When Rogues Gallery's Alex Carleton was tapped by Maine-clothing mainstay L.L. Bean to design a more fashion-forward line called L.L. Bean Signature, you could almost hear the collective nerdgasm amongst longtime followers of the brand and the Internet fashion-dork community, as well as all the hipsters who recently got turned onto Frank Muytjen's successful rebranding of J. Crew.
The truth is -- while Alex Carleton did some amazing things with Rogues Gallery -- when I think of L.L. Bean I'm reminded of folks like this:
Ouch... and I thought New Ravers brought tears to my eyes. Needless to say, after seeing some interesting preview shots and following the sporadic teaser items on the website, I decided the collection was something I definitely needed to see up close. Thankfully, the L.L. Bean store in Tyson's Corner started carrying the line this weekend, and I was able to try on some of the pieces myself. Well... that didn't end up with any new purchases. Read the rest of this entry »




Peter in the middle. Not pictured: Bjorn & John

