
Mr. HAMISH BOWLES, the English-born, New York-based European Editor of American VOGUE, has a crystal-clear recollection of his earliest fashion moment: a tantrum, mercilessly delivered at age five. His mother had taken him and his sister to a store called JOHN BARNES to buy a couple of hooded velour jackets with marsupial-like front pouches. His was navy blue with a white stripe, his sister's pink with a white stripe. "I lay down on the store floor, letting out a primal scream, thumping fists and feet until I got the pink one," BOWLES says.
Photography by Juergen Teller, Text excerpts by Armand Limnander
It seems Mr. Bowles belongs to a lost world, but it is evident that his sartorial choices are informed by a very modern take on color, patterns, and combinations.
He is a Sartorialist superstar on Scott Schuman's blog — what with the way he combines old and new, and always with a personal flair and flourish that are uniquely his. You cannot even begin to dissect his outfits into separate pieces. It is the man that binds them.
And I should also say his relatively new movie star moustache.
I leave it to you to learn from the master.
If it seems that his ensembles are boring and not at all engaging, look twice and even thrice.
A cuff link may surprise you.
A camouflaged tie.
Or even something as unobtrusive as tortoise shell glasses.
Watch out for the patterns. And I don't mean on notebooks.
Images from Fantastic Man, The Sartorialist, Monochrome Magazine, and a whole lot of other sites that I will certainly credit as soon as I remember, or as soon as someone informs me — whichever comes earlier