a big week for menswear in nz

and for everything else, I guess

March 07, 2021

Welcome to clipboard, a weekly newsletter about hospitality, clothes and Tāmaki Makaurau by Reilly Hodson. This week: a banner week for local menswear enthusiasts, waste-free natural wine, and more! If you want to chip in a few dollars to support this newsletter, click this button:

Whew, what a week! Lockdown, tsunami threats, terrorist threats, and Charli XCX put out a song with the 1975 and No Rome! In amongst all of this going on, you could be forgiven for missing the fact that this was a truly excellent week for New Zealand men who like to dress well. Let’s get into it.

Wynn Hamlyn brings sexy menswear to NZ

Wynn Hamlyn has been one of New Zealand’s best local fashion labels for a while now, and while guys could always take advantage of their excellent knitwear, it was always, technically speaking, a women's brand. Not anymore. This week, Wynn launched their first “men’s” unisex line, and it is unlike anything else that is made for men by New Zealand labels, a land blighted by terrible menswear.

Put quite simply, these clothes are fashion-y. Men, particularly straight men, are famously averse to dressing in a way that makes them look good, leaning instead towards some kind of objective ideal garment: the perfect blue shirt, the perfect white sneaker, on and on. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, I wrote a newsletter last week about uniform dressing, for goodness’ sake. No one could argue that any of these pieces are the perfect anything for every person, they’re particular, and they draw attention, which is why I love them. These are not clothes for blending in, their clothes for making a statement, and that’s to be encouraged.

Good As Gold has the goods

Wellington’s coolest boutique, Good As Gold, gets a lot of love in this newsletter, and for good reason. They curate an excellent selection of brands both local and international, and importantly, they buy the right pieces from those brands, an underrated skill. This week was a banner week for GAG, who brought in my favourite t-shirts from Buddy, Reception, an excellent skate-inspired brand I’d never heard of before, AND restocked the best fatigue and painter pants, from Stan Ray. Bring back Auckland’s Good As Gold store, please!

one sad thing

An extremely disappointing, but potentially exciting, piece of news came across my feed this week: Platform Store is ceasing to exist as a permanent retail space; instead Molawin, Cyrus and Aitken are doubling down on their creative studio practice and continuing as a “conceptual studio,” By Platform. It’s gutting that I won’t be able to go into the store and talk shit for hours on end anymore, but I’m excited to see what amazing work these design, imagery and experience masterminds do now that they’re working on that side of things full time. If you need a retail experience, design, photography, or event developed and you want it to be very cool, hit them up.

clips

  • If you missed out on Cantine or Baby G smash burgers this week, fear not! You can make burgers that are just as good, if not better, at home. I make mine pretty much to this recipe from clipboard reader Natalie Guest, aka @imspinningplates.

  • Checks Downtown continued their excellent accessory run this week with their riff on the LL Bean Boat and Tote, which I bought to solve my work bag issues. Review coming next week once I’ve actually used it to go to and from the office.

  • Charlotte Muru-Lanning spoke to Celeste, East St. Hall and Star Superette somme Mike Gibb, a former colleague of mine, about why you shouldn’t drink red wine with ice, but instead put it in the fridge, for the Spinoff. Mike is one of the smartest wine people I’ve ever met, so I would listen to his advice.

  • Wynn Hamlyn also launched a very good women’s collection this week. I’m into this monochrome floral shirt and this green knit polo.

  • I’ve been really enjoying the new Pale Waves album, sort of like old Avril Lavigne but British, excellent stuff.

  • Clipboard reader Ollie Simon’s excellent restaurant Gochu is kicking off its monthly Test Kitchen series this Tuesday, a chance to eat unique food that might never get made again. Chef Jason Kim is brilliant, so I’d expect that this will be a great dining experience.

  • I’ve never eaten at Merge Cafe, but I’m aware of the important work they do for the unhoused community in Tāmaki, a community which has grown significantly since last year. They’re facing insurmountable budget issues and need to raise $60,000. All donations before the end of March are doubled, and I’d recommend anyone chip in if you can afford to - it’s tax deductible, if that’s important to you.

one good thing: everyday wine’s refillable wine bottles

Every week, clipboard highlights one good thing that I’ve bought, seen or eaten in the past week. This week: waste-free wine refills from Everyday Wine.

After the end of lockdown was announced on Friday, I did what many people did and decided to have a quiet celebration. The second week of my new job had been in lockdown, working from home at the dining table, and I’m still adjusting to stuff like a normal workday and Monday to Friday schedule, let alone all the systems and technology at my work, let alone actually doing all the work I’m supposed to be responsible for. It was a long week, to say the least.

Luckily, I made it to my new local natural wine dealer, Everyday Wine, a day before they closed, and bought a bottle of Libiamo Giallo, which is the orange wine I recommend to anyone who is new to the game, or suspects that “orange” refers to the fruit, somehow.

The awesome wrinkle to buying this bottle at Everyday Wine is that it was poured from a tap to order, and put in a refillable swing top bottle for me to take home. Everyday’s store on Karangahape Road has 10 rotating tap wines available at any time, and you can buy a refillable bottle for $3 and fill it with whatever wine you’d like. Tap wine is great because it cuts out the waste involved in bottling wine and indeed every stage of the production process. The store buys the wine in kegs, which get reused just like my bottle. As an added bonus, too, they’ll give you a cafe-style loyalty card that gives you a free refill of your choice after nine purchases. It’s an excellent, relatively affordable way to drink delicious wine, and I’d recommend it to any wine drinker.

That’s all for clipboard this week! I’ll be back in your inbox next Sunday morning, and until then you can follow me and clipboard on the gram for to-the-minute recs and updates, and work uniform fit pics. If you enjoy clipboard, you can support it financially by clicking the button below and subscribing, or morally by forwarding it to your cool friends, both are appreciated! See you next time.