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Much has been made of the revival of ‘90s style – the boxy suits, mallcore tees, and chunky sneakers. If you scroll through the new arrivals section at SSENSE, you’ll find tons of references to that decade’s punk, skate, and even corporate dress culture. The silhouettes are baggy; the clothes hint at teen angst. Even for people who don’t care for most of the clothes, which includes me, it’s hard to deny there’s a bit of sweet sentimentality here that naturally comes with nostalgia. I remember the ‘90s fondly. 

The clothes are just superficial, however, covering up what I think is the more defining revival – the sense of irony that was pervasive during the early-aughts. It’s the idea that some things can be so awful, so ugly, and so stupid, they’re ironically considered good. The actual ‘90s wasn’t about irony, it was about apathy, the other defensive mechanism we use to shield ourselves from scrutiny. Irony is about turning something on its head and laughing at it; apathy is about not caring at all. Either way, both are a dissimulation – a way to conceal our true feelings. 

Princeton professor Christy Wampole wrote a good opinion piece on this at The New York Times, where she says irony is the ethos of our age, “the primary mode with which daily life is dealt.” However, since this was published years ago, it was more about the middle class, often white, hipster that lives in coastal cities – the kind that yearns for authenticity, but shuns sincerity. Wampole writes that irony is used today as a defensive mechanism to preempt shame, a tool to hide vulnerable emotions:

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“Want to know if a man is well dressed? Look down.” So wrote George Frazier, author of The Art of Wearing Clothes, a 1960s Esquire article considered by many to be the best thing ever written on men’s style. Yet, while the market for custom clothing grows each year, it’s rare to see custom footwear (rumors are even swirling about one of the more prestigious firms being on the brink of bankruptcy). For men who get custom suits and sport coats, shoes are the last part of their wardrobe that gets rebuilt. In his book Acquired Tastes, Peter Mayle suggests it’s because bespoke shoes smack of excess, “more shameful than a passion for cashmere socks.” He wrote: “Unlike the miracles of disguise that a tailor has perform in order to camouflage bodily imperfections, the shoemaker’s task is simple. Feet are feet.” 

I think he’s right, to a degree. As they say, God makes and the tailor shapes. It takes a skilled tailor to transform a two-dimensional piece of fabric into a three-dimensional form entirely different than your body (thankfully). Shoes, on the other hand, cocoon your feet like hard shells. So long as they don’t cut into your ankles, or fall off your feet, you’re fine. Aldens, for example, are built like empty Kleenex boxes. That’s partly why they’re so comfortable. 

The benefits of moving from ready-to-wear to custom for footwear aren’t the same as they are for tailored clothing, but they exist. For one, a custom shoemaker can shape the shoes in a way that’s a bit sleeker and more refined than what you’ll find in stores. The waist can hug your arches better; the toe box slimmed in a way that’s flattering, while remaining comfortable. Simon Crompton has written about this before. And if you care about craft for its own sake – the only justifiable reason for these prices, I think – then there’s no real comparison. 

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Unionmade is a great shop for workwear, heritage brands, and hard-to-find Japanese imports. They carry everything from Levi’s to Kapital, but the clothes come together in a way that can be roughly described as a classic, casual West Coast aesthetic. There are slim-straight jeans for guys who normally wear sport coats, as well as a huge selection of casualwear drawing militaria, workwear, and neo-retro outdoor gear. 

From now until Monday, they’re also having an early spring sale. Take 25% off all orders with the checkout code -25FINALSALE (be sure to include the minus sign, which is easy to miss if you copy-and-paste). As the code suggests, all purchases made with the code are final sale, so be sure to check measurements. The code does stack, however, on already discounted items in the sale section, although it excludes anything from Alden and Birkenstock. Some highlights I think are worth a look: 

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Looking back, it’s almost comical how men used to buy footwear. Ten years ago, if you wanted a pair of well-made shoes and couldn’t afford any of the better-known brands, you had three options. Scour eBay for something gently used; try one of the lesser-known labels from an overseas shop (and pray they fit); or call Allen Edmonds’ store in Wisconsin for discounted factory seconds (an industry term for shoes that didn’t pass quality controls). Back then, getting a pair of shoes fell into the old engineering line, “good, fast, cheap … pick two.” Whatever you’d save in money, you’d spend in time. 

Today, the entry-level side of the market has exploded. It’s not terribly hard to get a pair of well-made shoes now for less than what you’d pay for something made in Northampton. And you don’t have to spend a lot of time doing it. Brands such as Meermin, Bow Tie, Cobbler Union, Carlos Santos, Paul Evans, Jack Erwin, Kent Wang, and Beckett Simonon sit in the same space previously occupied by only Allen Edmonds and some obscure names. Allen Edmonds also now has a dedicated online store for their factory seconds, so you don’t have to call their Wisconsin location and hunt for photos of the models online, like some kind of Senior Research Fellow on Frugality.

Yesterday saw a new entrant into this competitive market. The Swedish shoe store Skoaktiebolaget (a sponsor on this site, although this is not a sponsored post) debuted their in-house label, Löf & Tung. The name comes from the company’s two co-founders, Patrik Löf and Daniel Tung. “In Swedish, Tung means heavy and Löf means leaf,” says Patrik. “Daniel and I are very different in some ways, and the company’s name reflects this. Tung stands for stability and having a foundation, whereas Löf represents fickleness, unpredictability, and always being on motion.” If you look closely at their logo, you can see the ampersand has been cleverly modified to form the letters LT. 

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Classic men’s style can be a strange topic at times. While mainstream fashion publications are obsessed with who’s wearing what, this corner of the world is often just interested in clothes. Nothing about the musicians or actors that make a look compelling – celebrity itself is shunned. When culture or history comes up, it’s still often about the clothes themselves. Like how Queen Victoria once visited the HMS Blazer, a frigate in the British Navy, and the ship’s captain dressed the crew in dark blue double-breasted jackets. To make them look a bit smarter, he had the jackets decorated with bright brass buttons. Hence how we get the term blazer. 

Which is why Jason Jules is such a rare figure. Although he’s clothes mad like the rest of us, I think of him as being more interested in culture than clothes alone. In the late ‘90s, he started his career as a club organizer and promoter, before moving on to be a public relations rep for artists such as Jamiroquai, Des’ree, and King Britt. Later, he wrote for publications such as i-D, Inventory Magazine, and Dazed & Confused, then did brand consulting for Levi’s, A Bathing Ape, and Nike. Readers here will probably recognize him as the face in many of Drake’s lookbooks (he also once walked the runway for Paul Smith). While Jason can talk about clothes, he’s more likely to make the connection between the things we wear and contemporary influences.

Later this month, he’s also debuting his film, A Modernist. It’s an hour-long feature on the legendary London clothier John Simons, sometimes referred to as the patron saint of English Ivy. John Simons is one of those rare retailers that serves as a cultural gateway for many people – if the shop carries it, it’s considered good. Since the ‘50s, they’ve specialized in things such as button-down collars and Baracuta Harringtons, which they’ve sold to everyone from businessmen to mods to skinheads (the non-racist kind). A Modernist is not just about the shop and its clothes, but also the cultural attendants that came with them. 

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In their guide Perfumes, widely considered the bible on the subject, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez answer some commonly asked questions about fragrances. One was whether scents change according to the wearer’s personal chemistry. “For a long time, Luca believed the answer to be absolutely no,” writes Sanchez. “And that all assertions to the contrary were marketing ploys designed to make the average person feel uniquely addressed and bonded to the product, as if perfume were like a mood ring or shrink-to-fit jeans, sensitive to the wearer’s medical history, soul, or waistline. There’s something to that; undoubtedly it makes us feel special to sigh and say, ‘I love this perfume because it works fantastically with my chemistry.’” 

Their full answer is a bit more complicated than that – scents do change a little with the wearer’s chemistry, but not really – which is how I feel about the neverending debate about whether you should consider your skin tone when choosing colors. You hear this all the time, especially among men who use bespoke tailors. They, after all, have an infinite number of choices between the different shades of blue. Supposedly, earthy hues work on some men, while others are better off with something warmer. 

Much of this actually comes from Carol Jackson’s 1987 book, Color for Men, which transported 1970s make-up theory for women into men’s wardrobes. For Jackson, people came in four seasonal colors. Wintery men are defined by their olive complexions, dark brown hair, and brown eyes. She said they should avoid lighter colored jackets, such as those in natural camelhair, since they give their skin a yellow cast. Instead, she encouraged them to wear dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties, which she claimed enliven their natural look. 

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I don’t mean to turn this site into a lifestyle blog – my life isn’t exciting enough for that anyhow – but if other sites can talk about fancy wines, steaks, and cigars, I’d like to think I can do the occasional off-topic post on something more relatable. For the last six months or so, I’ve been obsessed with coffee.

Getting the perfect cup of coffee is a bit like getting the perfect cut in clothes. It’s a mix of subjective taste and exact science, but also an elusive thing that you never quite catch. I first became interested in coffee last fall, when coffee reviewer Ken Davids made me a cup while we chatted about his website. I’ve had good espressos before, but this was on another level. The even balance, noticeable bright notes, and clean aftertaste just made for a different experience. It was very enjoyable.

Before I left his office that day, Ken gifted me an Aeropress. It’s a strange plastic device that looks like it belongs in a high-school chemistry lab, sitting next to beakers and Bunsen burners. The Aeropress is … not pretty … but where it falls short in aesthetics, it excels in performance. The Aeropress gives a cleaner brew than a French press, is faster than your average drip method, and has incredible versatility. You can use it to make almost anything short of a proper espresso. Moreover, since you get to control every variable in the process – the size of your coffee grounds, the temperature of the water, and the immersion time – you can hone in on your version of the perfect cup of coffee.

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The Compleat Angler is the book everyone owns, but no one has read. It’s the third most reprinted work in the English language, just after the Bible and Shakespeare. Written by an English tailor named Izaak Walton, it’s ostensibly about fishing, but fishing is just the hook to Walton’s deeper and more contemplative  mediations on all things pastoral. Between his practical instructions on how to be a better fisherman, Walton interleaved poems, song lyrics, illustrations, cooking recipes, and other diversions about nature. He believed that fishing was at once a sport, a social activity, and a spiritual experience – and by connecting with it, we could become better people. 

The thing to know about The Compleat Angler is that it was written during a time of tremendous upheaval. England was in the middle of its civil war; Oliver Cromwell had just executed the king; and the country was trying to set up its first Commonwealth. Walton, a staunch monarchist and devout Anglican, felt displaced, so he retreated to the countryside and sought refuge in fishing. He dreamed of the “Brotherhood of the Angle,” a group where men could set aside their political differences and unite through their shared appreciation of nature. This was transcendentalism before transcendentalism; a rejection of Hobbes’ Leviathan. It was a modest proposal that fishing isn’t really about catching fish, it’s about finding community and peace. As Walton puts it, to “go a-Angling” is to “study to be quiet.” One of my favorite passages from the book reads:

And for you that have heard many grave, serious men pity Anglers; let me tell you, Sir, there be many men that are by others taken to be serious and grave men, whom we condemn and pity. Men that are taken to be grave, because nature hath made them of a sour complexion; money-getting men, men that spend all their time, first in getting, and next, in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented: for these poor rich-men, we Anglers pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so happy. No, no, Sir, we enjoy a contentedness above the reach of such dispositions […]

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The loss of the coat-and-tie uniform in the last fifty years has meant more than the loss of formality. It’s made it harder for men to know how to dress. The brilliance of traditional tailoring is that anyone can look good in a suit – provided you have a reliable tailor and are willing to follow some simple rules. But as dress codes have broken down and people everywhere are dressing more casually, it’s become harder and harder to wear tailored clothing. The New York Times tells us that we live in a more liberated world where people can dress however they want – swapping clothes in and out as freely as their emotions swing – but I’ve argued that things are nearly just as constrictive as they were in the 1960s. It’s just that instead of hard written dress codes, we have softly coded dress norms – things that define how men should dress, but are never spoken of and can only be understood through inference. 

I think this is why so many men have a hard time figuring out what they want to wear. They find suits and sport coats too formal; Americana and workwear too rugged; designers such as Dries and Margiela too avant-garde. Yet, they also know that an oxford button-down worn alone with flat front chinos lacks verve. Casualwear can be frustrating because it’s nebulous – it’s more about dressing according to emotions, rather than rules, and a lot depends on your personality and lifestyle. 

In the last few years, however, I’ve noticed a new space emerge for guys who want a more casual version of classic style. I think of it as reinvented Italian sportswear. Think of Stoffa’s made-to-measure bomber jackets, which are designed to be worn with tailored trousers in lieu of a sport coat. Or Eidos’ range of textured Arans with interesting necklines, unconstructed topcoats, and lounge-y cardigans. Similarly, Camoshita has remixed Italian style and Ivy classics for men who want something contemporary, refined, and smart. 

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There’s a famous story about Sir Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s boots, which they commissioned a year before their ascent up Mount Everest. Back in the 1950s, mountaineering boots were often cumbersome. Many were bulky and heavy, made of thick deerskin leather, and some even came up to the wearer’s thighs – not the kind of boots you’d want for the most challenging mountaineering expedition. So Hillary and Norgay approached SATRA, a British research and development center, about coming up with something that was lighter. As they knew then, a pound on your foot can feel like five pounds on your back. At least when you’re scaling a mountain.  

The resulting boots were made using mostly natural materials and some of Britain’s oldest shoemaking techniques. They featured a reverse welt to keep the melting snow from seeping into the boots, and a Tropal-leather insole to allow sweat to dissipate. The uppers were constructed from a Latex-coated glacé kid leather, which was chosen for its weight. Finally, for insulation, the interior cavity was filled with kapok, a natural hollow fiber (the boots had to be specially lasted in order to not crush the material). In the end, the boots weighed two and a half pounds lighter than what the Swiss had worn in 1952. They were the mountaineering equivalent Nike’s Flyknits, and no one who wore them got frostbite – a remarkable achievement. 

Few of us will ever face such conditions, let alone stand on top of the world like Hillary and Norgay, but there’s something satisfying about having the exactly right clothes for the weather. During the early weeks of spring, when the weather is stormy, that means a few things. A couple of raincoats for different levels of formality, some insulating sweaters, and a reliable umbrella that won’t invert at the slightest hint of wind. Finally, a pair of rain boots that you don’t mind mucking up. 

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