My Prized Possession

Abdul Abasi
Co-owner, Nepenthes NY

Abdul's prized possession:
Maison Martin Margiela Line 22 Shoes

"Several years ago while on summer vacation in Paris, I stopped by the Maison Martin Margiela boutique and discovered the most interesting pair of dress shoes I'd ever seen. They were from Margiela's Line 22 and I loved their punk sensibility: a black patent leather upper liberally sprayed with an iridescent bronze treatment and laced with thin purple ribbons. I was hooked—until I saw the price tag, which was not college-student friendly. So regretfully, I settled on a German army version of the same shoe; it was beautiful, but not the one I'd fallen in love with. A few months later, a friend spotted the shoes at an NYC designer consignment store—and selling for considerably less. As soon as he told me, I was there trying them on. Amazingly, they fit perfectly. I bought them and subsisted on pasta and PB and J for a few weeks. To this day, the fascination and beauty of the shoe hasn't waned."

Siki Im
Designer, Siki Im

Im's prized possession:
German train conductor pants

"I bought these conductor pants in a vintage store in Cologne, Germany when I was 16. I love their fit and the details on them. They have a button fly, which is the only kind I wear, and they're baggy—back in the day, I used to skate in them because I wasn't into skate clothing. I was very careful to make sure they didn't get too much wear."

Richard Haines
Illustrator, What I Saw Today

Haines's prized possession: Church's suede wingtips

"These chocolate suede wingtips are from Church's. They're the color of powdered truffles, only these last much longer—31 years, to be exact. They were a gift from the first Perry Ellis men's show I worked on as a designer. Today, they give me the same jolt of sexiness and style as they did back then—A testament to their quality and good design."

Mordechai Rubinstein
Photographer, Mister Mort
Rubinstein's prized possession: Banana Republic brown fedora

"As Chassidim, we start wearing a fedora (usually in black) three months before our bar mitzvah at age 13. The winter before my bar mitzvah, I was at South Street Seaport with a friend and we happened into Banana Republic. This hat was on sale there for $19.99 or $29.99 and, while it wasn't black, it was really talking to me. I knew I'd get in trouble if I wore it to Yeshiva, but I had to have it and it fit my tiny head perfectly. I'll never forget wearing it outside while my buddy (also around 12) chomped on a cigar. Who were we kidding, trying to act all grown-up? Thanks, Banana and Nat Sherman, for the moment."

Robert Geller
Designer, Robert Geller 
Geller's prized possession: Creative Growth for Everyone T-shirt

"It must have been three or four years ago when Stella Ishii, the founder of the News  fashion showrooms in NYC told me about this project she was working on, called Creative Growth for Everyone. It's a line that features screen-printed images from artists from the Creative Growth Art Center, a non-profit for adult artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities. I was really blown away by how cool the designs were. For the lookbook shoot, she asked a couple of designers to wear them and she gave me the one that I wore. That was the first time I wore it, and there haven't been many days since when I've taken it off. This T-shirt wouldn't be my oldest friend, but it's definitely my closest. Over the years, it has become super-thin, and the color is fading into these great sepia tones that you can only get from a lot of wear and sunlight. It's just the right kind of oversized, and it's so light it feels like wearing nothing at all. Back in April 2009, when I opened my first pop-up store on the Lower East Side, I managed to get a white paint all over it during the build-out. At first, I was a little bummed, and then I just turned it inside out and kept wearing it every day. You can still see traces of the paint, but it's always a reminder of that time—my first Robert Geller retail experience—which was really exciting for me."

Jared Flint
Art Director, Park & Bond
Flint's prized possession:
Astros Nolan Ryan T-shirt

"I have no idea why I still have this shirt. It's about 15 or 16 years old, and it's huge. Like, XXXL huge. It's from a summer baseball league I played in toward the end of high school in California. It's survived dozens of moves through Indiana, Hawaii, Kansas, and even Brooklyn. I never wear it. Never. But I never throw it out—it always makes the cut. Anyone with a Manhattan-sized closet realizes the premium on space, yet I've always employed a resigned reticence to toss this one in the trash (and there's no way I would bequeath this Astros muumuu to anyone.) So, while prized Dunks and the Hundreds shirts were long ago picked up by the local Salvation Army, this piece of shit stays around. I've got two theories as to why it's survived:

1) It's my Rosebud. A reminder of carefree days in California, tossing baseballs around and getting Slurpee's, with nothing to worry about except how to score some beer for the weekend and other clichéd scenes from Dazed and Confused.
2) After somehow making the first couple of moves out of my parent's house, I've developed an unconscious and begrudging respect for this behemoth of cotton. It's the Bird to my Magic, if you will. I'd like to think the real answer lies somewhere in the middle."

Christopher Bastin
Creative Director, Gant Rugger
Bastin's prized possession:
Gant Rugger for ACL & Co. handloom madras shirt

"This madras shirt is from a collaboration I did with Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean. I'd been reading A Continuous Lean since the beginning, and immediately knew Michael Williams was 'one of those dudes'—he had me at 'Americana,' so to speak. I was a rookie in the New York scene when I first met him, and when he asked if I wanted to do a collaboration, it was the first sign to me that we were on to something good with Rugger. It's a very special project to me. I had this vintage Gant shirt in the archives that I knew would be perfect in madras. Till this day, it's one of the nicest madras checks we've done. I've worn the crap out of it, but I stashed away two of the prototypes in my closet, so I'm good for another ten years. It also keeps me from becoming too chubby—huge bonus."