Frank Muytjens Loved My Glasses

It’s been a long while since I’ve been to a fashion event in San Francisco. After work, I opt to rush home to watch American Idol instead of rubbing elbows and socializing with the city’s swank sector. But when I got invited to a special J. Crew event where head menswear designer Frank Muytjens was making an appearance, I thought I could take a break from the Idol results show to meet the man who was featured in GQ as one of the year’s Best Menswear Designers.

As I stand there mingling with the FabSugar.com gals and trying to find the dude with a tray of shrimp appetizer thingies, Muytjens gets introduced to us. He’s quite tall and his salt-and-pepper hair is perfectly coiffed and he dons a button down, a smartly tattered neck scarf, dark denim and a J. Crew Ludlow suit jacket (of course). As he makes his way down shaking hands with us, his excited eyes peer through some snazzy specs and he gets to me and he says, in his Holland-tinged voice, “I really like your glasses – they are like old Ray-Bans.”

Me (I’m the shortest one in the pic with a shaved head) with the FabSugar.com folks and Mr. Muytjens (center) Photo credit: Wireimage

When a successful designer (or any celebrity – Estelle loved my combat boots at SXSW – more on that later) compliments an item that I am wearing, it inflates my ego just a tiny bit. Okay – not a tiny bit – a humongous bit.

I tell Mr. Muytjens (I still cannot pronounce his last name correctly) that I honestly haven’t shopped in J. Crew in forever but I did step into one a couple weeks ago and purchased a regular all-purpose cotton long sleeve t-shirt – and the fit was different. It fit me very well. I remember J. Crew being boxy. I admitted all of this to Frank and he schooled me on the changes being made.

“Our challenge was to clean everything up a little bit,” he says. “A couple of years ago, things were a little boxy. We wanted to make things a little narrow. We wanted to achieve a tailored look- but not too
tailored. We still wanted to make it universal.”

The men’s collection at J. Crew has seen a little makeover. What was once classic preppy with critters crawling on Ivy League ties now has turned into a modern American look that was rugged and industrial.

Todd Barket (from left) and Carl Chiara of the SF menswear boutique, Union Made Goods with Muytjens. Photo credit: Wireimage

Muytjens says he wanted to give J. Crew a more hip and edgier sensibility. He has turned to magazines, modern design, architecture and even different movies to influence this new look of J. Crew that still maintains the classic charm of the label.

“I like (the movie) Blow Up from the ‘60s and I love Bullitt with Steve McQueen,” he says. “There’s also Novecento by (Bernardo) Bertolucci – which is my all-time favorite movie.”

Now who doesn’t want to look as cool as Steve McQueen?