September 2024Doing It With Style!
This is the month we share our style issue. It’s when we celebrate those that help guide us to find our own personal style, whether they be designers, makers, or influencers. They may be someone that opened our eyes as to how things could really look, or it could be someone with an expert opinion that says “Do not wear that…ever again!”. We are all at different stages of our own style journey and sometimes we even take a step back in the wrong direction so it is worth knowing the right people that can either help us take the next step or get us back on track. I think a great place to both start and take your style game to the next level is with Gus Pagès, owner of Berez Private Tailor, who also happens to be the best custom tailor in New Jersey. Simply put, he will elevate how people look at you and how you feel about yourself. Take a look at his story where he even manages to make me look good; so you know he must be impressive. Thanks Gus!
We also introduced you to Carlos De Leon of De Leon Jewelry Studio—or as I have come to think of him…the “Jewelry Designer To Our Hearts”. Carlos can blow you away with the everyday jewelry you’re looking for but where he really shines is in designing the piece for you that carries meaning. He listens to your words, and also to your emotions. Whether you need something new for the big moments in your life or you want to repurpose something from someone special in the past, you’ll be happy we introduced him to you.
I meet a lot of influencers in this role, some big, some small, but most of them are one-trick-ponies so that’s why we included Alessandra Liu in our cover article. She is a teen mega-influencer who understands the benefit of versatility. She is flown all over the world for photoshoots and videos for various clothing and products. She is the youngest Hollywood Executive Producer in history, is an actress, has her own perfume, and even has her own magazine (no, it’s not Wayne Lifestyle).
You and I both have a style, even if yours looks a little better than mine. No matter what, wear it confidently…you look good!
PHILLIP BARONE, PUBLISHER @WAYNELIFESTYLEMAG
September 2024
PUBLISHER
Phillip Barone | phillip.barone@citylifestyle.com
EDITOR
Don Seaman | don.seaman@citylifestyle.com
INTERN
Zach Gilbert | wayne@citylifestyle.com
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
Officially Social | Alison@officiallysocial.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Don Seaman, Gus Pagès, Alessandra Guarneri, Cate Marian
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
John Agnello, Morgan Taylor Marketing
Corporate Team
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Steven Schowengerdt
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Matthew Perry
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HR Janeane Thompson
AD DESIGNER Andrew Sapad
LAYOUT DESIGNER Kelsi Southard
Interventional
Varicose
Electrophysiology
Peripheral
Echocardiograms
Stress
Vascular
Carotid
Heart
ARTICLE BY DON SEAMAN | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN AGNELLO
GEN-Z TAKES CELEBRITY STYLE BY STORM
INFLUENCING THE WORLD
To many of us, there may be no more amorphous aspiration as being an Influencer. In our Age of Social Media and ever-present smartphones, it’s
But now a third wave of Influencers has taken form. Call it Influencer 2.0: people who have cultivated a brand of image and partnerships with well-
ALESSANDRA…THE YOUNGEST HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE PRODUCER IN HISTORY
become a far more common career goal for many digital natives, particularly if you’re Gen Z (people born after around 1997). In fact, according to recent research, more than half of Gen Z believes that they can realistically make it a career.
Thanks to Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and a plethora of other social media outlets, the path to celebrity has never been more accessible to the masses. To put it in perspective, longtime celebrity pillar People magazine has an average monthly circulation of around 82 million readers. Influencer MrBeast has 219 million YouTube subscribers. If you haven’t heard of MrBeast, ask your kids. They’ll know.
Initially, being an Influencer was simply being a celebrity who was active on social media – the Kardashians, Jenners, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, actress Selena Gomez are some headliners here –then it became the milieu of bloggers and experts who developed a following from niches like fashion, makeup, travel, investing, etc. Knowledge became power.
known companies to launch themselves into an online stratosphere of fame.
Take Alessandra Liu for example. Alessandra, now in her late teens, has become an Influencer powerhouse with almost 1.5 million Instagram followers. She began her journey only a few years ago when she set up an Instagram account and started tagging brands during shopping trips with her mother. That’s when corporations took notice and started reaching out to her.
To give a sense of how far she’s come in such a short time, Alessandra just returned from a multi-week trip to Dubai where she was doing fashion shoots with internationally awarded photographer Nasir Majeed.
Working mainly with boutique brands, companies have offered her collaborations for her postings. Online retailers such as Shein and Temu have sent her products to spotlight. A sink company even sent them a high-end sink for their home just to make a video. Now, she’s looking past the New York Fashion Week scene that she’s enjoyed and pivoting towards national brands – and beyond.
She’s now been on Times Square billboards, magazine covers, worked as a model, and even is listed on the “Famous Birthdays” website. She’s set to head to California soon to shoot a music video.
Alessandra is currently the youngest Hollywood Executive Producer in history, listed on IMDb for an independent film she produced in 2022 called Grace that received multiple awards at several film festivals, and has acted in another short film called Endless Summer She's also appeared in 7 television commercials for national brands and filmed 2 pilots for both Comedy Central and Viacom. She’s now focused on Hollywood as a continued step, acting, producing, leveling up. Exponentially.
According to her management team (yes, she has one), an Influencer’s rise on Instagram is fueled by an algorithm that feeds content to an audience that might be interested. If you’ve ever Googled “Canon” and suddenly find your social feeds rife with camera ads, that’s how it works.
However, online science can only do so much. Without staying true to your brand and a constant stream of likable posts, there will be no organic growth. Without that, an Influencer has no influence.
A video of her simply walking down a sidewalk during her trip to Dubai garnered 59,000 views in just 8 hours.
A THIRD WAVE OF INFLUENCERS HAS TAKEN FORM
“I’m posting all the time,” Alessandra explains. “Wherever my inspiration takes me, I’ll post a video. Once in a while, I might be off for a couple of days, recharging my creative batteries, then I’ll be right back at it. It only takes a few seconds to post a video and engage with my followers.”
Alessandra has come so far that a lot of building her brand is done passively. Companies, photographers, real estate moguls, and more are approaching her to collaborate. Yet the important thing to remember is that success as an Influencer in the “fame industry” isn’t simply about posting selfies. Like any other career, it takes dedication, creativity, and a clear plan to maximize your longevity.
For Alessandra Liu and many other successful Influencers, social media is just the entry point into a bold new world that will continue to evolve.
STYLE IS PERSONAL
Gus Pagès Shows Just How Much Custom Clothing Can Communicate Without A Word
ARTICLE BY DON SEAMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN AGNELLO
It takes a special sense of self-awareness and keen observational skills to be 18-years-old, working your first job in Midtown Manhattan, and noticing what personal style and dressing well can communicate to others.
Going to Italy, he thought he knew quite a bit about custom suit making. He quickly learned he'd known very little.
That was the spark that would set Gus Pagès up for the ultimate trajectory of his life.
Style, and the quiet confidence it brings, communicates a level of respect. It’s said that the first thing that’s noticed about someone is their smile, when actually the first thing that you take in is how they’re dressed. It’s unconscious first impression table stakes.
“I felt I wasn’t getting the proper respect at work making deliveries for a catering company. I started researching personal appearance, how you present yourself and why that ultimately affects how people feel about you,” Gus acknowledges. “I realized that there were people my age being treated with the respect I sought, noticing that the common thread was they wore well-tailored suits, looking very sure of themselves and what they were doing. That’s when
I recognized that they looked this way without verbally communicating that.”
Gus admits that led him down a rabbit hole of research. It began with buying better clothing, in a quest to understand the nuances of a proper fit. He’d study things his old-school tailor did and determined that was looking for a custom suit for his individual body.
He couldn’t afford that. So he did what nobody else would. He pretended to have a business to order samples from manufacturers and did it himself. “I was already too snobby to think anyone would execute it the way I wanted it,” he says with a laugh.
He began to make himself some custom suits. Then others would ask him to do the same for them. Along the way, he transitioned into Property Management, where he could wear a suit and not feel out of place in a catering company.
Yet that was not his place. His passion had become fashion, so to speak. He immersed himself into learning all he could about creating custom clothes, including moving his family to Milan to study the wealth of fabric manufacturers, designers, and tailors directly from the source.
He returned to the US renewed, enlightened, and ready.
It led to opening Berez Private Tailor. In his loft space in Montclair (although you’d swear you’re in Soho), Gus begins with a one-on-one meeting. “Clothing is deeply connected to self-esteem. How you’re treated here is important. In other places, it’s very transactional, simply selling clothing. My first consultation starts with asking what they’re trying to communicate. I’ll ask for three descriptors you’d like someone to use when talking about you. Are you serious? Calm? Respectful? Tell great stories? I want to know what they’re trying to achieve. This all goes into my personal algorithm of design. Then we move onto practical things like fabrics, environment, that sort of thing. My main goal is to make you feel great in what you’re wearing.”
Gus’ aim is for you to wear his clothes a lot. “My favorite pieces are workhorses,” he says. Something that you’re going to feel great when you wear it, not just set aside for special occasions. “A well-made, well-fit suit should be as comfortable as sweats.”
“One of my passions is how different pieces can work together in a very fluid way, because despite my love for clothing, I don’t like getting dressed. For me, the ideal time to get dressed is like 5 minutes. Super simple. You can do that with great clothing that fits you well.”
“Every single person that comes in says the same thing. ‘I have a weird body.’ Yup. We all do. We’re all individuals. Off the rack is average –nobody is average for everything.”
What makes a custom suit different? For starters, off-the-rack suits are “fused garments,” meaning they have glue layered between the fabric that holds them together. What does glue not do? Glue doesn’t allow the fabric to breathe. Eventually, glue breaks down, causing it to bubble and wave. A custom suit is stitched together, creating a garment that will last, possibly for generations.
I spent about an hour talking with Gus about his process. I learned more in that hour than I ever knew about clothes. The details are endless, and this is a man who’s painstakingly learned what – and why – things are done to make clothing better. When we met, he was
wearing a simple black t-shirt with a pair of brown suit trousers – an effortlessly stylish Millennial who took five minutes to get dressed that morning. But eminently well put-together. And yes, it communicated exactly what he was trying to say. Style is a silent communicator. For Gus, you might think that what he does is a labor of love. It’s much more than that. It’s a labor of respect.
For more about having custom clothing made by someone who knows just what it can do for your self-esteem and confidence, see their website at Berez.us. Find their shop at 5 S. Willow Street, Montclair or call (973) 620-8775.
Gus even managed to make our own publisher look good.
MAKING STYLE SPARKLE
For Custom Jewelry That’s Individual As You Are, Carlos De Leon Is Your Singular Craftsman To Let Your Elegance Shine
ARTICLE BY ALESSANDRA GUARNERI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN TAYLOR MARKETING
It’s no secret that accessories are integral for fashion and styleespecially jewelry. But when the latest fads take over, it’s easy to get bored dressing up a new look with the same bracelet or necklace everyone else seems to be wearing. Carlos De León, a local jeweler, recognized that feeling a long time ago, realizing it was time to get creative.
De León has created countless custom jewelry pieces that commemorate the unforgettable memories of thousands of people since he started his business, De León Jewelry Studio, back in 2012. His talents have led him to work with clients all over the world, as far as Africa and Hong Kong, and now, he’s ready to create a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry for you, unlike anything you’ve seen before.
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE BUSINESS?
I worked at a small pawn shop in Boston for eight years before it shut down and I had to figure out my next move. I was always interested in jewelry, so I moved to New York because I realized I wanted to study diamonds and gemstones. After attending the Gemological Institute of America, I worked with major corporations and then jewelry manufacturers doing product development, design, and merchandising. That launched my career.
WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN CUSTOM DESIGN?
My brother asked me for help creating an engagement ring 25 years ago. After that, people started asking me for favors. They wanted to get their own special jewelry piece made to remember or commemorate something special. It became a side business for me that kept growing organically.
WHAT ARE THE FIRST STEPS OF CREATING A CUSTOM PIECE?
I don’t have a jewelry store. I meet all my clients privately on a one-on-one basis and walk through a really unique process. Everything is made from scratch, so we go over everything from ideas to budget. I share my experience and knowledge, guiding them through the
entire process. We create pieces that are incredibly special to our clients.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
After I speak with a client and we narrow down an idea, the idea gets sent over to one of my sketch artists. The design is then 3D printed before it’s made so that the client can see a mock version of it first.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS MOST IMPORTANT WHEN CREATING A NEW PIECE?
Trust. Everyone I work with is through referral, so there’s typically some trust already established with my clients because they get referred. I partner with people who are masters at their craft and have the same level of passion as I do.
I have remade pieces for clients because I am so particular. They probably would have never noticed what I saw, but I did.
WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT HAS SURPRISED YOU ABOUT YOUR WORK?
I didn’t realize this industry was going to take me around the world and it did. I love the freedom that comes with not owning a traditional brick and mortar store. I’ve now built my own network.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT CREATING CUSTOM PIECES?
The reaction. Those give me goosebumps to this day.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A PIECE TO BE COMPLETED?
It typically takes 4-6 weeks once a design is agreed upon.
“I TREAT EVERY CLIENT AS IF I'M WORKING ON THAT FIRST ENGAGEMENT RING FOR MY BROTHER. IT HAS TO BE PERFECT.”
YOUR DRINK DRESS UP
THESE BEAUTIFUL BEVERAGES ARE SURE TO TURN HEADS
BLUE MARTINI
WITH FLORAL ICE CUBES
BOLD COLORS Fresh florals. An eye-catching shimmer. The perfect embellishment. We’re talking cocktails, not the catwalk. But like fashion, the art of mixology is full of ways to push the limits with creative twists on classic recipes, and unique adornments guaranteed to turn heads. There’s no reason your personal style can’t extend to the drink in your hand, and this botanical beverage is bound to taste as delicious as it looks.
INGREDIENTS:
• 2 ounces Absolut Citron
• 1/2 ounce Blue Curaçao
• 1/2 ounce lemonade
• 1 ounce Sprite
• Edible flowers such as rose, lavender, hibiscus and nasturtiums
DIRECTIONS:
Pour Sprite into ice cube trays and add edible flower combinations. Let freeze overnight.
Combine Absolut Citron, Blue Curaçao, lemonade and ice cubes in martini shaker. Shake and strain into a martini glass.
Allow ice cubes to melt, gradually filling the glass with Sprite and garnishing the drink with beautiful botanicals.
Gorgeous Community.
10 TIMELESS tips
Gus’s Advice For Eternal Style
ARTICLE BY GUS PAGÈS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN AGNELLO
1. Invest in Quality Basics:
A well-fitted white shirt, a classic navy blazer, and a pair of tailored trousers can form the foundation of a versatile and stylish wardrobe.
2. Understand Your Fit:
No matter the trend, the fit is paramount. Clothes should complement your body shape and allow for comfortable movement.
3. Choose the Right Fabric:
High-quality fabrics not only look better but also feel better and last longer. Opt for natural fibers like wool, cotton, and linen for breathability and durability.
4. Color Coordination :
Stick to a cohesive color palette that complements your complexion. Navy, grey, and earth tones are versatile and timeless choices.
5. Accessorize Thoughtfully :
Accessories can make or break an outfit. A well-chosen watch, tie, or pocket square can add a touch of personality and sophistication.
6. Maintain Your Garments:
Regularly clean and properly store your clothing to ensure it stays in great condition. Invest in wooden hangers, garment bags, and a quality steamer.
7. Understand the Occasion:
Dress appropriately for different events. A black tie event calls for a tuxedo, while a casual outing might only require a smart casual look.
8. Pay Attention to Details:
Small details like the break in your trousers, the width of your tie, and the fit of your jacket shoulders can significantly impact your overall look.
9. Build a Capsule Wardrobe:
Focus on versatile pieces that can be mixed and matched. This not only simplifies your wardrobe but ensures you’re always prepared with a stylish outfit.
10. Feel Great About Yourself:
The most important aspect of style is confidence. Wear clothes that make you feel great about yourself and reflect your personality.
LEARN MORE: Gus Pagès is the owner of Berez Custom Tailor in Montclair. Berez offers both made-to-measure and the pinnacle of fashion, bespoke service. There you can have suits, shirts, sport coats, topcoats, and formal wear made with meticulous attention to detail. Dress like it matters.
