Every season, I find myself wanting at least a few things from No Man Walks Alone (a sponsor on this site, although I pay for all my purchases at full price like everyone else). The store has an impressive selection covering a range of styles, from Japanese workwear to Neapolitan tailoring to contemporary minimalism. But a lot of the stuff comes together in a way that works for guys who appreciate classics without wanting to look like they’re in repro, as well as contemporary clothes without seeming overly trendy. Greg, the shop’s founder, used to work as a senior investment banker at UBS, where he had to wear a coat-and-tie. I appreciate that he has a better eye for tailoring than more casual shops, but also a more stylish take on casualwear than most traditional clothiers.
For the next three days, they’re holding an early spring sale, where you can take 20% off any full-priced item with the checkout code SPRING20. They also have some deeply discounted stragglers left in their winter sale section, although the code doesn’t stack. Here are five things that I think are particularly notable right now:
A few months ago, L Brands, formerly known as The Limited, shuttered all 23 of their Henri Bendel stores, including their Fifth Avenue flagship in New York City. Founded in 1895, the luxury womenswear retailer was the first in many categories — the first retailer to hold a fashion show, the first retailer to hold semi-annual sales, and the first retailer to carry Coco Chanel’s line in the United States. On their website, they also took credit for discovering Andy Warhol, who they hired early on as an in-house illustrator.
Henri Bendel’s profits, however, have been dipping for years as the upscale retailer struggled to find footing against online behemoths such as Net-a-Porter and FarFetch. Last September, when they finally announced that they would close all their locations by the end of January, The New York Timescontacted Mark Cho of The Armoury to see how his brick-and-mortars have been able to thrive in this economy. Mark said it came down to people — having personal relationships with customers and hiring sales associates who know The Armoury’s products. “For some luxury brands, the customer comes in and knows exactly what he wants, and the salesperson is just a vending machine,” Mark said. “The Armoury has no aspiration to be a big brand.”
Some of their success can also be chalked up to how they make classic men’s style feel relevant, especially to a new generation of men who didn’t grow up wearing a coat-and-tie. Their clothes are traditional and sophisticated, but they don’t reach for the same tired tropes about luxury clothing and class pedigree. They’ve also done an impressive job of pulling together small makers, such as Ring Jacket, Carmina, and Liverano & Liverano, before these names became common reference points for menswear enthusiasts. I can’t tell you how many bespoke tailors have told me about clients who ask for curvy, Florentine quarters – no doubt because of The Armoury’s influence.
In August of 1942, not long after Germany took over Paris, Samuel Beckett and his companion (later wife) Suzanne Deschevaux fled their apartment in the French capital. The pair had been working in a Resistance cell known as Gloria, where they translated Axis documents and relayed information about troop movements for Allied powers. The info was coded into microfilm, hidden in candy boxes and slipped into toothpaste tubes, and then passed along through a chain of Gloria members, with each person reporting to the next in line, until the message reached Allied headquarters in London.
That year, however, Gloria was betrayed by Robert Alesch, a Catholic priest and double agent who sold out hundreds of Resistance agents for his own financial gain. As a result, the Gestapo went around the Paris rounding up Gloria members and other anti-Nazi agents. One of the people arrested was Alfred Péron, a Jewish writer and Beckett’s closest French friend. He was interrogated and eventually deported to one of the most notorious concentration camps, Mauthausen on the Danube River. All categories of prisoners here, from Jews to gays to political opponents, were starved, beaten, used for medical experiments, and subjected to slave labor in the local stone quarries. Péron survived until the end of the war, but tragically died two days after the camp’s liberation in 1945.
In researching for Beckett’s biography, James Knowlson interviewed the extraordinary Germaine Tillion, one of the first Gloria members to be betrayed by Alesch. She was involved with one of the earliest underground organizations of the French Resistance, the Musée de l’Homme, and many of her friends had been executed by Nazis. Knowlson writes of the interview at The Independent:
For many men of my generation, who grew up in the 1980s and ‘90s, our first introduction to classic style was at a Ralph Lauren store. That’s where we fell in love with things such as sporting tweeds, chambray work shirts, and the chalky hand of ancient madder. Ralph Lauren didn’t invent these things, of course, but they presented them in a way that felt sexy. Brooks Brothers has been many things, but it has never been sexy.
In some ways, Drake’s is doing that for a younger generation, albeit at a much smaller scale. As the brand has expanded beyond just accessories, taking on tailoring and sportswear, it’s been able to present a fuller vision of how classic style can be worn today. These lookbooks have become incredibly popular in recent years, often getting posted on sites such as Reddit’s Male Fashion Advice within minutes of their release. And much like how Ralph Lauren helped translate classic style for me, I think Drake’s is putting a new spin on the language. Instead of showing pinstripe suits in luxuriously paneled offices, with decor reminiscent of an expensive lawyer’s sanctum, they feature softer takes on classic menswear in more relatable environs. Tweeds and duffle coats are shown being worn at university campuses, seersucker suits in Southern diners, and brushed Shetlands on moss-covered, rocky shores.
This season, the team went to Lanzarote, one of the seven main Canary Islands located just off the coast of Morocco. It’s a short four-hour plane ride from London, making it a popular fly-and-flop destination for vacationing Brits (many retreat there for some much-needed winter warmth). But for Drake’s, the subtropical archipelago was also an excellent solution to a real problem. How do you shoot a spring/ summer lookbook in the middle of January, when it’s snowing in London? To show their collection in a warmer clime, they headed to the one place known as the “Island of Eternal Spring.”
If you were on social media in 2016, you probably remember the Great Cargo Pocket War. It all started with an innocent article in The Wall Street Journal about how bulky cargo shorts were driving a wedge between people in their relationships. One of the men in the story said that, in the course of his 11-year marriage, he’s noticed as many as fifteen pairs of cargo shorts go missing. On the occasions he’s asked his wife about them, she admits to throwing them out or deflects to another subject. He’s now down to just one pair, which he guards closely (they’re hidden in a small nook somewhere). “I don’t let her get her hands on them,” he said. “I wish I had caught on sooner.”
Tom Lommel, an actor in Los Angeles, said he loves cargo shorts because they’re like wearing “socially acceptable sweatpants.” He reserves them for when his wife is away from home, however, because wearing them feels like he’s breaking a marriage vow. “I wish that were the truth,” his wife disputes. “If he was only wearing them when I could not look at him, that would be perfect.”
The article sparked a fierce internet debate. Fans of the style say cargo shorts are hard wearing, easier to move in, and practical in terms of storage space. Detractors say no one human being needs that many pockets. Cargo shorts and their related pants have become the symbol of aging frat-bros, uncool dads, and the sort of people who carry vape pens, tactical knives, and Soundgarden CDs on their body. Cargo pocket defender and International Relations professor Dan Drezner went a step further when he wrote in The Washington Post: “Cargo shorts are great and anyone who opposes them should just acknowledge their misandry and be done with it. […] Any article of clothing that helped defeat Hitler is an article of clothing that should never go out of style.”
Yesterday marked the beginning of a new year on the Gregorian calendar. While seasons and days have their natural demarcations, the division of years is a totally artificial, man-made boundary. Humankind needs some way to clear the books and start a new ledger; somehow we have jointly decided that the time to do this is the turning of the new year, and that this happens on an agreed-upon day in the dead of winter. The Earth recognizes no particular difference between Tuesday and Monday, but by now billions of new year resolutions have been made, some already broken. This year, we tell ourselves, will be the year that we become better versions of ourselves.
Fashion, too, reinvents itself on a schedule. Every year brings new clothes, new trends, and even new companies. 2019 will offer hundreds of options for every imaginable item that could be in a closet, each evolution differing from its predecessor only by a matter of degrees. Hanes is for basics. American Apparel is Hanes, but pornographic. Everlane is American Apparel, but celibate. Entireworld is Everlane, but cultish.
Though the market drowns in options, and the stream of fashion moves ever quicker, the average consumer does not navigate the twists and torrents of the entire industry. Instead, they find direction from just a handful of companies. And what matters is not the passing of seasons or the deluge of new releases, but rather how each company organizes those releases that affect our perception of time – and, relatedly, style.
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.
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.
Flannel trousers are the backbone of any tailored wardrobe. They’re professional without looking pushy, sophisticated without being slick. Best of all, while they’re perfectly suitable for the office, they make you feel like you’re lounging in your brushed cotton pajamas. Wool flannel is so soft and comfortable, the Brits used it for undergarments up until the early 20th century. Doctors even recommended wearing flannel to ward off ailments and cure dysentery. Although, not everyone was convinced. In a 1900 issue of The Medical Times, one skeptic wrote: “The writer was a constant victim to colds. He was really a victim of flannels, having fall after fall procured underwear of heavier weight and all wool, in the determination to avoid the chills and shivery sensations during winter. [He fell] for the flannel craze.”
Like all wool fabrics, flannel comes in two forms: worsted and woolen. Maybe these categories should be renamed to combed and uncombed, however, because it’s the combing process that separates them. Combing wool is exactly what it sounds like. Before wool is spun into yarn, a spinner can separate out the fibers by combing the material. This sets the hairs parallel to each other, as well as removes any of the shorter fibers that would spoil the regularity characteristic of worsted. After the wool has been combed, it’s spun into yarn and then woven into a fabric. And by combing the hairs first, the resulting fabric will feel a bit smoother and crisper, which is how you get shiny, hard-finished fabrics. Woolens, on the other hand, aren’t put through the same process. Thus, the fabric is spongier and loftier, as the fibers point in every possible direction. To give examples, gabardine is worsted; tweeds are generally woolen.
Flannel is available in both forms. Worsted flannel will have a subtle but visible twill weave just beneath its fuzzy nap. Woolen flannel, on the other hand, tends to look cloudier (like the every-which-way direction of the hairs on tweed). I prefer woolen flannel this time of year because it’s softer and spongier next to the skin, its lofty surface helps trap heat, and its mottled finish lends visual interest. None of these characteristics are present to the same degree in the increasingly more common worsted variety, whose only virtues are that it’s studier and can be woven into a lighter weight material. If you have the money for it, get worsted flannel for spring/ summer, then heavier woolen flannel trousers for those bitingly cold winter nights.
George Frazier, the famous jazz columnist and author of “The Art of Wearing Clothes,” had one of the most accurate and least helpful ways of describing style. He used the term duende, a Spanish word for a kind of mythological hobgoblin, but when used colloquially, at least by Frazier, it refers to a kind of irresistible magnetism. Some things have duende and some things, while they may still be good, simply do not.
“It’s the thing that Fred Astaire had, but Gene Kelly did not; what made a Ted Williams strikeout more exciting than a Stan Musial home run,” Alex Belth once explained in Esquire. “It was difficult to even describe – you just knew it when you saw it – but Frazier never tired of trying. For him, style was a matter of utmost importance, as he revealed in a 1969 column: ‘It is my own conviction that there can be no style without … an immense honesty, and inviolability in the matter of one’s craft, a relentless being-true-to-one’s-own image.’”
Duende goes by many other names – it’s similar to sprezzatura in Italian and sang-froid in French. In any language, it points to a kind of naturalness that can’t be imitated. And after chatting with Dick and Ben for a couple of hours last week, trying to get at some helpful tips on how others may want to dress, I left with little practical advice. Dick and Ben wear many of the same things others do, they just look cooler.
When did you start wearing tweed and flannel on a consistent basis this year? About a generation or two ago, these two robust fabrics would have made their first appearance after Labor Day, which marked the natural end of summer fashion. After all, that was the spirit behind the saying “no white after Labor Day,” a rule so sacred among etiquette hardliners that Patty Hearst’s character was murdered for it as punishment in the 1994 movie Serial Mom. But this year, my autumnal clothes have been dashing in-and-out of my wardrobe, with summer pieces continuing to be useful as late as November. Last month, thirteen US federal agencies released a stunning report saying climate change has already had devastating impacts on our health and economy. On a more superficial level, I can’t help but wonder if it’s also affected our wardrobes – and menswear retailing.
Every year, the traditional concept of four seasons seems increasingly outdated. Scientists have found that, as the planet warms up, the tropics have been expanding 0.1 to 0.2 degrees latitude every decade, so that places that once had four seasons are now shifting to having just two. Vox had an article this week about how global warming could change US cities by the year 2050 (“In some cities, it’ll be like moving two states south”). “You can see that Scranton, Pennsylvania, will have a climate that resembles that of Round Hill, Virginia, today,” they wrote. “That’s a distance of about 220 miles as the crow flies, but it means that Scranton will face average summer peaks that are 4.8°F higher and winter temperature lows that are 5.5°F higher.”
This is happening all over the place, not just in Scranton. In parts of New England, winters have warmed at an average rate of more than 1°F per decade since 1970 — that’s more than 4°F total. Last year, some eastern US cities were beset with summerlike temperatures as early as February. And across the US, winters feel shorter and generally milder, with the transition from cold winter weather to warmer spring temps happening earlier. Alexander Stine, an Assistant Professor of Earth & Climate Sciences at Harvard, says: “Once we account for the fact that the average temperature for any given year is increasing, we find that some months have been warming more than others. Most of the difference is the result of this shift in the timing of the seasons, and a decrease in the difference between summer and winter temperatures.”
