Meet Sam Fehrenbach, the manager of men's store martinpatrick3, who is just as clever with ensembles as he is with words. He fashionably lives his life on the edge and can charm his way into {or out of} anything. He has mastered the "effortlessly-stylish" look, and is known to always look the part.
How would you describe your personal style?
I don’t know if I’m really consistent enough in my choices to fit into a category, but I usually try to mix a lot of sporty knits like cardigans and tennis sweaters with tailored items. Not quite all the way dressed up might make sense, though I have been known to wear a grey suit/white shirt/grey tie on a more than regular basis.
Name five things every man should own.
Only five? I don’t like pegging things down like that, but I’ll concede this time:
- A knife.
- All the ingredients and equipment to make a gin martini twist.
- A proper for suit getting into {or out of} trouble consisting of a dark grey suit, white shirt and either black silk knit tie or black bowtie.
- A pair of shoes that you would wear to the bank if you needed to ask for money.
- A vice.
When you are not at martinpatrick3, where are we likely to find you?
Given that we’re coming off the holidays, you’ll only find me at martinpatrick3 or sitting in my house in complete silence. During the rest of the year though, I’ll often spend my early morning hours at Barbette, the Red Stag, Whitey’s Saloon, all those dingy northeast bars and, of late, Marvel Bar.
What past style trend did you embrace that you wish you could take back?
For a long time I worked for a store that made its name in brightly patterned dress shirts with big collars. Some of it got pretty silly looking, but I still have all of them hidden away in a box. They’ll be cool again, someday. A few of my friends would probably point out that in college I went through a phase of holding my long-ish hair back with a tortoiseshell headband. I think I was trying to look like David Beckham, but it really just made everyone think I was weird. I still think it was cool and I wont apologize for it.
Who are your favorite designers/lines?
Obviously, I have to point out that most of the brands at martinpatrick3 are things that I really like (otherwise Greg and I wouldn’t bother with them), but especially Shipley & Halmos, Spurr and a brand that we’re starting with for spring called Folk. Shipley & Halmos actually ends up being pretty hard for us, because we do an altogether poor job of editing down our initial selections. Among the brands we don’t carry, I’m always interested in sort of preppy things like Band of Outsiders, Maison Kitsune, and Ralph Lauren. I also really appreciate brands that make muted, handsome versions of items that are almost boring like Margaret Howell, Filippa K, Reiss, Jil Sander and even though I absolutely cannot afford it, Brunello Cucinelli.
What man or woman do you consider a style icon? Why?
I’m not going to touch the women’s side because it will just come down to girls that I think are pretty and I’ll get sidetracked. For men, I don’t really think in terms of icons. If we’re talking men whose style I admire, then there are more than I can possibly come up with offhand. A few might be Jean Paul Belemondo, David Hockney, Brian Ferry and Clark Gable (I know every blog ever has listed all of those guys, but I’m not diligent enough to come up with something new). In particular I think Marcello Mastroenni looks incredibly smart and so cool and confident in every photo or movie I’ve seen with him. Also, I know it’s a bit cliché, but I just found a bunch post WWII photos of my dad’s dad and he looks fantastic in all of them. He was a marine so there are a lot of him just wearing a white shirt with some cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve with some disheveled un-marine hair. I’ve started cutting my hair differently so I can look more like him.
What is the man's equivalent of a little black dress?
See item two, bullet point three. I’m not kidding about the getting into and out of trouble part. There was an occasion where I was caught doing something that might generally get a person arrested, but was wearing some iteration that outfit. The attending officer let me go and said “You really don’t look like you’ll be worth all the effort.”
