ShortList's Most Stylish Man

[Frederic Leighton]

From the free magazine ShortList of this week. Read online or see below.

The winner's advice: It’s the small details that are important; colour-coordinate your tie and pocket square. Always.

ShortList's most stylish man.

With the daily tidal wave of fitting-room selfies posts and the job of forever tagging/liking/retweeting sepia-toned outfit pictures, if you’re honest with yourself (and we mean really honest) there must be days when you feel like throwing in the sartorial towel. Sure, it’s easier to share your new look, but how does one show off one’s innate knack for snappy dressing with so much visible competition around?

It was while thinking about this tricky conundrum that we decided to launch our Most Stylish Man competition. In a bid to find out what makes the modern man tick in the 21st-century style and grooming stakes, we teamed up with Remington and began a search.

The premise was simple: send in your pictures, impress our judges and you’ll be crowned king of all fashion until the end of time. OK, not quite, but you’d take centre stage in an exclusive style shoot for ShortList, win a £2,000 wardrobe overhaul courtesy of Reiss (including a private shopping experience) and bag £250 of Remington grooming products.

And you did not disappoint. With more than 500 entries to sift through (200 of which you can check out here), our judges had an extremely tough time narrowing the results down. There was no escape. Not only were we flooded with photos, but we also had a crack squadron of style hunters in Reiss stores up and down the country.

After much deliberation, our panel of judges whittled it down to three finalists. So who are the lucky trio? Our first runner-up, sharply tailored Raashid Hooks, caught the judges’ eyes with his slick suit, fedora and glasses combo, while Jaqob Bagley’s minimal look earned him a spot on the podium – you can see them below. But the duo were pipped to the post by 30-year-old Martin Reynolds, who impressed everybody with his gentlemanly over-the-shoulder umbrella pose and effortless smart-casual get-up. A fan of understated, Scandinavian fashion (“No big logos, no blind trend following, no brash colours”), the London-based systems analyst is confident about the key to good style: “Clothes should express something about your personality.” He now sticks to his stripped-back mantra: be noticed, without sticking out.

So what are his top tips for looking good? “Next time you buy a suit, get it taken in by a tailor so it fits perfectly. It’s the small details that are important; colour-coordinate your tie and pocket square. Always. And if in doubt, dress up, not down.” What about grooming-wise? “Pick a fragrance you like and stick with it. And girls like beards. Grow one. But keep it neat and tidy with a trimmer.”

You heard the man. Go forth and look incredible. Who knows, maybe next year you’ll be walking away with the crown. Or at the very least, an excellent new outfit screaming out for likes.

In second place is 19-year-old University Of Cumbria student Bagley, who describes his style as “classic with a new-age twist” and counts Steve McQueen as an influence. His biggest fashion faux pas? “I arrived at a party wearing a pink and black short-sleeved chequered shirt with a black dickie bow, when everyone else was wearing tracksuits. It didn’t go down well.”

After moving from New York to London just over a year ago, 32-year-old runner-up Hooks has not only started his own tailors, The Hooks Company, but also been spotted by our trusty style hunters while out and about. “They found me – I was in Canary Wharf speaking to a friend when two people came over for a photograph.” And if he had to describe his style in one word? “Timeless.”

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[bond_and_beyond]

So the man in the ill fitting suit won, while the man with a suit that actually seems to fit, and is wearing a fedora to boot, came in third. Interesting..

BB

[uppercase]

These photos are distressing.

But I do understand them.
However, they are just not good.

Casual wear (is this called casual? The center photo at least …?) is important and deserves the same attention that we here devote to bespoke matters.

But this is just baaad. There is good. I will look for some photos of good casual wear.
Perhaps others can as well.

What do LL members wear on the weekends??

[Frederic Leighton]

What do LL members wear on the weekends??

Italian upbringing; Sundays are for Sunday bests. I can't negotiate, really, but I don't mind if everybody else is wearing a tracksuit or a bathrobe.

[Luca]

I saw the article and had the same thought as Uppercase.

The fashionable young man in the comical "little brother's" suit could not be considered well dressed by any discerning person. The only positive (and not a minor one at that), is that at least he seems to care.

The chap in the clearly custom-made beige suit looks quite nice, to me, regardless of the fatc that I might choose differently on some aspects of fit and composition.

[Rob O]

I don't understand the aesthetic of restrictively tight and short suits. If they accentuated the physique of the wearer then maybe there would be some base rationale. But they don't, as Luca states says it looks like a "little brother's suit". The chap in the middle at least has an eye for a nice scarf, but how that puts him on a best dressed shortlist is perplexing.

Weekend wear for me is usually an Oxford cloth button down shirt, navy sweatshirt, jacket, jeans. Suede desert boots or shoes. Cycling gear when appropriate.

[pur_sang]

And I thought the winner is the man in the beige suit. He is on point in my book, because there is no absolute in this game.

I always say a bad trend can last for decades. The tight short jacket trend was fresh for a little while (really started with Dior Homme in 2000, so it's over a decade already, of course, he didn't invent it as it was hip decades before that), but when every tom dick and harry is sporting it, it loses its avant-garde-ness. Needless to say, that most people don't realize it is feminizing probably the most masculine piece of clothing in a man's wardrobe (short tight jackets do look fantastic on women with the right attributes).

For good casual clothing, I say look at a Ralph Lauren catalog, he's got most occasions covered (Although one of my pet peeves is that even he has gone with the slim lapel trend, despite he started his business with wider ties that no one was making at the time). Bring back bigger lapels PLEASE!

[couch]

When I saw Edwin DeBoise last Wednesday, he opined that wider lapels were coming back. Not sure where his early intelligence is coming from, but I thought I'd report his view . . . .

[pur_sang]

When I saw Edwin DeBoise last Wednesday, he opined that wider lapels were coming back. Not sure where his early intelligence is coming from, but I thought I'd report his view . . . .

Tom Ford started doing it, but then even he's doing the slim lapel now (a bit late). I see some brands such as Prada are back with it too. Not saying anything good or bad about these brands, but they do drive the trend. I think when the street realizes that style don't simply mean a slim lapel tight suit on a young man, in a few years time, the guy in the beige suit will win and they'll start to say how ill fitting the winner's suit is.

[Frederic Leighton]

[...] I think when the street realizes that style don't simply mean a slim lapel tight suit on a young man, in a few years time, the guy in the beige suit will win and they'll start to say how ill fitting the winner's suit is.

ShortList (out today) is of a slightly different opinion (online here):

Death Of The Suit

ShortList’s style director Adrian Clark saw City-boy tailoring take a back seat at last week’s London Collections: Men...

While our sporting abilities may be questionable, us Brits excel in dressing the part. Well, that’s if last week’s London Collections: Men – the city’s showcase for masculine style, kicking off the month-long festival of European fashion weeks – is anything to go by.

Previewing what we’ll be wearing in spring/summer 2015, the best British labels took field, track and festival casualwear as overriding trends, marking a departure from tailoring. Despite a heritage for sharp suiting (it is the home of Savile Row, after all), oversized shorts, boot-cut jeans, tank tops, shell suits in technical fabrics, sneakers and trackie bottoms took centre stage.

Designer James Long fused boxing elements with patchwork denim that had a tropical Balearic flavour in one of the strongest collections of more than 100 brands showing at the three-day event. “For me it’s more than just sportswear, it’s fashion. It’s what I wear,” says Long.

Other highlights were Topman Design’s Britpop-meets-Woodstock collection, with washed-denim flares, psychedelic prints and old-school trainers, plus Nasir Mazhar’s dissipated visual language of the UK garage scene, with white sportswear-based pieces; wide-legged shorts, sweatpants, billowing shirts, braces, gym bags and back packs.

Rising star Kit Neale was also a favourite, with a nostalgic look at the quintessential British holiday, with inspiration from prints taken from the airport to coastlines of the Med (below). Even the less likely candidates Burberry Prorsum and McQueen went down the sporty route, respectively showing everything with hi-tops and multi-coloured sneakers, while some labels known for tailoring – such as Savile Row’s E Tautz – also had oversized sporty separates. Best tell your suits you won’t need them this time next year...

[pur_sang]

Always interesting to see what people put to paper sometimes. I guess we cannot really count ShortList as any source of repute or authority anyway.

I like fashion as much as the next guy, I like some things on the runway and I follow it closer than most. However, if you ask someone to picture masculinity, I doubt anyone (men or women) will have any of these runway models in their heads. The fashion world is feminizing men, men don't need a wardrobe makeover twice every year. Actually, I will even argue that a lot of stuff going on at places like Pitti is feminizing men as well.

But each to their own, vast majority of the general public will still see the 'peacock' on the street as stylish.

[Luca]

...The fashion world is feminizing men...Pitti is feminizing men... the 'peacock' ... as stylish.

Having been involved in an ongoing discussion about the normative and ontological aspects of the feminisation of 'western' society, I would point out that, while I agree that such a trend exists independently of the female emancipation strand of feminist thought and progrgess, the changing aesthetic in men's appearance is probably not strongly related to that. In deconstructivist terms, there is massive historical evidence that the conflation of sober, indeed sombre, dress with 'masculinity' is a relatively recent and certainly ontext-specific not rooted in biological determinism.

In other words, through most of the historical-geographical-cultural continum, males have dressed as demonstratively and flamboyantly as their income and activities permitted. The 'gentleman as undertaker' phenomenon is limited largely to European culture from the secodn half to the 19th century to the late 20th century. A similar phenomenon is hair length where the 'turn', having occurred earlier, is by now largely judgement-neutral for men of my generation (late boomer - early 'X').

[pur_sang]

Luca, maybe you are right. From old paintings etc, rich men do dress flamboyantly.

Maybe I just need to make more money! haha.

[Frederic Leighton]

[...] However, if you ask someone to picture masculinity, I doubt anyone (men or women) will have any of these runway models in their heads. The fashion world is feminizing men, men don't need a wardrobe makeover twice every year. [...]

When I get dressed in the morning, my last concern is to look like a man. I am a man. I don't need to look like one. I don't worry if what I am wearing, or 1-2 inches difference in the length of my coat, makes someone think that I am not masculine enough according to their idea of man.

[Screaminmarlon]

[...] However, if you ask someone to picture masculinity, I doubt anyone (men or women) will have any of these runway models in their heads. The fashion world is feminizing men, men don't need a wardrobe makeover twice every year. [...]

When I get dressed in the morning, my last concern is to look like a man. I am a man. I don't need to look like one. I don't worry if what I am wearing, or 1-2 inches difference in the length of my coat, makes someone think that I am not masculine enough according to their idea of man.

Well said Federico