5 Favorites from Mike Newman, Managing Editor of Coolmaterial.com
Sure it’s just stuff. But stuff can make life easier, more enjoyable, etc… Every so often we ask one of our favorite people to rattle off their five favorite things. This is the stuff they’d grab if the house was burning down.
Cool Material covers it all. From gadgets to cars, art to style, you’re going to find not just something, but a few somethings every day at Cool Material that might get your salivary glands going into overdrive. And Mike Newman is the man in the digital kitchen putting to plate all those orders. He spends his days curating the best looking, most interesting, most tempting stuff. His influence is most certainly found on many of the lists that end up in Santa’s hands. The elves must hate Mike. (Tinker Toys ain’t makin’ CM.)
As is always the case with our 5 Favorites series, nobody is paying to be here and we determine who gets a spot. To ratchet up the difficulty level on owners and designers, they’re allowed to pick only one item from their place of work.
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#1 Everlane tees – $15.00
“Most days I just wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I’d say 90% of the tees in my drawer are from Everlane. They’re super comfortable, fit great, and I can’t justify spending a lot of money on a plain tee.”
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#2 Property Of . . . Tommy Work Bag – $299.00
“This is my do everything bag. I use it everyday for work, whenever I travel, and a million little things in-between. The guys over at Property Of . . . make really solid and durable bags that look great. They aren’t cheap, but this thing has been thrown around a lot and is still in great shape.”
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#3 Word. Notebooks – $9.99 per 3 pack.
” I hate typing out to-do lists on my iPhone. We created Word. because we wanted a pocket notebook that looked good and also helped us organize all we have to get done. We went into it thinking, even if no one buys these, we know they’re going to be something we want to use, and I think that’s really important.'”
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#4 Fjallraven Greenland Jacket – $163.99 – $220.00
“This is the jacket I take whenever I am traveling and working on a piece. It’s seen its share of bad weather and has stood up to every beating it’s taken.“
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#5 Firestone Walker Parabola
“I’m kind of a beer geek and Firestone Walker out in California is probably my favorite brewery. While it’s really hard to pick one beer that’s my favorite, if I had to, Parabola would probably be it. It’s incredibly smooth and super dangerous at 13% ABV.”
You can find more editions of 5 Favorites in the archive. Top “5” Photo Credit: G. Bangsmoen
As a slim guy, I have trouble finding tees that fit my arms – I strongly dislike the ‘wings’ that form if the sleeve opening has a circumference that’s over an inch larger than the circumference of my bicep. Looks like the guys in the Everlane picture are suffering from this exact issue. :/
EDIT: Actually, I just noticed that the guy in the ad has the ‘wings’ thing going on, too. Does this not bother other people?
The picture of the Everlane tees got me thinking about how difficult it is for me to find tees that fit me. Being a slim guy, I always have the problem that you can see in the picture: the arms billow outwards and create ‘wings’, if you will. This seems to occur if the circumference of the shirt’s arm-opening is much larger than the circumference of my bicep. Anyone know of any brands that have slim bodies AND very slim arms?
Here’s another picture of the issue I’m referring to – http://i.imgur.com/Qgem3i3.jpg
So glad to see this back. Love the “5 Favorites” series. Keep ’em coming!
I second that!
I need to own that jacket solely because the name of it is “falljraven”.
Fantastic 5 Favorites after a long hiatus. Glad to see it return. And number 5 was a surprise. Nice to have a beer geek contribute to the site! (though, to give him credit, Joe throws out good suggestions as well!)
I was about to point these out. One of my favorite shirts is a Mossimo from Target.
I picked up some soft fit t-shirt from JCF on clearance for like $7 a couple months ago and its the best fitting t-shirt ive ever owned. Just wish I could find another one (or 4)!
Yet another vote for Mossimo! Seriously, 90% of MY tees are Mossimo, because nothing else fits me so well and doesn’t billow out in the arms.
Looking at the photo used in the article I think that “fit great” does not mean what the writer thinks that it means…
However, I find that Zara does a very respectable range of sizing in their tee shirts. I don’t know the proper names but the do both slim and super-slim (as well as regular fit and then a “relaxed” style as well). They’re a little light on them in the stores now but usually have all the basic colours, a mixture of crewneck and v-neck, short and long sleeve, and a variety of cotton and cotton mix. Quality is surprisingly good; I have some white crew necks made out of thick 100% cotton that I’ve worn for over 5 years. No matter how thin a guy is I would imagine that the slim or super-slim would still look good on him without the “wing” sleeves occurring.
I like the feel (and price) of the Mossimo v-necks (crew neck just *bug* me), but they seem quite long in the torso for me. I like a shorter t-shirt, so that it looks nice and hit the spot when un-tucked.
Maybe it’s just me. Dunno. I wear mostly BR v-necks now – usually white; sometimes grey. But I think I’m gonna put the Everlanes on my “lean wardrobe” list.
I got a Tommy Trip Bag (the weekender version) by Property Of a while back- love it. It looks great once it’s broken in & the denim coloring shows some nice aging.
I could do a 5 favorites just with Beer from Firestone Walker. Nice to see a fellow Parabola appreciator.
Definitely a great beer. It reminded me of a hysterical reddit post from the other day- it was claiming that the key for a new brewery to make it is to make a high ABV imperial stout, age it in bourbon barrels, and slap a limited release sticker on it (par for the course these days)- feed the bourbon barrel stout obsession we beer enthusiasts go crazy for
Unfortunately, hype overshadows a lot of good stuff out there. Bourbon barreled, Saison bretts, and triple-quad IPAs, what not.
Founders has already done an IIPA aged in Bourbon Barrels (Doom).
Next up: Triple IPA with Brettanomyces aged in Bourbon barrels
Hmmn… OK. I’ve had mine for a year+, but have only washed “tap cold” and dried “tumble low.” Maybe it’s time to experiment with a little *shrinkage*. (cue the Seinfeld skit)