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Up until a year ago, designer Michael Bastian’s morning routine felt wasn’t nearly as on-point as his work: "It was a disaster, I would wake up late, hop out of bed and grab a cigarette, then go online. It really started to catch up with me." The master collaborator has since quit smoking and overhauled his am hours—he now wakes up at 7:30 to meet with an Equinox trainer ("I go to the Greenwich Ave. location which is kind of surreal—you’ll see Will Ferrell on a bike in the corner, Hugh Jackman goes there") and is juicing on the reg for breakfast: "I watched a documentary called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead about this Australian guy who bought a juicer and completely turned his life around." Bastian bought the same Breville juicer from the film and now blends kale, cucumber, celery, ginger, apple, and lemon every morning for breakfast. "It’s fun, you actually get a buzz from this stuff." From there he’ll spend a few minutes (or hours- see his Instagram) "fussing and watering my window bos" before heading into the shower to start his grooming regimen. Here’s a look at how the menswear god stays polished from head to toe.
The Hair: "I have really fine hair so I wash it every day with Martial Vivot’s shampoo, he does the hair for my shows. And I don’t use any product, I just comb it back into place. I’ve gotten my hair cut from the same woman for the past 12 years, Marie Caveggia at O&M salon in NYC. Her theory is that you should never look like you’ve just gotten a haircut and I like mine a little overgrown, so it works."
The Face: "I just discovered that skin brush, the Clarisonic, and it really does get a lot of the junk off. I have no loyalty when it comes to moisturizer; I usually just pick up something from duty free shops when I travel. Biotherm has a good one."
The Tan: "I really like going out in the sun—obviously there’s risk in that. My grandfather had this great saying, ’the more silver the hair, the darker you need to be.’ He was one of those guys from the Cary Grant generation that had a serious permanent tan. So I let myself tan and use a daily spot fading cream by Priori. Sun spots can be really aging."
The Eyes: "For dark circles I use a Garnier rollerball which works really well. I remember reading in Allure that you shouldn’t dismiss cheap drugstore products because companies like Garnier and L’Oreal are the ones with billion dollar budgets to do research."
The Shave: "Every two days or so I mow the lawn with a Panasonic beard trimmer. The last time I did a clean shave, I was like, ’damn, I need to take care of my under chin’ and I haven’t been clean shaven since that procedure."
The Body: "I stick to Dove’s eoliating bar soap in the shower. And I’ve been on this quest to find deodorant that doesn’t leave pit stains--sometimes I’m like, how have we not figured this out? It feels like there’s development happening in other countries--I found this amazing one when I was going through Heathrow but haven’t been able to find it in the states since."
The Scent: "I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s wearing Dior Eau Savage, but they came out with a new formula Eau Savage Parfum—it’s like the darker, dirtier older brother. I wear it all the time and it’s the one fragrance that people will say, ’hmmm what are you wearing?’"
The Indulgence: "Lately I’ve been getting acupressure massages at a salon called Renew & Relax on 3rd Ave. This guy named Jason is a miracle. He works on different trigger points, he’ll go over the body and say ’you’ve got some kidney issues or gall bladder blockage’ and it actually hurts when he presses down, but you feel better the next day. So funny—I just discovered Chloë Sevigny goes to the same place."
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