Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2020 i Esquire

Looking for gift ideas? We’ve got you covered on page 44, with a gift guide that includes this mini version of the original Sega Genesis. Just don’t buy it for me. I suffered a mild addiction to Sonic the Hedgehog in the early ’90s and recently discovered that the game is available on the iPhone. So I downloaded it—onto my wife’s phone. Now I play it occasionally, when I have the courage to say: “Ah, sweetheart, can I borrow your phone to play Sonic the Hedgehog?”…

We’ve reached the end of a very weird decade. A failed-businessman-turned-reality-TV-host is the leader of the free world. A social network once used to look at photos of your cousins’ kids has hobbled our democracy. A nifty DVD-home-delivery service has Hollywood’s major studios on the ropes. It’s all enough to make a man feel…unrooted. For me, the ’10s were momentous: I got married. Moved to New York. Had two kids. Landed my dream job. (This one!) After the longest drought in the history of major league sports—108 years—the Chicago Cubs, my hometown team, won the World Series. Yet there’s something about adulthood—even in my late thirties, with a family to feed, a staff to lead, and bills to pay—that feels transient. Like this life could disappear overnight. Maybe that’s because…

If you’ve come across camel hair before, chances are it was in one of those all-enveloping polo coats favored by suit-and-tie guys in the teeth of a New York winter. That’s because camel hair is ridiculously warm. But camel hair is also insanely soft. Great for coats, but why stop there? This season, the Italian brand Stile Latino has created a range of tweedy jackets in 100 percent camel hair that bring the fabric out of the cold and into your wardrobe in a much bigger way. They’re expertly tailored—they should be; founder Vincenzo Attolini is the grandson of the Vincenzo Attolini, the tailor widely hailed as the progenitor of the butter-soft Neapolitan style of tailoring—and they balance a rough-hewn look with all the comfort of cashmere. You shouldn’t layer…

COZY A.F. Recipe for staying toasty: Combine this sweater from Chamula with a sustainable shirt from Outerknown. By Chamula ($392); by Outerknown ($148). BEST FOOT FORWARD Keep fleet of foot with these rubber-soled boots imbued with a healthy dose of Italian cool. By Tod’s ($795). PACK IT UP Camping out at a national park? Smuggling White Claw into a warehouse party? Epperson’s backpack has you covered. By Epperson Mountaineering ($180). PACK IT IN Patagonia: loved by hype-beasts yet true to its roots with this hip pack created from repurposed materials. By Patagonia ($59). HAPPY FEET Treat your toes with these luxe, richly textured cotton socks. By Loewe ($70). SHINY! (AND SUSTAINABLE) Titanium—not just for your knee after a motorcycle wreck. It also makes for an extra-light, durable cup and spork.…

If, in the general stampede for Sea-Dwellers and Subs, you’ve found yourself skipping over the Rolex Sky-Dweller, that needs to change. The watch is an underappreciated gem, and the newest edition comes in steel (with a white-gold bezel), making it less than half the price of its precious-metal predecessors. Much of the Sky-Dweller’s charm lies in the deceptively simple readout for its nifty complications. It’s both a GMT and an annual calendar. But while many watches with such features load up on visual bells and whistles, the Sky-Dweller hides the complexity tastefully under the hood. The GMT function displays a second time zone on an asymmetrically placed 24-hour wheel, read off against a fixed marker on the dial. The calendar will automatically tell you the date and month without fail—until…

We stand at the dawn of a new decade, and I can think of no better example of our cultural evolution than this: 2010’s top-grossing comedy was Grown Ups, a film about Adam Sandler taking his boys on vacation and making a movie studio pick up the bill. Nearly ten years later, we were all talking about Todd Phillips’s Joker, a movie about a party clown who kills because he doesn’t get the laughs he feels he deserves. The culture at the end of the teens does not exclusively serve the bros in the same way it did at the beginning, and some of them are taking the news better than others. When we look back years from now, we’ll see that this cultural decade didn’t start neatly on January…

YOU CAN ALMOST SEE THE INVOLUNTARY TWITCH OF A CHILL COURSING THROUGH HIM. “It really was a childhood trauma for me,” Noah Baumbach says. “It has come up in therapy my entire life. It really messed me up. It messed me up.” For an instant, you assume, understandably, that Baumbach is talking about the divorce of his parents, film critic Georgia Brown and experimental novelist Jonathan Baumbach, back in the 1980s. But it’s not that simple. Baumbach is actually talking about going to see Invasion of the Body Snatchers—the creeped-out, dread-soaked 1978 version starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, and Jeff Goldblum—when he was a kid in Brooklyn, just as the torn seams of his parents’ marriage were becoming visible. “The notion of people seeming the same but not being what…

GIVING SOMEBODY A LUXURY WATCH IS EASIER (AND MORE REALISTIC) THAN YOU THINK. Stepping up your gift game can be a challenge. Flashy electronics inevitably lose their luster, cool new clothes eventually go out of style. Even the proverbial grand gesture, while well-intentioned, can go awry. Good news: There is one genuinely foolproof holiday present. It’s small yet substantial, subtle yet thoughtful, sure to be equally well-received by both friends and family: a luxury watch. But which luxury watches should you be considering? And where can you get the best value before the seasonal cross-shopping fatigue sets in? A pre-owned retailer like Crown & Caliber can help. The Atlanta-based company is staffed by Swiss-certified master watchmakers and high-end horology experts, all of whom specialize in modern classic timepieces. They maintain…

In the wee hours of morning one day in September 2013 in Agadez, Niger, an ancient market town in the middle of the Sahara, eight cops stormed a mud-brick home searching for a terrorist. There’d been reports of a white man with a bushy beard coming and going on a stolen motorcycle—an unusual sight made stranger by the color of his bike: purple. “Get up! Get up!” the cops shouted as they rustled awake the several men sleeping on the floor. They found not one but two white men, whom they took away for questioning. At the police station, Christopher Kirkley, a pensive, close-cropped, thirty-three-year-old from Portland, Oregon, explained that he and his bearded friend weren’t terrorists at all. “We’re making a movie!” he said in broken French. It was…

A VELVET JACKET IS ONE THING. A CROCODILE-PRINT VELVET JACKET IS A FLEX THAT CAN’T BE IGNORED. TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SHIRT ON THE OPPOSITE PAGE. YES, THOSE ARE RUFFLES. AND YES, YOU SHOULD CONSIDER TRYING THEM OUT FOR YOURSELF. WANT TRUE “MASTER OF THE HOUSE” STYLE CRED? SWAP THE JACKET FOR A PATTERNED ROBE.…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Code, p. 19: Ami Paris coat, amiparis.com. N.Peal turtleneck sweater, npeal.com. P. 20: Stepney Workers Club sneakers, 180thestore.com. Geox sneakers, geox.com. Adidas Originals sneakers, adidas.com. Common Projects sneakers, mrporter.com. Converse sneakers, converse.com. P. 22: Stile Latino jackets, axelsltd.com. G. H. Bass & Co. loafers, ghbass.com. P. 26: Chamula sweater, chamulaoriginal.com. Outerknown shirt, outerknown.com. Loewe trousers and socks, loewe.com. Bally jacket, bally.com. Best Made Co. fleece, bestmadeco.com. Yuketen boots, yuketen.com. Snow Peak mug and spork, snowpeak.com. Patagonia bag, patagonia.com. Epperson Mountaineering backpack, eppersonmountaineering.com. Tod’s boots, tods.com. P. 28: Paul Stuart jacket, paulstuart.com. J. Press sweater, jpressonline.com. Rowing Blazers x Lands’ End rugby shirt, rowingblazers.com. Rowing Blazers trousers, rowingblazers.com. G. H. Bass &…

For this issue, we took Michael B. Jordan, megastar, back to where it all started: Newark Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey. He smelled the roses. He met the kids. He shined his spotlight in gratitude. He missed a few jumpers in his old gym. And as Mitchell Jackson reports on page 70, he showed us what he’s all about.…

If you’ve ever felt inclined to wear your bathrobe outdoors, you are not alone. Every weekend, on coffee runs across America, millions of men feel the same longing. But they don’t have to, thanks to one cozy bit of seasonal outerwear: the belted overcoat. Outside of looking rather chic while you grab your morning paper, for designers, belted overcoats are a playground for texture and color. Here’s why we especially love this (very warm) one from Paris-based Alexandre Mattiussi’s label, Ami. It’s supremely versatile. This is your perfect night-to-day piece. You can dress it up for an evening out, layering it with a jacket and trousers or jeans and a sweater, then throw it on over sweats and a tee to snag a bacon-egg-and-cheese the next morning. Who’s that handsome…

I have a thing about loafers. By which I mean I don’t wear loafers. I was dimly aware of them as a teenager in southern England, when they became a mainstay of the mod-revival dressing. That ought to have been enough to get me into a pair of Bass Weejuns, but it didn’t (partly because I wasn’t a mod long enough to save up for them). Later, as I got into fashion, loafers got lower, meaner, leaner, and posher, becoming an obsession of bankers and other upwardly mobile types. But they still weren’t for me: too casual to wear with a suit, too casual even to wear with chinos or jeans. But G. H. Bass’s latest incarnation of its classic penny loafer (above, $95), executed in oxblood and with a…

Consider this: Between punks and preppies, one group embraces the concept of fuck-you pants—and it ain’t the punks. The style subcultures have more in common, at least in ethos, than you might expect. It’s just that for preppies, the jacket of choice isn’t a biker but a blazer (which nowadays is as likely to be made by the streetwear-friendly brand Rowing Blazers or the skate-infused label Noah as by J. Press or Brooks Brothers). The approach, though, is all about going for it, rules be damned. So if you’re looking to give your prep staples a shot in the arm, do it. Take those brands and mix ’em all together. Launch the colors into highlighter territory. And feel free to play with bigger fits and extra layers. Even with some…

Oliver Spencer’s trick isn’t complicated, just perfectly executed. The designer takes the idea of the uniform—be it workwear or military—and tweaks it with interesting shapes and heavily textured fabrics, creating a flexible daily wardrobe for the creatively inclined. It’s a strategy that’s worked in his native UK and across the world, and it’s about to get a major boost in the States, thanks to the brand’s placement in five Nordstrom stores. Spencer credits the “more style-conscious” American dressers out there. “They’re thinking, What am I wearing?” he explains. “I want to look put together but not too put together. I don’t want labels all over the front of everything.” Fellow Brit Sam Lobban, the men’s fashion VP of Nordstrom, saw the value for his shoppers. “Oli’s take … is a…

THE END OF A WORKING day in the U.S. Capitol can come at any time. If it comes at the customary time, which is to say in the early evening, the place takes on a crepuscular feeling, as though you can hear the figures in the frescoes breathing sighs of relief and feel the marble in the floors and staircases soften beneath your feet. What was a particularly ornate office building at the height of the day passes through changes by which it becomes a not overly popular museum and then, as night truly falls, a kind of tomb in which the day’s events are interred, one after another after another, year after year. September 24, 2019, was an odd kind of day, in that this softening night never fell.…

TODAY NEWARK ARTS HIGH SCHOOL, FOR THE PHOTO SHOOT Up ahead, there’s a production moho (what industry folks call a mobile home) in the parking lot behind the school. The moho is hella conspicuous, which is a hazard of sorts, because megamoviestar Michael B. Jordan is inside it—with a team of people prepping him for his cover shoot—and the plan is to secret him around his old high school without the whole student body catching wind that he’s in the building and going apeshit. One of the production team escorts me into the basement room that’s been repurposed for craft services, where I meet the photographer, Gio Valentine. Gio’s a black man, just like Jordan and me, which at once makes the pressure to do right by this assignment feel…

ROBERT McKinley Creative director/designer, 44 On wearing a blazer with a T-shirt: “It’s not a comfort thing—it’s a fashion thing. You know, if I thought it was cool to wear a button-up shirt and a tie, I’d wear it. Though I like being dressed up. I’m the guy who never takes his jacket off.” THE TAKEAWAY Don’t overthink it when pairing high and low—the last thing this look should be is fussy. It only has to be as put together as you want it to be.…

There might’ve been a time, not so long ago, when it wasn’t the biggest deal—maybe even cool?—if you showed up to a holiday party looking low-key, or in a calculatedly goofy Christmas sweater. Enough of that. Trade the navy blazer for a velvet number and the cap-toes for leopard-print loafers. If you’re wallflowering again this year, at least make it look like you’re holding court, right?…

The vicious cycle goes something like this: You see some super-hyped sneakers. Maybe they’re limited-edition. Maybe they’re a collab. Whatever the case, life will not be complete until you get those shoes. After dealing with a lot of hassle or spending a lot of money (or both—probably both), you buy them, wear ’em a few times, spot a new pair out in the world, and the process starts all over again. Good news: You can break out of this death spiral. It’s easy. Just grab a pair of clean, low-key sneakers and walk away. They could be anything from $100 Adidas Gazelles to $400 Common Projects Original Achilles. No matter the price, the best ones are comfortable enough to run a 40-yard dash in but sharp enough to rock with…

“I wanted to create something unique, a collection of fragrances that felt like they are made-to-measure.”—DONATELLA VERSACE Deep down, I think every guy wants to be the type who can pull off a Versace silk shirt—or at least possess that kind of swagger. But maybe you haven’t fully tapped into the swagger center of your brain yet. (It’s near the amygdala.) Enter Atelier Versace, a new luxury fragrance collection that channels all that cool confidence into something every guy can easily wear. “That’s why we are launching these unisex fragrances…so you’ll find the one that is made just for you,” says Donatella Versace. There are six scents in the collection, and each one is transformative. With a spray of Figue Blanche, a sunny, sultry blend of Mediterranean citrus, you’re in…

Say you give your dad a really nice Goyard bag for the holidays, or possibly just because he’s great. (How thoughtful!) Pops loves it. It’s tasteful. Useful. Easy on the eyes. He stuffs it with so much … dad stuff. But then he gets to the airport-security line and he’s right next to another guy with the same bag. (Fancy airport!) Maybe he grabs that other guy’s bag. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel special all of a sudden. Either way, we can’t have a sad dad. Fortunately, there’s a solution. And it involves getting personal. Yeah, I’m talking monogramming. But it’s not only for cheap flasks you buy online, nor is it solely the domain of preppy traditionalists, who are getting a stylistic boost anyway. (See above.) The right…

1 Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly 2015 You can’t understate the influence To Pimp a Butterfly has had on hip-hop and politics. “Alright” became a Black Lives Matter rallying cry, while the album sent the genre to a new stratosphere. 2 Robyn, Body Talk 2010 The crying-in-the-club anthem is its own genre in the pop sphere now, but each entry traces its origins back to Robyn’s magnificent, mascara-streaked opus. 3 Frank Ocean, Channel Orange 2012 The most influential debut studio album of the decade, Channel Orange established Frank Ocean as a visionary new voice who helped redraw hip-hop, pop, and R&B. 4 Arcade Fire, The Suburbs 2010 The album in which singers and real-life couple Win Butler and Régine Chassagne spool their very intimate anxieties about family and growing…

Billy Dee Williams’s guide to being cool involves one simple step: “Be yourself.” He tells me this while sipping a Tito’s vodka neat with a little bit of Emergen-C sprinkled into it (a healthier choice than the Colt 45 with which he will be eternally associated). “I never tried to be anything except myself. I think of myself as a relatively colorful character who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously.” That’s a humble way of putting it. For nearly half a century, he’s been one of the coolest actors ever to appear onscreen. As Lando Calrissian, the suave, cape-wearing hero of the Star Wars universe, he’s immortalized as the quintessential figure of intergalactic chic. But beyond the sci-fi saga that has captivated generations, he’s a prolific actor and artist—he…

No. 1 Seven Reasons WASHINGTON, D. C. Ten minutes north of the White House and its sour, divisive rhetoric, immigrants are throwing a party. Unfettered joy radiates from inside Seven Reasons as you stand outside the front door, and once you enter and sit down, that joy makes itself known—proudly, defiantly—in the riot of flavors and hues that chef Enrique Limardo sends out from the kitchen. Limardo and several members of his team come from Venezuela, a country in the midst of collapse, and yet the Latin American food and cocktails at Seven Reasons—a mountain of black rice topped with prawns and pork cheeks, a salad in which the summery tang of tomatoes has been concentrated into cubes of jelly, a platter of hamachi tiradito whose pink and green splashes…

LET Loose THE Leather Does the idea of donning a full tux to attend a formal gala make you want to gag on a canapé? If so, consider ditching the traditional tuxedo jacket for leather. Admittedly, this is an extremely advanced style move best reserved for very specific situations (yes: red carpet at the Grammys; no: the Nobel Prize banquet), but it can be pulled off. The nucleus of the outfit is—surprise!—the jacket. Opt for a model that’s jet-black and extremely clean, like the biker from Dolce & Gabbana at left. Ground it with a pair of traditional tuxedo trousers and pepper in a generous helping of outside-the-black-tie accessories: silver bracelets, Chelsea boots, maybe a bolo tie. Then hit the party. It doesn’t matter if you’re a desk jockey by…

Scorpion LONDON, JUNE 2014 Hundreds of fit, cheerful women, men, and children poured into the lobby of a blocky, socialist-style conference center in Central London, where vendors hawked stretchy tights, jewelry, and coconut water. A sign welcomed attendees to the International Yoga Sports Federation’s eleventh annual world championship. Thirty-two countries were represented. As the crowds awaited the start of the women’s division across the hall, the opening act was under way. Inside the darkened auditorium, the small audience clapped politely as bare-chested men in Speedos took their turn on the stage. The judges, a mix of renowned yoga teachers and former champions, gazed on at groin level. As the competitors moved through their poses, they called out each one’s name—“Standing Head to Knee!” “Standing Bow!” “Rabbit!” Competitive yoga, like yoga…