The Heavy Pets get Fashionably Rocked

Mar 18, 2011 - by Jessica Lapidos

FashionIndie's styling adventure with The Heavy Pets, an explosive rock-funk-jam band, began Wednesday. They've got to look fly for their concert TONIGHT (3/18) at the Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg. Thus, lead singer and guitarist Jeff Lloyd came along on this sartorial journey as the band ambassador, and tried on clothes with equal parts wariness and enthusiasm. The goal was to capture the sound of The Heavy Pets through this evolving look. We ran the gamut on the levels of fashion starting on high in the Maguire Steele PR showroom, rode the fast wave biggies like Zara, and rummaged through thrift treasures at Beacon's Closet. The Pets scored some serious swag, and also hopefully learned a thing or two about the art of shopping and dressing. Check our before post to see what we're working with, and see their new clothes after the jump.

We began the fashion search at Maguire Steele, the PR company that represents Timo Weiland, a designer we thought would evoke their clean cut hippiness. We arrived to find access to not only Timo, but to the Shipley & Halmos and Billy Reid collections, and Duckie Brown shoes. What a lovely way to start the day. Jeff was surprised to find himself liking this salmon Shipley blazer and green saddle shoes by Duckie; once he put them on, he saw the magic in them. Color and fit; bright and tight. That's the vision.

Jeff Lloyds of The Heavy Pets at Maguire Steele PR

Playing the green Timo Weiland vertically striped cardigan against the horizontally striped Billy Reid shirt made for optical illusionism - perfect for on-stage psychedelia. We tried with two Shipley & Halmos ties, one a conglomeration of pin thin geometric shapes, the other made of a mustard velvet (which totally called for heavy petting). We're taking all of it along.

Jeff Lloyds of The Heavy Pets

Jeff Lloyds The Heavy Pets

In the looks above, note the Shipley and Halmos pants: crisp, paper thin, glowing blue. Jeff really dug the look and feel of them. This sparked our next stop - Zara. Known in the masculine for modestly priced, modernly cut suits, I thought he might find a pant with a similar fit. Unfortunately, no fancy pants there captured our attention quite like Shipleys; the drawback to going from such a quality level of design down to one of the quickest of the fast fashion powerhouses (2 week turnaround from sketch to shelf!).

We did however conquer his need for new jeans. Imagine, he's never owned a pair of skinny jeans! FashionIndie's first instinct was mustard, for its ability to bring a bright spice to the stage. The look on his face when Mustard Slim Cut Jeans were suggested was dubious to say the least. We insisted he give it a try. In the fitting room, dubious shifted to contemplation, and very quickly to impressed contentment. Sold! To the man in yellow. He liked the fit so much, he got them in heather black as well. (TIP - Gentlemen, go to Zara right now... they're only $39!)

We perused the rest of rushed retail row on Broadway from Broome to Bleecker from Urban Outfitters to Uniqlo, but nothing was jumping out at us. Man, were we spoiled by the gorgeous goods at Maguire Steele. Plus, mass market seems no place to find pieces to encapsulate the unique Heavy Pets sound. Time to switch things up,take it down real low, down all the way to Brooklyn's poppin' top vintage haunt, Beacon's Closet.

Our instructions for The Pet: grab anything that strikes you. With that we end up with armfuls psychedelic patterns, bronze grommets, cowboy flair and a polyester disaster that shall remain on the hanger.

We pruned the options, ready to take eight new/old shirts in their varying sizes back to the rest of The Heavy Pets. The first piece on the rack? Pierre Cardin, $18.95. He looked at it skeptically, FashionIndie looked at it delightedly on him; we managed to convince acception with the tidbit that Pierre Cardin did introduce The Beatles to the Nehru jacket. Done and done.

The full styling goes down around 6:00 p.m. this evening when they are done with the soundcheck. As they are musicians, and this is fashion, that time is of course a rough estimation. But when it happens, we'll be live tweeting @FashionIndie & @JessicaLapidos.

Come to The Brooklyn Bowl tonight to see The Heavy Pets perform in their new digs. See you there!

comments powered by Disqus