Legacy media is dying a slow death. Long gone are the days of NME, Spin, Alternative Press, and even the GQs of the world curating music, fashion, and culture for men in particular.
While music writing still has its space in niche nooks and crannies on the web, from your Pitchforks and Stereogums of the world, the most popular music personality is a nerdy white guy on YouTube named Fantano— who does eloquent deep dives on the whole gamut of music from pop to hardcore.
Was fed this by the algo right after clicking the review
However, men's fashion and lifestyle media are incredibly more niche and a dying breed. So many women’s fashion-focused newsletters have gotten a great handle on instruction, observation, digging into the archives, and inviting conversation among readers.
I haven’t really seen the same thing in menswear. It’s a lot of talking at me.
There is no clear outlet that a young man could visit in hopes to learn how to tie a tie or discuss wedding dress codes. Here is a misunderstanding that men don't dress for men, but they do.
Masculinity is as much of a cult as the next thing, and men, intentionally or not, signal their worldview through what they wear.
As tacky as a Patagonia vest is, it tells me a lot about the guy who is wearing it and the streets he finds himself on. I can probably tell you where he eats and the cocktail he orders if he pairs it with a boat shoe.
Streetwear is not a reductive term. To think of it as such might signal something else. In 2025, the menswear brands I gravitate to are the ones who distinctly create clothes for the streets their men find themselves on and build a design language around it.
Furthermore, I don't think it's a surprise that the best dressers of men are women: Martine Rose, Grace Wales Bonner, and Emily Bode. Their garments fuse the cultural context of where their consumers will be wearing their clothes with historical inspirations.
Personal style is an offshoot of personal taste, and by going to places of curation – be it a museum or a concert series in the park, or a farmers market – you’re likely to find styling that suits your individual sensibilities. Fashion is worn in the streets, and I love signaling where I’ve been from the tees I’ve collected — a t-shirt from a cult-favorite hardcore band called Modern Life is War, a shirt from a coffeeshop in Eugene, Oregon, or a vintage 90s Newcastle United tee.
These choices become a part of a personal uniform, a style language that speaks directly to whoever I come across, but mostly to other dudes.
A common quibble in menswear is that influencers are not celebrities. A common theme with ordering clothes online or from “as seen on” shopping roundups is that most people ordering the clothes don’t look like the model or celebrity wearing the clothing.
You can admire the fits of Shai-Gilgeous Alexander or Devin Booker, but you don't have the frame or bank account to match. Then there's poser culture. This really started with JCPenney flooding the market with vintage classic rock shirts in the early 2000s, then the rise of Hot Topic, death metal fonts on shirts, to a complete 180 today, seeing people rock high-tech running sneakers who don't jog a step, or Brooklyn trust funders wearing $40 hiking boots that have never seen a trail.
Or seeing grunged-out social-media marketers rocking motorcycle jackets on Lime Bikes. Or Fuck heads in distressed Carhartt jackets who have never done a minute of manual labor in their life. These people are mining subcultures that have intrinsic character and robbing those subcultures of their aesthetic while abandoning the elements that actually make the subculture cool—the activity around which the clothing was born, the utility that birthed its existence.
Then there is the rise of what I like to call the "Saxon-bro," characterized by uber-popular Patrick Schwarzenegger in this season of The White Lotus. This archetype is essentially an aged version of the college frat star—the one rocking Sperry's, Vineyard Vines, Chubbies, and housing coozies. Said individual now loves golf on the weekends, goes to Tulum periodically, and has a finance or marketing job.
Now this stereotype is far from your fashion-forward savant, and even looks down on these types of dudes as "nerds" (he ain't lying in some cases). Single and with a good deal of discretionary income, this demographic of shopper is marketing catnip for companies like Vuori—essentially athleisure that can take you from boardroom to the bar in the same fit. This past week I have been flooded with ads from one of Vuori's competitors, VRST— a similar brand created by Dick's Sporting Goods.
Subsequently, I heard their ad on the Bill Simmons podcast, and then three times, all while trying to watch NHL highlights on YouTube. The ads are corny, the clothes are all cookie-cutter dri-fit material-based, but there's a reason why these brands succeed.
They tailor to the everyday guy—the male version of the Alo Yoga set girlie, who wants to cosplay as an athlete and hard charger even though they spend the majority of their day chained to a desk and on their phones then do 30-45 mintues of "leisure" a night just to post about it.
To go full circle, this is where menswear and streetwear have come to. A screeching halt. Much like all cool things in life, you have to go hunt for it. It's not served to you on a platter on your algorithm, nor is it curated blindly like "HEY LIKE THIS AND YOU'LL HAVE RIZZ." I'll keep making mental moodboards, influenced by the arts, music, sports, and everyday life as a means to shape my own style.
For instance, this new Palace collection completely knocked it out of the park, eschewing all the things I love when looking for clothes into one season's collection: nostalgia (Ace Ventura shirt), looks I want to experiment with (tracksuit, Hooligan-core culture), and just interesting pieces that will make people give you a double take (and surely no one has, "cough cough Bass Pro Shop hats").
Yeah, I might judge the Saxon-bro who is one out of every 3 guys I meet nowadays, not because of their tastes, but because they're lazy instinctually.
3 Things:
Best Thing I Ate: Jimmy Nardellos / Ramps
Low and Behold. I eat more veggies in terms of volume than anything else. So if you catch me grabbing a hold of some rare and exclusive produce, damn right I’m copping it despite the 19.99 a pound price tag.
Ramps and Jimmy Nardello Peps have made their way via the LA corridor to the desert, and honestly, I was confused about what to do with em.
Then I took second. Reconsider.. Yeah.
Pickle them ramps. Smoke the peppers. A match made in heaven. It’s one thing to char the shit outta a good piece of meat, but as the wonderkid gem wine guy puts it—making damn good veggies is a different story.
Smoke ‘em if u got ‘em.
Ramps + Chorizo + Parm + Jimmies = Profit all around.
Pickled ramps with watercress are the perfect bedrock for crudo.
Best Thing I Drank: Slurge
I’m a ‘90s baby. full on. This now defunct soda packed on the pounds for this former fat kid. It didn’t help that I had a kitchen magnet with a button that you could press that would play out their jingle (brilliant marketing). That sound clip, mixed in with this soundbite, permeated my subconscious growing up.
I miss the faded memories of the 90s. So does this CT-based beer company.
On a tangent, who does beer and pizza better than New Haven, CT? I digress..
“Slurge” rocks. It tastes just like Surge minus the BS, and is the type of beer you can end or start your night off with.
No, this doesn't mean it’s a chugger, nor is it heavy like a stout, but just that right medium between hops and sour beer flavor.
Food 4 Thought:
Training Tip of the Week:
The simultaneous push-pull antagonist is pure money. It's hard to set up, but when you get the groove, your upper pecs and upper back fire unlike anything else. Keep doing your cute 20-lb face pulls; this will add real mass to the upper body musculature that matters.
Best Songs of the Week:
Final Thoughts:
Always be a man of your word. Word is bond.
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Rebuttal:
The society has changed over years. You no more dress according to the orthodox mentality existing in the society.
Another great short & sweet article.👍