Brand spotlight: Drake's - Topic of the day 11/7/23
Today's spotlight topic is all about Drake's London. Sweetheart of the ivy aesthetic. What are your thoughts? Would you let Michael Hill father your children? Is the ivy style just for dorks with trust funds? Discuss anythind and anything Drake's here.
96 Replies
Wired: Drake's lookbooks
Tired: the price š
The transitional lookbook is my GOAT š
Cool brand but too pricey
I really like their stuff and how they style it but the brand premium just doesn't make sense for me. Even the used prices are high lol (which is a testament to the brand's popularity)
You can find their shirts and ties for good prices from time to time on drop93. Overall, I really appreciate that the brand is helping keep classic menswear alive and fresh
Also a great way to know what's going to show up at Spier and Mackay
Store in London is great. The staff were off the charts nice and easy to deal with.
Someday Iād like to afford it but rn itās great inspo
The ongoing thread: https://discord.com/channels/1116793467654381685/1137776363982569584
There are some items that are much harder to duplicate like their point collar oxfords, many of the accessories. I've found the most difficult thing to replicate is the colors for some knitwear.
The Drake's premium is absolutely insane but I do think they have a lot of really cool little details on some pieces that just aren't replicated elsewhere
I like the way they always flip their coat collars up and tie a tie around it. The only thing Iāll be able to take away from Drakeās :ā)
Their editorial is so fun to read too. Dispatches from another planet where you can attend dinners in rural France and know an obscene amount about wine.
You can't replicate it at a custom shirt place tho?
Most of the common MTM shirt brands don't really have a point collar pattern afaik. I haven't looked that earnestly tho
I mean I got what I think is a Drake's level shirt for $200 made on site in NYC. It seemed like the maker was able to do anything (he decided to add to the roll for example while I was there after I tried on the shirt). I feel like Drake's shirts are a good deal during the archive sale/on drop93
I love the drake's stuff I've thrifted. Their branding and lookbooks are killer. Don't LOVE the content of the prints on some of their scarves etc but idk if i'm just misreading it as/too sensitive to the weird british colonial aesthetic. I really appreciate @ll.beansandriceš« 's recs on how to approximate the style! that being said when you're in the store it really feels like they have sth special going on (but it might just be the marketing again lol)
Yeah the Drake's appeal is like 80% marketing but they're really good at it
Yeah being able to go to a custom maker at the $200 price point in person isn't exactly something that's widely available. Proper Cloth only has one option for a point collar and it's only 2 3/4" long. The Drake's ones are like +3.5" points (no button down)
Yah I'm lucky, he may have also gave me a bit of a better price because I'm young
I'd love to know how to replicate the games suiting for cheaper elsewhere.
But I would research as much as possible, I think there are custom shirtmakers in Cali too like him
I do think Drake's actually does something quite special! It's just a little hard to justify it at a ~$300/shirt price point lol
even if you can hack luxire or w/e to do it, it requires you to know why the garment looks the way it does. Otherwise if you're showing someone something to copy you're probably already in a high price range
I've tried hacking luxire in the past and definitely spent more money trying to get items right than I would have if I just bought the item outright
I got a well fitting ocbd on shirt #3 with luxire.
Has anyone gone to the Drake's sample sales? I know the pricing is much better than the online archive sales
the materials are good enough for an every day shirt, 80 bucks now I get a š fitting shirt for my weird body.
Iām super into bending/breaking trad menswear rules in my outfits rn so drakeās styling has been my go to resource for inspo. Love what theyāve been doing with the ocbd-under-rugby looks and all the different ways they style ties
I think you can get really far with a lot of the common recs around here like vintage PRL, BB, etc. That's what Drake's tends to draw on and then they "spice" it up with the moc chukkas and tie and scarf prints and other accessories in ways you don't see as much.
The toughest thing to figure out is the cuts and how they all work together. My general approach is higher waisted stuff, wide pants with a slight taper, patch pocket sportcoats with soft shoulders in hefty fabrics like tweeds and thick cotton.
oh also either wear a tie or pop at least one collar
are the trousers really a high rise? a common complaint I see is that the rise is only 10 inches or so. I've never had the guts to ask to try a pair on so idk if maybe that's just not including the waistband
I tried the light wash jeans, uni stripe OCBD, rep tie with loafers and a chore coat and immediately took it off cause it felt like an outfit you could only wear to work in a menswear store
I think the way they're styled a 10" rise doesn't look like a 10" rise
I am also a coward who defaults to very plain styling
yeah i was gonna say, work up to it! sounds like a cute fit to me
Yeah I have a pair of their dress trousers and they feel higher rise than 10"
How do the ties differ from more inexpensive ones? I wanna go feel one cause it's always cool comparing fabrics
this thread really is the usual suspects for ivy
hand rolled and untipped, some cool offbeat stuff like weird twill direction. nothing noticeable to someone who isn't a huge nerd (im a huge nerd) they're too long for me too (5'6" w a really short torso) so I have to tie them weird anyway, probably ruins the effect.
These jeans for example. Probably a like ~10" rise but the way they fit on the model (dunno who that is) and how they work with the pockets on the work shirt creates a much higher waist line than one might expect from a 10" rise
I tried something like this awhile ago
With my dumb ass gucci tie
Literally how I wish I could dress most days
Definitely felt costumey at the time but I think Iām deep enough now that it wouldnāt feel so weird anymore
drake's really do be one of those brands making me wish i had an unlimited budget though
A tie is always such a choice to normies
All the shade at the pricing I feel like a chump buying the cord suit retail. 
beans please tell me you did not just say normies unironically
The pipeline is really Enjoy Drake's -> hate how expensive it is -> try to repliate for cheaper -> become a tailoring nerd -> spend similar amounts of time and $$$ anyway
-> buy drakes anyway
I'm a millenial what can I say
boomer mentality in the works
see I think drake's can definitely be replicated for much cheaper but I'm also not in too deep yet
Oh it definitely can. The tailoring is the most expensive part. So if you want a nice tweed game jacket you can easily spend what Drake's is charging or spend a roughly equivalent amount of effort finding the perfect vintange one on ebay
The drakes for cheaper is like the ALD for cheap fallacy
You can replicate drakes for cheaper by buying ald which you can replicate for cheaper by buying abercrombie
It all trickles down
Itās really easy to be like oh this is just J crew and vintage PRL and etc etc etc but then you start looking and nothing hits exactly the way it should
You think it can be replicated but then you stare at the lookbooks long enough and convince yourself that an unstructured blazer NEEDS to have double darts and flap patch pockets and then you just cave and buy a games blazer
But yeah in a lot of ways itās like buying store brand cola instead of coke
I just want a donegal sportjacket in a classic cut so I don't really need to be replicating any Drake's game jackets anyway š
Couple years and 200 in TK maxx got me a "we have drakes at home" level tweed games jacket
agreed, this is why I think Drake's is in fact special and the price-point isn't 100% brand mark-up like many folks think
but ALD is like, fashion-forward to a weirdo like me. drake's is just tailoring. do @ me
SEVERAL PEOPLE ARE TYPING LMAO
The games suits are theoretically a sack suit in cool fabrics which you think would be everywhere but is only in niche vintage stores
That's a good point tho they do have a number of unique items that would be at least hard to find elsewhere
ALD is just Drake's but if it was run by people who skateboard instead of Mark Cho
Not really fashion-"forward" imo
A take so dumb I donāt know what the point was, congrats
ALD is george costanza and Drakes is don draper
thank you chuck
The cut is also really unique and sets them apart. But yeah this is obsessing with those details
we love controversial takes about things we don't understand
I love that we canāt talk about any brand without eventually pivoting back to ald lmao
waiting for the 
to ALD arc
to ALD arcALD unironically altered the course of drakes
Thereās that inspo album from before they started doing the collabs and itās all just cool Ivy stuff
Rick is just ald for ugly people
Would love a deep-dive on this
Itās just hard to separate the two when theyāre collabing and influencing each other
Nah ALD is for people who never skateboarded but played a lot of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
Did they have to be good at thps2 or just play?
This boy does not hoop
This editorial is not happening without the collabs
This boy does not hoop
You look much better not hooping than the other guy lmao
this boy does not paint
this boy does not do maritime activities
this boy does not gnome
this boy does not change tires
i think Luxire does actually!
Luxire have a point collar, if it's one you'd want is another question
Drake's lookbooks are well covered here. I love how many people style the pieces from the brand outside of the lookbook. Yungchomsky does drakes casual suiting so well for example.
My hot take on drakes is that the only reason it's polarizing in any way that there are so many (fellow) dorks who end up obsessing over the most inane parts of the brand, and that group of people is offputting. See: The styleforum thread, or the "drakes makers" thread on SF.
Styleforum
The Official Drakes knock-off thread - look-alikes and the producer...
Hello - it's no secret that the economy is in the toilet and the Drakes brand has become very expensive. For people who enjoy the Drakes aesthetic but can't always stomach Drakes prices, use this thread to share look-alike products or the manufacturers of Drakes products (who charge less)...
This threads cool for places to get similar drakes stuff: warning colors and absolutely none of the best stuff (raglan coats, unique scarfs, sweater colors, fleeces, chore coats) will be there
Also love how the brand has evolved -- when I got into fashion they were the go-to for ties and pocket squares that were like hermes but not hermes. Clothes weren't really a thing for ages that I can remember
Awesome to see them become something full-fledged
Weren't they originally family owned but then bought by someone in the industry at some point in the 2000s?
That may be the catalyst for the shift
No, market forces are much stronger than any change in ownership in this space imo.
The best deal I've ever found was a pair of Drake's single pleated trousers, which I think retail for like $700 CAD (500 US). During the brief ~20 month period that western Canada had a single Nordstrom Rack I'd check it occasionally and found them sitting in a corner of the miniscule menswear section listed at $70. Brought them to the counter and paid all of $30 for them.
They are my least worn pair of pants.
Harley is the š for colored knitwear. Jamieson is second but Harleyās color variation is unmatched
Iāve been meaning to send my drakes ocbd and long point oxford to luxire for replication Iām just terrified itāll get lost in the mail
I love Harley's lookbook