Fall trouser browser
Who isn’t crazy about a sharp dressed man? With the fall weather finally arriving through much of America, men may be looking for that special jacket or fall accessory to make the season bright. These magazines may or may not have the answer.
GQ sports Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook on the cover, ahead of the start of the NBA season this week, and an interview-photo spread closes a long and excellent presentation of basketball players in clothes that no one can afford. Westbrook’s choices are ... hit or miss (the starcovered chambray shirt with blue moto jeans? Dude.) Elsewhere, pinstripe suits are no longer the sartorial choice of Wall Street’s elite, and $500 pre-scuffed sneakers by Golden Goose are all the rage. Carrie Battan’s story on the cult of One Percenter cult gym Equinox, and the hidden $30,000-a-year “E Club” in the Time Warner Center in Times Square, is excellent and really funny.
Actor Matthew McConaughey sidles up on Esquire’s cover, and finally answers the question everybody wants to know: Why the hell does he do those Lincoln car commercials? “Because I’m going to. And I like them,” the laconic hunk tells us. OK. For fashion plates, the bomber jacket is the bomb. A spread lines up the affordable ($90, Uniqlo) to the unattainable (Devaux, $5,000, favored by rapper and fashion designer Kanye West).
Vanity Fair trots out Benedict Cumberbatch for its “New Establishment” issue, though he doesn’t make the list of 100 influential people. (The top honor goes to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, a headliner at the magazine’s big media event last week in San Francisco.) The British actor, dubiously dubbed the “thinking woman’s crumpet,” comes across as bland as bangers and mash. Elsewhere, Italian luxury designer Brunello Cucinelli shares his favorite article of clothing (“a pair of white velvet pants”) and details what has to be the best daily work routine in the world: an hour of swimming, pasta lunches, naps, chats and seemingly very little work. A spread on watches — er, sorry, chronographs — is for anyone who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing an Apple product on their wrist, and might have, say, $52,500 to spend.
Men’s Journal, with a foamy glass of golden beer on its cover, isn’t exactly the best place for fashion advice. Turns out it isn’t really that great for beer advice either. What a lazy issue. Its beer guide recommends all the so-so brands wasting space in your local bodega, even though it claims we’re living in the “golden age of beer.” Oh, and editors recommend getting a leather jacket.
Gratuitous attacks are in fashion at the New Yorker, which takes a swing at Donald “The Media Is Rigged Against Me” Trump on its cover, with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin swearing him in to office. The low blow stands to reason because inside you get a fivepage Hillary Clinton endorsement that feels like one of the Democratic nominee’s stump speeches. In reaching to bash Trump, the left-leaning standard bearer digs up this old chestnut: that Trump hired Roy Cohn, the notorious former aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, 40 years ago to defend him against housing discrimination charges. Politics buffs looking for something a touch bipartisan should stick with the pictorial profiles of 14 first-time voters. A 24-year-old Texas military veteran and backer of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson says a mouthful when he declares the two major political parties have become a cancer in the country.
Time’s cover story profiles former Fox News Channel host Gretchen Carlson who it says is becoming an unlikely voice for fighting sexual harassment. The feature gives one a feel for Carlson, including when describing her spotless home in Greenwich, Conn., where she lives with her two daughters. Time explains how legislators are proposing laws so that women who make sexual harassment claims are not forced to seek arbitration as their employment contracts state, but can instead sue their employers. Carlson sued former FNC boss Roger Ailes, as her employment contract prevented her from suing the company. Baseball fans — and those rooting for the end of the Cubs’ 108-year curse — will be tickled to see the feature on the pitcher and Los Angeles Dodgers eliminator Kyle Hendricks’ use of computers to scout opponents.