379: Garments that dare you to wear them
And how Keisuke Asano wears it.
Welcome to Magasin Menswear. In a dedicated bimonthly send, Louis Cheslaw surfaces choice products worth your consideration, explores larger conversations shoppers are—or should be—having, and taps a smart dresser to share how he wears it.
First up…
Fall collections are starting to land, which also means it’s summer sale season at the best places to buy menswear—with months of summer still to come. So today, I’m highlighting some still-avail discounted stand-outs I’ve spotted:
At Neighbour: Arpenteur’s ‘Micro Seersucker’ shirt, Lady White Co.’s belted jersey trouser, Lemaire’s Big Chino pants, Seya’s ‘Eternal Summer’ micro brush shirt, a classic gray Auralee hoodie, Taiga Takahashi’s hospital trousers, Our Legacy’s Beyond shirt, some beautiful Lemaire boots…
At Mohawk: 50% off Lemaire’s 3D Pants, and a little less off this Studio Nicholson jacket.
At C’H’C'M’: (which just added an extra 30% off sale with EXTRA) Arpenteur's ‘Fox Pants,’ and Aton’s amazing (almost $300 cheaper) Harrington jacket and green silk shirt. Plus the much-admired Conkers Cerberus jacket (in ramie linen, more on that below) if you fit a small.
At Lost and Found, this beautiful violet number from the sweater savants at Howlin’, a Danton Polartec fleece for your fall WFH set-up, and this really nice Junya Watanabe worker jacket that is, by my calculations, 70% off!
At Haven, this intriguing hoodie with just a touch of wool, some sub-$200 Sea Island Cotton, a ssstein blazer, and some CIOTA staples.
At Uniqlo, a cotton-nylon zip-up that was $70 once and is just $20 now.
And at Nitty Gritty, their in-house Henley-style sweater, this (also sort of violet?) ERL polo, and a Harris Wharf double-breasted.
And FYI: At showroom appointments and store visits this year, I kept seeing linen I loved, looking at the tag, and seeing that it was ‘ramie linen.’ Turns out—not linen at all! It’s actually made from nettle stalks. The result is a heavier, slubbier ‘linen’ appropriate for even fall, and still snaggable from Herill, Conkers, Yoko Sakamoto, Permanent Style, C.P. Company… the more you know.
Wearing it “wrong” has never been so right
This isn’t—or it really tries not to be—a trend column. (We’ve been in an “Everything’s a trend, nothing’s a trend” place for a while now.) But I do keep hearing a similar sentiment from guys across multiple style tribes. The sentiment, whether said to me about a hat, a jacket, a shirt, or a pair of pants, tends to go like this: It looks kind of wrong, but that’s why I like it.
So it feels like we’re all in quiet agreement about one thing at least: coming across as entirely put-together, in a neat outfit where everything fits in all the right places, brings with it zero sauce. Instead, the guys are most excited by pieces that are, in one way or another, a little fucked up.
There’s the whole grungy distressed corner: Baseball caps with brims shorn in half, threads and seams left raw and exposed (Camiel Fortgens, Gabriela Coll), holey T-shirts (Carter Young, Cecile Tulkens), almost awkward-fitting shirts (Mfpen), suits (Kiko Kostadinov) and roughed-up pocket entries (coming in hot next spring, if Paris was to be believed.) There’s the Central St. Martin's graduate scene, which takes pride in wearing items with zips in unexpected places and pockets bulging from their sleeves. Out West, Bieber’s in oversized sweats, and Timothée’s in undersized tanks and scarves. Chad Senzel, who has now opened a permanent place for Street Rack, has been posting the people coming in—multiple guys are intentionally wearing their T-shirts inside out: Holes and seams a feature, not a bug (see above, as photographed by Senzel at his new space). The Scott Sternberg era, this is not.
One of my favorite conversations since starting this column has been with Tulkens, who told me she designs her sweaters to fit “like your ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s hoodie that she pulled out for you to borrow on a cold day, and even though it’s never fit you exactly perfectly, it’s still your favorite thing to wear.” There’s simply more to love about a garment that dares you to wear it, whether it's thrashed, has an overdose of buttons, or flummoxes the eye with an indiscernible shape.
My own wonky pieces are the items in my wardrobe that excite me most this summer. At the Paris shop 24 Process (the same store that supplied Brad Pitt’s recent silk shirts) I found an old Allegri summer jacket with metal buttons that bounce loosely down it, and front pockets that are twice as big as they need to be. I love it. And I’ve recently been stocking up on other washes of Our Legacy’s Third Cut jean—perhaps the most popular example of this aesthetic so far—because the not quite straight, not quite wide fit, almost diagonally-breaking cut scratches a denim itch I didn’t know I had. I’ve also spent most of the summer in a thrifted navy Champion crewneck, but only because the neckline comes up weirdly, amazingly, accidentally high.
As the luxury side of menswear continues to reveal itself to be an overpriced disappointment, this side feels like the sand pit where the real heads are playing. It’s true, of course, that easy and fitted basics help you forget that you’re wearing them. But where’s the fun in forgetting?
How Keisuke Asano wears it
I first met model Keisuke Asano when he was playing for downtown New York restaurant Dr. Clark’s then-rising soccer team. In the years since, he has stood out on my feed as someone who makes casual and simple clothing look great. Keisuke now lives back in Japan, gracing campaigns for Calvin Klein, Levi’s, New Balance, and Givenchy, but his style still comes across as totally down-to-earth and easy.
Do you have a standard silhouette?
In general, I like shorter lengths. In Japan, I see a lot of people wearing oversized stuff, and I just want to be the opposite. I like being a black sheep. Also, living in New York made me care less about being put together, but then returning to Tokyo kind of slapped me in the face because everyone here does. But my New York self never leaves me, so I'm just stuck in this weird style now.
What are you wearing right now?
New Balance running shorts—they’re so light and dry so quickly. I wear them everywhere, even to the club, where one night some guy was doing a screenprinting thing, so now they have that on them (see below).
What’s a piece you’ve had forever and still wear?
A down jacket by N.Hoolywood. I bought it maybe eight years ago, and I've worn it every season since—it’s based on F.B.I. bomb squad jackets, so it has tons of pockets.
What do you own multiples of?
Rain jackets from Goldwin. I love to buy rain jackets. Because I always ride my bike, they make me feel invincible.
What are these glasses you’re wearing?
I’ve actually had these longer than the down jacket. These are Lunor, German glasses (above). I bought them about 12 years ago. They’re a great shape, and the wooden case they came in is so strong.
And your jewelry?
I buy random jewelry everywhere I go for work—in Morocco, in Brazil—but I do always wear a lot of newer Gagan pieces.
What would you buy tomorrow with a blank check?
Probably a Savile Row suit.
What other brands fill your closet?
I love Merz b. Schwanen T-shirts. I have three or four. The shape and quality is amazing, I’d spend $100 on them. I also love the knitwear from Nayat, it’s only their eighth season, but I wear them every day in winter. And then Junya Watanabe—because it’s really nicely designed, of course, but also technical.
I feel like you often put technical pieces—wraparound shades, sport shorts—with softer cottons.
You can’t go all tech. But yeah, if I’m just wearing denim and a T-shirt, I wear a Mizuno trainer or whatever.
What in your wardrobe has the most sentimental value?
Football shirts. I own a bunch, and always exchange them with friends. Arsenal ones, even Star Wars ones. I collect them more than I wear them though, because I don’t like wearing polyester.
What’s something happening in your style that’s new now?
I do think I’ve started to just care less in general. When I go to the gym now, I don’t even change. I just work out in what I’m wearing. At a certain point, it doesn’t matter. I’m in jeans and a T-shirt, but I can still work on my bench press. It feels super sick.
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Huge advocate for wearing things that are a little off kilter and fucked up in a way. Polish is overrated, give me personality and imprecision every time.
pleasantly surprised to see the homie keisuke featured!