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To close out the year, GQ is revisiting the most fascinating ideas, trends, people, and projects of 2023. For all of our year-end coverage, click here.
Famously stylish women have co-opted the hallmarks of classic menswear since Katharine Hepburn scandalized Hollywood bigwigs with her penchant for wooly slacks. Decades later, Grace Jones upped the ante, transforming the power suit into a righteous flex worthy of its moniker, right around the same time Princess Diana started winning hearts (and inspiring future street style buffs) in varsity jackets and strong-shouldered blazers. But in 2023, the movement finally reached its apex: This year, nobody wore guys’ clothes—or, at least, clothes inspired by the stuff usually worn by guys—better than the gals, yielding a moodboard’s worth of menswear-adjacent outfits in the process.
Don’t get us wrong—plenty of fellas stepped up their game, too. But as Hollywood’s hunkiest focused their efforts on boundary-pushing, attention-grabbing fits, their A-list counterparts began claiming a specific strain of classic menswear as their own. In March, Gwyneth Paltrow turned a Utah courtroom into a personal runway by leaning into discreet, hyper-elegant staples like double-breasted suits and slouchy, expensive-looking sweaters. In July, Jennifer Lawrence elevated the idea of “quiet luxury” beyond Kendall Roy cosplay in an oversized trench coat and pleated trousers.
In February, Hannah Einbinder, the breakout star of HBO’s Hacks, capped an epic red-carpet run by showing up to a premiere in a shaggy patterned cardigan, crisp white dress shirt, and beefy silk tie. Over the course of the last few weeks alone, Carey Mulligan has enjoyed a very menswear-y outfit heater of historic proportions, promoting her role in Maestro in the type of sophisticated, oversized tailoring we keep yapping about.
Women held it down on the more casual side of the menswear spectrum, too. On a promotional shoot for the Emmys back in June, The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri out-dressed costar Jeremy Allen White—no slouch in the style department himself—in a rugged corduroy-collar trucker jacket and chunky derbies. In October, Elizabeth Olsen set the GQ office abuzz in a modern riff on nouveau-workwear: dusty-hued chore coat, big ol’ fatigue pants, lug-sole Chelsea boots. Her husband’s bomber-jacket-and-baseball-cap, meanwhile, looked totally fine for a casual stroll around the neighborhood. But that’s exactly the point: Given the choice between the two, we’d jack Olsen’s swag every time.
And then, of course, there were the preternaturally well-dressed women who happen to be literal pros at making clothes look good. When they weren’t fronting glossy fashion campaigns, sashaying down catwalks, or launching wildly lucrative side hustles, folks like Hailey Bieber, Kaia Gerber, Kendall Jenner, and the Hadid sisters were the unofficial mascots of Generation TikTok’s favorite aesthetic. If you’ve found yourself wondering why every extremely online tween is obsessed with slouchy leather jackets, baby-doll tees, baggy jeans, and dainty sneakers, it has a lot to do with the highly photogenic people who can’t stop wearing ‘em.
So, fellas, consider this an earnest plea to expand your stylistic horizons. As you cook up outfits in the new year, pull inspiration from anywhere and anyone with impunity. After long enough, that sort of expansive approach to getting dressed becomes a pure numbers game—expose yourself to more good fits, internalize what works for you, and your own style is bound to improve.
Today, it’s not uncommon for brands to divorce their clothing from the gender binary entirely; dudes are already rocking ballet flats, going goo-goo for Miu Miu, and scouring the women’s section for hoodies in that just-right cropped fit. A word to the wise, though: Even if your beau’s closet houses exponentially flyer menswear than yours, it’s still good form to ask before you raid it.
The Einbinder-Sanctioned Office Ensemble
In March of 2022, Hannah Einbinder threw down the gauntlet at the Critics Choice Awards, hitting the red carpet in the most pristine tux we’d seen in a minute—and anointed herself a new-school king of tailoring in the process. This year, the comedian upped the fashion quotient, conquering pressers and step-and-repeats in outfits exactly like this one. You could do a lot worse than following her lead the next time a nerve-wracking presentation (or, hell, a date) pops up on the calendar.
The Olsen-Approved Weekend Get-Up
Elizabeth Olsen cedes a good amount of menswear attention to her older sisters, but when she stepped out in a perfectly rumpled spin on hard-wearing countryside attire, she made the strongest case yet on behalf of the Olsen fashion triumvirate. The sprawling farmland might be sold separately, but consider this all the excuse you need to ditch the jeans for trousers—and the fuzzy fleece for a rugged work jacket—on your next Sunday stroll.
The Hadid-Coded Bodega-Run Fit
Gigi Hadid likes sweaters so much she started designing them herself (racking up one or two famous fans along the way), but you don’t need her veteran style chops to appreciate the elite layering on display here. Slinging a chunky knit around your shoulders is a pro move—but slinging a chunky knit over a badass moto and baggy sweats? That’s what we call a surefire way to elevate your bed-to-bodega shuffle.
