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Linen and seersucker have both come a long way. Before these fabrics got their makeover, I thought linen looked like oat-colored burlap and could only be styled like Drake at the 2014 ESPYs.

Seersucker wasn’t much better. I figured it was reserved for sweet-tea-drinking Southerners and Congresspeople participating in Seersucker Thursday.

With 56 days of summer left, we figured now’s the perfect time to put together a warm-weather fabric shopping guide.

From dollar-bill-thin, semi-sheer black linen blazers to overdyed seersucker chore coats, we’ve rounded up 20 picks that’ll make you rethink both fabrics.

If you’ve been following along, we’ve already put together guides on:

• Hats

• Shorts and Swim Trunks

• Flip-Flops and Sandals

• New suits

• Jackets in transitional weather

If you’re new to the guides, we drop one a week and the categories are always different. If you want access to these shopping guides for yourself or a loved one, you can subscribe here.

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A few notes about these guides ❤️

1. As always, if you’re looking for trendy shit on the cheap, this isn’t the best place to look. You need the right stuff, not more stuff.

2. A lot of these recommendations tend to be medium to higher price point (though not always). If you’re looking for quality, affordable options, I always recommend thrifting what you can (like eBay, vinted, etc), or looking at options like Uniqlo.

   1. If you like these guides, share them with a homie, partner, family member, lover, or anyone who would appreciate it!

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It’s been on a bit of a hiatus, but we’re bringing it back in full force with monthly features.

The goal of these mini Q&As is to explore their personal preferences, how they evolve, the pieces and objects that shape their style, and so on.

Up next is Ethan Glenn, fellow Canadian and founder and creative director of Every Other Thursday. In this mini interview, we cover his tastes and preferences. Hope you enjoy, and let us know if there’s someone else you think we should feature next!

P.S. Give Ethan a follow here.

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What books are currently living on your coffee table?

I have a book problem, but some of the recent additions have been a first edition of Kelly Klein’s Pools, Helmut Newton’s Portraits, and a few copies of the old A&F Quarterly from around 2000.

If you could say one thing to your younger self right now, what would it be?

Just relax; it’ll work out. You have so much time to figure it out.

What’s the last thing you bought for under $50?

A vintage Niagara Falls, Canada, tee with moose caricatures. I love vintage Canada/Toronto tees.

What’s a style rule or philosophy you always stick to, and why?

Looking put together must also be comfortable.

What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?

Music. Any and all.

Which album do you think everyone should hear at least once?

Diamond Life by Sade.

Do you have an item that captures your personal style?

The Every Other Thursday Relaxed Dress Shirt. A little oversized, the perfect shape, great fabrics and colors. The easiest thing to wear every day, no matter the occasion.

Also, a pair of classic vintage Levi’s. Straight leg, faded, and something I wear six to seven days a week. Nothing fancy.

What’s the most sentimental object you own?

I’ve got a large framed photo I took of my dad and little brother up at their farm. It’s winter, black and white, and the first frame on the roll of film, so half of it is blank. My dad has a matching copy.

It feels very special since it was such an accidental shot. I’ve only ever shot that one roll of black-and-white film, and I might not ever again.

It’s been a minute since our last What the Homies Are Wearing. But we back!

Summer has been unhinged, to say the least. The heat waves have been relentless, the air quality has felt like smoking a couple packs of Newports before breakfast, the World Cup madness has finally wrapped up, folks have been getting fits off watching JAŸ-Z perform Politics as Usual at Yankee Stadium, and—oh yeah—everyone now knows what Cyclospora is.

So, to help take your mind off a season of bizarre news cycles, we tapped a few friends of ours to show us how they’re surviving the heat while still looking good doing it.

Let’s get into it.

Jabari Abasi — Atlanta, Georgia

Talent Acquisition Professional

What’s the one item you’re most excited to wear this summer?

Shorts! My absolute favorites are these tie-dye linen shorts from Story MFG. I have two pairs that look identical, ha.

How would you describe your go-to warm-weather look?

Comfortable with good colors. Anything lightweight, breathable, and flowy—with an emphasis on wearing interesting colors, textures, and patterns.

What does your footwear rotation look like for the season?

I find myself mainly reaching for mules, slippers, and sandals during the summer. Anything comfy, easy to take on and off, are my go to’s. My favorites right now that I own are Birkenstock Boston clogs, Vibae Roma, Steve Mono fisherman sandal, and KEEN Newport.

Any must-have lightweight jackets you recommend for layering in the summer?

I absolutely do not recommend layering during the summer if you don’t have too, especially with these record breaking heat waves across many parts of the world. But if you must, any kind of lightweight chore coats, over shirts, bomber style jackets, or breathable utility vests. I own versions of all these items, but to highlight one I’m really digging this linen chore coat by Vetra France.

Are there any new pieces or trends catching your eye this season?

As an avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast, I’m loving the moment technical footwear is having. Approach shoes, climbing inspired shoes, hiking boots, etc. Hender Scheme dropped some new mules that I wished were in my possession.

Do you follow any personal style do’s or don’ts for summer dressing?

Do: Dress like the internet isn’t watching. I think for those of us who consume or participate in the online style space can sometimes overthink fits. Don’t let social media convince you that simple fits are boring or not doing enough.

Daniel Z. Baraka - Nashville, Tennessee

Photographer

What’s the one item you’re most excited to wear this summer?

It’s a smock summer for me, so I’m really excited about this textured linen smock I got from Grand Le Mar. I also got a few vintage ones on my eBay watchlist.

How would you describe your go-to warm-weather look?

Basic as hell. I have had the same summer uniform for almost ten summers now: a grandad collar white shirt in cotton, linen, silk, or a blend of two of the three, a pair of medium or light-wash jeans, and some slippers: grecians, Venetians, suedes, velvets, etc. I don’t discriminate much here.

What does your footwear rotation look like for the season?

This summer, I am continuing my exploration of sneakers, which started last summer with the Converse x Lefleur jogger. I picked up a pair of Pane sneakers last month in a beautiful greenish brown color way.

Then, the homies at Todd released the collab with Mister Rogers and sent me a pair of CVOs. I’ll also do Fishermans again; I wear the Ghiaia ones, but I have told everyone who would care to listen that I think vintage Cole Haans were used for Inspo on the Ghiaia and can be found for a fraction of the price and get equal beauty.

I finally found a pair that fits me. I love them. I am, of course, also wearing some slippers. But that goes without saying for me.

Any must-have lightweight jackets you recommend for layering in the summer?

Yellow Brycelands Anorak: We get a lot of summer showers in Nashville, so I keep it handy. It’s a perfect design: great color, great weight, no fluff.

Aeromecano jacket: I have been obsessed with French vintage, so I got one from Anatomica in Sapporo. It’s made from a linen that’s probably less than 150 gsm and dipped in indigo. It’s perfect, except for the bleeding.

P43 loomed linen jacket from Buck Mason: Although, admittedly, I wear mine buttoned all the way like a shirt most of the time.

Are there any new pieces or trends catching your eye this season?

I try not to pay attention to trends as much as possible.

I’ve been into French vintage a little too much lately. The problem is that it’s practically impossible to find or way too expensive. So, I have found myself obsessed with Anatomica and everything they do.

Do you follow any personal style do’s or don’ts for summer dressing?

DOs:

Invest in proper rainwear. I can’t stand to see adults ill-prepared on rainy days.

Take care of your toes if you intend to show them.

Wear pieces with more eccentricity and character.

DON’Ts:

No thong sandals outside of the beach, the pool, or California.

No jorts.

Toby Okonkwo - Chicago, Illinois

Business Strategist

What’s the one item you’re most excited to wear this summer?

I’ve only recently started getting into my relaxed tailoring bag, and I have a whole list of carefully thought-out pieces I’m working on acquiring over time.

My latest pickup is a black linen DB suit I’d been thinking about for a minute. I was so happy when I finally picked it up that I wore it out of the store and packed the clothes that I wore there into the suit bag.

I’ve worn it one other time since, and I can’t wait to find (or make up) more occasions to wear it to. I still have a few alterations to get it fitting exactly how I want, but it’s pretty close already, and I’m not letting that stop me from enjoying it!

How would you describe your go-to warm-weather look?

It usually starts with a button-up shirt, ideally linen or cotton, and roomy on really warm days. From there, it’s either denim or relaxed trousers. With denim, I lean toward light to medium-wash, ecru, or white in the summer.

I try to stay away from darker denim this time of year; no functional reason I can think of, just my preference. With trousers, I keep things roomy, flowy, and lightweight. Usually linen, linen-cotton blends, linen-silk blends. And it’s all finished off with a pair of loafers.

What does your footwear rotation look like for the season?

I’m partial to loafers year-round, or at least as much as I can get away with it. I’ve come to realize over the last few years that I really don’t love laces, so I avoid them where I can. That means I lean even harder toward loafers in the summer. Apologies to the sock police, but I go sockless as much as possible, especially with the unlined ones, to take advantage of how soft they feel on my feet.

The rotation getting the most wear so far this summer: Alden LHS in snuff and dark brown, unlined Belgian loafers from Morjas in black and taupe, tassel loafers from Alden and Sanders. And to switch things up, I’ll throw in my Yuketen horsebit loafers in black calf and brown suede from time to time.

Any must-have lightweight jackets you recommend for layering in the summer?

I’m going to take this one in a slightly different direction. I have some lightweight jackets I enjoy and look forward to wearing throughout the summer, but the thing I’m most eager to add to my rotation this summer is lightweight knitwear.

I really enjoy cotton and lightweight wool knits, and I’m looking forward to incorporating them more into my summer outfits, especially later in the summer as it starts to cool down, or on cooler summer nights. That way, I can get more wear out of them year-round rather than saving them for just the spring and fall. But with how hot it’s been lately, let’s see how this one goes.

Are there any new pieces or trends catching your eye this season?

They may just be going over my head, but I’m not really spotting any new trends at the moment. At least, none that are up my alley. Many pieces that have been catching my eye lately, though, are from the London-based brand L.E.J.

I first came across their stuff about a year and a half ago, and safe to say they’ve had me in a chokehold since. I have a few of their pieces, most of them summer-friendly, and they’re getting a lot of wear so far this season. I’m partial to their CUTTS and Shell Collector models, but IMO, they DO NOT MISS. I’m saving up and hoping they drop a slubby linen plage coat or Shell Collector piece soon.

Do you follow any personal style do’s or don’ts for summer dressing?

I’m not much of a rules person when it comes to clothes, but a couple thoughts to share here, one practical and one big picture:

Summer is a great time to play with proportions: big flowy linen pants, straight loose jeans, oversized oxford shirts, big chinos. The permutations are endless, and all of it can work depending on how you put it together. In some ways, summer lets you play with silhouettes in a way fall and winter don’t, once layers enter the picture.

The broader point: it’s really not that serious. Experiment a bit, check out some inspo online or in person, see what works and makes you feel good, confident, or more like yourself, and then do more of that. This should be fun. Anything that feels otherwise isn’t it.

Get access to our shopping guides

Maybe you’re in that awkward in-between-haircuts phase. Or maybe you’re squinting so hard in the sun that you’ve accidentally developed crow’s feet.

Either way, today we’ve got a hat shopping guide.

From lightweight nylon caps that keep your head dry and sweat out of your eyes while you chase STRAVA segments, to mackerel-inspired caps and waxed logger hats for when the only thing you’re really logging is screen time, we’ve got you covered.

If you’ve been following along, we’ve already put together guides on:

• Shorts and Swim Trunks

• Flip-Flops and Sandals

• New suits

• Jackets in transitional weather

• Spring trousers

If you’re new to the guides, we drop one a week and the categories are always different. If you want access to these shopping guides for yourself or a loved one, you can subscribe here.

Subscribe now

A few notes about these guides ❤️

1. As always, if you’re looking for trendy shit on the cheap, this isn’t the best place to look. You need the right stuff, not more stuff.

2. A lot of these recommendations tend to be medium to higher price point (though not always). If you’re looking for quality, affordable options, I always recommend thrifting what you can (like eBay, vinted, etc), or looking at options like Uniqlo.

   1. If you like these guides, share them with a homie, partner, family member, lover, or anyone who would appreciate it!

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The North Face has its unimpeachable classics: the ’96 Nuptse, the heavy-ass Denali fleece, the indestructible Base Camp duffles, and ThermoBall-insulated jackets, to name a few.

But over the brand’s 60-year history, its footwear line has largely flown under the radar and, quite frankly, remained underappreciated.

The North Face launched its footwear category in 1999 with the Sawtooth Ridge and Kuna Crest. After the brand was acquired by VF Corporation in 2000, footwear collaborations gradually emerged, thanks in part to VF’s portfolio, which includes Vans, Timberland, and, until 2024, Supreme.

While TNF will never abandon its bread and butter, puffer jackets and technical outdoor gear for athletes like Jimmy Chin and Alex Honnold, the last few seasons have marked a noticeable evolution in its footwear lineup.

The Glenclyffe first caught my attention in 2023, and, to me, it helped kick off the recent conversation around approach shoes.

“The Glenclyffe demonstrated that a product rooted in authentic outdoor performance could also resonate within contemporary culture,” says Francois Pochon, Sr. Product Manager of Lifestyle Footwear.

The Clyffe followed in 2024 as the Glenclyffe‘s successor, while the Clyffe Ultra launched earlier this year. One of our Sprezza team members was wearing a pair of Clyffe Ultras, so I DM’d him and said, “TNF shoes are legit.”

We ended up having a back-and-forth conversation about how the brand’s footwear category no longer feels like an afterthought or a folded-in accessories business. Instead, it feels like a lineup that can stand alongside brands whose sole focus is making shoes.

And with the brand’s latest Verto Approach Shoes, I think things are only heating up. “People want footwear that performs outdoors but also feels relevant in everyday life, blurring the lines between performance and lifestyle,” says Matthew Blunt, Sr. Manager of Global Footwear Design.

I had the chance to chat with Pochon and Blunt about The North Face’s long-term investment in its VECTIV™ platform to accelerate growth in footwear, what gives the brand an edge in an increasingly crowded market, why climbing feels like “the new yoga,” and what’s next as it continues expanding the category.

Photos c/o: The North Face / Gracie Hinz

How do you think about footwear within The North Face as a brand? Outerwear is what most people immediately associate with TNF, so where does footwear fit into the bigger picture?

MB: Footwear is an incredibly exciting space for us at The North Face.

While the brand is best known for apparel and equipment, focusing on footwear allows us the opportunity to deliver a true head-to-toe experience for athletes and consumers, from summiting peaks to exploring cities.

It’s a category with tremendous potential, and we’re just beginning to unlock what’s possible across both performance and lifestyle.

Was there a particular moment or season when it felt like the brand really cracked the balance between performance and style in footwear? It seems like that’s become a major part of the conversation recently.

FP: We’ve been investing in performance footwear for several years, particularly with the VECTIV™ line. However, a key shift came with the launch of the Glenclyffe in Fall ’23.

It marked a pivotal moment, the Glenclyffe demonstrated that a product rooted in authentic outdoor performance could also resonate within contemporary culture. Since Fall ’24, we’ve continued to invest in both tooling and upper design that bridge performance and lifestyle, bringing our “top of the mountain” learnings into everyday environments.

Climbing, a core part of our heritage, has been a powerful anchor in defining this point of view. It reinforced the idea that the strongest products are the ones that connect technical credibility with relevance beyond the outdoors

Once the Glenclyffe proved the concept, did it alter your investment in footwear or your confidence in pursuing this direction?

MB: Absolutely, the Glenclyffe marked a turning point for The North Face footwear, expanding both the audience and how the market perceives the category.

It demonstrated that our climbing heritage could translate into a product with broad lifestyle appeal, unlocking new opportunities for global growth, partnerships, and distribution beyond traditional outdoor channels.

The model reinforced that staying true to our DNA can resonate at a much wider cultural level, proving that our most authentic stories often have the greatest reach and impact.

How do you approach growing the footwear category season after season? What opportunities are you most excited about right now?

FP: Everything starts with authenticity. We’re privileged to work with world-class athletes who push the limits across multiple disciplines.

Listening to their needs and solving real performance challenges is at the core of our strategy. From there, we translate those learnings into tiered product offerings and distribution strategies.

What excites us most is continuing to build from this foundation, staying true to our community while expanding into new expressions of the brand.

Trail running has been one of the biggest influences in footwear over the last few years, and now approach shoes seem to be having a moment. Where does The North Face fit into those conversations?

MB: Trail running is absolutely having a moment, and we’re proud to be part of the momentum.

Our unique position comes from the breadth of environments our athletes explore. Insights from ultra-distance trail running, alpine pursuits, snow exploration, and climbing allow us to design footwear that performs at a high level while influencing broader cultural conversations.

Our brand’s foundation in climb gives us the authenticity and the ability to create an approach footwear offering that feels both technically credible and distinctly The North Face.

More broadly, what are your thoughts on the footwear landscape right now? Why do you think so many consumers have gravitated toward outdoor-inspired footwear?

MB: The footwear landscape is incredibly exciting right now because consumers are looking for products that can do more than one thing. People want footwear that performs outdoors but also feels relevant in everyday life, blurring the lines between performance and lifestyle.

I think the growth of outdoor-inspired footwear comes from a desire for versatility and capability. Features like waterproof protection, traction, and durability provide real benefits, whether you’re exploring a trail or navigating the city.

The Clyffe and Clyffe Ultra are two of my favorite releases right now. Can you walk me through the design philosophy behind each model and what differentiates them?

FP: The Clyffe family is rooted in The North Face’s climbing DNA, but each model serves a distinct purpose.

The Clyffe Ultra reinterprets an archival silhouette through a more expressive, performance-oriented lens—while the Clyffe Trek is built as a capable modern approach shoe inspired by climbing functionality mixed with cultural expression.

Together with the original Clyffe, they showcase different expressions of the same climbing DNA for different consumers and use cases.

When you’re developing a new silhouette, what does the design process typically look like? Where do you usually start?

MB: When developing a new silhouette, we always start with athlete insights.

We spend time understanding the nuances of what our athletes need and identify opportunities where design can provide meaningful solutions, which in most cases have broader benefits for all.

From there, we move through concept exploration, prototyping, testing, and refinement, working together with athletes and cross-functional partners throughout the process.

The goal is always to create innovative products that push the boundaries of what’s possible and define new space for cultural expression, continuing to evolve The North Face’s DNA.

What do you think gives The North Face’s footwear an edge in such a crowded market right now?

FP: In an increasingly competitive market, we see strong consumer demand as an opportunity, and our edge comes from combining authentic performance heritage with a clear, differentiated point of view.

The North Face footwear is uniquely grounded in decades of athlete-led innovation, where real insights from exploration and performance shape purposeful product design. At the same time, today’s consumer is looking for meaningful connection, and our ability to translate that performance credibility into compelling storytelling rooted in our brand DNA allows us to stand out.

This intersection of athlete-driven innovation and authentic brand narrative creates products that are not only functional, but culturally relevant and distinctly positioned in the market.

Running has evolved into a massive cultural and commercial space. Do you see climbing following a similar path, or do you think it’ll develop differently?

FP: While running is clearly having a strong cultural moment, climbing is building momentum in its own distinct way—we often refer to it internally as “the new yoga.”

It offers a unique blend of physical, mental, and social benefits, and is fueled by a highly engaged, inclusive community. From high alpine environments to local gyms, climbing is becoming both a platform for personal progression and a creative outlet for self-expression.

Unlike more competition-driven categories, its growth is rooted in authenticity and connection to nature. As this evolves, we see climbers using gear not just for performance, but as an extension of identity, creating an opportunity for us to deliver both technical credibility and culturally relevant product that enables self-expression.

Looking ahead, where do you see the footwear industry heading over the next year or two?

MB: In the footwear industry, the pace of innovation is accelerating across materials, manufacturing, and digital design tools.

We have access to technologies that allow us to design and develop products faster, test ideas more effectively, and unlock entirely new possibilities.

What excites me most is how these advancements will help us create better experiences for athletes and consumers in the years ahead.

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Whether you’re showing off those pale thighs in a 5-inch inseam, rocking the classic 7-inchers, or wearing a pair that hangs well below the knee and grazes your calves, t…

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A nod to one of our favorite brands

In fashion, as in life, brand identities tend to ebb and flow.

Maybe a label spends a season chasing trends or drops a collaboration that doesn’t land. It happens. But the product itself shouldn’t have to suffer because of it.

One brand that’s managed to stay consistent is Earth\Studies. Based in Portland, Oregon, the label began in 2017 when founder Rob Darmour started it as a hiking club. In 2018, it evolved into a clothing brand called it Vanishes before rebranding to Earth\Studies in 2021.

Through every iteration, the mission has stayed the same: use natural deadstock fabrics and recycled materials to make thoughtfully designed outdoor apparel, with most of the collections produced in India.

One thing that’s never gotten lost in the shuffle is that Earth\Studies makes really good shit, whether you’re deep in the backcountry or just making a grocery run.

The brand has no shortage of standout pieces, from its wool bouclé and cotton patchwork fleece complete with a big-ass forager bag, to its three-pocket asymmetric field pants.

The designs get weird in all the right ways. I’ve been lucky enough to own some of those, but the Earth\Studies piece I haven’t stopped wearing this summer is the MP-111PA P_Article Pleated Trouser.

First and foremost, I’m a pants guy. Sure, the past few weeks have felt like Satan breathing down your neck, so I’ve reluctantly been living in shorts to avoid a potential heatstroke. But once the temperature dips below 90 degrees, these go right back into rotation.

Earth\Studies pants already lean relaxed with wide leg openings, but these are the Big Boy Baggies. They’re cut from a lightweight cotton-nylon blend with deep double pleats, two front pockets, and two zippered back pockets.

They’re roomy without looking sloppy.

I usually wear a 30 or 31, depending on whether I’m bloated from a pastry, but I sized up to a 32 just to be safe.

Thankfully, they feature a built-in webbing belt with an aircraft-grade aluminum hook closure, so dialing in the fit is not a problem. I wish every pair of pants worked like this.

My ideal fit is a roomy top block with plenty of volume through the leg, and these absolutely nail it. The inseam on a size 32 is a cropped 26¼ inches (it varies by size), so despite all the width, they never puddle or look messy.

The cotton-nylon fabric wears almost like a windbreaker for your legs—light, breezy, and comfortable when the humidity turns up a notch. I’ve washed them once, hung them to dry, and they still fit and feel exactly like they did out of the box.

My only gripe? Earth\Studies needs to make more colors. There is a linen version that’s looking more tempting with every degree the thermometer climbs.

For now, I’ve mostly been wearing them with a plain tee and a pair of Vibram-soled flip-flops. They’re the most breathable pants I own that don’t unzip into shorts, and at this rate, I’ll probably keep wearing them well into October.

Earth\Studies ​​MP-111PA P_Article Pleated Trouser, $290

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The anatomy of the penny loafer

Last week we were in Paris for Men’s Fashion Week, where we were lucky enough to partner with G.H. Bass and deliver one of the better brand activations I’ve seen in a while.

To celebrate their 150th anniversary, they transformed La Patate Douce into The Penny Shoe Store, an installation designed to feel like a traditional American shoe shop. Guests picked a pair of loafers from the collection and wore them for the rest of the evening.

Sounds simple, and it was. But standing in that room, watching people walk out into a Paris evening in a shoe that’s been around since 1936, it puts something into perspective. Some brands are so foundational that celebrating them doesn’t require spectacle.

G.H.Bass has been making shoes since 1876. That means this brand existed before the airplane, before two world wars, before the rise of Ivy League style and prep culture and hip-hop and streetwear and every other cultural movement that has shaped how men dress in the last century.

Weejuns have outlasted all of it, not by reinventing itself with every wave, but by being exactly what it is, consistently and without apology. That’s rarer than it sounds.

The origins

The name Weejun is short for Norwegian. British sportsmen who used to fish in Norway noticed the locally crafted slip-ons, and the style gradually made its way to European resorts and eventually to Palm Beach.

G.H.Bass got involved in 1936, updated the design, added the signature cutout across the saddle, and created what became the original penny loafer.

Legend has it that Ivy League students began tucking a dime, or a penny, into that front slot to use for the payphone, and that’s where the name came from.

That’s the founding myth. But what makes it interesting is everything that happened next.

The shoe that every subculture claimed

Over the past 80 years, Weejuns were adopted by almost every subculture going, from the mods of the 1950s to the British Rude Boys of the 70s and the Italian Paninari of the 80s, with each group blending the Weejuns seamlessly into their highly defined style.

That’s not an accident. It’s a function of the shoe’s design. Weejuns don’t announce themselves. It doesn’t have a logo on the side or a distinctive silhouette that reads as belonging to one specific world. It’s a clean, uncluttered shoe that carries whatever energy the person wearing it brings to it.

That’s why JFK could wear it to project effortless American authority and Michael Jackson could open the Thriller video in a pair of black Weejuns and both felt completely right.

The Ivy League connection gave it one kind of cultural credibility. The subculture adoptions gave it something more durable: the quality of feeling simultaneously classic and specific to wherever you are.

Weejuns on college campuses in the 60s read differently than Weejuns in a London mod club in the 70s or on a street in Milan in the 80s. The shoe traveled across all of those contexts without losing itself in any of them.

What makes it worth understanding

The basic construction method for Weejuns remain the same tubular moccasin technique George Henry Bass pioneered back in 1876. This method sees a single piece of leather wrapped around the bottom of the last and hand-sewn to create a hammock for the foot. The outsole is resoleable.

The construction is built to last rather than built to be replaced.

This matters more now than it did twenty years ago. We’re in a moment where people are actively looking for things that hold up, things that were made with intention and can be repaired rather than discarded.

Weejuns were built that way from the beginning, not as a response to a trend but as a reflection of how G.H.Bass has always approached making shoes.

The Larson Weejuns specifically sit in that space between heritage and daily wear that’s genuinely hard to find. The whale tail penny keeper, the handsewn moccasin and beefroll stitching, the Blake stitch construction, the resoleable leather outsole. These aren’t design details added for aesthetics.

They’re the actual mechanics of how the shoe is made, and they’re the same mechanics that have kept it relevant across nine decades.

The Paris moment

What G.H.Bass chose to do with their 150th anniversary says something about how confident they are in the product itself. They could have done a runway moment or a celebrity seeding campaign or a limited-edition collab.

Instead they built a shoe shop and let people try on the classics. It was an activation built around the product, which is exactly the kind of confidence that only comes when you know the product can carry the weight.

Weejuns have been doing that for 90 years. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

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More specifically, the no-sock footwear includes sandals, slippers, flip-flops, and slides. If you’ve been following along, we’ve already done guides on:

• New suits

• Jackets in transitional weather

• Spring trousers

• One on shirting

• A footwear shopping guide (regular shoes)

And as we hit summer holidays or dig our toes into the sand in the coming weeks, here’s a proper guide to get you sorted on footwear.

If you’re new to the guides, we drop one a week and the categories are always different. If you want access to these shopping guides for yourself or a loved one, you can subscribe here.

A few notes about these guides ❤️

1. As always, if you’re looking for trendy shit on the cheap, this isn’t the best place to look. You need the right stuff, not more stuff.

2. A lot of these recommendations tend to be medium to higher price point (though not always). If you’re looking for quality, affordable options, I always recommend thrifting what you can (like eBay, vinted, etc), or looking at options like Uniqlo.

   1. If you like these guides, share them with a homie, partner, family member, lover, or anyone who would appreciate it!

Access our shopping guides

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These cotton knit rollback sweaters from Horatio

Everything Horatio touches turns to gold. Young London brand, and what Nick and Billy are building is seriously impressive, especially for being fully bootstrapped.

I spent some time with them at their Soho store last month and they’re standup guys doing it the right way, no shortcuts.

The knitwear is where it clicks for me: they’re remixing the classics, but with a restraint most brands miss. The rollback sweater has quietly worked its way into my rotation. It’s the kind of piece that looks considered without trying too hard.

Where to cop

The J.Crew x Timex collab

Well-aligned collabs have gotten harder to find. The barrier to entry is so low now that brands think they can slap a logo on something, call it a partnership, and move on.

And that, my friends, is exactly why this J.Crew x Timex one feels refreshing. It works because there’s real alignment between the two, brand and customer both; the same guy reaching for one is already reaching for the other in a way that doesn’t feel forced.

That said, the dumbest move was releasing the watch before summer and not shipping it until fall. This is the perfect summer watch. Let me wear it in the season it was built for.

P.P.S - J.Crew honoring the heritage of braided belts is a big vibe.

Distance Athletics’ new store in Tokyo

Parisian label Distance just opened a new global location, this time in Tokyo. What I love about Distance is how they inject play and a youthful energy into running, a category that usually takes itself way too seriously.

Their stores are curated like a good friend’s apartment: a smart mix of brands sharing space with fun little knickknacks and objects you didn’t know you needed. And beyond that, the model itself is sustainable.

They’ve figured out how to be a niche, deeply specific offering and still speak to a global audience. Look at where they’ve planted flags: Copenhagen, Tokyo, Lyon, Paris, and Iten in Kenya.

Long live Distance.

These fatigues from Khakis

People ask me all the time who my favorite brand is right now, and I can’t help but say Khakis. The Korean brand has me singing their praises to anyone who’ll listen.

The shape is perfect, wide enough to feel relaxed but never baggy, and they drape beautifully. They come looking broken in, right down to these faint stains on the front that make it look like I put in a hard day of manual labor.

Which, for the record, I did not.

Where to cop

These canvas laundry bins

A proper bin to toss your laundry into is one of the most underrated items you can own. I bought mine a couple of years ago almost as an afterthought, and it’s quietly become the best storage investment in the house.

Made by Steele, an American company producing these in the USA. Can’t recommend it enough.

Worth the money; do it.

Where to cop

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When I think of Detroit, I think of a city of makers.

From J Dilla crafting Donuts and Berry Gordy producing some of Motown’s greatest hits at Hitsville U.S.A., to Carhartt’s double-knee work pants and Ford’s lasting imprint on the automotive industry, Detroit has always been a place where things get made.

These days, it’s also home to my favorite T-shirt maker: Soft Goods.

Their Heavyweight Tee feels like the T-shirt equivalent of Red Wing’s ubiquitous Moc Toe boot—substantial, dependable, and somehow better every time you wear it. But Soft Goods is more than its private-label offerings.

The brand operates its own manufacturing facility in the heart of Corktown, one of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods.

Founder Josh York has been making T-shirts since he was 12 years old. “My original brand was called York Project,” he says, recalling his first taste of entrepreneurship while working in corporate retail.

Today, Soft Goods employs 19 people at its Detroit factory while managing production across five additional facilities in Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois. “What I’ve realized is that people come to us because we’re really a logistics company,” York says.

Whether a client arrives with nothing more than an aspirational sweatshirt they want recreated or a stack of detailed tech packs, Soft Goods handles the entire process. “We’ll manage the pattern, source the fabric, oversee production, and handle shipping.”

The company also white-labels for some of menswear’s most respected names, including Aaron Levine, American Trench, William Ellery, Manresa, and William Frederick.

It all happens domestically, with a healthy dose of Detroit grit mixed in. “When you say something is made in Detroit, people associate it with a city that has made products that have moved the world,” York says.

Back in May, I had the chance to spend a day with Josh and the team at their factory. He walked me through the production floor, showed me a cut-resistant glove that looked like it belonged in a medieval movie rather than a sewing facility, and talked about what “Made in America” means to him.

We also discussed how his relationship with menswear deity Aaron Levine began, and what the next decade looks like for both the brand and the business.

Special shoutout to Josh, Alex, and Matt for hosting me in the 313. And shoutout to Luke Steppey, the talented fella behind the lens.

Can you share a bit about your background and what led you into manufacturing?

I’ve been making T-shirts since I was 12. I used to design graphics in PowerPoint, print them onto iron-on transfers, and then my mom would help me cut them out and iron them onto shirts. I’d sell them out of my locker in high school. I’ve been into that whole process from the very beginning.

T-shirts, specifically, became a passion of mine when I was around 10 years old. My cousin played in a band called Creepy Peter, and I went to see them perform. I bought a shirt that my other cousin had airbrushed, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I’ve also been a drummer since I was very young and played in bands growing up. I was always interested in making T-shirts for the band, family reunions, or whatever project was going on. That interest eventually led me to buy a screen-printing press in college.

At the time, I was playing drums in a band, and we were paying too much for T-shirts, so I bought a press, watched YouTube videos, and taught myself how to screen-print shirts out of my parents’ basement laundry room.

From there, I just kept going. I went to Michigan State and studied supply chain management. After school, I worked in very corporate environments. I worked at Grainger, then at Boeing, but I was still making T-shirts at night. I’d go to my internship during the day and sell shirts and other products to my roommates and other interns.

Eventually, I realized I wanted to combine my supply chain background with my interest in apparel.

That led me to Abercrombie, where I had a role that wasn’t all that different from what I was doing at Boeing. I like to joke that I went from buying screws for airplane wingtips at Boeing to buying six million pairs of boys’ underwear at Abercrombie.

Even though apparel was much closer to my interests, it still wasn’t completely satisfying. I was learning a lot about clothing and the industry, but I wasn’t actually creating anything.

I was so far removed from the making process that something still felt missing. It’s really just been a progression. I taught myself how to sew in college and would tailor my roommates’ clothes. Over time, I kept getting deeper and deeper into every part of the process.

What was the moment when you realized you were ready to leave the corporate world and build something of your own?

There was a lot going on at once.

I had a health issue as well. During my senior year of college, I started having back pain, and when I graduated, doctors discovered a benign tumor in my spine. It was growing in the bone and pressing on my spinal cord. Because of that, I was constantly coming back home for doctor’s appointments. At the same time, I got dumped by my girlfriend. I was living in a new city where I didn’t know anybody. I was in pain and taking medication around the clock just to get through the day, while my entire family was back home. It just didn’t feel right.

I believe God was telling me, “You’re on the wrong track.” I already knew I wasn’t happy in the corporate world. At the same time, I was still making and selling clothes on the side. My original brand was called York Project.

We had a one-for-one model supporting the homeless community here. We donated beanies, socks, and underwear to shelters, organized monthly volunteer events, and even landed a pop-up shop at a mall about nine months into my job at Abercrombie.

With all of this personal stuff happening, we got the opportunity to run that pop-up. I took two weeks off work to manage it, and when I came back, I realized how unhappy I was. At the same time, I wasn’t performing well at my job.

My manager sat me down with HR and said, “We know you have another business. You’re competing with us, and you could get sued for this.” I told them, “I really want this job here.” They basically said, “You’re not going to have that job anytime soon. It’s going to be ten years before you ever get there.”

That conversation was a wake-up call. It made me realize that if I was going to stay, I needed to do a better job. That’s not who I am—to just coast. So I kicked it into high gear. Over the next five or six months, I actually moved up within the company.

But that conversation stuck with me. They were telling me I wasn’t going to get the job I wanted. All this personal stuff was happening. My business was gaining momentum.

I was interviewing elsewhere, too—I even got a job offer from Shinola. All of that was happening at the same time, and I finally decided, “I’m moving home.” I turned down the job at Shinola, bought those three machines, and went all in.

That was really it. There wasn’t one defining moment—it was everything happening at once.

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What does “Made in USA” mean to you personally, beyond just the label?

I’m incredibly proud that we don’t just make products here—we also help keep five other factories busy. There was a moment recently when I felt like things were slow. This is a slower time of year, between spring deliveries and when fall production starts to ramp up.

My wife reminded me that a lot of that work exists because of the selling and marketing I do. When I think about it, there are probably 40 people around the country working on soft goods products because of what we’ve built. That’s a pretty crazy thought.

To me, “Made in the USA” is about the jobs it creates. I support my family through this business. A lot of our team members are younger and don’t have families yet, but they will someday. We recently visited some of the factories we work with in Pennsylvania, and just seeing people making our products was incredible.

I think “Made in the USA” gets thrown around a lot as a marketing slogan or as a shorthand for quality. But it doesn’t automatically mean quality—there’s plenty of junk made here, too. What it really means to me is keeping resources here and supporting people here.

Operating out of the Rust Belt, what are some misconceptions people have about producing clothing outside of New York or overseas?

I think people are often really surprised that we’re here making things, which I get. There’s not really been much of an industry here for a long time. However, there’s a map downstairs by the front door that I can show you. On this building, it actually says “Knitting Mill.” At some point, I think in the 1920s, there was a knitting mill on this block.

In more recent decades, though, there hasn’t been much outside of Philly, New York, and the Carolinas. I shouldn’t say nothing, I’ve actually been surprised to find there are a lot more little manufacturing pockets than I thought.

But I think the Rust Belt is known for manufacturing, and specifically Detroit. That’s such a big part of our heritage, and people trust that. When you say something is made in Detroit, people associate it with a city that has made products that have moved the world.

Even though we’re in a very different category, people still trust that it’s going to be good. Carhartt started here. It began in a second-floor warehouse in Detroit, not far from here. So we definitely have some great stories and brands that we can build on, and that helps.

I love going to Paris or New York and being around people in those circles. When I tell them I have a factory in Detroit, they’re instantly like, “What? What do you do?”

Then I tell them what we make and who we make it for, and people are sold. It took a long time to get to that point, to build enough credibility, but now it’s really fun. Business is a little easier to come by because we have that credibility, and people trust us.

We’re just more modern in how we operate. You can talk directly to me or Carly, who is our lead designer, and say, “I want a boxier cut.” Great, we understand that, and we can make it happen.

With a lot of factories in New York, you have to micromanage the process. You have to provide the pattern, then take it somewhere else to get the marker made, then run it over to another place. There’s a lot more coordination involved.

Aside from being able to make clothes in your own factory, what are some of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of owning the building itself?

I think I’ll start with the disadvantages first because they’re so small.

The main disadvantage is that there’s a lot of stuff to deal with that fashion people or designers maybe don’t want to deal with. I don’t really call myself a designer—I’m a business owner.

So many people out there identify as designers, and it’s easy to dream something up, sketch it out, send it somewhere, and have it handled. But managing all the details is different.

You have to source everything and maintain relationships with every supplier—the thread, the twill tape, the fabric, all of it. Then there’s schedule management.

At the end of the day, everyone downstairs is working here to support their life. So that’s really the disadvantage: having to think about all those extra things that maybe designers don’t have to think about.

But the advantages are much bigger. We’re incredibly fast to market. We’re going to stockpile undyed hoodies, crews, tees, thermals—everything right at the beginning of the season.

Then we’ll produce in small batches and lean into whatever is working. We’re so lean and nimble, and I think that’s a great way to run a business instead of having to make big guesses at the start of the season, as most brands do.

If we want to change something or iterate, we’re always tweaking, dialing things in, and making them better, and we can do that immediately.

Carly and I can literally sit down for an afternoon and make ten samples of a T-shirt until it’s perfect. If you’re doing that overseas, that’s months. That agility and flexibility are by far the biggest advantages.

I read that the Blogfather, Michael Williams, connected you with Aaron Levine for Huckberry’s Trumbull line. How has your relationship with Aaron evolved since then, especially in helping manufacture his label?

In 2023, I thought we were going to lose the business. My two partners basically said, “Times are tough. We don’t think this business is going anywhere. We should shut it down.” I said, “No, I don’t want to do that. I love this. I want to give it another shot. I think if I hold on, there’s something around the corner.”

One of my partners had been told by Jacob from American Trench, “You should connect with Michael Williams. He’s a good guy to know.” So I cold-reached out to Michael and said, “Hey, this is what I’m doing. I need help telling the story, and you seem really good at that.”

He said, “Oh, you worked at Abercrombie? You should meet Aaron.” I told him, “Before you introduce me to Aaron, let me send you some clothes. I want you to believe in them before you go to bat for me.”

So I sent him some product, and he came back saying, “This is incredible. You have to meet Aaron.”

He connected me with Aaron, and again, I was in survival mode. I thought I was going to lose the business.

My mindset was, “Yes, Aaron can help. Aaron knows people. Maybe something comes from this.” So my wife and I drove down to Columbus and met him at his restaurant in Granville. I brought a bunch of samples, and we talked shop for about two hours.

And we connected. We valued similar things: well-made products, craftsmanship, and quality. By the end of it, he said, “I’ve got to come see your factory.” A couple of weeks later, he drove up.

We showed him the old factory, grabbed tacos, and just kept finding alignment. At the same time, Aaron was consulting for Huckberry. He had identified that Huckberry needed fleece in its lineup. They had their 10-Year Hoodie, but it had kind of run its course and needed a refresh.

So he told them, “You need to go deeper into this category.” At the very same time, I’m down in Granville showing him all the fleece products we make. He looked at it and said, “Oh, I’m going to pitch this to Huckberry. This is the solution.”

He went back, and over the next couple of weeks, Carly and I built out an entire fleece line based on some direction and samples he’d shared. Aaron took it to Huckberry and said, “This is the answer.”

They were blown away. Rich and Andy, the founders, saw it and immediately wanted to move forward. I think I proved to Aaron that I was the kind of person who could execute.

Back in Granville, I’d asked him, “Do you want to start something?” He wasn’t interested in the logistics, operations, accounting, or all the infrastructure behind building a company. I went to school for logistics.

That’s what I do. I know how to build the foundation of a business. I know the operations, the systems, and the accounting.

So after seeing Trumbull come to fruition, it became clear that Aaron and I could do something together. We started putting the pieces in place and launched a business. For the longest time, we weren’t sure what we were going to call it. Aaron really didn’t want to call it Aaron Levine.

But we kept putting the pieces together, and from there, we were off to the races.

What do brands typically come to Soft Goods MFG for? I imagine quality is the obvious through line, but what else makes a good fit?

A lot of it is word of mouth, and now the internet is helping spread that message. What I’ve realized is that people come to us because we’re really a logistics company.

You can come to me and say, “I want a sweatshirt,” and maybe show me one you like. From there, we’ll manage the pattern, source the fabric, oversee production, and handle shipping. We do all of that, and that’s why people like working with us. William Ellery and Manresa are great examples.

They trust that if they tell me, Carly, or Alex what they want, we’re going to understand their vision and execute it. All they have to do is tell us when they need it, and it shows up on time.

My mantra is simple: do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it. That’s surprisingly difficult in this industry. If we commit to a date, we’re going to hit it.

And if something changes, we’re communicating that two weeks in advance. We’re providing the logistics and operational support that a lot of small brands don’t have.

How do you decide what ideas or fabrics stay exclusive to your clients versus what becomes part of your own private label?

That’s something I’ve really struggled with. We’ve been private labeling the entire time, but within the past year, we’ve really started pushing the Soft Goods brand.

We still sell more through private label, but there are a couple of fabrics that are our core products—like that 5.6-ounce T-shirt and our heavyweight T-shirt. We’re generally not selling those unless our name is associated with them.

If someone’s coming in and buying a large volume, then sure, they can have that T-shirt.

The Colony Hotel, for example, is one of our biggest clients. They get our best fleece and our best jersey.

It doesn’t say Soft Goods on the main label—I think it might be in the care tag—but if you’re doing that kind of volume, that’s a different conversation. A lot of people buy a Colony Hotel sweatshirt and then realize, “Wait, I can go directly to the source and get more of this.”

I think we can become known for that fleece. That fleece is exclusively ours—we had it custom-developed for us. So we’re trying to be careful about how we distribute it.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to volume. If people want a custom fabric, they can absolutely do it, but they have to meet the minimums. That goes back to the logistics of how we operate.

We’re already running all of this production, so if you want 50 units, we can pull from existing inventory.

That’s just part of how our business works.

Soft Goods MFG has now been a tangible thing for nearly ten years. What’s the vision or goal for the next decade?

I really want the Soft Goods brand to become something meaningful. It’s still in its infancy, and over the years, we’ve launched different brands, shut down different brands, and continued doing private labeling the entire time.

My ideal business would be 50% private label and 50% Soft Goods. If Soft Goods ads stop working or we hit a slow season, we can lean more heavily into private label. If a large private-label client leaves, we can invest that capacity into growing our own brand. Keeping that balance feels like the best business model to me.

Right now, we’re probably ten times bigger on the private-label side than we are on the brand side, so I’m really excited about building that up. I want Soft Goods to become a brand people can count on—a place where you can come back year after year and get a great T-shirt.

It will be the same dependable product, with new colors and different iterations, like we were talking about.

I’m excited to keep doing this and figure out what the next iteration of the business looks like. I think the way to get to the next level is by building the brand.

Being a factory for someone else has value, but building a brand is where the real long-term value lies. That’s what the next ten years are about: getting that brand really dialed in, stable, and built to last.

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It’s ten years now since I started making coffee at home. I started with no knowledge other than knowing I liked coffee. As soon as I started to share coffee bits on Instagram stories people straight away told me I was doing it wrong.

Now, that can come across as helpful and genuine or I can come across as darn right rude and elitist. There’s a difference between “you could consider trying this” vs “bro what the hell are you doing??”

At this point I’m obsessed with the coffee world; the community, the experience, the design, the passion and the product itself. Give me a seat outside with a buddy, in a new city, with a banging brew and an hour to kill, I won’t ask for anything else.

If you’re at the start of your coffee journey or just keen to see what’s out there, here’s a few products on the market that’ll provide everything you need to make a decent cuppa at home:

Pour over method

Beans

Sounds simple but making sure you have the right beans for each method of brewing is important. Generally, roasters will make it clear on their packaging how the beans should be used.

You’re looking for “pour over / v60” for this method, or if it says ‘omni roast” that’ll work too (a coffee terms for a multi-purpose bean). If the packaging doesn’t say then that’s a red flag for me.

Try

A Matter of Concrete

Dark Arts

Dak

Nomad

Sioptec

Prolog

Bonanza

Carafe

Simply, the jug you’ll brew your coffee into. There’s loads out there, but it’s hard to beat Kinto’s selection for the price. If you fancy a slightly bigger splash of the cash it’s worth a snoop of Orea’s selection.

Failing that, you can technically brew straight into a cup for extra ease.

Pour over dripper

The top part where the grounds will sit. Admittedly I’m never fully sure what the universal name for this is and for some reason these aren’t as easy to find as you’d think, even though they’re integral. Brands to look at:

Orea

Hario

Kinto

Muji

Timemore

Hand and Mechanical Grinders

Hand grinding takes time and effort, which is no bad thing as it can become a big part of the routine of the making process. Mechanical is fast and convinent, but takes up more space. It really depends the level you want to shoot at, and also where you plan to brew.

For example, if you are into camping then a hand grinder makes sense. Home bod, with worktop space then a mechanical design could be the move. But it’s one area where you 100% get what you pay for, and will substantially affect how the coffee brews.

Brands to look at:

Timemore

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Hario

Filter papers

A necessary part to brewing a decent cup is the filter papers. The size and style will depend on which pour over vessel you end up using, so always check the measurements on the respective websites.

My only tips here are to rise your papers will a bit of boiling water before you add your grounds, this helps get rid of any papery taste. Brown papers are generally composable.

Cups

Anything goes. Old ones from your grandparents, handmade ones from your local ceramists, swanky ones from design brands or just a classic no1 dad mug even if you don’t have kids. Match your vibe, as long as it’s a cup it’s good to go. Generally, pour over coffees are served with handleless cups these days, but go with the flow.

Scales

I must admit, I used some old kitchen scales for years, but as I got more into coffee and the brewing process it made sense to venture into dedicated kit. There’s something here for every budget, but a great starting point would be Timemore’s basic scales.

A good price and something you’ll regular see being used in specialty coffee shops around the world.

Kettle

Like the scales, when I first tried brewing at home I used the regular kitchen kettle and yeah that was a terrible idea. Zero control and regulation. In a similar vein, there’s something for every budget here.

I used the iconic Hario gooseneck kettle for years, works perfectly but have never been in love with the design. Recently I got the Stagg kettle by Fellow, feels like a massive upgrade in terms of looks and its ergonomic design. Both are spot on at two ends of the scale.

Boden also do a nice option.

Next time we’ll get into making espresso-based drinks at home.

General thoughts on Paris

I’m back home after a chaotic, sweaty week in Paris. If you’ve been out of touch, last week was the hottest recorded temperatures in French history. And while Americans are used to blazing hot temps, one thing about us is WE GOT AC.

And the French do not.

But we made it work and still had a blast in the meantime. This is my third time going to Paris specifically for men’s fashion week, and it’s started to feel like returning to camp.

I’ve been lucky enough to build relationships with awesome brands, designers, creatives, agencies, and more. And while part of it has become a bit performative (i.e. a way for brands to spend their way being relevant), the core of what happens there (namely, that brands and stores place their wholesale orders for the seasons ahead) is very much intact.

As someone who considers himself an “industry outsider,” I find Paris to be a mixed bag.

There are two schools of thought in my head.

The pessimistic view

Brands tend to throw words around till they lose their meaning. We’re

“minimalist”

“contemporary”

“heritage”

Brands are iterating on product at a rapid pace trying to create new niches within niches.

As consumers, we’re all glued to our phones, trying to keep up with changing algorithms, calling photos we saw online a “creative reference” to mask the fact it’s a clear rip from something that came before it, and the sheer amount of popups and parties and dinners will make your head spin.

The scarcity of these kinds of gatherings is gone. Which in some ways is great, because it means the playing field is leveling out. On the other hand, we’re all accessing the same designers, factories, influencers, creative references, and so on.

And that might feel problematic, but I think it’s actually what makes these moments special.

So here’s the optimistic one

There are so many incredibly generous, kind, and supportive people in the space who are trying their best to make products that tell a story.

That’s why I love supporting independent, small to medium-sized brands. These brands employ people, pay them a good wage, source their fabrics and production locally when possible, and care for others like they would a good friend.

In my opinion, brands that focus on craftsmanship and well-made, luxury products (not trying to replicate or commoditize anything) are in safe hands.

Why?

A lot of these brands that are trying to shortcut their way to success won’t be around in 5, 10, or 15 years because they’re either doing it for the wrong reasons or they don’t have a community behind what they do.

Anyway, here’s another edition of Field Notes from Paris.

PS - HUGE thanks to my brother Zac Chambers for trekking thru these streets to photograph everything. Be sure to hit him up for anything on the photo front!

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An activation I loved: Keen’s Camp Jasper

KEEN’s showroom was a nod to summer camp and climbing exploration, and they nailed the build-out. Big shouts to the Hotel Creative team on the execution.

KEEN's been making the Jasper since 2008. No single campaign launched it into the culture, no singular moment manufactured it into existence. Climbers adopted it first, for functionality’s sake. Then people who liked how it felt. Now people like it for the way it looks.

The context matters because everyone wants their own approach shoe now. Puma went back to a 2003 archive style and recontextualized it. Loewe made one in royal purple. Prada launched one at $1,100.

But bouldering gyms have grown 76% in the US over the last decade, and climbing has become what cycling and running once were, a city sport with a social layer, its own aesthetic, its own community.

The people coming out of those gyms aren’t looking for fashion shoes, necessarily. But they’re not opposed to a shoe that works in the gym and works walking to dinner afterward. The approach shoe answers that.

The Swap x Sprezza dinner

Hosted an intimate (sweaty) dinner with friends I’ve met over the years, most of them people I’ve gotten to know since landing here, a gathering of folks from all over who’d somehow never been in the same room.

Big thanks to Swap, a tech company with deep roots in fashion who I’ve had a relationship with for a while now, for making it happen.

Nights like this matter to me because building a life somewhere new mostly comes down to who’s around the table; getting to be the one who pulls those people together, instead of waiting for an invite, is the whole point.

Brands and products I loved

Knits and outerwear from Carter Young

These GATs from Kaptain Sunshine

These fatigue trousers from Dubbleware

Brand on the rise: Atlantic Coastal Supplies

These lovely knits from Kartik Research

What people wore

While there was untold amount of sweating happening behind the scenes, people still put that sh*t (as always) and we got to capture some fun moments from the week.

More later - for now let me know what I missed!

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We’ll be in Paris next week for the men’s fashion circuit, covering (once again) the next wave of brands, the products they’re making, and catching up with designers and creatives alike.

Since a lot of you can’t be there in person, we always do our best to cover what’s happening in real time, from street style and showroom visits to a closer look at all the events and parties, and even early access to new products before they go into production.

And while we’re there, Sprezza is teaming up with the homies at GH Bass to celebrate their 150th anniversary!

We’re redesigning an old shoe store and turning it into an evening gathering space.

This is a dream collaboration to partner with a brand like Bass. I wore Weejuns as a kid, and to this day, the penny loafer is in my hall of fame for staple wardrobe pieces.

So join us. The drinks will be flowing, the vinyl will be spinning, and you’ll be surrounded by some incredible people all evening in this blessed city.

Come through. We’ll be shutting down the 3rd arrondissement.

RSVP here

Date: Friday, 26th of June

Time: 7pm — late

Address: La Patate Douce (3 Rue Borda, Paris)

Feel free to bring a friend or two. See you there.

5 years ago, I sat across from Andrew Chen in the back of 3sixteen’s store in Nolita and showed him a hoodie sample I’d been working on; it was a mix of vintage Navy sweaters and something you’d see from Number (N)ine.

He gave me some advice on sizing, production & sampling, and on how to commit to and chase that dream.

I never ended up making any of those sweaters.

Instead, I started writing about menswear and clothes, silly articles about expensive coats, how being a dad was cutting into my #jawnz budget, and how guys are too scared to dress like people did in the 70’s.

Although the dream changed from producing a product to writing about it, the advice Andrew gave me of working hard at whatever I set my mind to stayed the same.

5 years later, almost to the day, I got to sit in that same back office and ask him about his journey as a co-owner of a trusted menswear brand and how they’ve grown it over the last +20 years.

Andrew Chen is not the kind of person who’s going to tell you he always knew 3sixteen would become what it is.

When I sit down with him at the New York store (surrounded by raw selvedge, sample bins, and one particularly beautiful hunting jacket he’s been quietly revisiting), he’s measured, honest, and unbothered by the idea of playing it cool.

He’s a guy who, with co-owner Johan Lam, spent over two decades making things he believed in and ended up building one of the most quietly respected names in American menswear.

I asked him early whether he thought the brand would ever become what it is.

ANDREW

“Of course not. No. I remember every milestone that Johan and I hit. One milestone was his ability to take a salary. The next step was for me to be able to take a salary. After that was hiring our first employee, getting our first office space, and moving stock out of his garage.

Opening our first retail store in LA nine years ago. New York, five and a half years ago. These are all big steps.

But at the beginning, we had no idea.”

He pauses, then adds something that stuck with me.

ANDREW

“Starting the brand, it was just important for it to be seen and appreciated by people we didn’t know. We were waiting for the first web store order to come in from an unfamiliar name.

Anybody who’s made anything knows that feeling… I have no idea who this is. How did they find out about it. That’s so cool that they bought it.”

From t-shirts to selvedge

3sixteen started in 2003 with graphic T-shirts, the easiest entry point for anyone who wants to be creative in apparel.

Andrew was in Chicago working at the edges of what he loosely calls “streetwear 2.0”: a new crop of young brands out of New York and LA, created by designers, musicians, and creatives trying to make something you couldn’t find at the mall. They found footing there.

Then in 2008, they launched a full head-to-toe collection of shirts, jackets, fleece, and raw selvedge denim made in the USA from Japanese fabric.

The denim wasn’t supposed to be the centerpiece. It just turned out that’s where they could make the clearest statement.

A relationship with Self Edge, which became a genuine partnership, gave the jeans legitimacy early and connected 3sixteen to mills and producers in Japan that let them level up in ways they couldn’t have managed alone.

About three years into making jeans, they took the next risk: developing their own fabric from scratch.

ANDREW

“Minimum quantities were high. We were worried about whether we would ever use it all at first; it was a little scary to take that plunge. But that was the only way we could truly say that our product was truly original.

No one else would be able to make those jeans because they wouldn’t be able to make that fabric.”

I push him on the question every emerging brand seems to ask itself: Was there a gap in the market they were trying to fill? He’s pretty direct about it.

ANDREW

“I don’t fault any brand for taking on the perspective of ‘this doesn’t exist, so we should make it.’ But at the end of the day, everything already exists. Unless we’re talking about new technology, like someone inventing Uber.

We didn’t bring anything legitimately new to the conversation. A lot of DTC brands will say ‘we looked at the market and couldn’t find it, so we made it.’ And a lot of times it feels very soulless. Like you’re trying to meet a need, and once the need is met, where do you go from there?

But if you look at it from another direction, we liked it. Then there’s a lot of runway. There is tons of inspiration, tons of room to grow.”

Building a wardrobe

One of the things that draws people to 3sixteen is how cohesive everything feels. You can pick up two pieces from different seasons, and they work together; you can mix them with things you already own, and it all works.

It doesn’t feel like a brand trying to sell you an outfit off a lookbook; it feels like a wardrobe that builds on itself. I tell Andrew this. He appreciates it, then explains how much work it actually takes.

ANDREW

“Everybody wants to show you a lookbook of how that season’s stuff works together. But very few people are coming into the store to buy for the whole season. They’re probably buying two, maybe three pieces.

And it has to go home with them, and it has to not only fit in with the rest of what they own from us, but hopefully fit in with the rest of the stuff that they buy that isn’t from us.”

“I can’t see into your closet. But I can hopefully see that you appreciate a certain design perspective.

If you like that we’re into vintage military, if you like that we have a little bit of workwear and western influence that pops up here and there (that strange mix we have) then the other stuff you buy is probably going to work with it.”

This is their Utility Flannel, a relaxed fit workshirt featuring a heavyweight brown flannel fabric with a textured twill pattern. It almost feels like wearing a blanket.

The technical side of that is real; he mentions the idea of an overshirt that won’t bind at the armhole when layered over a sweater, silhouettes that don’t compete, and color palettes that hold across seasons.

There are a few higher-degree-of-difficulty pieces (Andrew mentions the leopard cargos with a grin), but the baseline is clear, and almost nothing in the line asks you to rethink your whole wardrobe to make it work.

I tell him about a friend of mine, an accountant newer to the menswear space, whose wife has started buying him pieces from here for his birthday without even asking what he wants. She just knows it’ll work. Andrew nods.

ANDREW

“We really try to be a resource to people who are worried about how something fits or how something works with their personal sense of style. There are people who come in with a very distinct perspective on how they dress and have no questions. That’s great.

But we have customers who are like, how would I style this? And we love when people ask. Please ask.

We can show you the whole shop; you don’t have to buy any of it, but you probably have something at home that looks like this shirt. We’ll help you figure out how you can wear it.”

Finding your voice as a brand

The brand’s social presence has quietly become its own kind of entry point. I’ve had multiple people send me their (Jean)uary videos, sometimes people who had no idea what 3sixteen was, or even that they made jeans, who stumbled onto a Reel and watched it start to finish.

One of them thought Andrew was just another well-dressed menswear guy educating the internet about denim care.

Andrew takes that seriously. The output and the communication about that output are both in their control and both have to match.

ANDREW

“If I or any of our team members are talking to you on social, it should be in the exact same voice as if you came into the store. That has to be our guiding principle. It can never be different from that.

If we can give you a little piece of our in-person experience through the videos, we’ve done our job. Because hopefully you’ll make it in one day, and you’ll see that it’s consistent.”

The humor in those videos is real. It might start as a joke in the back office, and sometimes it has legs. What it’s never been is an attempt to go viral or build personal platforms.

ANDREW

“It is serious, because it’s how we make our living. But it’s also not serious. And hopefully people kind of get a little bit of that. A lot of these start as just jokes, like “it’d be funny if ______.”

Sometimes the idea has legs, and we just roll with it.”

In 2003 it was underground hip hop message boards and import car forums. Then Hypebeast forums, Superfuture, Style Forum.

Then Reddit with the raw denim subreddit where they’d host jean-fading contests where a group of people all started a fresh pair at the same time, checked in monthly, and posted progress photos.

Andrew describes what those threads actually looked like.

The store has a drawer of aged denim you can ask to see as a reference point. Every jean tells a story and through the fades and patches, Andrew is able to tell me how the jeans fit the person and how they were worn.

ANDREW

“We would post a monthly check-in, and people would take some pictures of their jeans but they’d also be like, this is what happened to me. I graduated from grad school. I took them on a road trip through Big Sur. Just normal, everyday things. If there’s an avenue for connection, that’s what people want.

They want to feel like what they’re into is something other people also enjoy. Maybe where you live, nobody is into your niche interest— but you can find somebody across the country who is. You can talk with them about it.”

Now it’s short-form video, newsletters, and the occasional discovery through an internet search. Andrew says new customers still name new channels every week when they come in and get asked how they found the brand.

The landscape keeps changing but the voice stays the same.

Building a community

The first pair of shoes 3sixteen ever made was a mule. The brief was simple: something cleaner and more streamlined than a Birkenstock Boston, something you could throw on to run to the bodega but also wear to work without feeling out of place.

A connection through their friend Chris Echeverria of Blackstock & Weber led them to a footwear factory in Portugal. There, they described the leathers they wanted, the factory understood, and they made a first run of 100 pairs of natural veg tan and 100 pairs of black.

ANDREW

“The first release flew. They sold out in like two days, and we were like “there’s something good here.” So we rolled out a restock and started doing some seasonal leathers, some hairy suedes.

We did a slate blue one with Mule Boys, they threw a party here where you weren’t allowed to attend unless you had mules on. Obviously we didn’t enforce it, but some people came in with cooked shoes and let us saw the backs of them off.

At a certain point it wasn’t really about the shoes. It was just people coming together to have a good time.”

The elusive side zips. They come in both black and brown leather, and will be available in the coming week.

The boots came next. Lead designer Wes had carried a clear vision for a particular square-toe silhouette for years, they just didn’t have the right manufacturing partner to execute it properly.

When the Portugal factory proved themselves on the mules, 3sixteen brought them the idea.

These might be the most sought after boots in the current menswear space, so much so that when I went to the sample sale I was getting DM’s from random accounts asking if I could pick up a pair for them.

I ask Andrew if he saw that coming.

ANDREW

“No. It was honestly insane. Wes had a very clear perspective on this boot style for years and years, and we just didn’t have a way to make it.

So when we started working with this manufacturer and they knocked it out of the park with the mules, we were like, listen, we’ve had this idea. And they really, really understood. We made a hundred pairs to start, and I don’t remember how quickly the first run sold out. It was quick from the first draw.”

They’ve scaled deliberately and at their own pace. The boots are Goodyear welted, made at a family-owned factory that’s been at it for generations. Other manufacturers have approached them with cheaper builds and the first suggestion is always to move off the welt construction. 3sixteen keeps passing.

ANDREW

“Margin and output are not of interest to us when we’re making this category. We make it because we love it and because we want customers to have things they’re into. But it’s also not easy.

For brands to be able to wholesale and make a ton of units, you’ve got to make some choices. We’re just not making those choices.”

The next boot drop is coming sometime between the end of June / beginning of July.

Start with one simple thing

We close on value, something Andrew feels clearly, but frames carefully. He doesn’t want to be in the business of convincing anyone their stuff is worth buying.

What he is interested in is the person who’s already decided they want to invest in something and just needs help knowing where to start.

ANDREW

“My advice would be: pick the one thing that really means a lot to you. Something you wear every single day. If you’re obsessed with sneakers and you have no problem spending money on sneakers, then it makes sense to get a nice pair of shoes.

Something versatile that you can wear all the time but is really made well. Not a mall shoe. Something where they make it in house, start to finish — not a footwear designer, but a footwear producer.”

“For some people, it’s gonna be jeans. You wear jeans every single day and you’ve never really thought twice about it, but how come they fall apart every six months and you just go buy another pair?

What would it be like if you just tried on a really nice pair of jeans? And then go to that maker, or that brand, or a retailer that carries that brand, and ask. Just be like — the pair I have cost forty bucks. The pair you’re selling is two-fifty. That’s a big difference. What’s happening here?”

He walks me through what the answer to that question actually looks like.

ANDREW

“Our markups are way lower than luxury brands. We need to produce our goods at a price where we can accommodate wholesale, because we have wholesale partners and they have to be able to buy it and still sell it for profit.

So there’s margin built for that. But if you talk about the luxury brand selling a thousand-dollar pair of jeans…there’s a point where the product cannot get more expensive. After that, it’s markup.

And it’s not disingenuous or wrong for them to have that markup, they need to pay for magazine ads, billboards, celebrity placement, stylists, all of it. We don’t do those things. So the bulk of it goes into the product.”

I tell him about a friend who went to Self Edge to buy his first real pair of jeans. He walked in skeptical, walked out completely converted, having tried on three pairs before landing on the one the staff had already pulled for him before he even asked. Andrew smiles.

Some of the team that makes it happen, from design to social media to in-store consulting.

ANDREW

“There are absolutely no AI chatbots behind our info emails. These are real people guiding you through and trying to decipher, without even being able to see you in person, what’s going on. Because we know the product inside out. We may not know you, but we can try and figure it out.”

“Some people just view jeans as a utility to fill a need. But other people want to buy from a brand that’s into the things they’re into, and espouses similar values, or sees life through a similar lens.

We printed these zines, just to help people understand what’s important to us. That stuff costs money. And no, you don’t have to pay for it, we pay for it. But it goes into helping an end customer understand more about who we are.”

Twenty-plus years in and 3sixteen is still making things they believe in, still talking about those things the same way they always have.

Just before we wrapped up, he said the thing that stuck with me most.

ANDREW

“At the end of the day, it’s just jeans and tees and boots and jackets, and you can get them elsewhere. You come to us, hopefully, because you mess with the way that we do it and not just for a product in a white box.”

Editor’s note

Major thanks to Andrew & the NY team for being so hospitable. Visit them online at 3sixteen.com or in person at their New York and Los Angeles stores.

Also special shout out to Dan Chen for holding it down with the camera shoot that day. You can support his work on his Instagram @feelslikedan or on his site.

A visit to the source

Patagonia continues to fascinate me.

From its early fleece innovations with Polartec to its unimpeachable staples like the Patagonia Baggies, Stand Up Shorts, Retro-X, Synchilla, and Nano Puff series. And while the brand intentionally avoids ballooning its SKU count season after season, it’s constantly trying to shrink something else: its environmental footprint.

Whether through regenerative organic cotton, the Worn Wear program, or simply encouraging customers to buy less altogether (courtesy of its accidentally iconic 2011 “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign), Patagonia somehow manages to make restraint feel radical.

Patagonia was kind enough to invite me to their HQ in Ventura. And while I wouldn’t call Patagonia a small company, it still operates with the feel of a lean, family-and-outdoors-first business.

There’s on-site childcare, philosophy classes for employees, and the kind of culture that sounds made up until you hear it firsthand.

One employee told me that during a seminar, they sampled a cheap chocolate bar alongside an expensive one, then had to explain the difference in quality and how that mindset should apply to the brand. Which is incredibly insightful, or the most Patagonia way possible to discuss textiles.

That was just a small taste of the experience. The cafeteria alone felt like it could’ve been outsourced to the Hillstone restaurant group, it’s that good.

During my day at the house Yvon built, I went surfing for the first time to test Patagonia’s upcoming improved wetsuits, combed through archival pieces, visited the material lab, previewed the FW26 collection, and walked through the original Great Pacific Iron Works shop.

Somewhere between all of that, someone finally explained the meaning behind Patagonia’s line, “Earth is our only shareholder.”

Oh, and by pure luck, I also met Yvon Chouinard himself, who casually told me which jacket he’s most excited about right now.

Early one morning

I went surfing, and let me tell you: wetsuits are a motherf**ker to put on. It was my first time getting on a board, learning about swells, and trying to decode all the lingo (like point breaks and choppy versus dumpy). In between eating shit a few times and getting absolutely humbled by the ocean, I learned about one of Patagonia’s more slept-on categories: wetsuits.

The water was around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (about 10 Celsius), and this thing kept me warm. The brand is rolling out new and improved versions this fall, with a reengineered fit for added flexibility and extra thickness for warmth.

There’s also a U-zip entry that makes it way easier to get on and off. It’s made with NetPlus (100% recycled fishing nets) and backed by a lifetime warranty.

I’ve also learned that wetsuits aren’t cheap, but they’re kind of the MTM suit equivalent for surfers. You can tweak the fit, make repairs, and keep them dialed in for years.

Patagonia’s repair program lets you send in wetsuits from any brand to its Wetsuit Repair Forge for tears, fin cuts, holes, cuff replacements, panel repairs, and zipper fixes, with an estimated 8-week turnaround.

More than anything, it’s further proof that Patagonia actually stands behind the idea of making products that last a lifetime.

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Into the archives

Patagonia’s archive is the kind of thing that fascinates people who were wearing the brand back when it was still called Great Pacific Iron Works, and it’s also become a gateway drug for a new generation discovering the label through secondhand dealers and vintage obsessives alike.

Although Patagonia has no shortage of pieces worthy of archival status, the company has only been doing this in a formal way for a little over a decade. It started with former employees digging old jackets, fleeces, and forgotten grails out of their garages and bringing them in to help build a home for the brand’s history.

Now, some of those same employees oversee the entire archival process, deciding what deserves preservation and what becomes part of Patagonia lore.

While I couldn’t get into the full-fledged archive room, they did bring out ten pieces for us to handle and inspect. Seeing the quality up close made it easy to understand how those older garments informed today’s designs.

The Retro-X, for example, originally used wool and a much heavier membrane, whereas the current version has evolved into a recycled wool blend with a lighter, more breathable recycled membrane.

Progress is beautiful, sustainability is great, but Patagonia, if you’re listening: please bring back the Range Coat. That thing is absolute outerwear perfection.

Where the magic happens

On my one-day tour, we briefly stopped at the Forge, where new products and collections are dreamed up, tweaked, and occasionally sent back to the drawing board. Then came the Color Lab, which feels equal parts science experiment and mad-genius workshop, the kind of place where real innovation happens.

Inside, they’re testing everything from waterproofing and abrasion resistance to color matching and how fabrics break down over time, so they don’t break down on the customer. It’s like a stress test for clothing—all to make sure consumers can own, repair, and extend the life of a product for years.

Standouts from FW26

Being a product-obsessed enthusiast, one of my favorite parts of the day was getting a preview of a few standouts from the upcoming FW26 collection. Design Director Carrie Childs walked us through the textiles, while Senior Color Designer Sasha Ritter explained the research trips that inspire the prints, all of which are designed in-house, never outsourced.

At one point, she mentioned that one print was inspired by a group of penguins huddling together. Then Mark Little, Senior Director for Lifestyle Essentials, guided us through the rest of the collection.

The Nano-Air collection is expanding into all kinds of outerwear territory: hooded jackets, button-down overshirts, even vests. The material is absurdly good. It’s lightweight, moisture-wicking, and somehow insulates like crazy without making you feel overheated.

The whole idea is temperature regulation, whether you’re layering up for a summit push, jogging, or hanging around base camp.

They’re also doubling down on down, from Yvon Chouinard’s favorite durable down hoody to ultralight options. Everything uses 100% responsibly sourced down with 800-fill power.

My favorite piece was the Lightweight Down Sweater Cardigan, which reminded me of the Engineered Garments x UNIQLO collab from a few years back, especially with its military-inspired utility details. It’s cool seeing them lean further into more fashion-forward SKUs while still keeping the performance side of the equation intact.

Who owns Patagonia

Back in 2022, you probably saw this quote flooding the news cycle: “Earth is our only shareholder.” People thought, Cool, a billionaire doing something good with his earnings, but what did it actually mean?

This was the last stop on my day-long trip to Patagonia’s HQ, and I appreciated someone from their comms team sitting down with us to explain it.

Before the restructuring, Melinda and Yvon Chouinard were essentially playing Santa Claus each year, writing checks to various environmental causes. But once they declared Earth as the company’s “shareholder,” they were able to completely restructure Patagonia.

The company is now owned by Holdfast Collective and the Patagonia Purpose Trust.

Holdfast Collective is a collection of nonprofit entities that owns 98% of the company and all nonvoting stock, while the Patagonia Purpose Trust owns the remaining 2% and all voting stock.

As a 501(c)(4), Holdfast Collective uses every dollar it receives to fight the environmental crisis and protect nature and biodiversity.

Funding for Holdfast Collective comes directly from Patagonia. Each year, excess profits—the money left after reinvesting in the business are distributed as dividends to Holdfast Collective to fund its work.

So instead of the Chouinards writing a handful of large checks to a few environmental or agricultural causes at the end of the year, this new structure allows Patagonia’s profits to continuously support a wider range of initiatives.

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Picture this.

You’re at your local coffee shop, grabbing a pea milk cortado during the morning rush, and the guy in front of you is wearing a pair of KEEN Jasper Zionics.

Less so in a “just got back from an early hike” way, and more so in a “just grabbing a coffee, mate” kind of way.

Or you’re at a natural wine bar, late, and in the corner of your eye, there’s a girl reading with a glass of wine, cigarette in hand, and approach shoes on her feet.

Meanwhile, the nearest mountain is nowhere in sight.

We call that the “approach shoe effect.”

And that’s the thing about approach shoes right now; they show up everywhere they technically have no business being, but nobody seems bothered by it.

But more importantly, this didn’t happen by accident, and it’s not because of Prada or Loewe.

Gorpcore’s influence in a post-sneaker world

For the last few years, outdoor gear has been on a slow march into everyday dress. Gorpcore gave it a name, and it was all about the irony of dressing like you’re prepared for the elements, when you have no intention of engaging them.

Trail runners like the Salomon XT-6 were part of the first wave, along with Arc’teryx soft shells.

It was about chunky soles, bright, neon colorways, and silhouettes that felt more like objects or collectibles.

But over the last couple of years, gorpcore has gradually become part of people’s daily uniform. The aspiration is less about wearing something as a flex and more about whether it blends into your life.

We’ve seen this with brands like Vancouver-based HAVEN or Tarvas Footwear from Finland, both of which are designing incredible products.

They have this crossover between form and function. Creating items that are built for the elements, indeed, but designing them to feel acceptable in all settings and environments.

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Ultimately, it’s a way of distancing oneself from the irony of it all.

This is where the approach shoe enters the chat.

Functionally, it’s a shoe you traditionally wear to “approach” a cliff before switching into climbing shoes. And it works because it’s stiffer than a trail runner, built with a rubber rand around the toe, has a proper lacing system that runs all the way down for a lockdown fit, and it has good enough grip to handle uneven terrain.

But the broader shift underneath this is that being physical, capable, and hands-on carries a different kind of status now than it did ten years ago. When most of life moved to screens, the people who were visibly doing things in the real world started reading differently.

Climbing, hiking, cycling, these aren’t merely hobbies anymore; they’re identity markers too. The gear that comes with them signals something about how you move through the world, not just what you do on weekends.

The rise of the approach shoe

KEEN has been making the Jasper since 2008. No single campaign launched it into the culture, no singular fashion moment manufactured it into existence.

It was adopted by climbers first, who liked it for functionality’s sake.

Then it was adopted by people who liked how it felt.

Now it’s liked by people for the way it looks. It just sort of stuck around, which in footwear is the hardest thing to do.

It’s important to remember the context because of how everyone wants their own approach to shoes. Village PM has built strong credibility here, and their product is good.

Puma went back to a 2003 archive style and recontextualized it.

Loewe made one in royal purple.

Prada launched one at $1,100. The logic is the same across all of them: borrow the silhouette, apply the branding, and let the cultural moment carry it.

But Bouldering gyms have grown 76% across the US in the last decade, and climbing has become what cycling and running were, a city sport with a social layer, its own aesthetic, its own community.

The people coming out of those gyms aren’t looking for fashion shoes, necessarily, but they’re also not opposed to a shoe that works in the gym and works walking to dinner afterward.

The approach shoe answers that.

A lot of the newer players in this market are overindexing on footwear design by using “creative references.”

But the KEEN Jasper has a purpose and use.

When Prada makes an approach-adjacent shoe, they’re recontextualizing the idea of function. KEEN never had to recontextualize anything, because they are the context.

And the Jasper Zionic operates similarly. It’s cleaner and lighter, but it carries the same DNA, updated for how people actually move now, across cities, into gyms, up crags, and back to the coffee shop.

And while people don’t have to use a shoe for its intended purpose, if it respects the original intention in its design, that’s paying homage. That’s a harder line to walk than it looks, and most brands that chase a trend don’t have the foundation to do it.

While most brands launching into this space right now started with a mood board, KEEN started with a real, practical use, something that compounds over time. They don’t need to chase a trend to keep pace because they’ve already done the work.

And that’s something no other bra nd can simply copy and paste.

When you think of Australia in fashion, you might not be able to rattle off hundreds of brands the way you could with its continental counterparts. Still, there’s a steady buzz from down under.

From heritage heavyweights like Blundstone and R.M. Williams to more seasoned Aussie players like P. Johnson and Song for the Mute. Not a crowded room, but definitely not a quiet one either.

There’s also a Melbourne-based design studio that would like a word: Observe. Founded in 2020 by siblings Massimo and Alessia Acquaro, “When we came together with the idea of designing clothes during COVID, partly because we lived together and just wanted to hang out, it created a strong balance,” Massimo says.

Observe keeps modularity at its core, favoring pared-back designs and silhouettes that actually move with you. Each collection is intentional, with no urge to chase trends just because they’re trending.

The name itself comes from the duo’s university days, where they spent time “observing what people were wearing, who stood out, and, just as importantly, what felt overdone,” Massimo explains.

For a young brand, their cohesion is dialed in. Materials carry across garments, textures that can be lived-in, and pieces from different seasons are interchangeable. They’re also not trying to overwhelm you with a flood of SKUs. As Massimo puts it, “I think there’s a smart way to grow where not everything has to be a hit classic—you want to spread that across seasons.”

Blending a kind of Scandinavian technical sensibility with their Italian roots, Observe is just getting started, but it already feels like they know exactly where they’re going. We caught up with the co-founder to talk about architecture as a through-line in their designs, how they approach each collection, and, of course, the pieces they’re currently obsessed with.

Tell us a bit about what you were both doing before starting the brand? What kind of experiences shaped how you approached it?

My background is in architecture. Around the time we were starting, I was getting my Bachelor of Architecture at Melbourne Uni, and I’m now completing my master’s, so this is my seventh year.

My sister, meanwhile, was in nursing but decided to switch into digital advertising and marketing, specifically in creative production. She found that it gave her more enjoyment. While she did really like nursing, her personality leans toward social interaction.

She loves expressing herself and helping people, so she brought that energy into creative practice.

I’ve always said she’d make a great producer, especially in film and TV. She naturally knows how to handle a room and coordinate people.

For me, coming from architecture meant bringing more technical skills to the creative process. When we came together to design clothes during COVID, partly because we lived together and just wanted to hang out, it created a strong balance.

I was using CAD to approach things more technically, while we both collaborated on creative direction, sharing palettes and ideas.

We were aligned in not wanting to be overly trend-driven. A lot of our inspiration came from university—observing what people were wearing, who stood out, and, just as importantly, what felt overdone.

I’ve always been especially inspired by my friends and the way they each express themselves through clothing. There’s something about that individuality that really stuck with me.

Architects, in particular, tend to dress in a way that stands out subtly—it’s refined, intentional, and usually avoids loud branding or logos. That sensibility definitely influenced how we approached things and how it all started.

With (Massimo’s) your background in architecture, how did that shape or influence your move into fashion?

I’d say it really shapes your taste, especially your personal sense of what feels cool. Going back to friends and peers, you’re often nudged in a certain direction depending on the kind of architecture you’re into, whether that’s brutalist or something more contemporary and minimalist.

Palette plays a big role, too. It feels like a direct extension of architecture when you’re working with materials like steel, glass, and other stark, industrial elements; things tend to skew more subdued.

That carries over into how you dress: blacks, grays, whites—rarely straying far from that base.

Where it starts to shift is with texture. That’s where fashion opens up a bit more, letting you create variation and develop a broader range within an otherwise restrained palette.

What’s it actually like working together as brother and sister? Does that dynamic make it easier to be honest with each other, or does it come with its own challenges?

I’d say when it comes to working with a sibling, it’s all about brutal honesty.

Sometimes it’s like, “No, no—that looks terrible. Don’t do it again.” And that’s kind of it. But the upside is you get things done so much faster without beating around the bush.

The other thing is you’re constantly around each other, so ideas are always flowing. But you don’t want it to become too toxic (like always talking about Observe, always talking about the brand) because at the end of the day, there’s still a relationship there. You have to respect that the other person needs their own life.

I mean, we travel together… we’re pretty much best friends, and we’re super grateful for each other.

When it comes to collections, how do you approach them?

When we approach a range, we usually start with a theme, whatever we’re feeling at that moment. It might be particular music or movies we’re really into at the time. Since we’ve only been developing and designing collections for about four seasons, that process is still evolving.

One of the main things we do is look back through our archive of older brands and study the details. I always start with outerwear; that’s the foundation for me.

Designers like Massimo Osti are a big influence, so I’ll go through his books and pull out color palettes and technical features.

From there, we build a big mood board. We actually used a lecture theater at uni for this, put everything up on a big screen, all our categories and inspiration images. That’s where it really starts to take shape.

We pull our colors and silhouettes from that setup, write everything down, and then over the next few weeks, we start sketching and coming back with different variations on those silhouettes.

Six years in, what are some of the biggest things you’ve learned so far?

It comes back to staying true to our vision. First and foremost, like I was saying earlier, it’s about staying aligned with the brand and actually believing in it, that’s something we’ve really learned.

There are definitely moments where you feel like you have to sway a bit in order to sell more, or become a certain type of brand just to be “successful.” But going to Paris really reinstated this confidence in us—this belief that who we are will eventually, hopefully (fingers crossed), work.

There’s a lot of confidence in that now.

Within the collections, we’ve also learned a lot about the importance of variation—using the same materials across different garments, creating cohesive pairings, and really focusing on texture. That was a big lesson after our first season.

Looking forward, what does the next five years feel like for you both?

We want to expand the collection, but in a way that feels solid and intentional, not like we’re just adding fluff. We’ve spoken to agents in the past who’ve said, “You need 45 SKUs next season,” and we’re still at around 15.

I think there’s a smart way to grow where not everything has to be a hit classic—you want to spread that across seasons.

That said, we’ve never put anything out that we wouldn’t wear ourselves, and we want to keep that standard as we grow into more stores. We’d love to expand retail, especially across Europe.

We’ll keep being super considerate about where we place the brand. We’re lucky enough to be stocked with Baskèts in Amsterdam this season, and a few great stores in the UK have picked us up as well, like Goodhood.

We’re really appreciative of the retailers who took a chance on us.

A big goal for us now is to transition to working on this full-time once we finish uni—being able to dedicate ourselves to it day in, day out and really build a routine around it.

Up until now, our time’s been split between uni, side jobs, and everything else needed to support the brand.

Last year, I was working at an architecture firm while studying and running this, all while training in athletics.

My sister plays AFL, so she’s balancing training three nights a week—five hours at the club—plus games on weekends, along with studying and working on this. It’s been a lot.

So yeah, one of the main goals is simply to get to a point where we can go all in—working on the brand full-time and giving it everything we’ve got.

Give us a few standout pieces from the SS26 collection.

Our favorite piece from that range is probably the vented jacket. It feels like a piece that carries the technicality of an outdoorsy jacket, but reduced and pared back in a way that feels like Observe. It has this minimalist, very clean front, but within that, you’ve got box pleating and what we call vents down the sides—these are pockets that run all the way up, which is where the name comes from.

It’s also the first time we’ve done pleating at the wrists with snap buttons, really dialing in the arm detailing.

Overall, it’s a beautiful jacket. And the neck latch adds something special—it’s that outdoorsy, technical piece with a slightly formal twist, giving it a more refined, almost classic look up top.

Another design cue we brought in this season is the Cambia. “Cambia” means “change” in Italian, and we’ve applied it to both a shirt and a pair of denim pants.

Each piece features a Cambia button on the side that lets you adjust the width of the sleeve or the leg.

It’s a simple idea, but really functional. For example, if you want to wear sandals with your jeans without rolling them, or ride a bike in the summer without tucking your pants into your socks, you can just adjust the opening with that button.

It’s a subtle detail, but one we really love and keep coming back to.

Bonus content

We interviewed them during Paris Men’s Week last summer (2025) in case you want to learn a little more about Observe. Watch from second 0:35 onward.

It’s been a minute since I’ve properly worn a suit. I came up in the #Menswear era, a period we should have boxed up in a time capsule to study later on.

Double monks, floral pocket squares, tie clips, slim fits, and a revolution supported by bloggers with Dwyane Wade as the spokesperson. It was a special time.

Then the suit became obsolete for obvious reasons.

But while an uninformed contingent still beat their chests under the cry that the suit is done (typing from their phones in a pair of Travis Scotts they overpaid for on StockX), the reality is that it never went anywhere; it simply evolved.

Sure, we (the consumers) temporarily traded things for it. But in our disappointment, we returned to it.

Of course, there remains a time and place for some to wear traditional suiting in their day jobs, but for most, wearing a suit is still a rarity, which is completely fine.

People are still investing in suits. And with wedding season upon us, it’s important to show a range of options for you, whether you’re the one getting married, in the bridal party, or simply attending one.

Obviously, everyone’s budget range is different. So, with that, we’ve put together a suit guide in 3 categories, which you can find below.

The goal here is to present you with options from independent (mostly) brands we love.

We hope you find this useful, and let us know if you end up buying anything!

Note: this is part of our paywalled shopping guide series.

We hope you like the free content we share enough to keep supporting us as an independent style publication!

Read more

From January 11th - March 1st, I was locked in every Sunday at 9 p.m., and not for the slow-drip NFL games. I was tuned into the best show on TV: Industry.

The series runs the full financial-spectrum gauntlet: fresh grads clawing for permanent roles at the fictional bank Pierpoint, a buzzy green tech company racing toward an IPO, and a fintech startup that begins as a payment processor for adult content before pivoting into a full-blown fraudulent banking app.

It’s full of ambition, ego, and bad decisions in very expensive suits.

I’ve been an early adopter since it first aired on Monday nights back in 2020, which makes its well-received flowers feel especially satisfying.

From Lena Dunham executive producing and directing the pilot to the show pulling in just ~70,000 viewers early on (one of HBO’s lowest-rated debuts), the “best show on TV” label wasn’t handed out overnight—it was earned the hard way.

“Screenwriting, especially, is not like long-form writing,” says co-creator Konrad Kay. “I love novels and all that, and my favourite novels, like my favourite film and TV shows, are ultimately about voice, but on TV the demand to hold attention is much faster and more unsparing.”

And that he and co-creator Mickey Down have absolutely done.

Whether it’s the “oh shit” moment of a character launching themselves off a building to evade police or the chaos of Stern-Tao, or where you’re bracing for whatever deeply unhinged scenario Whitney Halberstram is about to rope Sir Henry Muck into—the show never really lets you exhale.

The writing and character development are razor-sharp. As Kay puts it: “It won’t be for everyone.” There’s no middle ground. No polite “it’s pretty good.” It’s more like, I hate that shit, or I love that shit. And honestly, that’s the point.

Beyond the acting, there’s the soundtrack—frenetic, moody, and somehow always exactly right, blending British synth-pop with artists like Jimmy Whoo, Beach House, and Okay Kaya.

And Kay is also a low-key menswear guy—often wearing vintage Ralph Lauren on set and stepping out in Giorgio Armani for press.

He’s currently co-writing the show’s fifth and final season, which shoots in August. Kay was kind enough to chat with us about HBO serving as his unofficial film school, his real-life experience in banking, and what he’s planning on copping for the series wrap gift.

When the show first started, it felt like one of TV’s best-kept secrets. Now it’s regularly called “the best show on TV.” What’s it been like watching that shift happen in real time?

It’s been fun, man. I mean, I think one of the best-kept-secret aspects of it was that it was a UK-accented show. We made it in Cardiff, and it aired on Monday nights on HBO. There was a marketing push, but it wasn’t a big one.

The real shift happened in season three, when we moved to Sunday nights at nine. Because it became a Sunday-night show, HBO’s marketing arm really put more muscle behind it. And, obviously, we brought in Kit Harington, who was already a TV star, along wi

th Max Minghella.

When the show started, we had no famous people behind the camera or in front of it. It was a tough sell—super jargon-heavy, very British-accented, really just mine and Mickey’s voice, with a huge amount of slang. To us, that felt like good writing—a well-realized ecosystem with a strong sense of voice, even if that voice was a bit daunting for audiences.

Over time, though, all of those elements evolved. And I think we just got better at writing the show. We were so green when we started. The great thing about TV is that it’s iterative—you can be diagnostic from season to season, figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s almost like DJing: you recalibrate the levels between seasons. You might push emotionality one season, or lean into plot another—like we did in season four. Now, in season five, we can look back and ask: across these four seasons, what’s the best version of this show? What’s the through-line that represents it at its strongest?

People talk about the show in really flattering ways, saying it’s one of the best of the past few years, which is amazing. But Mickey and I came up during a golden age of TV, when shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men completely dominated the culture. Everything existed in their shadow.

Our show isn’t like that. It’s messy. It’s imperfect. Those shows feel almost flawless, even with the occasional lull—they’re incredibly close to perfect works of television.

Ours is more like a high-tone experiment in form and creativity that got to mature into a five-season HBO Sunday night event.

Before television, you spent some time working in investment banking after university. What exactly was your role, and what’s the wildest thing you saw during that time that later made its way into the show?

So I basically sold U.S. equities to Dutch pension funds and hedge funds. I worked at Morgan Stanley. When they published a note on, say, Apple stock, I’d call my Dutch clients and say, “We’ve just put this out on Apple. We’ve upgraded it to a buy. I know you have it in your portfolio—I think you should be buying more.”

That was literally my job.

But I didn’t really do it much, because I was scared of picking up the phone. So I just… didn’t.

In terms of the autobiographical elements of the show, season one is probably the closest to mine and Mickey’s lived experience—being graduates, coming into work hungover.

You know, everyone knows what that’s like: doing too many drugs, enjoying being young, abusing your body because it can take it.

As the seasons went on, it obviously became less autobiographical. But the DNA of a lot of the characters is still drawn from composites of people we’ve met or are friends of ours. It’s a pretty closely observed show, especially in terms of London subcultures and different types of people.

So, Rob from the show wouldn’t get on the phone. What was your real-life experience that kind of tied into his character?

With Rob, it’s tricky, because both Mickey and I are baked into these characters. I’d actually say Yasmin and Harper are a real mishmash of our personalities. It’s not a perfect analogy for our relationship; it’s not that toxic, but there’s a lot of us in them.

As for me personally, the closest comp is probably somewhere between Greg and Rob. Greg was writing his screenplays at work, and getting called out for it; that was me. Rob being scared to pick up the phone, that was me too. And that general, vertiginous terror of going into work, not really knowing your place, having a bit of an identity crisis, that was all me as well.

This most recent season opened with some literal bangs. What were the early conversations like around the strap-on scene in episode one?

They’re always pushing us in that direction. Which is great—they’re very supportive of our vision. Now that we’re five seasons in, there’s a level of trust. They give amazing notes and stay incredibly engaged, but it’s usually framed as: if you want to do this, walk us through the thinking.

Once they understand it, they’re on board. Or they might say, maybe push it 20% more this way or that way. And honestly, they’re often right—what feels clear in your head isn’t always clear on the page.

At the end of the day, all of this is a huge act of faith. No one can see inside my head or Mickey’s, and even realizing what’s in our own mind’s eye is inherently flawed—you’re never going to fully get it there.

So trying to communicate that to executives and actors becomes an act of will: trusting that what ends up on screen is going to work. But at this point, there’s enough proof of concept with the show that they believe we know what works.

Season one, though—that’s brutal. It’s a constant existential crisis about what the fuck you’ve made. No one knows what it’s supposed to feel like. And I’ve realized so much of this is just about communicating emotion.

This season also draws some interesting real-world parallels, especially with Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) and the comparisons people have made to Ghislaine Maxwell. How did you approach writing around that kind of real-life scandal?

Good question. I mean, to be honest, the Ghislaine thing was never a conscious decision. What we’d do is notice there was some analogy there. For example, the boat storyline in season three, the “Lady Yasmin”, came from wanting Yasmin’s dad to die on a boat.

That’s why there’s a Maxwell echo. It wasn’t like we were trying to tell the Ghislaine Maxwell story; it was more like, “This could be a fun Easter egg.” We’d name it “Lady Yasmin” as a nod, but that was it.

We never set out to write her as a direct parallel. She’s her own character, written by us and embodied by Marisa. There isn’t a clean, biographical one-to-one, like a Wikipedia entry.

She moves through the world because the story requires it, and because the performance shapes it. To say we were always writing her as Ghislaine Maxwell would flatten both the character and the performance.

That said, it would be disingenuous to pretend the connection never crossed our minds. Of course it did, and we made choices that might make that analogy obvious. But it’s too simple to say it’s a one-to-one retelling—because how could it be?

It gets at something more complicated. You could sit down with someone like Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, and she would probably have a compelling narrative about her own victimhood, even though she’s also an abuser. People construct stories about their lives that make sense to them.

It’s not as simple as, “I did something evil, I’m entirely to blame, lock me up.” That’s not how people experience themselves.

It’s nurture, nature, the system someone exists in, and the random events that shape a life. That’s part of the tragedy of it. But there’s still agency. You can’t absolve someone of their choices.

You can’t just say, “My past explains everything, so I get a pass.” That’s something the show wrestles with—like when characters call Yasmin out on it. You can choose how to be in the world.

Your life is the accumulation of those choices, and you can’t always point backward and say, “I was hurt, so now I get to hurt someone else.”

One thing fans always point out is the show’s soundtrack. The song choices feel incredibly specific. Why is music such an important part of storytelling for you?

It comes down to a few things. Mickey is obsessed with that side of it—honestly, more than I am. That’s really him, Ollie White (our music supervisor), and Nathan; they’re the secret sauce behind all of that.

It goes back to my earlier point: emotionality. Music is, ultimately, an emotional cue for what a scene is about.

Sometimes we’ll even think of the music before we write the scene, and it shapes how the scene plays—how much dialogue there is, or how little. It can sort of “lead the witness,” guiding how the audience experiences what they’re watching.

In season one, a lot of the success—even what helped paper over some of the cracks in the filmmaking or storytelling—came down to having a really strong composer who could energize the scenes. For me, it’s really about mood.

You and Mickey have known each other since you were 17 and have been working together on the show for about 10 years. How has your relationship and writing process evolved over that time?

I think it’s been pretty similar to the day we first started writing together. We ideate a lot. We’ll sit there with a Google Doc open and just talk our way through the scenes we need to hit.

When we break an episode, we map out what’s going to happen, then drill into each scene: what the characters actually need to say to each other, and the story points we have to land.

From there, I might write a scene, or he’ll write one, and we’ll overwrite each other’s work. Our writer’s room and its consistently diverse skew of voices and POVs has been invaluable in breaking story, while our team of consultants helps keep the show sounding authentic.

That same collaboration carries through to set, into directing, and into editing. Our process is very aligned.

Honestly, if our taste levels and our gut instincts weren’t 90–99% in sync, it would be a much trickier process. But because what he thinks is good, I usually think is good too, creative differences are pretty rare.

It’s not like he wants to be Michael Bay, and I want to be something completely different—that would probably be an issue. We just want to make good entertainment. I’m not as interested in navel-gazing, overly artistic cinema.

It has a place for me in my overall cultural diet, but it has to be entertaining.

You’re competing with people’s phones now, right? So when people sit down on a Sunday night, I want them to be blown away.

Switching gears a bit—what does your typical on-set fit look like these days? Any brands you’re particularly into at the moment?

I wear pretty utilitarian clothes on set. At the moment, I’m really into vintage Ralph Lauren, especially Polo Sport stuff. I also wear a lot of Arc’teryx and other mountaineering gear on set—just really comfortable, practical pieces.

I’ve been obsessed with these shoes from a brand called Reese Cooper. They’re kind of like hiking trainers, and I wear them all the time. For comfort when I’m writing, I like Palace—their tracksuits are really nice.

Day to day, I mostly keep it pretty simple. The most represented brand in my closet is probably Our Legacy. Also, mfpen and Auralee, if I’m feeling like treating myself. I think their stuff is phenomenally good.

One of my favorite brands right now is Carter Young. Carter and Adam are fucking lovely guys. They make this thing called the Patti T-shirt, which is incredibly nice, along with really strong Western shirts. Just really excellent across the board.

And when you’re doing press, does the tailoring get dialed up, or is it more like an elevated version of your usual go-to style?

I can tell you what I wore when I was in Berlin. I wore Carter Young denim with Reese Cooper boots and Shiro socks.

I also wore Lemaire jeans, which I loved; they were green, along with a Giorgio Armani cashmere jumper and a Stone Island leather jacket.

After you got the call for your first renewal, did you treat yourself to anything? And for the upcoming final season, what are you eyeing?

I bought myself a 1988 Rolex Submariner.

I’ve been in the same flat for 13 years, so maybe I should stop buying clothes and move to a new place. That’s a decent wrap gift.

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