What Men Wear (and why): Anecdotal, funny, revealing and surprisingly tender
What Men Wear is the self-explanatory title of a slim volume from the Fantastic Man gang which punches well above its weight.
Containing questionnaires with 50 men on their favourite garments, the book also presents long-form interviews with three of the fashion world’s leading figures: Italian designer Stefano Pilati, British designer Charles Jeffrey and retailer Paul Smith.
What Men Wear isn’t illustrated, which is a bonus; the text contains all the visual information you need. And it’s not concerned with “dandies” or “peacocks” or those point-scoring males we all come across who are so meticulous and rigid in their personal presentation choices that they are ultimately (or even quite quickly) boring.
This is the antithesis: anecdotal, funny, revealing and surprisingly tender in places. The simple format puts me in mind of Caterine Milinaire and Carol Troy’s towering Cheap Chic, which collected interviews with the international clothes collecting pioneers of the 1970s (though that book, of course, covered both men and women and included many photographs, so maybe that’s just me).
BTW: I’m in What Men Wear talking about my penchant for US military baker pants.
Among my favourite questionnaires are US musician Devendra Banhart’s and his obsession with wearing three scarves (“it’s a particular archetype I like to call ‘Vitamin Dad meets Auntie Art Teacher'”), Scottish whisky expert Charlie MacLean’s (monocles) and artist and former boxer Irvin Pascal’s (Breton striped shirts), but open the book at a random page and chances are you’ll have a satisfying encounter with a very interesting, not to say fantastic, man.
What Men Wear (and why) is published in collaboration with Browns and available from their website.