pdf - Sid Mashburn

HOW WE
:
DRESS
NOW
A N ORA L H I STORY
INTERVIEWS BY MATT GOULET
FULL-PAGE PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM SCHIERLITZ
F IG . 6:
C OTTON SHIRT ($325)
BY M ASSIMO A LBA .
164 E S Q U I R E š M A R C H 2 0 1 3
I L LU ST R AT I O N S BY GA B R I E L M O R E N O
THERE HAS BEEN A REVOLUTION.
W E SEE IT ON OUR STREETS AND IN OUR OFFICES, AT OUR PARTIES AND ON OUR GOLF COURSES.
THE CUTS OF OUR CLOTHES ARE A LITTLE CLOSER. T HE COLORS ARE MORE VARIED. A ND THE
SPREZZATURA EASE THAT WAS REMARKABLE JUST TEN YEARS AGO NO LONGER LOOKS FOREIGN
OR EXOTIC OR FASHIONY — IT JUST LOOKS NORMAL . H ERE , ELEVEN MAVERICKS OF MEN ’ S STYLE
LOOK BACK OVER THE DECADE AND TELL THE BRIEF HISTORY OF HOW WE DRESS NOW .
“ T H E S H I R T S W E R E J U S T H O R R I B L E .”
NICOLE BLACK, OWNER OF BLACKBIRD, SEATTLE:
I worked at Nordstrom in men’s wear [from 1995
to 2000], and so many of the shirts were just
horrible [fig. 1]. The fabrics weren’t good. The
collars were too big. The tails were too long. And
so when I started my store in 2004, I had a really hard time
finding good button-down dress shirts that fit. Because
you can’t fake the fit on a shirt.
them look like they’ve lost ten pounds. And
the first time I saw them try it on, around
2005, you could see these guys just beam.
Because they thought, maybe for the first
time in their lives, that they looked sexy.
They felt more muscular, slimmer, healthier. They looked like their dad just bought
them a Porsche.
F IG . 1
F IG . 3:
C OTTON SHIRT ($228)
BY P HINEAS C OLE .
KEVIN HARTER, FASHION DIMICHAEL BASTIAN, DESIGNER: When Thom
RECTOR AT BLOOMINGDALE’S:
Browne first started [in 2003], his were the
first shirts I remember being, like, really slim.
That was the first slim shirt, and now I’m
sure you can find slim shirts at J. Crew or the
Gap, but at the time they just weren’t something you saw every day.
The importance of gingham or
checks began to emerge, too. It
was like 2009, 2010, guys began using color and pattern to
make more of a statement. That’s when we
started seeing customers mixing up patterns
and asking for help to pair up ties and shirts.
TODD SNYDER, DESIGNER: Shirtmakers were
taking all the cloths you would find on traditional Jermyn Street shirts and figuring
out how to make them young and cool and
hip, with contrasting white collars or banker collars [fig. 3] and stuff like that. We had
older generations like, “You mean we can
wear a checked shirt with a suit?”
PAUL BIRARDI, CO-OWNER OF
ODIN, NEW YORK CITY: Around
2005, we started to see more
and more brands introduce
a variety of fits. That’s when
everyone began saying, “This
is my slim fit, this is my classic fit, and this
is my whatever else.” This was around the
time that guys started feeling better about
wearing tighter clothes. Everyone realized,
I’m making myself look worse if my
things don’t fit me.
MARCUS WAINWRIGHT, DESIGNER, RAG &
TOM KALENDERIAN, MEN’S FASHION
DIRECTOR AT BARNEYS NEW YORK:
Over the past decade, it’s slowly, season by season, shifted from 75 per-
cent of our customers wanting a full
cut to 75 percent wanting trim and
fitted [fig. 2]. The slim-cut shirt is
what guys want to wear, so all shirts
have become more body conscious.
BLACK: For guys who have a little
bit of a belly, a slim-cut shirt makes
BONE: In fall 2010, there was a huge
plaid situation. But unlike, say, the
fking trucker hat [fig. 4], which
was such a huge trend that nobody will wear it again for twenty
years, a plaid shirt is a subtle thing
and it’s much more acceptable.
SID MASHBURN, OWNER OF SID
F IG . 2:
C OTTON SHIRT
($185) BY
T HOMAS P INK .
For more on each of our experts, turn to page 58.
MASHBURN, ATLANTA: The checked
shirt [fig. 5] is so ubiquitous today,
you’ll find it on the least fashionable guy and the most fashionable guy.
F IG . 5:
C OTTON SHIRT ($450)
BY B ELVEST .
BASTIAN: Now we’re in a
place where things are a
little simpler, and maybe
a looser shirt [fig. 6]
is actually cool again.
BLACK: Men have more options, and they’re
more comfortable with more options. We
used to hear all the time, “I can’t wear a Vneck shirt because the guys in the office will
call me gay.” That was a
big deal for a lot of guys.
And I think, more and
more, that has gone away,
and now more men are
like, “I love color. I love
the way this shirt fits.”
They’re confident, and
F IG . 4
they look great.
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“I’ve seen such an embrace in accessories just over the last four or five years. Pocket squares have always been
important to some men, but that importance has increased greatly—and it’s not just the crisp white pocket
square that was probably due to Mad Men. Now it’s more about different fabrics, different patterns—something
that’s more expressive and helps define their sense of style.” —KEVIN HARTER
“ I T W A S L I K E T H E R E I G N O F T H E B I G B L A C K S U I T.”
MASHBURN: This is probably a horrible characterization, but back in 2000 and 2001 it was like the reign of
the big black suit [fig. 7]. The jackets were longer, the
pants were fuller, and most people were still riding
a pretty decently sized shoulder and a decently sized
armhole and big chest. This was also pre–regular guys
becoming conscious of their bodies. Once we saw
that really start to happen around 2004, we saw things
tightening up a bit.
TODD BARKET, OWNER OF
UNIONMADE, SAN FRANCISCO:
BLACK: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy [fig. 8]
happened and started teaching men about
how clothes should fit, and I remember thinking, Not every guy is watching this, but this
is going to change things. Because guys were
wearing one or two sizes too big, so when they
would come in the shop, they would say, “I’m
an extra large.” I’d be like, “No, you are a medium.” They didn’t even know!
KALENDERIAN: This was also around the time
that men started paying more and more attention to their physique and health and
well-being. They wanted softer, shorter,
tighter clothes. Not tight in an uncomfortable sense but close enough to the body so
people could see all that hard work they’d
put in at the gym.
HARTER: Guys began wearing slimmer suits,
with jackets becoming shorter and shoulders
less pronounced, and when I think back, I
give Band of Outsiders and Thom Browne
some credit for that.
SNYDER: To me, Thom Browne [fig. 9] single-handedly revolutionized the way people think of how a man’s clothes should fit.
F IG . 8
When he started in 2003, his suits made everybody look at their wardrobe and all the
oversized proportions that had dominated men’s clothes
since the eighties
and think differently about them.
He influenced everybody. I was certainly influenced.
166 E S Q U I R E š M A R C H 2 0 1 3
meters: Tiny little differences can make the
difference between something you wear all
the time and something you never, ever pull
out of your closet.
MASHBURN: Remember
Casual Friday? That
was hard to figure out,
and it was an empty
promise in a way. Because
it’s fine to casualize the
workplace, but dressing
casually actually made it
harder for guys to dress.
People’s eye changed, right?
Thom Browne was proba- HARTER: I remember a good friend of mine,
bly the start of that. He took who lives up in Connecticut, said his favorite
it to the umpteenth degree time to come to the train station [in the earwhere suits were super–shrunken down, ly 2000s] was on Friday mornings, because
supershort, superfitted. And then, I think, all the guys would look around at each othother designers took that idea and made it er, all nervous about how they looked. And I
more understandable and accessible. To me, think there’s been a move for men to kind of
he started that whole fitted-blazer moment, give up that sloppiness that might have preand then it translated across the board in- vailed back then and dress up on a more conto things that were much more wearable.
sistent basis—on Fridays, evenings, and durHARTER: Overall the silhouette of the suit was
ing the weekend. It was just easier.
softening [fig. 10], and all these really design- SNYDER: It might sound trivial, but Mad
er brands were adding shorter jackets to their Men [fig. 11] really influenced how we
collections. It’s been gradual enough that a think about how we got
customer might not even have noticed.
dressed. It used to be
BASTIAN: For the longest time,
the guy would get home,
guys would put their time and take off his suit, take off
energy and money into their his tie. Now you’re seesuits, shirts, and ties, and didn’t ing the opposite: The
spend so much time on what guy gets home, he’s going out to dinner, he’s
they wore after work or on the putting on a tie, he’s putting on a sport coat.
weekends. But in 2004, when I was still men’s BLACK: Whereas a guy used to have one sport
fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, we coat in his closet, now he had like six or ten,
had this weird transition going on, because all different patterns and cloths, and he’d
a lot of men weren’t wearing suits
swap them out and wear them on
to work. The sport coat started getdifferent occasions.
ting a lot of attention, and it was the
BASTIAN: With the recession, guys
beginning of this very strong movestarted getting more into the texment toward mixing stuff up. You
ture and the heritage of the fabric,
know, take an Etro sport coat and
like the Shetland tweed and cloths
a Dolce jean. This was a big deal,
that were a little heavier than what
because people hadn’t really done
they were used to.
that before. So if you weren’t goSNYDER: Like 2008, 2009—the
ing to invest in a suit because you
economy helped underline that
didn’t have to, and you still wanted
thought of having something with
to look good, you wore sport coats.
more meaning and value, making
And guys started worrying about
more of an investment, and going
things like the buttons on the sleeve
back to your roots. Everybody was
working and the button stance and
going through an inventory prohow many buttons. That’s the trick
cess and making sure the things
of men’s wear. It’s a game of milliF IG . 9
that they bought weren’t fashion—
F IG . 11
F IG . 7
L INEN POCKET
($135
EACH ) BY B RUNELLO
C UCINELLI .
SQUARES
“ I D I D N ’ T W A N T A B I G , B A G G Y D A D C H I N O .”
KALENDERIAN: Today men are completely focused on
wearing flat-front trousers, but you could not say that ten
years ago. Business was coming primarily from pleated
trousers, and the shift was gradual at first, but once guys
caught on it became necessary. In the same way that the
jacket has become shorter, slimmer, and closer to the body,
so have the trousers. However, they’re not tight. A garment
you wear to work as well as off duty has to be comfortable.
BASTIAN: The whole idea behind starting my
brand was that I couldn’t find the kind of
chino I wanted to find. I didn’t want a big,
baggy dad chino [fig. 15]. I wanted something slimmer, made in a beautiful fabric,
that was just kind of perfect in its purity.
This was 2004, and here
I am representing Bergdorf, going to every country’s fashion week and going to every trade show,
and I couldn’t find it.
And there were big logos
on everything. And if you
didn’t want logos all over
the place or any obvious,
F IG . 15
flashy designer stuff with
logos, you were in trouble.
F IG . 14
F IG . 12:
D OUBLE - BREASTED LINEN JACKET ($725)
BY A LLEGRI .
F IG . 13:
T WO - BUTTON WOOL - LINEN - AND - COTTON JACKET
($750) BY L.B.M. 1911.
BARKET: I think it’s the Italians [fig. 14] dictating it. They’re smart. They’re realizing that
today not everyone’s wearing a suit, and casual garment-dyed blazers are one of those
things that anyone can wear and not feel
fussy or fancy.
168 E S Q U I R E š M A R C H 2 0 1 3
BLACK: Everything
had logos on it. We
would sit there with
a seam ripper, and we
would take everything
off. Because everything
was just smothered
and covered.
HARTER: Around 2005, we started to go
from pants that were full-leg,
with a high rise and a full break,
to something a lot slimmer. I kind
of equate it all with the Dior/
Thom Browne movement—you
saw those really slim suits down
the runway, and when it came to
pants, all the silhouettes started
getting slimmer and the pants a
little shorter.
BASTIAN: I’d be in the fitting
room at Bergdorf with the tailors, and there’d be other guys
getting their suits done. What I
noticed, which was really interesting, was that even the classic-suit guys would put their
hands in their pants pockets to
nudge them down a little bit, so
the pants sat more on their hip bones, not
up at their waist. We weren’t pushing that
rise on them—that’s what they started to
be comfortable in.
BLACK: When we started selling more blazers, we started selling more trousers. We had a
huge trouser market. Because our guy wanted
to dress up a little bit more for work, and he
didn’t want to wear the same old thing.
KALENDERIAN: If you think about the jeans
you had in 2003, you’ve donated those a long
time ago, and if you haven’t, I want you to.
The two biggest changes in denim over the
past decade have been the wash, or the lack
of—a soft wash, a hard wash, raw denim—
and secondarily, the silhouette. The fit is
dramatically different. It went from relaxed
to straight to slim to superslim, and lately
it’s settled on slim.
WAINWRIGHT: With our
jeans, we were trying to do
something that nobody else
was doing, and that was making dark denim rather than
spending a shitload of money on laundering and developing fabrics and
washes that made jeans look old.
BASTIAN: The Swedes invented the skinny
jean, and that suddenly changed everyone’s
eye. Lowering the rise changed everything,
so that even now that things have
moved away from that really skinny period, we still can’t accept a
jean with a higher rise. It looks like
a dad jean. You know, Obama and
F IG . 16
that they’d been through the long haul. That’s
when double-breasted [fig. 12] started to become popular.
HARTER: There’s been a lot of progress toward unlined garment-dyed jackets [fig. 13].
It’s not necessarily part of guys’ work attire as much as it’s their evening and weekend attire.
KALENDERIAN: The garment-dyed jacket is
crescendoing; it’s getting stronger year by
year. Because it’s soft and you can wear it
with anything.
his stone-washed jeans [fig. 16].
KALENDERIAN: Colored denim
went big with Levi’s doing a red
jean, a green jean. And obviously
white denim is prolific today, but
if you go back four or five years
ago, nobody wore white denim. It
was something you saw on fashion guys, but today a pair of white
jeans is basic.
BLACK: Beginning in 2009, slim-fit
chinos [fig. 17] went crazy, mostly because our customer already
had his jeans. He played the jean
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“ G O D , T H E S Q U A R E - T O E S H O E .”
HARTER: In the beginning, it was all about the black
F IG . 18:
F ROM TOP : C OTTON JEANS BY L EVI ’ S V INTAGE
C LOTHING ($210); T RUE R ELIGION ($244);
E XPRESS ($98).
game for so long—“There’s this brand and
that brand and this cut and whatever!”—and
he just wasn’t that interested in them anymore. He wanted to know what’s next, or
how can I stand out and be an individual?
EDDY CHAI, CO-OWNER OF
Every guy had a bunch of pairs
of jeans [fig. 18]. Now guys
actually wear chinos or
washed trousers as their
weekend staple. It’s just another option.
ODIN, NEW YORK CITY:
KALENDERIAN: There are
cords, there are moleskins [fig. 19], there are
velvets, there are wools
[fig. 20]. There is so much
interest in casual trousers for people who
like the concept of
denim but don’t want
any more denim.
SNYDER: The fit is now slim
but not skinny. It’s a little bit
lower rise but not too low.
It’s definitely cleaned up in
the last five years and things
are a little more . . . tailored, I
think, is the best word.
F IG . 19:
C OTTON MOLESKIN
TROUSERS ($487)
BY P HINEAS C OLE .
F IG . 20:
W OOL TROUSERS
($745) BY E RMENEGILDO
Z EGNA .
shoe. A guy only needed a couple of great-looking
black wing tips in his closet to go with his work suit
and he was set.
BLACK: Back then, if a guy was wearing jeans,
he was wearing sneakers, not boots. Sneakers. Like, Pumas.
MASHBURN: That was the era of the squaretoe shoe [fig. 21]. God, the square-toe shoe
was horrible. I was there! I had a pair of
F IG . 21
square-toed boots from Gucci, and at the
time they looked pretty cool, but boy did
they date the heck out of themselves quickly. because once the customer went there they
SNYDER: Around 2004, the desert boot bewere open to so many other styles they might
came pretty popular, and you started to see have once considered too casual, you know?
a return to the wing tip, which was kind of CHAI: At Odin, we’ve never not had wing tips.
awesome because that’s what my dad used But in terms of noticing a huge change in into wear and my grandfather used to wear. terest from our customers, it ties back to the
You know Alden? I’ve known Alden my en- American-heritage wave.
tire life. I’ve always known about it. When
we introduced Aldens at the [J. Crew] Li- HARTER: Monk-straps.
quor Store [in 2008; Snyder was head men’s- KALENDERIAN: Not only the monk-strap, but
wear designer there], they just took off like the double monk [fig. 23]! I mean, I’ve been
wildfire. I have never seen a trend take off so trying to sell double monks for fifteen years,
quickly. Red Wing boots did the same thing. but some things are just ahead of their time.
KALENDERIAN: This decade has given men a
BASTIAN: Suddenly, a few years ago, everyone
newfound respect for history. We talk about had to have a pair of double monks, and it was
the word authenticity repeatedly. Authentic kind of hilarious because those shoes were albrands. Authentic style. And when we’re talk- ways around. They never really went away.
ing about shoes, we’re talking about classics HARTER: What’s interesting now is that you’re
like the Weejuns and Sperry Top-Siders and seeing men play with color. Colored soles
brands with history to them.
were big last year, and guys are playing with
MASHBURN: 2007 was when
colored laces. Most men still gravitate toward
designers started reinterpret- a black or brown shoe, but brown seems much
ing classics with a
more important than black lateslightly chunkier
ly. It goes back to men wanting a
sole, a nicer shape
more casual, versatile look. And
to the shoe, no flat
brown is definitely more versatile.
toe—things that looked a little more
KALENDERIAN: Thank God men
classic but also could show up in a
rediscovered brown. And not only
F IG . 22:
lot of different environments.
just brown, but beautiful shades
L EATHER WING TIPS
SNYDER: The economy was kind
of chestnuts and tans and rich
($895) BY D I B IANCO .
of in the tank, and everybody’s
colors. And suede [fig. 24] became
like, “I remember those brands,
so important to the idea of mixing
and I love the way they made me
things up. The dress shoe, a beaufeel.” Here’s an analogy: Back in
tiful cap-toe lace-up, is now the
2003, bars were really more about
chicest shoe you can wear with
microbrews. You go into bars now
your jeans. And the sporty shoe,
F IG . 23:
and have all these crazy drinks L EATHER MONK - STRAPS like a chukka boot [fig. 25], is the
that only your grandfather would ($675) BY C HURCH ’ S . chicest thing to wear with your
know how to make. We see a lot
flannel suit.
of average guys getting interested
BASTIAN: You gotta remember:
in whiskey and wanting to learn
Guys look at watches, girls look
more about it, and the taste levat shoes. And it’s almost like evel has just become a little more
erything else that you wear can be
elevated.
forgiven if you have an amazF IG . 25:
HARTER: The wing tip [fig. 22] was N UBUCK CHUKKA BOOTS ing watch and an amazing pair
obviously a huge tipping point, ($228) BY C OLE H AAN . of shoes. ≥
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