Our #TheNewStyle photoshoots are under way from Pitti Uomo 89. Learn more about the movement here, and follow Esquire on Instagram to see the best of the best of the men we’ve selected. http://instagram.com/esquire.
It’s Time for #TheNewStyle
The days of the sartorial peacock are numbered.
If you follow the world of men’s fashion, there’s little doubt you’re already familiar with the scene. But allow us to set the stage anyway.
We open on the Fortezza de Bosso, the site of the twice-yearly Pitti Uomo trade show in Florence, Italy. Fade into a group of men, resplendent in their finery, milling about in the Fortezza’s main interior square. They’re decked the hell out.
We’re talking suits in the most brazen of patterns and colors, paired with all manner of accessories. There are pocket squares, practically exploding out of breast pockets. There are scarves or ties in paisley and ancient madder and far more ostentatious modern prints, nestled just so around the neck. There are double-monks and fedoras and overcoats and bracelets stacked to the breaking point on wrists bedecked with watches that cost as much as a used car. Every once in a while, there’s a cloak. (Yes, a cloak.)
These are the peacocks of Pitti, and they are not isolated phenomena. You can find them in New York, Milan, Paris, London… anywhere you care to look. They are endlessly chronicled by street style photographers. Endlessly Instagrammed and tweeted and reblogged. And their days are numbered.
Because at this moment there is something to be said for doing more with less. The dandy is not dead—the dandy will likely never die, nor should he—but in 2016 he has given way to the sort of man who appreciates the intersection of ostentation and understatement. The sort man who embraces the idea that one should not look like a character, and much less a caricature. The sort of man whose style doesn’t just seem effortless, but actually is.
Now is the time for #TheNewStyle, which is just our social media-friendly way of saying that menswear is due for a shot in the arm. We need men that dress with substance, not just ornament. And we’ve come to Florence to find them.
Over the next few days, we’ll be documenting our endeavor. Follow along on Instagram to see them in real time, and check back here for photo galleries of the best of the best. We’re searching for the men who will help define the way we should dress now and the way we will dress in the days and months and years to come. And we hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Katie Aselton: Funny* Joke from a Beautiful Woman
The Joke:
What did the elephant say to the naked guy? “Fine, but can it pick up peanuts?”
About the Jokester:
If she’s not careful, Katie Aselton could end up being typecast as the perfect wife. On FX’s surprise hit The League, her character not only puts up with her husband’s fantasy-football obsession, she helps him pick his players. And in the new film The Freebie (out in October), which the 32-year-old wrote and directed, her character agrees to take a night off from the romantic restrictions of marriage (to a mop-haired Dax Shepard) in order to spice things up. Asked about her own tolerance for that sort of thing, the Maine native says, “I’m a fan of monogamy, but let’s be honest, as an actor, there are legal freebies all over the place.” Our next career? Actor.
*Esquire cannot guarantee that this joke will be funny to everyone.
This Custom BMW Motorcycle Is Absolutely Stunning
Few things are as universally recognized as badass as a finely crafted, vintage motorcycle. Now make that bike a BMW and strip it down to its pure essentials, then build it back up with custom components and leather details, and you’ve got something so damn cool it’s borderline illegal. That is this, the DV 100 collaboration build from motorcycle apparel and accessories brand Cardinal Motors and luxe eyewear label Dom Vetro. Based on a 1978 BMW model R100/7, the custom build was designed and fabricated by designer Chad Hodge (of Bell Bullitt fame) in his Brooklyn workshop.
Inspired by a classic tracker style bike, the DV100 features beefy tires, minimal controls, and a laundry list of completely custom parts, including a sub-frame and seat with a 3D-printed tail piece and specially engineered exhaust pipes and headers. To accompany the bike, Cardinal Motors also designed and manufactured a leather tool roll/dopp kit and a magnetic tank strap with stash pocket for everything from sunglasses to cash for toll roads. Though black is generally the color of choice for Cardinal, both accessories are available for a limited time in a unique burgundy colorway exclusive to Dom Vetro, which also released a new sunglasses frame style as part of the collaboration.
Read more, here.
Chrissy Teigen is a Woman We Love
Even before I met Chrissy Teigen, I was aware that she was a woman of passionate opinions. Consider her Twitter feed:
• On gazpacho: “Don’t tell me to make gazpacho aka cold salsa aka crap.”
• On Donald Trump: “I literally pose half naked for a living and u are still the biggest attention whore I know.”
• On food that is not from a pig: “The fish sucked because it wasn’t pork.”
More, here.
Photos: Chris Fortuna for Esquire.
Banksy Just Made a Powerful Statement About the Syrian Migrant Crisis
On February 24, 1955, Joanne Carole Schieble gave birth to a baby boy who would grow up to become Steve Jobs. Abdulfattah Jandali, a Muslim man who grew up in Syria and met Schieble while studying in America, was the baby’s biological father. After becoming pregnant in Syria, Schieble left for San Francisco, where she could safely have the child out of wedlock and put it up for adoption. In a new powerful piece on a wall in the Calais Jungle–a migrant city in France–the graffiti artist Banksy has captured Jobs’ origin story. The work shows Jobs as an adult with a traveling sack over his shoulder, wearing his iconic blue jeans, black turtleneck, and carrying an early Apple computer. Surrounding the art are the tents of migrants who are attempting to enter the United Kingdom.
Read more here.
This John Lennon Profile Nearly Ended the Writer’s Career
On the anniversary of Lennon’s death, we talk to the writer who penned a controversial Esquire profile of the Beatle in the months before his death.
Laurence Shames was a twenty-nine-year-old freelance writer who, in the spring of 1980, was assigned to write about John Lennon. The resulting profile, “John Lennon, Where Are You?” details Shames’s unsuccessful attempts to reach the famous ex-Beatle, then in semiretirement. It’s a breezy article (a “how-I-didn’t-get-the-story story,” as Shames puts it), but one with an underpinning of disillusionment. What indeed had happened to Lennon the activist, the idealist, the most controversial of the Fab Four?
The article was well received, but that success quickly soured after Lennon was murdered in front of his apartment building on December 8, 1980. Shames, a huge Beatles fan, became the target of hate mail and threatening phone calls. The experience scarred him and deepened his ambivalence about journalism.
Over the next few years, Shames wrote more than two dozen pieces for Esquire—mostly the Ethics column, but also features on Malcolm McDowell and John Cleese. But Shames eventually left journalism behind and found his calling in fiction—particularly his delightful Key West novels, the latest of which is Key West Luck. (And if you’ve never read Florida Straits, what are you waiting for?)
The Lennon incident is still painful for Shames, and he has long declined interviews to discuss his footnote in pop culture history. But as the thirty-fifth anniversary of Lennon’s death approached, Shames agreed to sit down with Esquire Classic to explain his side of the story and why it continues to haunt him.
Read the Q&A here.
Watch Emily Ratajkowski Make Your Day In 2 Minutes and 17 Seconds http://ow.ly/VCEXh
