Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i Esquire

Around the time the American president’s street goons sacked the Capitol to stop Congress from confirming he would soon leave power, the Roman republic crashed into mind. The parallels were there before January 6, 2021, and even before the president’s fans were urging him to “cross the Rubicon,” as Julius Caesar did 2,000 years ago. It’s not that Donald Trump is much like JC. The guy struggles to conquer the back nine with a legion of mulligans at his command. But it’s hard to deny now that Donald Trump’s tenure was the start of something—that this cunning and vicious clown opened the door to a place deep and dark, and that others might soon walk through it. He is one of history’s great vandals, but not the first of his…

Let’s be honest with ourselves: We all got a bit high on fashion these past ten years. It’s all over your Instagram feed—a (pea)cockfight of style. Dudes posing against a wall in their latest statement shirt or nursing a negroni with a five-figure watch in the shot. At first it was cool. Even thrilling. A community formed around men’s style, which we celebrate in all forms. We all went for it. So did the big fashion brands. Soon the runway reflected this shift. In a social-media culture that is 100 percent visual and democratic, quality—that intangible, onetime guarantor of style—took a back seat to visual impact, items you could ID from 50 paces. Under the banner of self-expression, loud prints and unmistakable logos proliferated. With all the Instagram photos these…

The vintage shop, tucked in the back of a Brooklyn strip mall, smelled like a grandparent’s bedroom. The best ones always do. It was fall, the sun had nearly set, and I was sifting through piles of T-shirts. It didn’t take long to find what I didn’t know I was looking for. The tee was so thin it was practically see-through. The font was zany. The graphic delightfully unhinged. It marked the occasion of Jacob’s bar mitzvah, back in ’86. Suddenly, I felt nostalgia for an event that happened before I was born—all thanks to a shirt unbound by what less imaginative shoppers might call good taste. In other words, it was perfect. Yes, we’ve been here before. Vintage is a perennial, but the codes shift over time. Chances are,…

ANDERSON .PAAK IS JUGGLING HIS PARENTING AND PROFESSIONAL DUTIES. IT’S A sunny afternoon in early December, and the polymath musician is bouncing around the backyard of the modest house he shares with his wife, Jaylyn, on the southern rim of California’s San Fernando Valley. He’s trying to talk about his new album, which he was working on in his studio until eight in the morning. But he keeps bringing it back to his and Jaylyn’s sons—Soul, nine, and Shine, three—who presently are running around on the safe side of the pool gate. Soul is obsessed with the K-pop band (and recent Esquire cover stars) BTS. “I tell him, ‘Yeah, K-pop is where it’s at, man. Make sure you keep up with your Korean’ ”—Jaylyn, a singer in a gospel rock…

Haand Ripple Dinner Plates in Black It doesn’t matter if you’ve been toiling for hours in the kitchen or just ordered Pizza Hut—any cuisine you place on one of these noir ceramic plates automatically appears exponentially more attractive. $45; haand.us 1. Flos Last Order Portable Lamp It’s no accident this lamp resembles a nightcap—it was first created as an exclusive for the new Four Seasons restaurant in N. Y. C. Now offered up by Flos, the portable (it charges via USB), touch-sensitive LED casts a rich amber glow that’s perfect for setting the mood on a fancy night out or at the bar at chez moi. $495; usa.flos.com 2. Larq Bottle When was the last time you washed that reusable water bottle you put to your lips every day? Yeah,…

THE NEW, OLD-SCHOOL LUNCH _ WEED DRINKS _ THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS TURNS 30 _ SCI-FI SCENTS _ THE NBA’S PHILOSOPHER COACH A SANDWICH USED TO BE A SIMPLE THING. The sandwiches you carried to school in a lunch box, the sandwiches you wolfed down after school in front of the TV—they were never meant to be examples of extravagance or creative disruption. Three or four ingredients did the trick. Bread, ham, cheese, mustard. Bread, turkey, cheese, mayonnaise. Bread, jelly, peanut butter. Overstuffing them ruined them. Think of a sandwich prized for its thinness, a sandwich made with one slice of meat and one slice of cheese, a sandwich so compact and slim that it can be consumed easily with the use of one hand while the other hand steers…

YOU KNOW THE FEELING OF DRAGGING YOUR FEET across a carpet and then touching a metal surface. (Zap!) But can you identify what static electricity smells like? What about a summer lightning storm, or the sensation of being cold, like really freezing? Your nose is powerful—our olfactory system can identify 10,000 or more scents, and scent memory is typically stronger than visual memory—but can it smell the unsmellable? The latest frontier in cologne making is what you might call conceptual scents. H24, the new men’s cologne from Hermès, includes notes of clary sage and rosewood—not surprising for a fresh, botanical fragrance. But there’s something else in there: sclarene, a scent molecule that evokes warm metal. Or, for Hermès perfumer Christine Nagel, something even more specific: the “very hot metal iron—the…

With any luck, in a few years we’ll get a really good heist movie about a group of lovable misfits with their sights set on one last score. While someone—is Brosnan available?—does their best Thomas Crown–inspired voice-over, the camera will slowly zoom out from the target. Swaths of color will resolve into recognizable shapes. An eye. A nose. A face. Damn right, folks, it’s a…sweater? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. When most folks hear “art,” they think of paintings. Daubs of acrylic on canvas. Water lilies. You know… art. But these days some of the most exciting stuff coming out of the fine-art world isn’t meant to hang on a wall—it’s meant to be worn. Take the work of Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo, whose powerful, partly finger-painted portraits…

Do you know who knew his way around a cardigan? Like, was on his absolute-expert-level shit when it came to open-front knitwear? Mister Rogers. But of course you knew that, because if you’ve ever worn one, there’s a 73 percent chance someone made a Mister Rogers joke. Was Fred Rogers a style icon? That’s a discussion for another day. What’s not up for debate is the dominance of the cardigan in modern men’s wear, thanks in large part to brands taking his favorite sweater and rendering it in ways that’d look more at home on MTV Unplugged than on a stroll around the Neighborhood. In fact, the very best borrow vibes from the one Kurt Cobain wore for that iconic 1993 performance. They’re slouchy. Fuzzy. Earthy. Possibly a little bit…

FOR STORE INFORMATION SEE PAGE 102.…

ONE NIGHT IN THE SPRING OF 2017, MICHELLE CAMPBELL WAS IN HER KITCHEN, cooking hot dogs for a few friends, when she heard the boom of her front door breaking. It was the narcotics unit of the Mount Vernon, New York, police. They carried a search warrant and a battering ram. They swarmed in, guns drawn. The police ordered Campbell and her guests onto the floor and cuffed them. One officer, a detective in a tactical vest and a black hat named Camilo Antonini, surveyed the bodies. He singled out Campbell’s nephew, a skinny man with a scruffy beard and big eyes named Reginald Gallman. As Gallman would later testify in a civil case, Antonini pulled him into the bathroom, threw him against the water pipe, and pummeled his rib…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Method, p. 38: Dior Men turtleneck sweater, shirt, trousers, cummerbund, and socks, dior.com. P. 40: G-Shock watches, gshock.com. P. 42: Torch Sportswear T-shirt, similar styles at torch-sportswear.com. P. 43: Mask Santa Fe bag, jacket, beach bag, and hat, masksantafe.com. Fantasy Explosion hat and T-shirt, fantasyexplosion.com. Wooden Sleepers T-shirt, wooden-sleepers.com. P. 44: Vale Lives cardigan, valeforever.com. Studio One Eighty Nine shirt, studiooneeightynine.com. Dickies trousers, urbanoutfitters.com. Chamula bracelet, chamulaoriginal.com. Brownstone cardigan, T-shirt, and trousers, brwnstne.co. Vault by Vans sneakers, vans.com/vault. Miansai necklace, miansai.com. Corridor cardigan and shirt, corridornyc.com. Jockey tank, jockey.com. The Society Archive vintage Abercrombie & Fitch track pants, thesocietyvintage.com. Nike sneakers, similar styles at nike.com. Falke socks, amazon.com. Tom Wood necklace,…

1960s 1961 / Original Ken debuted in 1961 rocking red swim trunks and cork sandals. From the moment he stepped into Malibu, Ken made heads turn, capturing the hearts of Barbie and the world. 1964 1978 / SuperStar Ken® reached disco stud status in his blue velour jumpsuit. He sparkled like a movie star on the dance floor, complete with ID bracelet, ring, watch and his ready-for-the-spotlight sunglasses. 1982 / Sunsational™ Malibu® Ken proved less is more. The picture of California cool, he embraced the laid-back life dressed in his bright yellow swim trunks—love those short shorts!—and accessorized with only his sunglasses and beach towel. 1990s 1992 / Totally Hair™ Ken® had rooted hair ready to be styled with a purple hair pick and tube of hair gel—no boy band…

The sight of a G-Shock provokes a certain feeling. For watch nerds, it’s a peculiar affection. If you yearn for a five-figure watch but can’t afford one yet, the G-Shock—with its many functions, tough construction, and affordable price—often serves as a gateway drug to a lifetime of collecting, offering something that’s built on utility and comes with a great story. But the tale of its creation—and explosion in popularity—is one of destruction and failure. After accidentally smashing his father’s watch, Kikuo Ibe, an engineer at Casio, sought to make a timepiece that was impossible to break. This flew in the face of Japanese watchmaking, which in 1983 was fixated on building things as micro and minimal as possible. Still, he tried—200 times, in fact, each of which ended in spectacular…

ARSENIO HALL’S CAREER WAS PICKING UP STEAM IN 1983. He did Letterman. He sidekicked on Alan Thicke’s short-lived late-night talk show. He was a panelist on the very strange Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour, now in reruns on the Buzzr network. One of the game show’s striking details was that everyone—literally everyone—mispronounced his name as Arseenio, with a long e. America was getting to know Arsenio Hall, but the rotating cast of this shitshow couldn’t get his name right. Like you, I am offended on his behalf. So this past December, during a three-hour conversation with Arsenio, I ask: Why didn’t you correct anyone? “You’re just glad to be indoors, man. Let them call me what they want to call me.” Then he smiles. Big. “Eventually, somebody will start saying…

LET’S GO BACK TO 1999: Your jewel-toned Macintosh is pulling up the Internet on dial-up. You have time to make a full sandwich before sitting down at your desk again, and guess what: You’ve got mail! Remember how excited you were? Actually psyched to receive email. Everything was both low- and high-risk in those days. The world was supposed to end in 2000, but it had nothing to do with Donald Trump running for president or Mark Zuckerberg or Enron or a pandemic. We didn’t have faith that our jewel-toned Macintoshes could make the transition from 1-9-9-9 to 2-0-0-0. We buckled up for a digital snafu, playing Snake on our Nokia phones until our fingers bled, blasting “Bills, Bills, Bills” and “Nookie” and Slim Shady as loud as we could.…