oh! oh! oh! today i woke up in a complete christmas mood! it is very cold (maybe not that cold for some american/european/canadian friends), but on this day working from home feels like heaven on earth. and how was your weekend? mine was so cozy, organizing everything for the new year’s eve travel with friends, making a photo session with my nephew + a baby friend… and receiving birthday + x-mas gifts! yay! i love receiving presents!
well… but let’s keep going to our main topic of today’s edition: blogs. i have been planning this for a while and today i have the honour to share with you the first edition about a portuguese blog. now, this will sound extremely familiar to you, because the idea of the blog is not original, however the feeling and what lead to it… is indeed genuine, and that we can not fake it.
{o rossio em tons quentes via the lisbon tailor}
his name is josé & he is already a reference in portugal (though he might come in here and say that he is not)… because as you may have noticed by the previous image, he looks for style on the streets. inspired by {the sartorialist}, {the lisbon tailor} was created by this young man that wanders in lisbon & other european cities, and every time his eyes catcth something stylish… well, he can not resist. but that is not the main reason for being a reference. really. the main reason may be his exquisite eye for difference, genuine taste… natural mood… and flavour. because when we see someone that is really well-dressed and whose image is appealing for details & colours… there is a certain flavour in the whole image. let us meet this young man… the first one on {…a place for twiggs}.
{mais do que aqui via the lisbon tailor}
hello mr lisbon tailor… how are you? can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
hello. i am not sure if there is much to say. the first thing people usually ask me is my name, age and occupation. my name is josé cabral, i’m thirty and i work in a bank.
when did you start this “journey”? and when did it stop feeling weird to ask people to take their picture?
i started blogging in january 2009 (i was feeling the need of developing some kind of project on my own) but probably it took almost one year for to feel completely comfortable in approaching people on the street. just to give you an example… i had no significant photography experience, so that was probably the time i needed to feel entirely comfortable in approaching some stranger to take his/her picture. now i know, when i walk towards you, that you’re going to like the photos i am about to take. that state of mind is absolutely important when you start contacting people you don’t really know. besides that, the blog was growing, i was feeling each day happier with it and obviously, if the feedback is positive, the more confident you feel and proud about what you’re doing.
{uma rapariga milanesa em brera via the lisbon tailor}
coco chanel once said “fashion is not dresses only. fashion is in the sky, in the street. fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” are you a fashionable man?
i don’t see myself as a fashionist. at least in the sense of the expression i’m familiarized with. {the lisbon tailor} is much more than a website about fashion. it is a place where i express my perspective of style through the pictures of people i meet on the streets. nevertheless, i definitely feel more into the attitude towards fashion that you just described. i simply believe that fashion concerns more than just what people wear or not. fashion is also a social fact, a way of expressing ourselves, and necessarily, something that is part of our daily social life.
audrey hepburn said once “i believe in pink”… in what do you believe?
she also said “i believe in kissing, kissing a lot”! but seriously, she also said “i believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong”. you know, i work in the countryside and everyday i need to travel back to lisbon and i still think that it is a miracle that i managed to have this lisbon based blog while working outside the same city. by the way… she also said “i believe in miracles”.
{la felicitá di essere maria via the lisbon tailor}
where do you seek for inspiration?
i don’t actually seek for it… i just find it in the people that i shoot.
if you had to choose… your biggest challenge was…?
since the beginning of {the lisbon tailor} i have some personal goals that i am happy to say i managed to achieve. but no one would believed i would. so currently i have set additional and more ambitious challenges but as i did before, i prefer to keep those to me… than being called a fool!
i have a secret. i will meet your best friend in a while. what will he/she say about you?
i suppose that the defintion of best friend would mean that he/she would not have any chance of giving you but the best description of me!
{cesare & cuca via the lisbon tailor}
so this was the very first male guest in {…a place for twiggs}, but now… well, let me introduce mr josé to you.
{o capote alentejano via the lisbon tailor}
for those interested in sneak-peeking more about european street style you can hop in {here} & {here}… and also {here}… for those portuguese friends, you can even watch an {interview}. thank you josé for this interview, and it was an honour for me to have you as the first male guest! happy holidays & keep up the excellent work (though i question myself, why on earth was i not captured yet! just for a little sense of humour!)
and this was it, sweet friends! are you counting down for x-mas? only 4 days to go…
twiggs
Branco com Prata says
Hi,
I’m a portuguese living abroad and it´s very nice to find a portuguese blog being invited by a foreigner blog that I love, yours!
I already knew the “O Alfaiate de Lisboa” blog and it’s just inspiring.
Congratulations on your blog, it’s just full of levely things that keep calling me everyday. :)
Vanessa says
Hey Twiggs!
I’m so glad you’ve decided to feature the Lisbon Tailor in your blog. I visit his blog everyday. He really has an accute sense of style and his writing skills are excellent too!