"The clothing's custom," says Lt. James Gordon after apprehending The Joker. "Nothing in the pockets but knives and lint." Let gearheads debate the weaponry: The real question is, hey, Crazy, where'd you get that suit?

As an ad in today's New York Times trumpets, Bruce Wayne's bespoke duds come courtesy of Giorgio Armani. (Less attention has been paid to Harvey Dent's natty wardrobe, but for the record, it's Ermenegildo Zegna.) But The Dark Knight really belongs to The Joker, and his look was apparently too important to leave to a regular old fashion label. It's the creation of Academy Award-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming—no stranger to debonair gents, having costumed the last four Bond flicks—who drew inspiration from some of London's most fashionable eccentrics: Vivienne Westwood, Johnny Rotten, Pete Doherty, and Alexander McQueen. The result? Call it Savile Row by way of Carnaby Street and Malcolm McLaren's SEX. The shoes, meanwhile, are made in Milan (sadly, our friends at Warner Bros. weren't able to find out by whom exactly), while the tie comes from Turnbull & Asser. Apparently, the venerable tailors custom-made the neckpiece in consultation with Hemming and Heath Ledger, who preferred a thinner style. Good call—he's The Joker, not Bozo the Clown.

Last weekend, I attended the Glenlivet Gathering, an annual shindig where the Speyside whiskymaker allows a few select fans to commandeer its distillery for a couple of days. Glenlivet's not the only brand to throw open its stills to outsiders, but I've always loved its pineapple-y distillations, and the brand's remote Highland setting is charming enough to win over even haggis-haters.

The centerpiece of the weekend was an old-fashioned ceilidh—think a Scottish brogue-twanged tweak on line dancing, with kilts—but the most rewarding (or at least enjoyable) part was a session with whisky czar Jim Cryle, the mastermind who helmed Glenlivet for decades until going into semiretirement earlier this year. We convened in a secret suite called the Library—anywhere there's liquor, there's bound to be a VIP room—accessed by pushing a hidden panel in one wall of the nondescript distillery lobby. Tucked upstairs and furnished with just a few leather chairs and a huge antique wooden table, it's where the most precious limited editions are kept.

The concert film's long been a directorial rite of passage (see Scorsese's The Last Waltz or Demme's Stop Making Sense—immediately, if possible). Now eighties art star and confirmed pajama fan Julian Schnabel is taking his turn with Lou Reed's Berlin, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The flick, out today in New York and L.A., chronicles Reed's 2006 performance of his 1973 album—which he had never played live before—over a few dates at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn. Bonus: Reed's in top form, and Velvets fans should take note—the encore includes renditions of "Candy Says" (with backing vocals from Antony Hegarty) and "Sweet Jane."

French favorites: the fry (don't call it "freedom"); the kiss; the Nike Air Max? Étrange but true: According to Tinker Hatfield, Nike's VP of design and special projects, the original inspiration for the shoe came from Paris's Centre Pompidou. Check out the full video, below.

[Plataforma Arquitectura]

London's Southbank is set to become a lot more luminous, courtesy of Sheppard Robson. The architectural firm has designed this structure, still in the planning stages, to be an iridescent office building (complete with a 10,000-square-foot roof deck overlooking the Houses of Parliament—guess they're kinda optimistic about that fickle British weather). Ought to make showing up to work fun, supposing that you like your work to be glittery and purple.

[The Design Blog]

Well, if the Japanese can write comic books about the Nissan GT-R, then the Germans can write symphonies about the R8. And it turns out they have—the brand asked an orchestra and three DJs from the group Bauhouse (not a typo) to create music for what is essentially a live symphonic ad timed to the car's Brazilian debut. You guessed it: Sounds like Kraftwerk. Check out the video below:

[German Car Blog via Autoblog]

NYC's Chinatown Soccer Club is composed of artists, photographers, designers, and the like, so it's hardly surprising that their "clubhouse" in, uh, Vienna (an event sponsored by Adidas in honor of the 2008 Euro Cup) was decorated in excellent taste. In keeping with the spirit of their home turf, CSC member Dan Funderburgh created a custom NYC toile wallpaper for the Austrian affair, featuring the sights of home: grafitti-covered delivery trucks, people asleep on park benches, their own team flag. Available in limited edition from Flavor Paper, it's as good a taste of the 'hood as you can get without chopsticks.
$150/roll, available at flavorleague.com

[12oz. Prophet via SlamxHype]

For no apparent reason, the gadget geeks at Crave ran a post today about a runner-up in a Timex watch-design competition's "conceptual" category. The catch? That contest was in 2004, in honor of Timex's 150th anniversary. Of course, we didn't have a blog in 2004, so we didn't have the chance to tell you about the winner: Energistime (pictured), which wraps around your arm and monitors your carbon footprint's effect on your free time. A cool idea, if a tad confusing—perhaps that explains why four years later, you still can't buy one. (Catch up with the other winners, runners-up, and notable entries here.)

Lucky Strike, offering unlikely support for the green movement, has just unveiled the winner of its Junior Designer Award (which, apparently, exists): Roland Cernat, the guy behind this eco-friendly glider concept. (Finally, right?) Dubbed Orlens, it's solar-powered, made from recycled materials, and has a flax-based, carbon-neutral body that is itself recyclable. (Presumably for when your glider crashes on a suddenly cloudy day.) All kidding aside, it's a cool-looking plane. And maybe you'll get to fly one someday—the prize includes €12,000 to turn the concept into a reality.

[Inhabitat via Gizmodo]

It's been a while since we've checked in on designer Jaime Hayon. (Last time, he was a doll.) Turns out he's been hard at work on a new series for Barcelona lighting specialists Metalarte. Of the several mini-collections, our favorite is Las Santas (pictured), the only one that's in color. The blue and white lamps boast saintly names (like Maria or Theresa), but leave it to the witty Spaniard to name the littlest one after Nabokov's infamous nymphet.

[Designboom]

Makeshift prison implements are nothing new (and neither, we admit, is the media's fascination with them), but Marc Steinmetz's photos of contraband found in German prisons are undeniably intriguing. While some contraptions are more clever than impressive—a hash pipe made of a horseradish tube, say—it's hard not to marvel at a homemade handgun (pictured). The bullets? Pieces of steel and match heads. Now that's ingenuity.

[Boing Boing Gadgets via Wired]

Buzz has been building about Anaheim's Willowz for as long as we can remember, but the support of one fan may give them a boost: Paul Gondry, the teenage son of director Michel.Gondry, whose drawings were used in The Science of Sleep, directed the video for their single "Take a Look," and has now collaborated with Parisian design house April 77 to create a shirt with his illustration of the band. (They've done their part by recording an exclusive 7" single for the April 77's record label.) Of course, lending their talents to rockers is nothing new for the Gondry clan: Michel created iconic videos for the likes of Björk, Beck, and the White Stripes.
For more information, visit april77records.com

Five things worth knowing today

- The Pitchfork Music Festival begins in Chicago. (Likely rating: 6.7.)
- The Pacific Northwest's best beer town brings the world's suds together for the Portland International Beerfest. - The U.S. Grand Prix of motocross returns to Salinas, CA.
- According to Tacitus, the Great Fire of Rome began today in 64 A.D.—that is, the one Nero is said to have fiddled through.
- And today in 1988, Warhol muse and Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico died. Below, Nico performing "All Tomorrow's Parties":