My menswear, my self
Is my return to trad dressing reclamation or capitulation?
As a very young child, I once forced a group of family friends to watch me do an extemporaneous interpretive dance to Shania Twain. It’s maybe the most confident I’ve ever been in myself, although I literally faced the wall the entire time, too afraid to look back. All this is to say, welcome to The Completist—I hope that whatever this becomes, it doesn’t feel like being forced to watch a kid fumble his way through “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” I welcome your honest feedback, and please don’t hesitate to leave the room if you need to.
I’m still figuring out frequency and structure, but for this inaugural outing, let’s try an essay followed by some shopping, since things are bad but it’s still nice to look good.
Last spring, almost out of nowhere, I fell fully into prep. I remember the first outfit of this era, worn on an unseasonably warm March day: a black blazer, a white long-sleeve tee, vintage jean shorts, white tube socks, and classic black Weejuns. It wasn’t perfect, but it was right.
A few days later, I wore a slightly nicer variation to interview Diane von Furstenberg over breakfast. Before I could get a question in, she looked me up and down and asked me why I was wearing jorts with a blazer; I told her it made me feel like myself, like mixing New York and rural Pennsylvania. She picked her phone up from the table, took a picture, and said she liked my answer, frowning the entire time. (There was talk of sending the snap to Thom — as in Browne, mouthed her granddaughter, who sat next to her and protested every part of this inquisition. God, I hope I’m somewhere in that man’s phone.) I don’t think I’d wear the same thing in that setting today, but at least it was honest.
Just over a year later and a nightmare electoral cycle later, though, that honesty has been tainted by an increasingly right-leaning culture. Wearing a repp tie and a collared shirt strikes me as a representation of who I am as a person. It also feels like a dogwhistle, a capitulation to the movement that’d love to see people like me suffer. What’s a guy to do?
As a high schooler, I lived the J.Crew playbook: checked button-downs, piously cuffed jeans, pea coats, no-show socks, side-parted hair piled high atop my head. It was armor. I tried to look the part of the easygoing, upwardly mobile straight kid I wanted to be, remarkable for anything other than the fact that I obviously did not fit in with the rest of rural Pennsylvania. (The fact that I even knew who Jenna Lyons was should have been my first clue.) It was also, hilariously, not what other guys felt the need to wear. While I went way too far on Obama-era decency dressing, they mostly wore the same nondescript T-shirts and jeans or went full country in muscle tees and work boots. I craved their ease, but couldn’t bring myself to dress anonymously. Prep was the best answer I could find.
This unconscious charade continued well into college, until something finally crystallized in me and I stopped lying to myself. By graduation, I’d discovered a desire to dress more visibly queer; during my first months in New York, I did sort of an art hoe thing; when the pandemic hit less than a year into my Brooklyn tenure, I made a clean break from straightforward menswear. I stopped coiffing my hair. I almost exclusively bought over- or undersized vintage. I flat-out refused to wear button-downs. And unfortunately, I didn’t look very good. By the time I moved back to the city in the summer of 2021, the vibe was sort of a toned-down Portia from The White Lotus season two: an identity crisis mixed with a knee-jerk turn to Y2K.
It took until that first March day for me to fully snap out of it. The sparkly tanks, hot pink pants, and XXL hockey tees were fun stabs at transgression, if I even ended up leaving the house in them, but they’d been just as forced as my high school wardrobe. Trying to dress as my idea of a gay person in post-pandemic New York — showing more skin than I wanted to or shrouding my body in fabric — just made me more self-conscious. By this past winter, even the skirts I’d loved wearing as little acts of protest were starting to strike me more as performance than earnestness.
And so I discovered a real verve for menswear, just in time to fully commit right before the country slid back into straight-up evil conservatism. The movement is rich in sartorial soft power: Masculine ’80s excess has been rebranded as boom boom. Travis Kelce loves a knit polo and does dandy. Karoline Leavett and her ilk traffic in lady jackets, which Gucci and Shushu/Tong showed for spring. The LVMH-owning Arnaults have cozied up to the Trump administration. Tucker Carlson has his faggy little bowties. Even Aritzia’s selling boat shoes now, egged on by Miu Miu and Bally.
Back in the day, I welcomed the influence of liberal politics into my wardrobe; now, I worry I’m falling into step with America’s rightward march. Here I am in madras, watching everyone else dress in the opposite direction, like they’re in a Flickr photodump or an issue of FRUiTS. Whether or not I’m actually trying to signal to the wrong side of the political spectrum, I still feel like part of the problem — and like I’m isolating myself from my peers.
No matter what they’re actually wearing, preps have always projected the easiness I’ve sought out virtually my whole life. Insulated by wealth or social status or education, they’re all smiles and high-quality materials. Maybe that’s why I’m most drawn to these clothes: They get to fly over it all, an exclusive kind of ego death. But by dipping into that wardrobe, I risk signaling that I want the same thing — boat shoes on the pier rather than boots on the ground. It’s removed from the reality I’m convinced we’re living in. And where I’d define queer dressing as deliberately boundary-pushing, classic menswear is the opposite; it’s rigid and rule-based, all about understanding the rules before deigning to break them.
Perhaps I’m embarking on the Ralph Lauren path. Born Ralph Lifshitz in 1939, the Bronx native started out as a sales associate at Brooks Brothers, founded his eponymous label as a tie line, and eventually came to define the WASP aesthetic. (The man, by the way, is Jewish.) Costume became reality. I still keep an eye on J.Crew’s site, and its current crop of male models looks like a group that would play lacrosse and claim not to follow politics. Just last week, I lost myself in a gigantic Polo Ralph Lauren editorial on the street before noticing, with disgust, the model’s American flag sweater. It’s all a jingoistic mode of masculinity I’ll never quite fit into and know I shouldn’t; I can drop my voice and push my chest out, but it’s just drag. I tried once. It didn’t work.
Perhaps this is my own method of queer dressing — a wink and a nod to the younger self who thought he could, one day, pass as one of the boys. As much as I’d like to fit in by standing out, something in me physically rejects leather pants and slutty tank tops and gay-guy bandanas. As I’ve become more assured in my identity, the showpieces have lost their luster, even if I feel a twinge of guilt for dressing with the status quo and not to disrupt it.
What do we owe each other when we get dressed? For now, I hope it’s honesty — inviting everyone else to meet you where you are. (DVF would agree, I think.) If queer people have an obligation to dress unflinchingly as ourselves right now, maybe I’ll treat myself to another quarter-zip. If, on the other hand, we have an obligation to dress provocatively as part of the fight, my self-respect is bunched up somewhere at the back of my closet.
I’m currently working through my relationship with menswear, maybe as some healing process or maybe as a side effect of how bizarre everything is these days, and that’s what I have to offer. But when something big inevitably snaps in this country, and it feels like it will soon, earnestness won’t be enough. Let’s settle the question when we get there.
Karoline Leavitt ruined butter yellow
I learned who running influencer Kate Mackz is this week, when she decided to platform the White House press secretary in a softball interview that conspicuously features zero exercise (and even less spine). While the video goes long on Leavitt’s hatred of the traditional press, I also found myself horrified by her poorly fitting butter-yellow vest set, which appears to be from Ann Taylor and on sale for $69.
Now that the shade of the season has been co-opted by the administration, perhaps it’s time to find something new and non-pastel. (And oof, maybe this visceral disgust at a conservative mouthpiece’s color choice means I really should drop the suit-and-tie thing.) A few bolder suggestions:
Rich purple — I’ve recently discovered a love of in-your-face, almost artificial purple after buying a few tops in the color. It is unusual and therefore a compliment magnet, and everyone from Altuzarra to McQueen is doing it. Emma is on the trend at Marie Claire!
Pool blue — This perfect dress added just the right punch to the middle of Kallmeyer’s spring-summer show. It’s now nearly sold out, but Staud, Mango, and Aritzia are just a few of the brands offering the same electric, almost icy turquoise right now. I’m very into it.
Grass green — Rendered in liquid silk on Dries Van Noten’s spring runway and airy cashmere in a recent J.Crew drop, this green — the exact hue of just-unfolded leaves — kinda puts pastels to shame. It’s the closest sister of brat green, yet way more wearable.
Studded sandals, found
My FYP has been inundated with Gimaguas x Havaianas content, but from what I can tell, those studded flip-flops are more of a tone poem than a real release. The Barcelona-based brand is an Ssense sale favorite for me, and it’s so good at laidback pieces and metal embellishments at shockingly fair prices; my friend Channing has lusted after this lovely bag forever.
So what gives with not making the collaboration shoppable? While the labels (hopefully) rush to put the flats into production, I did some digging and found a few lookalikes with the same off-kilter vibe — they’re not perfect, but dammit, they’re at least available. When you’re giving yourself a break from thinking about/acting on … everything, impractical footwear is a lovely way to break from reality.
Mango Leather Studded Sandals — I can’t lie, $100 feels a little steep for Mango sandals. But they’re genuine leather and feel of a kind with the Gimaguas vision.
Free People Sona Thong Sandals — Okay, Free People! These are more toned-down and look heavy in a good way. The black is great, but I’d love to see the azure blue in the wild. (It’s also worth mentioning these.)
Solei Sea Indie Sandals — Straight-up hate this spelling of “Solei,” don’t mind the thin construction and stud placement that won’t burn your soles.
A late Coachella trend report
Annoyingly, I did, in fact, go to Coachella. Festival fashion is a relative of the red carpet — very specific occasionwear with only tenuous ties to real-world dressing — but this time around, suddenly thrown from early spring into over-100-degree heat, it all looked like a window into the future. (Sadly, one girl was wearing a knockoff Chopova Lowena skirt.) These soon-to-be hits come straight from the desert.
Chloé’s impact
Chemena Kamali’s romantic ruffles and dusty mauves have officially filtered all the way through the fashion ecosystem. (Even the logo belts have been duped to the point of satire.) I doubt anyone but Addison Rae was actually wearing the brand, but all that extra fabric still looked incredible in the wind.
This Dôen top is so good with capris.
Fancì Club’s shoulder-detail top translates the energy into something more metropolitan.
Has anyone talked about how good Tory Burch’s current stuff is? No?
Appliqués and embellishments
Bold beads, quilt-inspired patches, delicate fabric flowers — very few dresses or skirts were complete without a little something extra sprinkled on top. I found myself enamored with one guest’s sheer white dress featuring a spray of Prada-worthy flowers and styled with white underwear, tag sticking out. Perfection.
Another Fancì Club beauty! ***** ***** would charge double.
Staud’s event dress is just so good.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Constança Entrudo’s felted skirt since the brand’s NYC showroom last September.
What about, like, a paper-thin sweater over H&M’s layered dress?
White skirts, 2.0
For the past summer or two, the long, tiered skirt, most often in white, has been a cornerstone of the NYC wardrobe. From what I saw in the desert, it’s starting to evolve; so many featured asymmetrical construction and mixed materials, like lace or broderie. They’re delicious grounded with glove flats or heavy boots.
Tyler McGillivary’s knee-length confection delivers some welcome lightness and is lined, which feels rare these days.
I think I might have seen someone wearing this exact Intimately slip.
This skirt and some white boyshorts — easy.
Charli XCX (xcx?) would wear this Free People skirt with, like, Fidan Novruzova boots and a Nicklas Skovgaard top.
Boy crust
Men’s fashion at these things often leave a lot to be desired; at Lady Gaga’s set, I found myself surrounded by guys unconvincingly wearing sweater vests. The good stuff looked almost like the salt-of-the-earth style out of rural Pennsylvania: baggy, crusty, utilitarian, charmingly boyish. (Perhaps I’ll move on to this when prep is out of my system.) Davis Burleson aced it.
Abercrombie is too tepid to show the model wearing this sheer PBR jersey without a tank underneath, but the idea is there.
Urban really has the baggy shorts thing covered!
Real ones know: Cummins merch is so deeply important to this aesthetic.
And while we’re doing PA deep cuts, this York Barbell shirt would be so good cut deep down the sides into a tank.
Thanks so much for reading! I’m still dancing for a captive audience, but I guess I’m no longer facing the wall — we’re going full eye contact. Soapbox moment: You can sign up to volunteer for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign here and donate to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund here. And if you liked this, share it! Talk soon.
Jake x Thom s/s 2026 I can feel it