MENSWEAR’S NEW LOOK
There’s a new mood in men’s fashion. It’s witty, playful, colourful, upbeat and easy to wear: just what the world — and your wardrobe — needs. As we put spring/summer 2020 behind us and move into a new season, and maybe a new way of living, this is what we want to wear now
It’s 8am on a Monday morning. You are caffeinated, breakfasted, Headspaced and caught-up on your socials. You have walked the dog / PB’d your 10k / watered your house plants / Zoomed your mother. Soon you will sit down at your desk, or your kitchen table, or on your deck chair, for a hard day’s WFH. Question: WTF are you wearing?
It’s a problem many of us have faced, with varying degrees of puzzlement, over the past months, since the world went back to front and upside down, like an avant-garde sweatshirt. (An avantgarde sweatshirt? For work? Hmm... maybe not?) At Esquire, we’ve always thought hard about what to wear — for work, and play — because that’s part of our job. But even chaps who feel they have little interest in fashion must have reflected that the coronavirus pandemic, and the dramatic changes in lifestyle it has caused, have made dressing for work potentially a more fraught business than it once was.
What do you wear to work when there’s no workplace to go to? What do you wear when you won’t be leaving the house, but you’ll still be on calls, in meetings? A business suit would be ridiculous. A tracksuit is a surrender. Surely, somewhere in between these two poles of formal and casual, stuffy and slovenly, the fashion industry could supply a wardrobe that is smart, comfortable and even stylish?
Is that too much to ask?
We are excited to report: the answer
to that question is, “No!” Just as Covid-19 has hastened the collapse of civilisation as we knew it, so it has accelerated the uptake of a new way of dressing for work and play for young (and even not so young) men, especially those of us in and around the creative industries, media, entertainment, hospitality — even finance, tech, fintech, and in the City.
It’s the way menswear was headed anyway: less formal, more relaxed, more individual. A mix of high and low, smart and casual, expensive and, er, slightly less expensive. It is practical but also a little bit dashing, far more adventurous than the conservative “off-duty uniform” — navy crew-necks, white tennis shoes — that has been doing the heavy weekend lifting in the past few years.
Not that this is a new dandyism, it’s too realistic for that. It’s not the infantilism of hypebeastery, either. It is a bit of lots of things: a bit of tailoring; a bit of sportswear; a bit of workwear; a lot of Preppiness. It is international. American labels such as Noah and Aimé Leon Dore are suffused with the codes of the Ivy Style. Italian casualwear is having a moment, with lesser-known brands such as Barena Venezia, Aspesi, Massimo Alba offering impeccably manufactured basics: unstructured blazers and navy trousers that you can actually wear in the summer. Quirky-cool French brands Ami and Holiday Boileau exemplify a fastidious approach to looking relaxed.
Other brand names that unless you are a real aficionado you may be
encountering here for the first time: Husbands, maker of the crucial jacket of the moment, the Jarvis slim-fit blazer. Bode, a New York label started in 2016 by Emily Adams Bode (it’s pronounced “Bo-dee”). Bode herself is only 30, but her clothes are a luxurious, bohemian take on classic Americana.
Other brands are more familiar.
The new mood encompasses “heritage” American workwear and sportswear — Patagonia, Champion, Polo Sport — plus high-end tailoring from the likes of P Johnson and Drake’s, the occasional “piece” from a high-fashion label (Prada camp collar shirt) or super-luxury brand (Brunello Cucinelli cashmere pullover) and mass-market sportswear (Nike, Adidas).
And what of the watchword of the moment, “sustainability”? It’s always been the case that style snobs care about sustainability: we buy to last.
There are members of the Esquire editorial staff who shall remain nameless (ahem) who own and indeed wear brogues that are older than other members of the
Esquire editorial staff.
But there is certainly a new consciousness on the subject.
Sustainability has gone from a buzzword chucked out by brands in the hopes of a nice little PR nibble, to a baseline requirement for discerning consumers, though the product still needs to be good. Nike’s Space Hippie trainer, which is 75 per cent made out of recycled plastic bottles, was an instant sell-out. The sustainability is its second defining factor; it is a cool and desirable trainer first. Everlane and Asket have built businesses out of selling plain clothes with transparent costs outlined on their respective websites. Call it supply chain chic. If you choose to, you can follow your navy trousers from factory to front door.
Vintage, meanwhile, has become an acceptable part of men’s fashion. No need to slog to a dusty shop with no price tags and Sixties sizing. Today, vintage dealers are savvy online entrepreneurs with slick user interfaces, as shown by the success of Depop and Grailed.
So here it is: a new moment in men’s style. One heavily influenced by the past, highly attuned to the present and facing the future with — even though this is autumn/winter — a jaunty spring in its step.