Paul Lukas (born March 21, 1964) is an American journalist, author, and the founding editor of '' Uni Watch,'' a blog devoted to

uniform A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, se ...

design. Lukas has been called "sports journalism's foremost uniform reporter,” “a minutiae fetishist,” and a “professional geek." As a journalist he helped legitimize broader news coverage of sports uniform design with his work appearing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', '' GQ'', ''Fortune'', ''

Gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

'', ''

Saveur ''Saveur'' is an online gourmet, food, wine, and travel magazine that publishes essays about various world cuisines. The publication was co-founded by Dorothy Kalins, Michael Grossman, Christopher Hirsheimer, and Colman Andrews, who was also the ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

ESPN The Magazine ''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998. Initially published every other week, it scaled back to 24 issues a year i ...

'',''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'', ''Spin'', ''Glamour'', ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

'', ''

The Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikk ...

,'' and '' InsideHook.'' Lukas also authored a book about the intricate design of consumer products and services.

Uni Watch

The first Uni Watch column ran on May 26, 1999, in the ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'' and discussed baseball's evolving uniform combinations. In 2003 the column moved from the ''Village Voice'' to

Slate.com ''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2 ...

. From 2004 to 2019, Uni Watch ran as a regular column on

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including ...

and was described as a "sports fashion column that helped legitimize mainstream news coverage of everything from wholesale franchise rebranding to tweaks in fonts or piping on uniform sleeves". Lukas owns the rights to the name Uni Watch, and in 2006 launched a separate blog to supplement the material in columns on ESPN.com. In 2019, Lukas had a seven-week stint as staff columnist for ''Sports Illustrated'' with 10 attributed articles about uniforms. After his departure from ''Sports Illustrated'', he began writing articles for ''InsideHook'' — a digital sports, news, and entertainment publication. Eventually he started writing for Facebook's ''Bulletin,'' and stopped writing uniform related articles for ''InsideHook''.

Other projects

Lukas a published a music

zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...

from 1986 to 1988 and a created a beer zine called ''Beer Frame'' in October 1993. Lukas created a website called ''Inconspicuous Consumption'' that, "deconstructing the details of consumer culture -- details that are either so weird or obscure that we'd never see them, or so ubiquitous that we've essentially stopped seeing them". The website evolved into a book, ''Inconspicuous Consumption''. His lifelong obsession with collecting odd items includes draft beer tap handles. ''Permanent Record'' is an object-based history project Lukas began as an investigation into the stories emerging from a bunch of old report cards found in a discarded file cabinet. The report cards are still the core of the project, but ''Permanent Record'' has "expanded to include examination of other found objects, including postcards, business records, photographs, things left inside of old books, messages in bottles, and so on."

Bibliography

*Paul, Lukas (1997). ''Inconspicuous Consumption: An Obsessive Look at the Stuff We Take for Granted, from the Everyday to the Obscure'' (Three Rivers Press).

Personal life

Lukas spent his early life on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States. He resides in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. Lukas occasionally writes about his personal and social life on the ''Uni Watch'' blog, with his culinary tastes and music interests most frequently featured in daily posts.

References

External links

''Uni Watch''
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Lukas, Paul Living people 1964 births Journalists from New York City Writers from Brooklyn American sports journalists