For much of the 20th century, men’s media was about general interest publications giving readers the information they needed for “right living.” They told men how to dress for the office, grill meat on weekends, and mix delicious cocktails for after-dinner parties. As Cathy Horyn once wrote, “almost no one cares about this sort of thing anymore.” Online, audiences can easily find communities that share their specific interests and advertisers can target people more closely than ever before. It’s no longer enough for a publication to just say it’s “for men.”

This is Will Welch’s challenge at GQ. Welch was recently promoted to Editor-in-Chief at the magazine, replacing Jim Nelson, and while GQ isn’t losing money, it’s lost some cultural relevancy. To get readers to return, Welch promises to make GQ to be about more than just telling men how to match pocket squares with ties. This month’s music-themed issue, for example, covers Frank Ocean and dives into John Mayer’s Visvim-heavy wardrobe. And when Welch headed Conde Nast’s smaller, but edgier, GQ Style title, he featured the romantically styled designer Haider Ackermann, cult-favorite streetwear label Noah, and Gauthier Borsarello’s private Paris showroom, which is full of vintage inspiration. With Welch now at the top of GQ’s masthead, we can expect something similar between the main magazine’s covers. 

“Instead of dictating what’s good and what’s bad from some sort of imaginary mountaintop, if we can be meaningfully participating in a community of people – helping to elevate and tell the stories of the people who we think are doing really exciting things – to me that is a higher calling than, ‘don’t wear those pants, wear these pants,’” Welch told Business of Fashion. “If you try to be everything to everyone, you end up not being much of anything to anyone. So we’re making GQ less a big tent and more the only place to go when you want a rich, intelligent, and transportive plunge into all the stylishness the world has to offer.”

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Danish explorer Peter Freuchen stood like an arctic bear when he was photographed alongside his wife in 1947. The image, shown above, made its way around the internet some years ago because of Freuchen’s magnificent outfit. Freuchen, already a giant of a man, was wearing a Sasquatchian sized fur coat – single-breasted, nearly ankle-length, with a collar so tall that it almost cleared his bald head. His wife, who was more typically dressed for the occasion, did not look amused. 

Freuchen was a real-life Most Interesting Man in the World. He was a writer, an arctic explorer, and a resolute anti-fascist. During the Second World War, he fought Nazis as part of the Danish Resistance and once gave Triumph of the Will director Leni Riefenstahl the finger at a film premier. But it wasn’t the Nazis who almost killed him – it was snow. Throughout his life, Freuchen took many 1000-mile dogsled journeys across Greenland’s northernmost tundra. During one of those arctic adventures, however, he found himself caught in a particularly bad blizzard. 

Hoping to wait out the storm in a snowbank, he buried himself beneath the ground’s surface, only to find that the snow above him was swiftly swirling around and turning into a thick layer of ice. Before long, Freuchen was encased in what was a frozen tomb. Quickly losing strength, he struggled for hours trying to claw his way out using nothing but his bare hands and some frozen bearskin. Freuchen had all but given up when he got an idea, which he details in his autobiography Vagrant Viking. 

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In an interview with The Telegraph, Patrick Grant of Norton & Sons and E. Tautz once described fashion as being an “ever-moving feast.” I often find that the quick-paced nature of fashion – where things are constantly being created and destroyed – makes the field endlessly interesting. There’s always something new, something different, something to talk about. And while my taste in tailoring leans classic, I like casualwear that’s a bit more progressive and experimental.

For the past few years, I’ve been doing these annual posts where I roundup new brands. To be sure, not all of them are actually new – many have been around for years – but they’re new to me. Here are seven labels I recently discovered. And while not all of them sell things I’d personally wear, I find them inspiring in some way. For more of the same, you can see previous years’ posts here, here, here, and here.

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The first leather jacket I ever bought was an Enrico Mandelli bomber. It’s made from a soft cotton lining and even softer lambskin, with just enough fullness to stay true to the garment’s origins, but is also slim enough to go with tailored trousers. Like many men trying on a leather jacket for the first time, I hemmed and hawed, tugged at my fronts and cocked my head, wondering if I was really a “leather jacket kinda guy.” Well, since then, I’ve acquired about fifteen more pieces, ranging in styles from a Schott Perfecto to the very contemporary Margiela five-zip. Nothing in casualwear can be rightly called a wardrobe essential, but a leather jacket comes pretty darn close. 

Among leather jacket makers, few are as unique as Atelier Savas. The company’s founder, Savannah Yarborough, studied menswear at London’s Central Saint Martins, and then returned home in 2010 to work as the senior designer for Billy Reid (you may have heard of the label). In 2011, she designed one of the brand’s best-selling jackets, a cropped double rider made from of a crinkly tobacco leather. Then, a few years ago, she struck out on her own and started Atelier Savas, a bespoke tailoring company for unconventional leather outerwear. Her company will one day be seen as a pioneer in bespoke tailoring trade or it’ll go down in flames because it’s sitting somewhere out in no man’s land. 

To understand Atelier Savas, you have go to back to the beginnings of the American garment industry. We take ready-made clothing for granted today, but in the long history of men’s dress, it’s a relatively new invention. Up until about the American Civil War, most men had their clothes made for them, either by a tailor, if they could afford one, or by wives and mothers working from home. The only ready-made clothing at this time was workwear, which was often crudely constructed for sailors, miners, and slaves. 

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Kiya Babzani, co-owner of the specialty denim empire Self Edge, is mostly hush about who patrons his stores, but he shared as story once of the most unlikely of customers. One day he received an order for a few things from Flat Head and Iron Heart. Having run the credit card a few times and getting the charge declined, he became suspicious of fraud. So he looked at the customer’s delivery information – Owenscorp in Paris – and reached out. “Oh it’s for Rick,” the buyer explained. “Sorry if the credit card didn’t go through. He wants these things sent to his studio." 

Rick, of course, refers to Rick Owens, who is reverently known to his fans as the “Lord of Darkness.” His clothes are masterpieces in terms of pattern making, far surpassing anything you’d find on Savile Row, but they’re cut for the clinically underweight. The shoulders are narrow, sleeves tiny, and chests tight. If you can somehow muscle your way into his clothes, however, they become beautiful, black coiling sculptures. Owens drapes and twists materials such as beaten lambskins and silky cottons to create garments that look like they’re decaying monastic robes in some space-age Brutalist future. 

What brought Rick Owens to Self Edge? The thing that unites almost every American clothing experience: the hunt for the perfect flannel shirt. Owens found his in the form of a red buffalo check flannel from Iron Heart, but then lost it a year later. His assistant emailed Kiya again, asking if he had another (“it’s his favorite,” she pleaded). Kiya didn’t, but found the same model in blue. "No worries, just mail it. We’ll dye it,” she replied. Of course, that’s impossible. Once a check has been made, you can’t change it into a different color because the yarns have already been woven. But who’s going to question Rick Owens’ garment making techniques – or deny him of his favorite flannel?

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No Man Walks Alone is a sponsor on this site, but they’re also one of my favorite online retailers. The shop’s founder, Greg – who can be clearly seen above walking alone – simply has great taste. He knows his way around a coat-and-tie rig, but also has a good eye for casualwear. For guys who love Italian tailoring and want to build a weekend wardrobe, No Man Walks Alone is a great one-stop shop. 

This morning, they started their end-of-season sale, where you can find select items marked down by as much as 40%. Some of my favorite brands here include Sartoria Formosa, which is wonderful for high-end Neapolitan tailoring, and Kaptain Sunshine, which offers slightly quirky and offbeat takes on Americana and workwear (they’re like LL Bean with a sense of humor and a lot more style). Few stores capture my personal interest in clothing as well as NMWA, especially in the way they mix tailoring with workwear and contemporary styles. Here are ten favorites right now from their sale.

 

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Today is Boxing Day for people in the Commonwealth, as well as the start of end-of-season promotions. I’m rounding up the best seasonal sales at Put This On, but I wanted to pull out my ten favorites here. There are some tremendous deals right now. Mr. Porter, notably, launched their winter sale yesterday, where you can find things such as discounted Edward Green shoes and Schott leather jackes. End has waxed cotton Barbours starting at $175; J. Crew has their anorak discounted to $100, as well as hemp work shirts for a mere $14 (I think tax costs more for most purchases at this point). Brooks Brothers’ oxford button-downs are seeing a rare promotion. And there are some terrific deals on outerwear, from Marni overcoats to Blackmeans double riders. 

END: Up to 60% Off Select Items

If you’re one of the few people left on this planet that reads about menswear online, but doesn’t own a Barbour jacket, END has some of the best prices around. Their end-of-season promotion includes a wide range of Barbour styles, including the Bedale for $199 and Beaufort for $259. I wear the Bedale over heavy sweaters, but use the longer Beaufort on the rare occasions I layer a Barbour over a sport coat. END also has Barbour’s Ashby, which is a slimmed-up Bedale, for $175. See this Barbour buying guide I wrote years ago for sizing advice.

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The best sales event of every season is always at Mr. Porter. Where else, after all, can you find discounted Edward Green shoes and Drake’s accessories sitting alongside niche Japanese labels and American workwear? Tonight, they started their end-of-season promotion, where you can find select fall/ winter stock on sale for about 50% off. 

The selection here is huge, and things tend to move quickly, so there are three good rules of thumbs to follow. First, if you’re on the fence about something, it’s almost always worth buying now and trying the item in-person. Mr. Porter has a hassle-free return policy, with free delivery both ways, so you risk little. Relatedly, since other shoppers are often operating with the same logic, you may want to check back often. Throughout the next couple of weeks, new sizes will pop in and out as customers return items. Thirdly, since the inventory here is so large, I find it’s often best to hit the sale section and sort by categories and sizes. This way, you may come across a serendipitous deal that you would have otherwise missed if you were just looking for brands. 

That said, there are some notable brands here. Inis Meain’s sweaters are expensive, even with the discount, but absolutely exquisite and a joy to wear. Engineered Garments, Blue Blue Japan, and Kapital are personal favorites for workwear; SNS Herning is great textured knitwear you can layer under heavy coats (be sure to size up). I’m also pleasantly surprised to see how many footwear brands are included in the promotion – RM Williams, Common Projects, John Lobb, George Cleverley, and Visvim among them. Here are ten things I think are especially worth highlighting. 

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In the world of classic men’s style, Naples holds a prominence that is only rivaled by London. The city is beautiful, energetic, and creative, always bustling with an upbeat tempo. Mark Twain once wrote of it: “The streets are generally about wide enough for one wagon, and how they do swarm with people! It is Broadway repeated in every street, in every court, in every alley! Such masses, such throngs, such multitudes of hurrying, bustling, struggling humanity! We never saw the like of it, hardly even in New York. There are seldom any sidewalks, and when there are, they are not often wide enough to pass a man on without caroming on him. So everybody walks in the street – and where the street is wide enough, carriages are forever dashing along.”

It’s among this energetic buzz that some of the world’s most celebrated tailoring traditions live, but you have to be in the region to appreciate them. Most Neapolitan tailoring houses don’t travel. In fact, that’s one of the biggest differences between English and Neapolitan firms. London-based companies have a higher level of business development – they have storied names and bigger marketing budgets. Some of their revenue may not even come from bespoke tailoring, but rather ready-to-wear. When they tour the US, some will take in hundreds of orders. 

Neapolitan firms, on other hand, are usually small, family-owned and -operated operations. There’s typically just one cutter, often an older man in his 60s, who is then supported by a complex network of outhouse workers (tailors, in other words). Most of these firms remain only known to hardcore tailoring enthusiasts – men who like to post online and share stories about bespoke craft. As a result, they take an infinitesimally smaller number of orders when they travel, assuming they travel at all. And if one or two clients drop from a city, traveling suddenly becomes a financial liability. Combine this difference in business organization with price – Savile Row suits typically cost double their Neapolitan counterparts – and, I think, you have your explanation for why some Neapolitan firms have such a bad reputation for service. 

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