Men’s style has never been more factionalized. Whereas men once agreed on what they thought were The Good Clothes, today’s landscape is such that the ascendency of one look doesn’t necessarily displace another. Ten years ago, men rallied around Americana and denim, then prep and Italian tailoring. Now with a million style tribes, it’s hard to coalesce excitement around any one thing. There’s streetwear and techwear, tailoring and normcore, the brutalist avant-garde and Japanese folk. Nothing is fully in or out. 

There is, however, one small sliver of overlap: the classical overcoat, loose and slightly oversized, which has somehow managed to cut across style genres. Preps pair polo coats with tweeds and flannels. Streetwear aficionados have worn camelhair topcoats ever since Kanye sported his with suede Chelsea boots. Contemporary menswear guys, those of both maximalist and minimalist stripe, like theirs with sleek jeans and textured sweaters. Even workwear lines such as RRL offer the occasional belted duster or tweed.

These are not just superficial overlappings, either. As men’s style has started loosening up, both fashion forward guys and classic menswear enthusiasts have found common ground on how they think a coat should fit. Whereas traditional overcoats once seemed out-of-touch, shoulder-hugging coats now look out-of-date. Classic overcoats right now are the one thing we can all agree on. 

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When it comes to outerwear, few styles come pre-loaded with as much meaning as a shearling. Not too long ago, the mere mention of it evoked images of the Marlboro Man. Those long, bulky, no-nonsense coats that have patchwork seams running up-and-down the back, and tufts of wool peeking out from beneath the cuffs. The silhouettes are blocky; the leathers often dry and cracked. They make their wearers look like King Kong. 

There have been times, however, when shearlings were considerably more luxurious – even if questionable in taste. In the early 1930s, catalog retailers advertised shearling coats alongside suede leather jackets and horsehide outerwear, seemingly unaware of the Great Depression. The material came roaring back in the ‘70s with the Peacock Revolution. Swanky men wore them with chunky turtlenecks and velvet bellbottoms, presumably to their eternal regret years later. They’ve also been part of some important rebel uniforms, including the better side of skinheads (e.g. the non-racist kind) and French zazous (who were an anti-establishment, punk version of French dandies). 

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Winter style is often presented as sled riding through some New England forest, or enjoying a hearth redolent of roasting Indian corn, but reality is often less romantic. This time of year is flu season, which means for many people, winter at some point will be about Robitussin, hot tea, blankets, and cough drops. I’ve been holed up at home for the past few days trying to fight off a stubborn cold, stay warm, and sleep through the night despite fits of coughing. 

Nothing will cure a cold except time, but there are things you can do to make yourself feel better. The Chinese have an herbal remedy called Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa, which does wonders for a sore throat, even if it tastes awful (I drink hot water mixed with a scoop of honey instead). Nasal sprays can help manage congestion, although you don’t want to use them for more than three days in a row. And wearing good loungewear feels so much better than laying around in sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

Years ago, Jacob Gallagher at The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece exploring whether men still wear pajamas. There aren’t many, and among those who do, some are apparently trying to sell others a set (Andy Spade, one of the founders behind Sleepy Jones, was quoted). The reasons given for PJs were predictable – they confer a better sense of self-respect when you’re at home (I have none to begin with, so that matters little), and they allow you to look presentable should an unexpected guest drop by (I have no social life, so that matters even less). 

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In some parts of the world, you can get by without a wallet, as cash and credit cards are totally unnecessary. These aren’t remote rural villages either, but rather metropolises such as Shenzhen, China, an urban hub for technological innovation that’s located just north of Hong Kong.

In an episode of The Wall Street Journal’s Moving Upstream, Jason Bellini shows how this Guangdong city operates as an almost-cashless society. Residents pay for everything from food to transport to consumer goods using only their smartphones, either by scanning QR codes or sending money via apps. Alibaba’s new grocery chain, Hemna, for example, looks like any other neighborhood supermarket. Except, shoppers can scan bar codes to look up more information about items, then pay at self-checkout stands by holding up their phone (some stores will even just scan your face). Three-quarters of the city’s fast food purchases are made using mobile devices, and taxi drivers prefer to take payment via WeChat. In 2016, Chinese citizens send a staggering $9 trillion through their mobile devices, and the number is only growing. 

We don’t think much of it, but wallet designs in the last five hundred years have tracked the changes in our political economy. And as society becomes ever more reliant on digital technologies, it’s hard not to think that we’re on the cusp of some new designs.

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No Man Walks Alone is an advertiser on this site, but also one of my favorite stores. In the last ten years, the average menswear shopper has become a lot more sophisticated – they know just as much about Neapolitan tailoring as they do about directional casualwear. No Man Walks Alone serves that kind of customer. They have classic suits and sport coats, but also interesting clothes for the weekend. It’s one of the few shops where a guy can pick up a wardrobe for almost any part of his life. 

This weekend marks their fifth year of doing business, and to celebrate, they’re holding a sale. For the next five days, you can take 20% off any order with the checkout code 5YEAR. The code even works on already-discounted sale items. Here are ten things I think are particularly worth a look:

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For all the guides on how to dress for your complexion, you only have to look at how black has been redeemed in the last ten years to see how color in fashion is often more about social meaning than simple color theory. During the late-aughts, menswear writers confidently declared that nobody should ever wear the color. Black suits are for morticians and the help. Black dress shirts are déclassé. Black trousers go with nothing. Black sport coats look like orphaned suit jackets. And black leathers don’t acquire the patina that makes a pair of well-polished, well-worn brown leather shoes so handsome. In fact, giving up square-toed black shoes in favor of more anatomically correct brown ones became something of a rite of passage for well-dressed men. And in binning those shoes, many have learned to avoid black entirely.

To be sure, some of those rules are sensible. Suits are typically easier to wear in navy or gray, rather than black, and black dress shirts are questionable at best. But as men have become more comfortable with fashion, black has seen a resurgence. It’s a color that connotes mystery, sophistication, power, elegance, and even sex appeal. It’s understated and urbane, dignified and dangerous. And for those reasons, black persists in menswear. 

In a New York Times article published earlier this year, Jonathan Wolfe asked Valerie Steele, the director at The Museum at the FIT and author of The Black Dress, why New York City’s unofficial uniform is about wearing black from head to toe. “It’s only some New Yorkers who wear black, but it’s the kind of people popularly identified with this city – fashion people, artists, and hipsters,” Steele answered. “New Yorkers start to become associated with wearing black in the late 1970s and early ’80s. That’s when you get a sort of perfect storm of different style tribes wearing the color.”

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When Hubert de Givenchy passed away earlier this year, many noted that his relationship with Audrey Hepburn helped set up today’s fashion-Hollywood complex – a system where designers dress famous faces so they can raise their brand’s profile and move units. Except, the relationship is so thoroughly deformed today, few would recognize the connection. Givenchy and Hepburn had an honest relationship and found in each other kindred spirits. They worked together to craft mutually supportive identities. Givenchy was Hepburn’s courtier; Hepburn was his muse. Today, however, clothiers and celebs work on a pay-for-play basis. Celebrities will profess their undying love for a brand one season, they say they like something entirely different the next. 

One of the few exceptions is Daniel Day-Lewis, who by all accounts has a genuine interest in style. He’s a second-generation Anderson & Sheppard customer and once studied shoemaking under the late Stefano Bemer. In preparing for his role in Phantom Thread, where he played the fastidious courtier Reynolds Woodcock, Day-Lewis learned how to cut, drape, and sew – at one point even recreating a Balenciaga dress all by himself (I admit to being skeptical, but that’s what was reported). George Glasgow Senior, of renowned British shoemaking institution G.J. Cleverley, tells me that when the actor is in London, he often stops by the shop to talk about shoes. “He has a keen eye and a very strong interest in clothes,” he says. 

So it was great to see Day-Lewis wearing the fisherman sweater pictured above, knowing it came from his wardrobe and that he had chosen it sincerely. The photo is from a W Magazine cover story published earlier this year. In it, he sports a striped Breton shirt, some heavy jewelry, and a fantastically rugged, moss-stitched sweater fashioned after something he inherited from his father. And true to form, instead of the sweater being supplied by a big name fashion house – who would have gladly paid for such exposure – it was from a small, unknown knitting cooperative located in British coastal town. My friend Pete wrote about it at Put This On: “The sweater caused a stir in knitting circles, and the knitters got to the bottom of it. His sweater, apparently, comes from a maker called Flamborough Marine, an outfit that still makes the sweaters entirely by hand.”

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Even if they’re both into style, the online communities for men’s clothing and fine horology exist on different islands. Guys who are into suits and Japanese workwear are often not that up on watches. And guys who are into watches are not always interested in clothes. These communities speak different languages, and have different standards for what makes something good. 

If you’re on this side of the divide – the one that’s more interested in menswear than mechanical movements – finding the right watch can be a challenge. For one, prices are dizzying. While you can get partially canvassed suits nowadays for $500, and full-grain leather shoes for half that amount, the ticket price for an entry-level, quality watch usually starts in the low four-figures – collector’s pieces are five-figures. That can make experimentation prohibitively expensive. Secondly, if you’re concerned about how to find a watch that actually complements the rest of your wardrobe, you have to learn a new visual language. Which watches go with suits, which go with workwear, and which go with contemporary menswear? 

I recently chatted with Greg Lellouche, co-founder of No Man Walks Alone (a sponsor on this site, although this isn’t a sponsored post) about how to find the right watch for any given wardrobe. Greg has been an avid watch collector since the late 1990s, when he bought his first one, the Sinn 142 ST you see him wearing above. Since then, he’s collected everything from vintage Rolexes to Speedmasters to Reversos. When he worked on Wall Street, Greg’s coworkers used to turn to him for advice when they were looking to buy a new wristwatch with their annual bonus. 

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