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Marcel Duchamp once noted in a 1968 interview with Francis Roberts, “If your choice enters into it, then taste is involved—bad taste, good taste, uninteresting taste.” For those fortunate enough to live in post-industrial societies, where choices are now nearly limitless, taste is everything. Taste shapes what we purchase, the cultural artifacts we consume, how we dress, and how we decorate our living spaces. In the 19th century, standards for taste were passed down through aesthetic curricula conceived in formalized education systems. To have a certain type of taste was to show that you were educated and cultivated. Those standards have not been culturally relevant for over two generations, and thus, debates about taste take place everywhere. They happen in public spaces such as public transport, cafés, and boutiques, where people speak in hushed tones about other people's consumer choices. They also happen on social media and online forums. On Hacker News, a message board for tech workers, people discuss what constitutes a tasteful wardrobe. On subreddits and Facebook groups dedicated to topics wholly unrelated to fashion, such as motherhood and accounting, people post fit pics for feedback. Godwin's Law asserts that all online discussions, no matter the topic or scope, eventually result in someone comparing their opponent to Hitler. There should be a similar adage for how all discussions eventually lead to matters of taste. 

Yet, despite all the interest in taste, few people ask the more fundamental questions: What is good taste? How do you cultivate it? If you’re just starting to build a better wardrobe, how do you adjudicate between the different and often contrasting styles prescribed by hard-nosed traditionalists, Hypebeasts, gothninjas, workwear enthusiasts, and the avant-garde? Discussions about taste frequently take too much for granted, as though the laws governing aesthetics were chiseled into stone tablets. Or they fade into unhelpful aphorisms, such as “to each his own,” at which point participants all quietly drop the subject, not wanting to ruffle feathers. 

I've been thinking about taste a lot in the last few months. Fifteen years ago, if you were interested in classic tailoring, online debates about taste were settled with a scan from Apparel Arts or a photo of how an Italian industrialist dressed during the 1960s. Today, few people care about classic tailoring, and such specialized source materials hold little authority. In recent years, the scope for what we consider "legitimate taste" has widened to include a broader cross-section of society (a good thing). However, it has also become harder to critique ugly outfits (a bad thing). It's also harder to discuss aesthetics, as menswear has become balkanized, and The Discourse is increasingly about how to shop, not dress (a frustrating thing). So, I wanted to write a multi-part series on how to develop good taste. The first part is about theory; the second part is about practice. To be sure, this series will not settle any debates. But hopefully, it will give people better footing when discussing what lies at the heart of menswear: our taste in clothes.

Until recently, "collaborations" have been mainly in the purview of streetwear. They're a way for companies with specific strengths or areas of expertise to create something unique together, sort of like how academics from different fields might come together on a project. Growing up, I've always associated the term with Nike, or how a cut-and-sew company might collaborate with a cool brand specializing in screenprints. But as the fashion industry has increasingly embraced streetwear in the last ten years, even luxury lines are marketed under the flashing neon-lights sign of "collaboration." Collaborations are a way for companies to generate not only products, but also online content and interest in today's noisy, crowded market.

The best collaborations involve companies with distinct points of view, but aren't worlds apart. Last week, two of my favorite companies, No Man Walks Alone (a site sponsor) and Stoffa, collaborated on a project called In Good Nature. It's a fall/winter capsule collection that includes dramatic overcoats, patterned tailoring, lounge jackets, drawstring pants, and camp collared shirts with generously sized chest pockets. Like the two companies involved, the collection straddles the line between classic and modern, allowing you to style the clothes in various ways (more on this later).

The name In Good Nature refers to the team's goal of producing clothes with minimal environmental impact. Stoffa founder Agyesh Madan sourced deadstock Italian wools originally made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, saving material that would have otherwise been discarded. You don't often see collections like this because larger brands need enough cloth to produce massive runs. NMWA and Stoffa were able to use these remnants because they made a small capsule collection through flexible Italian factories ("The clothes are made in the same way we would do a one-off MTM," No Man Walks Alone founder Greg Lellouche explained). They also sourced natural, undyed fabrics from the Yorkshire-based mill Marling & Evans, which specializes in this sort of cloth. Most fabrics are chemically treated to take on the color palette of your wardrobe. Undyed fabrics allow the natural color of an animal's fleece to shine through. They're typically cold in hue, have some visual depth (since the fibers haven't been dyed into a flat uniform color), and range from grey to taupe to chocolate brown.

Fall/winter style is all about outerwear, but the shirt comes into its own in the summertime. What's typically considered background material for a nice coat or jacket becomes the centerpiece when it's too hot for layering. Unfortunately, there are few guidelines for choosing a good summer shirt. Basic white poplins and light blue oxford button-downs are wardrobe staples but a bit boring by themselves. Summer prints can vary wildly, leaving many people confused about what to buy. So this season, I've compiled a list of what I think are some excellent options, along with tips on how to wear specific shirts and what aesthetics they fit.

THE USEFUL BLUE SHIRT

In the most famous shirt-related scene committed to paper, Daisy Buchanan is described as sobbing stormily into thick shirt folds, her head bent and voice muffled as she cries about how she's "never seen such beautiful shirts before." The shirts had been thrown onto a table, mounted high into a soft, rich pile, and came in a spectrum of rainbow colors, including, as F. Scott Fitzgerald vividly described, "coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue." The enchanting description beautifully captures the decadence of the book's main character, the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. But if you want to build a useful shirt wardrobe, you should stick to just one color: light blue. 

For the past few years, whenever we're about to start a new season, I've been doing roundups about things I'm excited to soon wear. These lists are about what I'm interested in at the moment; they are not meant to serve as shopping guides for seasonal essentials (which invariably repeat the same yawn-inducing basics). But hopefully, between the entries, styling suggestions, and innumerable photos at the end, you can find some outfit ideas for your wardrobe. Here's this year's spring list. You can also revisit the lists for spring 2019 and 2021 for more warm-weather outfit ideas (2020's list was about life at home).

COTTON SUITS

Europeans and North Americans felt the Industrial Revolution not just in social terms, but also tangibly on their skin. Before the revolution, most Westerners wore and slept on linen, which was typically grown on local farms, spun at home, and made into moisture-wicking bedsheets and clothes. But changes in international trade, the invention of the cotton gin, and the evolution of factory cotton production made cotton incredibly cheap, relegating linen to buckram and underwear by the mid-19th century. Today, cotton is so ubiquitous that it's described as "the fabric of our lives." We wear it as shirts, shorts, pants, jackets, and even shoes. But for suits and sport coats, the fiber is often overlooked, sometimes even reviled.

Fashion is often criticized for its creative destruction. Trends are constantly coming and going; new brands are always emerging. What some see as a pointless field, I see as a subject where there’s always something fresh, something engaging, something different to talk about. For the past few years, I’ve been doing annual roundups about new brands I’m watching. To be sure, not all of them are actually new — some have been around for a while. But they’re new to me and, hopefully, you. This year, I have so many brands on my list that I decided to break this post into two parts. The first part was published two weeks ago. This is part two.

HUSBANDS

The lines on Husbands' tailoring are as strong and well-defined as the facial features of the company's founder, Nicolas Gabard. Gabard is a strikingly handsome Frenchman who wears suits and sport coats with Cuban-heeled side-zip boots. In a previous life, he worked as a lawyer to please his father but soon found himself rummaging through flea markets on weekends in search of vintage clothes. Now he has his own clothing label, Husbands, which is headquartered in the affluent 2nd arrondissement of Paris, a stone's throw from Palais-Royal. Husbands' tailoring is youthful, sleek, and above everything else, sexy. Their suits have defined shoulders, wide lapels, and a dropped buttoning point, giving the wearer strong, architectural lines. Yet, there's also a natural elegance to everything, as the full-bodied jackets have leafy skirts that sway like fronds. The high-waisted pants have long, slightly flared legs shaped like ringing bells, hinting at movement even when the wearer is standing still. "Husbands' style is about getting off the beaten track -- risk-taking," founder Nicolas Gabard tells me. "In that respect, the Husbands' style borrows its boldness from the Italians, which is then counterbalanced by the rigor of the English line. Husbands' style is therefore resolutely French: at the crossroads of these two territories."

In an interview with The Telegraph, Patrick Grant of Norton & Sons once described fashion as being an “ever-moving feast.” I 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. For the past few years, I've been doing annual roundups on new brands I find to be interesting. To be sure, not all of them are new -- many have been around for years -- but they're new to me. This year, there are so many brands on the list, I'm splitting the post into two parts. Here's part one, with part two coming in the next installment. 

GHIAIA CASHMERE

When Davide Baroncini left his job at Brunello Cucinelli, he didn't want to work for another luxury label. It would be strange, he said, to suddenly go from telling people that Cucinelli makes the best clothes to championing Tom Ford. So he started his own brand, Ghiaia Cashmere, which is named after the smooth pebbles found on the shoreline of his native Sicily. Baroncini says the name represents him returning to his roots, the memory of feeling the ground underneath his feet. It also suits a company specializing in thin, luxurious knitwear designed for Mediterranean climates, such as Sicily and Baroncini's newly adopted home, Pasadena. Plus, it sounds nice, so long as you can pronounce it (say it slowly, it's jhe-EYE-ah).

No Man Walks Alone is a sponsor on this site, but as I've mentioned in the past, also one of my favorite stores. Whereas most shops specialize in either tailored clothing or casualwear, No Man Walks Alone does both, helping guys build a more well-rounded wardrobe. Founder Greg Lellouche used to work as an investment banker on Wall Street, where he regularly wore bespoke suits and handmade ties. He knows his way around a tailored wardrobe, but from years of experience, he also has a strong eye for casualwear. At his shop, you can find everything from hard-to-find Japanese labels to contemporary-styled Belgian brands. 

This morning, they started their winter sale. You can find discounted items in the site's sale section and the items' respective categories. You don't need a discount code -- prices are as marked. However, all sales are final, so you'll want to double-check measurements and compare them to garments you already own. Note, since it's sale season and we're still in a pandemic, No Man Walks Alone warns that they'll need a little more time this week to ship out orders. Expect your order to ship within five days of you placing it. 

If you're looking for some suggestions, here are some items that I think are notable. 

Later today, I'll be posting a full roundup of every Black Friday sale worth checking out. The list will be published at Put This On, and it'll be updated until the end of Cyber Monday. In the meantime, here are seven more noteworthy sales, along with some suggestions of what items to check out. Along with yesterday's list, you should have some good shopping options this weekend.

KIKA NY: 20% OFF;  CODE BLACKFRIDAY21

When Kika Vliegenthart moved from the Netherlands to New York City in the early 1990s, she intended to study film but somehow ended up working for Barbara Shaum, the legendary leatherworker who made things for Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Shaum passed away a few years ago, but her legacy remains through the people she taught, Vliegenthart among them. These days, Vliegenthart runs a company with her life and business partner, Sabine Spanjer. Their company, KikaNY, transforms top-end Italian leathers into bags, belts, sandals, and other accessories. There's something bohemian and uniquely NYC about their work -- reminiscent of the Arts & Crafts Movement and 1960s East Village aesthetic for which Shaum became known. Their leathers are softer and gentler than the stiff bridle leather you might get from an English maker, such as Equus Leather, but no less durable. I like their belts, which are the kind of thing you'd expect to see at a Brooklyn boutique with potted Monstera plants growing in the corner. The 1.33" double-o ring belt, in particular, comes in just the right size for casual wear, and the leather ages wonderfully. The No. 8 and oval buckles look nice, too. 

Over the summer, I thought I should buy some long-sleeved polos because I was tired of ironing my shirts. When I browsed online at some of my favorite shops, I faced a digital wall of seemingly endless options. Every shop had Italian pique cottons and soft jersey knits in a range of Pantone colors. Many of these colors were given names that sounded like bite-sized plates on an expensive Brooklyn bar menu: dark guava, dried fig, hazelnut, burnt acorn, and plum. I wanted to be more adventurous and break out of my routine of only wearing light blue and white shirts, but I wasn't sure how. These polos were expensive, and I wanted to choose the right colors. 

Some of the greatest minds have written about the sources and uses of color. Aristotle believed that colors were related to the four primary elements -- earth, wind, fire, and water. That theory held for more than two thousand years until Newton found that light breaks up into distinct colors when passed through a prism (this is the ROYGBIV of colors, also known as The Dark Side of the Moon). Yet, for all the theories, we still don't have many good ideas for how to incorporate more interesting colors into a wardrobe. Much of men's dress follows a formula: jeans are blue or black, shirts are white or light blue, shoes are black or brown, etc. When building a wardrobe, it's easier to stick to colors such as navy, brown, and white because they play well together, making it easier to get dressed in the morning. 

But what about the more exciting colors -- mauve, celadon, or ochre? To get some ideas, I talked to my friend Agyesh Madan, co-founder of Stòffa. Agyesh and his team put together some of the most beautiful online presentations I've seen from any brand, big or small. I also find their use of colors compelling: the styles are subtle and subdued, but there's always a sophisticated tweak here or there in how they vary their shades. To me, this is more interesting than just splashing purple shoes or bright orange parkas into an outfit. So I chatted with Agyesh on the phone a few weeks ago about how to use color in a wardrobe (secretly trying to ply some info for my polo purchase). 

When The Armoury started putting together their spring lookbook a couple of months ago, they knew they couldn't travel abroad. The company's team members were stuck in their respective home cities, Hong Kong and New York City, and could only communicate with each other via phone and email. Yet, they also wanted to create a lookbook that was hopeful, an encouraging reminder that better days are ahead. "We love traveling, and we miss visiting Florence, Italy," Mark Cho told me over the phone. "So we wanted to make something that would be a celebration of our time there."

After drumming up some ideas, The Armoury's co-founders Mark Cho and Alan See dug through their holiday photos, and the company's team shot one or two people at a time in a studio, following masking rules. They then had to figure out a way to put the images together. At first, they used a green screen, but Mark says the resulting images were so terrible, a viewer would never be able to suspend their disbelief ("they were not good enough to be believable, but also not so bad that the images were funny. They were just bad."). Eventually, they landed on this cutout sticker design. "We had a colleague illustrate things, handwrite things, and then photograph crumpled paper to give everything some texture. There are also small paint drops on the collages, echoing the colors in the clothes, which helps bring everything together." The result is a virtual destination lookbook that feels reminiscent of a travelog.

Over the years, The Armoury's collections have gotten noticeably more casual. Along with their suits and sport coats, they also sell sporty knitwear, holiday shirts, and workwear from The Real McCoys. Mark says he expects this to continue in a post-vaccine world. "I think things will get more casual," he says, "which means tailoring also has to be more casual. This year's spring tailoring can be worn in the office, but the clothes come into their own when they're worn casually. When you show a collection like this, I think people become more comfortable with the idea of wearing tailored clothing." If you, like me, are eager to get back into a suit or sport coat, here are some suggestions on how to wear tailoring this spring, using images from The Armoury's new lookbook and various social media feeds.