If you’d like to see to full immersive experience, please visit: https://www.gq.com/story/the-quality-list Want to make a profound impact with your money? Buy less, but better. Because in case you haven’t noticed: We overproduce and overconsume. We're on the precipice of environmental catastrophe. We must change our behaviors as a matter of survival. What you buy—and whom you buy it from—matter. Quality matters. (And frankly, the care-free, brain-dead days of just dressing for your IG feed are over.) Buying better can mean saving up for a piece from a visionary designer or a suit built from the traditions of master craftspeople, or supporting a label committed to change and activism beyond the fabric of its clothes. Luckily, it’s easier than ever to find clothes that are well made, well designed, and ethically produced. These 50 brands represent those absolutely essential values. If you're going to buy something in 2020, whether it's a T-shirt or a three-piece suit, start here. Martine Rose The Global Queen of Cool “Expect perfection,” reads a slick logo that appears throughout Martine Rose's fall 2020 collection. “Pretty good,” brags another. One T-shirt—a permanent offering—explains that she is “probably the best designer in the world.” What makes her so? Well, these boasts are a kind of wink—the self-aggrandizing statements are funny exactly because the down-to-earth designer has mischievously articulated the way her devotees feel about her. Since founding her label in 2007, Rose has built one of the most directional labels in menswear. Her square-toe stomper boots, jumbo loafers, and big ol' blazers have influenced every emerging designer out there (and reveal her background as a menswear consultant to Balenciaga design chief Demna Gvasalia). But she operates with an under-the-radar cool, always from a place of warmth and authenticity that reflects her genuine love of rave culture and London's legendary freak-fashion contingent. Her 2018 Nike collab, a warped Air Monarch (the least hip silhouette in the whole Nike stable), only made her seem more alluringly anti-establishment. She isn't merely a woman of her moment—she's the global compass of cutting-edge cool. —RACHEL TASHJIAN Loewe A Homespun Take on LVMH Luxury Since becoming the creative director of Loewe in 2013, Jonathan Anderson has led the charge in decentralizing luxury from its Italian and French perches to a broad appreciation of global craft. It's artisanship, rather than flashy branding, that Loewe prizes, and Anderson has re-created a heritage house for a new generation of customers, one that sees basket weaving, straw handbags, ceramics, and knitwear as part of the luxury canon. In the process, Anderson has yanked the conversation about genderfluid dressing from fashion's fringes and brought it to the establishment with his freaky and sensual menswear, recently inspired by the funky archives of the ultimate '70s jet-set boutique Paula's in Ibiza. The fall collection is a pansexual's dream wardrobe, like something pulled from a bon vivant grandma's overstuffed steamship trunk: rugby djellabas, apron gowns, robe coats, and leather chain belts—wild stuff, but it's approachable, an invitation to play. —R.T. Giorgio Armani Effortless Perfection The shawl collar is an Armani tailoring signature. This one is lined in pure cashmere jersey. The jacket is unlined so that the wearer can swaddle himself in the famously plush Armani velvet. This high-buttoned gilet in black paisley velvet makes a dress shirt optional. In the work-from-home era, Armani’s iconic slouchy, voluminous post–power suit has never looked more enticing. Mr. Armani knows that when you’re draped in velvet like a king, you need a pair of velvet boots too. Bode Making the Old New Now that certain parts of downtown New York look like they're playing host to a perpetual Amish rumspringa, it's safe to say that Bode's old-timey aesthetic is a bona fide smash hit. Designer Emily Adams Bode has steadily expanded her purview in the past four years since she launched her debut collection made entirely using reclaimed fabrics—she's shown at Paris Fashion Week, opened a retail store, and landed nearly a hundred stockists. Still, every Bode garment, whether rugby shorts made from African country cloth or a crocheted tank top (or the 1900s-inspired woven-wool coverlet set I'm wearing here), celebrates and dignifies the traditional crafts from around the world that have been steadily eroded by the modern fashion system. To wear Bode is to go back in time but also to look forward and ask a surprisingly radical question: What can we create with all this stuff we already have? —SAMUEL HINE RTH A Universal Approach to Style René Holguin, the founder and designer of RTH, breaks down what quality means to his far-out brand. “All RTH clothes have to fall within what I consider to be global truths. It has to be able to translate to any language, any culture, any faith, any age group, any gender. When I think of quality, there's a level of service that it provides. Even if an item is made with great materials and at a prestigious factory, it doesn't mean you're going to want that thing three months after you buy it. It just has to serve you well. A white shirt, blue jeans, a beaded necklace, embroidery, perforations—every culture has its version of those things. It all has to be founded on global truths.” Raf Simons The Bleeding Edge of Menswear for Two Decades and Counting You could shuffle every Raf Simons season from the past 25 years like a deck of cards and draw one at random, and it would feel as urgent right now as any other. Simons has said that his brand stands for “the young generation, the dark movies.” But even that fails to capture the designer's range and ability to surprise us with new ideas. He doesn't have one design signature, he has an entire universe of them, which he applies again and again to his prescient collections—suits with diving board shoulders, moth-eaten varsity sweaters, pearl chokers, strips of duct tape, and scrawled bits of cryptic text. Die-hard Raf Simons fans read his collections like books, which consistently highlight the appealing swagger of disaffected youth. But Simons isn't designing a uniform for truants, anarchists, and delinquents; he's appropriating their indifference to taste—good and bad, high and low—and capturing their inherent propensity for beauty. —NOAH JOHNSON Patagonia Outdoors, Activism, Irresistible Shorts It's no surprise that a new generation of cool outdoorsy (and indoorsy) folks have once again embraced Patagonia. It remains a leader in adventure-sports technology, even as its iconic original designs have crossed firmly over into streetwear. There are the unbeatable and practically indestructible Retro-X fleece jackets and versatile Baggies shorts. There's the romantic legacy of a brand built by a group of roving dirtbag climbers in the '70s—an era when spending one's 20s living in a van was aspirational. And there's the fact that Patagonia sued President Trump for shrinking two national monuments in Utah. Almost every outdoor brand participates in some form of environmental activism, but Patagonia has led the way ever since founder Yvon Chouinard inspired climbers to stop using rock-damaging pitons nearly 50 years ago. Today, Patagonia's sprawling corporate effort toward environmentalism lobbies for radical solutions to problems both existential (climate change) and more niche (regenerative agriculture). Looked at a certain way, Patagonia is not a clothing company at all but a pioneering environmentalist organization funded by an extremely well-developed apparel line. —S.H. A. Sauvage Made-to-Measure Heaven There's nothing like a fitting with Adrien Sauvage, the mischievous British designer who, for the past decade, has been the best-kept secret among taste gods all over the world. He doesn't use words like slim or boxy. He says things like imperial and louche. His first question for potential clients who arrive at his Beverly Hills or Central London atelier: Who are you? “Once I know the journey, I can basically dial in like a computer,” Adrien says. “Here's the input, here's the output. It's circuitry and energy.” The approach may be unconventional, sure. But without fail, A. Sauvage cooks up the most elevating, badass suits on planet Earth. Each piece is handmade in Italy—and surpasses the standards of even the snobbiest suit enthusiast. But the attitude and feel, as seen here on Adrien and friends of the house, is unabashed, beatnik, and cool. —MARK ANTHONY GREEN Dior Street Culture Transposed Onto High Fashion DJ, fashion icon, and Dior collaborator Honey Dijon shares what makes Dior Men's creative director Kim Jones the best man for the job. “Kim really imbues Dior with his love of subcultures and the artists who have influenced him. He reinterprets those things for a global audience. That's what separates Kim: His vocabulary is very large when it comes to music, art, and fashion. He really does contribute to the conversation and culture instead of just making product. He doesn't just make things for status. It's a lot of love letters from him to what inspired him to become a designer. I know streetwear is a dirty word now, but if you look at his early collections, he lives that language. When you are authentic, you just do your work and you just keep an ear to the ground. He sees what's happening before it's going to blow up in a mainstream way. When you are in the culture, you're of the culture.” Brunello Cucinelli The Italian Fashion Philosopher Brunello Cucinelli founded his label 42 years ago as a line of richly colored cashmere sweaters. But lately he's become a spokesperson of sorts for what's known as “humanistic enterprise,” the moral framework that has guided the Cucinelli sprezzatura empire since the beginning. Cucinelli—a farmer's son who grew up without electricity in a village in Umbria, Italy—ardently, even fanatically, believes that profit is meaningless unless it is in service of spiritual and philosophical growth. His achingly beautiful flannel blazers and heavenly white shirts are manufactured by people who are paid higher wages than the industry standard, who are provided home-cooked three-course lunches, who have complete access to a library full of Cucinelli's favorite philosophical texts. It all goes down in Solomeo, the medieval Italian village that serves as the hub of his humanistic experiment. Last year Jeff Bezos spent three days there to experience the enterprise firsthand. Bezos's personal style has improved—we can thank Cucinelli if his capitalistic stewardship does too. —S.H. Thom Browne The Freaky Tailor Musician Moses Sumney on the twisted traditions of Thom Browne. “I relate to Thom Browne because taking a classical form and injecting myself into it in a way that feels forward-looking is largely what I try to do with my music. To Thom Browne's spring 2020 show in Paris, I wore a long black skirt, boots with a really thick heel, and a tank top, and I've never been so comfortable. It's super radical to me to see basketball players holding Thom Browne bags and wearing Thom Browne skirts. I think it's very futuristic.” Supreme Still the Coolest Name in Streetwear When James Jebbia launched Supreme in 1994, he essentially invented the idea of premium streetwear. He set out to make skate clothes that would be as well made as Polo and Carhartt. And he knew that he'd be able to sell those pieces at a markup that reflected the cost of making them. He couldn't have been more right, and 'Preme heads from all walks of life have been clearing the shelves ever since. Supreme is the rare example of a company that still appeals to its core customer—thanks to a skate team that includes legends like Mark Gonzales and young stars like Tyshawn Jones—while becoming a global fashion phenomenon with an entire hype economy all its own. Jebbia's cultural aspirations have pushed the brand to even higher ground: He leveraged Supreme's downtown appeal to book campaigns with megastars like Lou Reed, Lady Gaga, and Kermit the Frog, and built an art program that has featured works by Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, and Nan Goldin, among others. Today, Supreme has a billion-dollar valuation, but Jebbia and company still do things the way they have since day one on Lafayette. —N.J. Issey Miyake It's Gotta Be the Pleats GQ grooming columnist Phillip Picardi on the genius of Issey Miyake's comfortable high fashion. “Issey Miyake's famous signature pleats are one of fashion's greatest innovations. They are like origami meets ready-to-wear: They never lose their shape, they seldom need a wash, and they are impossibly, gloriously comfortable. Just like your favorite sweats, Issey's waistbands stretch, the drapery of the tops never hugs you too tight, and they are incredibly low maintenance. The silhouettes are universally lattering—even the Hammer pants and blazers. During our collective period of home confinement, I parted ways with anything that felt too tight or too pristine for me to wear comfortably. The Issey stuff—overalls, dress shirts, cropped trousers, and a blazer—all gets to stay.” Sid Mashburn The Local Clothier Who Cares You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of Sid Mashburn's old-school ethos than the way he dealt with the closure of his stores in the early months of the pandemic. Sure, customers couldn't enter, and most of his staff was furloughed. But Mashburn—who, after stints at Ralph Lauren, J.Crew, and Lands' End, opened a shop in Atlanta and then four more in other cities—dispatched an employee to each store. This was to let customers know that the shops would return and also that Mashburn and his crew were still there for their sartorial needs in the meantime. Sid Mashburn's easy-wearing suits, “not too skinny, not too fat” ties, and English-made dress shoes are among the finest you'll find on this side of the Atlantic—and the best value. To be sure that you didn't forget this, and to reinforce his notion that the quality of his service is as important as the cut of his suits, Sid kept some of the stores staffed on the off-off-off chance that some poor groom-to-be, having decided to carry on with his wedding plans, might need a last-minute tailoring job. That is the Mashburn way: The clothes, of course, are great. But the experience—before the pandemic, during it, and most certainly once it's over—is even better. —SAM SCHUBE Levi's The First and Last Name in Denim Tremaine Emory of Denim Tears and No Vacancy Inn on the greatness of Levi's. “When I moved to London in 2010, I found my favorite fit of Levi's—the LVC 1954 vintage repros. I bought a pair and wore them every day for five or six years. I love the way Levi's wear in over time. They look great new. And if you don't wash them, and you dry-clean them a couple of times a year, and then you just wear them, they fall apart in the most beautiful way. They get rips, they start fitting to your body, and the denim patinas. To me it's a beautiful process. That's part of where the nickname Denim Tears came from—this pair of jeans. It's attrition. The attrition of the life you live in the jeans makes it one-off to you. Most clothing starts off at its apex when it's brand new, and then it declines. Levi's is the inverse. That's the special thing about a pair of Levi's. I'm going to get those fixed, and I'm going to bring those bad boys back out.” Louis Vuitton French Luxury Gets an Internet-Era Overhaul Men's artistic director Virgil Abloh on his vision for Vuitton. “I want to urge the industry not to just focus on easy-to-sell garments that we know work commercially but to foster new territories by deprogramming our minds from the images of obsolescence that lead to overload, overproduction, and waste. How can my design impact the future, create a new qualitative narrative for generations to come? How do I create opportunities and a road map for those that will follow me, open doors, and expand new territories to redefine pre-existing notions? Time is what matters more than ever: claiming it, owning it, and making the best of it. As a designer, you aim to create the world you want to see, and I want my design to serve my community.” Jan-Jan Van Essche The Shaman of Slow Fashion Pandemic life has been marked by both careening acceleration into the technological super future and regression into a primitive, home-bound past. Likewise, Jan-Jan Van Essche's clothes are a uniform for our collective primitive future. Jan-Jan himself is a tea-sipping gentleperson from Antwerp. He makes the patterns for his pieces by folding magical, soulful fabrics into a shirt, pants, or a kimono-like jacket, creating as few seams and cuttings (read: waste) as possible. When I put his future-primitive clothing on, it hangs off my frame—the opposite of a Western-style suit, which exaggerates and constricts—leaving room to do future-primitive things like, say, stir a communal pot of food or fold my legs for meditation. I can't yet tell whether 2020 is going to yield the apocalypse or the ascension. Either way, I'll be dressed for it. —WILL WELCH Bottega Veneta Millennial Fashion From an Old World House Since taking the reins at Bottega Veneta in 2018, Daniel Lee has proved the fashion world's prevailing wisdom wrong at every turn. Lee, the former deputy to Phoebe Philo, is not on social media. He has eschewed the influencer circus: When the members of BTS wore full Bottega Veneta to the 2020 Grammys, it wasn't because the brand gave them the clothes—their stylist went out and bought the looks. He has resisted the allure of the flashy logo. And after only two years, Lee's muscular tailoring and squishy bags have taken menswear by storm. At Lee's Bottega, the clothes, not the universe around the clothes, create the fantasy. And the fantasy is built on beefy proportions, kinky cutouts, and the uncompromising commitment to beautiful fabrics and innovative use of the house's famous woven intrecciato. It's clothing that's as comfortable at an art-gallery opening as it is at an underground rave. And maybe even the apocalypse, if you consider the gargantuan Lug Boot, designed in zombie-stomping proportions. Judging by its recent popularity with elite dressers like Rihanna and Dev Hynes, Lee's work has captured a moment in style and forced us to reconsider how designers break through the noise in 2020. —S.H. Ralph Lauren A Brand Built for a Lifetime Ralph Lauren—the brand, the designer, the whole Ralph world—has always been the pinnacle of fashion for me. I remember drooling over Ralph Lauren's iconic ad campaigns in magazines I read while growing up in Springfield, Virginia. The images fueled my daydreams of jetting around the world on a private plane or yachting in Sardinia with my incredibly beautiful friends. When I was a teen, back-to-school shopping was basically a sport. I'd drag my parents up and down the aisles of the stores in the Potomac Mills shopping center in search of the perfect polo shirt for the first day of school. Ralph Lauren always passed the parental test: beautiful material, reasonably priced, and classic enough to last more than one season. In short, worth the investment. Fast-forward to my sorority days at UVA, and a Polo Ralph Lauren shirt (with a popped collar!) was part of the unofficial uniform. Ralph was life. And even though, over the years, my style has evolved beyond the preppy phase, Ralph is still life today: a single-breasted herringbone blazer, a striped silk blouse, perfectly cut white trousers (a holy grail if you ask me!). Ralph remains a reliable go-to—an increasingly rare thing in fashion these days. —NIKKI OGUNNAIKE Our Legacy Setting the Tone for Global Menswear Going on 15 years now, the cult Swedish collective Our Legacy has been a reliable North Star of good taste. Founders Jockum Hallin and Christopher Nying ushered in the wild-style era with increasingly wavy prints and psychedelic knits and then predicted our genderless present via delicate lace shirts and Cuban-heel boots. None of those shifts in direction have ever felt contrived, or forced, or like anything less than a fluid evolution—each new collection offers a glimpse into the artful near future of dressing. But Our Legacy isn't just ahead of the curve aesthetically. The label has used only ethically sourced textiles from the jump, and for the past four years it has been upcycling the leftover scraps of those same fabrics into one-of-a-kind grails through its super-coveted Work Shop program. —Y.G. Celine The One-Man Barometer of Cool Over the course of a two-decade-long career, Hedi Slimane has harnessed the energy of youth style subcultures to intoxicating effect. He engineered a skinny-jeans revolution during the Strokes era, articulated the “L.A. look” for the world as the West Coast aesthetic went global in the 2010s, and, most recently at Celine, predicted the shift from romantic bourgeois minimalism to viral TikTok fits with his brilliant spring 2021 collection. The through line—besides a devotion to rail-thin cuts—is Slimane's commitment to achingly pure design and construction. As other designers go big on logo-encrusted products, Slimane's answer is the Platonic ideal of a varsity jacket you might find at a dusty thrift store or a pair of slim oxford lace-ups so perfect they would make Serge Gainsbourg cry. There are no tricks or gimmicks in Slimane's world. In fact, Celine clothes and accessories are as performance-built as anything with a Swoosh on it, but the performance in this case is closing down Lucien or Café de Flore—and looking outrageously, almost impossibly cool in the process. —S.H. Ziggy Chen Old World Technique by a New World Visionary The sublime designs of Shanghainese designer Ziggy Chen are timeless, not just in that they feel disconnected from modern trends but in that they literally look like they could be from hundreds of years ago. His pieces—like an asymmetrical blazer the color of a forest at midnight, or a muddy green drop-shouldered double-breasted coat—are patinated and soft around the edges, like something you'd find on display at the Met. Chen founded his label in 2011, at age 42, after working as a textile-design professor but never as a fashion designer. His construction process is unique, using traditional Chinese and Western sewing techniques he learned from studying antique clothing, resulting in pieces that look worn-in yet also totally fresh. —R.T. Hermés The O.G. Old World Artisans Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small French village in the 17th century. Sure, you might have to contend with the occasional outbreak of smallpox and a long lineage of tyrannical monarchs. But your fine leather boots would come from the local cordwainer, your hats from the milliner, your knives from the blacksmith. You buy from master artisans, having dedicated their lives to the pursuit of a single trade. That's sort of what it's like shopping at Hermès. Since its founding in 1837 as a humble harness maker, the Parisian house has employed skilled craftspeople to produce its vast array of quietly exquisite goods. Most of Hermès's overall manufacturing occurs in its 43 specialized workshops across France. The gloves come from the commune of Saint-Junien; those legendary silk scarves are printed near Lyon. That devotion to craft is what has lent men's artistic director Véronique Nichanian the confidence to dream up some of the most refined and understatedly elegant menswear collections for over three decades and counting. —YANG-YI GOH Fear Of God A Holistic Approach to Style Union L.A. owner Chris Gibbs on why Fear of God transcends streetwear and represents a new ideal for American fashion. “I would argue that Fear of God's Jerry Lorenzo is making high fashion and it's only called streetwear because he's Black and it's been made in America. I've always been really impressed with his attention to detail in the kind of fabrics he uses. The construction has always been incredible, especially because most of the product has been made in L.A. Some people argue that part of being sustainable isn't just about using organic cottons. It's about not filling the world and the landfills with your shit. Jerry's direct-to-consumer business model and no seasonal collections: That is all him. I've worked in this business for 25 years. I don't know anybody else who did it like that.” Prada The Gold Standard of High Fashion Prada aficionado A$AP Nast on how the brand helped him and his style mature. “When I started buying more Prada a few years ago, I was growing and I wanted to dress like a man. What better brand to help me do that? Prada has always embodied simplicity but still keeps it classy—simple but really good garments. When we were deep in quarantine, I was like, ‘Yo, I just want to go to the Prada store. Y'all can keep everything else closed, just please open up the Prada stores—that's it.’ I go back so much I feel like I live at Prada. Go to Rodeo or the stores in New York and ask about me and my card, they'll tell you.” Rick Owens The Drapery Demigod Rick Owens, more so than most designers, has a wildly varying design spectrum. One end consists of monochromatic knits and sweats, perfect for building a uniform and for subtly signaling taste. And on the other end exists a wardrobe for an intergalactic sex ninja whose idea of business casual is metallic flight pants and platform boots. Rick's world—one that he selflessly allows us mere mortals to visit with every garment created—is lawless. It's without lines or restraints. It's without prudery or shame. It's hard-core and beautiful. Which is why season after season, Rick Owens continues to pull off the hardest trick in fashion: surprising us all. From human backpacks (google it) to some of the most comfortable tees in the world to snow boots that look like a yeti went to fashion school, there's never a dull moment from Rick. Originality, after all, is the most important pillar of quality, and no one is more original than he is. —M.A.G. Dries Van Noten Fashion's Mind Gardener For more than 30 years, Dries Van Noten has done something singular: make clothes that are unmistakably his own. That his garden is one of his greatest sources of inspiration may sum up nearly everything there is to love about Van Noten. (Photographs of flowers from his own plot appeared as prints in a collection last year.) A Baroque-period painter staring at a musty bowl of fruit would flip their powdered wig if presented with Van Noten's palette of colors evoking juicy tangerines, earthy mushrooms, over-ripe lemons, freakishly bright blueberries, or iridescent eggplants. Most importantly, Van Noten does not speak in trends. To wear his clothes is to be part of the designer's exacting, ever evolving, and colorful language. —CAM WOLF Craig Green The Avant-Garde Extraordinaire Two arms, two legs, and a hole for your head—Craig Green starts there, to be sure. But otherwise he isn't overly concerned with the tiresome limitations the human body imposes on clothing. Every season since 2012, when the young English designer founded his eponymous label during his final year as a fashion student at Central Saint Martins in London, is essentially built around a simple padded work coat. From there he creates powerful collections that break with convention every chance he gets. Paneled shirts and trousers appear to be oh-so-elegantly coming apart at the seams. He eschews the standard suiting vernacular for something more monastic, layered and reinforced like body armor for martial arts. Appendages become sculptural, and negative space is filled by all manner of dangling straps and cords. Bodysuits are built with scaffolding that resembles tents, kites, or even white-water rafts. Does that all sound especially wearable? Probably not. Does it matter? No. You don't walk into a museum and think to yourself, How would that painting look hanging over my couch? Craig Green proposes that clothes can be unusual and extraordinary and appealing in ways that you never imagined. But still, you say, can anybody actually leave the house in this stuff? Well, just ask Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Billie Eilish, or any of the mega-celebs who do it all the time. —N.J. Tom Ford Suits, but Sexy The daredevil of '90s high fashion, Tom Ford has always embodied unabashed elegance. But his fall 2020 collection was looser, easier, even edgier than ever—some of his best work in years—with its extravagant combinations of jewel-toned pajama trousers and impeccably tailored jackets. Ford's tailoring, of course, is always impeccable, the gold standard in American suiting. That means that you can throw it on and look incredible all day—and, if you're embodying the Fordian life—all night. “He's a true purveyor of luxury goods for men,” says legendary stylist George Cortina, who frequently uses Ford clothing in shoots for GQ. A Tom Ford suit fits like no other, sits on the shoulder just right. He also makes beautiful shoes and knits—even the perfect pair of shorts—to build out your wardrobe. (And you thought you'd never need a crocodile blouson!) As Cortina says, summing it up with a Ford-like epigram: “It's a very gentlemanly approach to fashion.” —R.T. A-Cold-Wall Clothing as Industrial Design Founder and creative director Samuel Ross on his unique vision for building a forward-looking brand. “Fashion is like the rap game. When you're in your early 20s, you can be the hot rapper, but you need to age gracefully, you need to improve and move on with a sophistication. Now, with A-Cold-Wall, I'm making sure that when we're designing a product, it's filled with a purpose and intent, to be an item of service. The essential element of the brand is this approach to not pander to trends and think about our clothes the way an industrial-design company thinks about its products. Quality represents information. Information in terms of intelligence and purpose behind what's being proposed. It's something that you can't compromise—it's more a philosophy. COVID pressure-cooked the expectations of how businesses operate and communicate. Consumers don't buy this synthetic, distilled response from brands. There's a real opportunity to have a genuine connection with consumers, or at least have a voice to speak to truth.” Missoni The First Family of Italian Knitwear The world of Missoni is all about the chevron knit. No one else can do knitwear like Missoni. Seemingly hundreds of colors of thread are in one zigzag sweater—it's amazing. The colors are orgasmic. The world of Missoni is also about family and togetherness. It's been a family-run business since it was started in the '50s, and [creative director and president] Angela Missoni has preserved her parents' vision. When you see a Missoni piece, you know exactly what it is. Over the years I've bought a lot of vintage Missoni, which I like to incorporate with new Missoni. Angela says some of my knits are from the '70s, and they're all still totally wearable with the modern Missoni vibe. When you wear Missoni, you have to go all the way—you can't be shy. You have to mix the different colors and patterns with no fear. That's the golden rule when it comes to Missoni: Lean in. —MOBOLAJI DAWODU Arc'teryx The Tesla of Gorpcore All outdoor-gear companies wear-test their products to some degree: They'll put their latest shells and boots and harnesses through their paces under the same rigorous conditions their gorp-loving customers might find themselves in. Very few of those companies dedicate a 243,000-square-foot building to doing just that. Arc'teryx's state-of-the-art ARC'One facility, tucked away in a nondescript Vancouver suburb, is a veritable Wonka factory of high-performance-sportswear innovation. Inside, 480 employees tinker with every minute element of every utilitarian, starkly beautiful garm dreamed up by the designers at both Arc'teryx and its upscale sister line, Veilance. Advanced prototypes are torn down and reassembled to uncover manufacturing efficiencies, wholly new breeds of waterproof zippers and thermal insulations are designed and redesigned over and over again, and Alpha SV climbing jackets earn their warranties via an over-four-hour-long construction process that involves 190 meticulous operations. It's that obsession with lasting perfection and experimentation that has made believers out of folks as disparate as ice-climbing legend Will Gadd and all-around legend Frank Ocean. —Y.G. Drake's The Haberdashery Revived Maybe the highest compliment one can pay Drake's is that it makes ties look cool, even now, when they are hardly ever part of the dress code. Like, right-now now: In the midst of a pandemic that's kept our butts in sweatpants on the couch and for an endless blur of months, no other brand makes getting dressed up as exciting as the British haberdashery. The philosophy espoused by creative director Michael Hill is one of “relaxed elegance.” You might add “on safari” to that description. The brand's ties are habitats for towering giraffe necks and ambling pandas. Drake's ornate pocket squares could be popped into a frame and hung on a wall. And if you give a man a tie and a pocket square, he's going to need a suit—which Drake's makes in Italy using relaxed shapes and fabrics like corduroy and linen. The brand is perfectly positioned for this moment: In the absence of needing to wear a suit, shouldn't getting to wear one just be fun as hell? —C.W. Kapital Masterful Japanese Maximalism Smiley faces, shibori prints, vintage military and Wild West detail, Japanese boro cloth—all these things may be familiar motifs in menswear now, but that's thanks in part to the good work Kapital has been doing for nearly 20 years. Designer Kiro Hirata has an unparalleled knack for creating irreverent and sometimes absurd apparel that can be surprising and is always ridiculously cool—overshirts sized up 10 times into smock-like layers, hoodies adorned with an abundance of tactical pockets and pouches, skeleton-embroidered denim, and, of course, those irresistible smiley-face ragg socks. But the secret to Kapital's global recognition lies within the Kojima-based production facilities, which are more like laboratories than ateliers. There, dye techniques and intensely detailed handwork are tested and sampled hundreds of times for the development of a single piece. —N.J. Ermenegildo Zegna Historic House, Futuristic Silhouettes Classic dress shirt fit, advanced full-zip closure. In his tailored-clothing laboratory at 110-year-old Ermenegildo Zegna, artistic director Alessandro Sartori is cooking up the suit silhouettes of the future, like this slouchy but strong one-button double-breasted blazer. Sartori's tailoring system is all about easy layering—peep the super-subtle tailored waistcoat. To balance out the blazer's proportions, these trousers have a high-rise satin waistband and an easy taper. With the resources of one of the largest fabric companies at his disposal, Sartori is developing suits made from groundbreaking fabrics, like the breezy tropical wool of this fully lined evening suit. Telfar Downtown Gone Global Telfar is one of the smallest brands on this list. But throughout the summer of 2020, the indie NYC label managed to be a frequent trending topic on Twitter. That's because of the Telfar shopping bag, a.k.a. the Bushwick Birkin, thousands of which sold out in seconds every time it dropped this summer. But Telfar Clemens has been one of the most exciting and original independent designers on the planet since he launched his brand in 2004 at the age of 18. He's spent years working against the grain of the fashion establishment, building a non-gendered, all-inclusive line for anyone who felt ignored by the mainstream. He funded his project in part through savvy collabs with White Castle and Budweiser, as well as through raucous parties DJ'd by his downtown-famous friends. And all the while, Telfar's unisex and surprisingly wearable collection—which draws equally from American westernwear and Renaissance Florence alike—has only gotten more intriguing. —S.H. Yohji Yamamoto The Cerebral Tailor With its soothing inky-black silhouettes, Yohji Yamamoto's clothing is often described as poetry. If that's true, it's a strange and epic verse, with sparks of humor and anti-establishment pathos. It isn't all so esoteric as it sometimes seems—he is, to quote the back of a coat from his fall 2020 collection, “Naughty Yohji.” His playful approach to draping, economic ornamentation, and deconstruction is as strong in this collection as it was when he shocked Paris in 1981 with his first collection: ski suit overalls with roguish panache, military coats studded with talismanic toggles, and scarves of chain and silk that swing with equal ease. A distressed painted knit layered over a loose black suit may be the best argument for why Yamamoto is your favorite young designer's favorite designer, with fans from Evan Kinori to Nicholas Daley. But it's also what the chain-smoking, fedora-wearing, guitar-playing Yamamoto stands for that makes him a legend: He is fashion's most constant voice of quiet skepticism, a radical who has challenged the status quo at every new industry turn over the past four decades. Now, when menswear overvalues the flex, Yamamoto is for those who wear clothes to deeply savor the perfect sweetness of true individuality. —R.T. Pyer Moss American Fashion Reinvented Over the past three years, Pyer Moss founder Kerby Jean-Raymond has become one of the fashion industry's most essential voices, pushing designers to produce less, editors to pay closer attention to Black designers, industry associations to invest in diverse talents, and younger designers to take control of their businesses. He was among the first designers in recent times to insist politics belong on the runway, with a Black Lives Matter show in 2015 that lost him several wholesale accounts (but won him financial freedom: he reportedly bought out his partners in 2017). His image of colloquial Blackness has been nothing short of revolutionary. For his spring 2020 presentation, he staged a show at Brooklyn's Kings Theatre with his signature choir in full extravaganza mode. It was a celebration of the '30s and '40s rock-and-roll innovator Sister Rosetta Tharpe, featuring a refined zoot suit silhouette that approached perfection. —R.T. Kenneth Ize Taking Nigerian Fashion Global I first met Kenneth Ize at Lagos Fashion Week a few years ago. I was struck by his vibrant personality—and then I saw the clothes. I was like, Whoa. This is the next level. Kenneth was born in Lagos and raised mostly in Austria. He started his brand in 2013 to support local Nigerian craftsmanship, because the artisans who make traditional textiles are disappearing. And you can see the craftsmanship immediately in coats tailored out of colorful plaid aso-oke fabric, or in the caftans made with adire, an indigo-dyed cloth that's been made in Nigeria for centuries. I rarely see clothes that move me like that. It hit me on a deeper level. Because Kenneth Ize is about more than the colors and the shapes. It's about a designer who is bringing Nigerian traditions onto a global stage. Bravo! —M.D. Gucci Pushing Italian Luxury Into the Future Dapper Dan, designer and Gucci partner, on the then and now of the historic house. “I'm a test site for Gucci quality. It has been very loyal and faithful and has taken the wear and tear. The woven fabrics that they're doing now are amazing. Gucci led the charge on that. And the detailed appliqués and embellishments. Gucci led the way with that. And it's one thing to create something elegant, but it's another to use it in a way to make a social statement as well. So what creative director Alessandro Michele did was really groundbreaking because he blurred the gender line. That's a big deal. Gucci already set the standard. They survived the last 40 years of this type of luxury. And all you have to do is play with it in the right way. To keep it elevated. The brand set the standard; I set the styles.” Saint Laurent The Pinnacle of Parisian Chic It's been only two years since Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello debuted his first menswear collection for the historic house, but already the nimble designer has proved that he knows exactly what his customer covets: pieces that blend the old SL (back when it was still YSL) with the rock-and-roll edge the brand has recently become known for. Suede jackets, dark skinny jeans, sharp blazers, and silk blouses (unbuttoned to the navel) hark back to the company's heritage while also sending it in a fresh direction. But it's not just the clothes that continue to delight Saint Laurent lovers. It's the context that really brings Vaccarello's modern vision to life and keeps Saint Laurent as chic as ever. First there was Keanu Reeves as the new face of the brand. This season, cult-film director John Waters stars—an unexpected but perfect choice for Vaccarello's refined but edgy tailoring. —N.O. Wales Bonner Where Style and Spirituality Meet Grace Wales Bonner is one of fashion's most academic designers, expanding the act of collaboration to become a rigorous exercise in imagination. She's worked with writers, poets, jazz musicians, and visual artists to create her collections. But her clothes also embody a serene spirituality, which has helped her hone a vision of delicate masculine beauty that has made her, at 29, an icon to an emerging generation of global Black designers. For fall she looked to her own family history, including her grandfather's arrival in England from Jamaica in the 1950s and her father's role in the reggae scene of the '70s, striking a more personal note. Her ability to combine (and even gently subvert) the humble and the regal is nothing short of magic—she harmonizes Prince of Wales suiting, Adidas stripes, baker-boy caps, and shearling. She is slyly one of menswear's best tailors, too, establishing in this collection her highly appealing signature suiting silhouette: a sharp hand with jackets and a loose approach to trousers.\—R.T. Engineered Garments New York Tough New York City is undoubtedly a fashion capital, but how many brands make their clothes there? As a result of the famous Garment District shrinking and manufacturing jobs disappearing or relocating, the answer, sadly, is very few. But Engineered Garments has kept the “Made in New York” tags on almost every piece it's made since Daiki Suzuki founded the brand in 1999. Every step of the garment-making process, from sketch to final production, can take place on the same block, ensuring a superior product and fostering a sense of community among designers, sewers, and regular customers. EG also happens to put out collections that are consistently a step or two ahead of the fashion masses. While trends come and go—big pants get skinny then big again; workwear morphs into leisurewear and back, into something like work-leisure—EG remains unperturbed, never chasing, always leading. Every new season is jam-packed with prints and textures and inventive riffs on vintage military clothing and sportswear proving that, in the right hands, Americana is an endless fountain of inspiration. —N.J. Nicholas Daley The Rhythm of Modern Menswear South London Jazz musician Shabaka Hutchings has been collaborating with Nicholas Daley on his fashion presentations since 2018. Here he reflects on the quality of Daley's work. “Nicholas is very hands-on with every aspect of the business—from the look and what the season's going to be to working with the material, doing the historical research, making sure the whole choreography of the shows is right. It's not that he just makes clothes and there's a vague idea of what it's about. You feel like there's a real underlying message and a continuity between everything that he does. And all this starts with his background. He relates himself to his work. When he was experimenting with kilts, for example, he found a way to actually make that piece of clothing a blend of his Scottish and Jamaican heritage. That was very inspiring. Doing creative work, you want to feel fresh. Because when you look in the mirror and the image of you comes back, and it's of a complete badass, you feel that you can do anything. That's how I feel when I wear Nicholas Daley.” Dolce & Gabbana The Kings of Sharp Suiting The D&G cut—strong shoulder, aggressive peak lapel—emphasizes an athletic V-shaped silhouette. Some say that to master a craft, you need to put in at least 10,000 hours. Domenico Dolce apprenticed for his tailor father and made his first pair of pants at age six. Now, you do the math. So much depends on the cut of a trouser—D&G knows how to keep it rock-and-roll without going full-on skinny. Though the duo are known for over-the-top runway productions in exotic locations, it’s the slick suits, like this pinstripe wool-blend three-piece—with a jacket cut to be just the right length—that really steal the show. This D&G collection, called Artistic Craftsmanship, celebrates the tailoring skills passed down from generation to generation. One thing the D&G tailors know is that a fat cuff—two and a half inches or so—helps trousers drape straight as a knife. Acronym The Visionary of Techwear Acronym, the highly advanced and moody outerwear label founded by Errolson Hugh and Michaela Sachenbacher in 1999, is known for wind- and water- and presumably nuclear-fallout-resistant fabrics and funky silhouettes. Hugh's designs explode conventional ideas of what clothes are meant to do, whether it's outerwear that opens fully with one short tug thanks to the Escape Zip system, or the built-in Jacket Sling that allows you to wear your jacket on straps like a crossbody bag. Even the most microscopic details feel intensely considered. (That's what quality is, right? Giving something all the attention in the world.) The pants pictured here are the P30A-DS. They're cut from Schoeller 3XDRY Dryskin, which somehow repels liquid on the outside while allowing your sweat to dry on the inside. The angled pockets are big enough to fit a paperback, and the bottom hem is removable—it's like two pants in one. There's this futuristic vibe that permeates them: Wearing jeans afterward feels regressive, like commuting to work in a troika. —CHRIS GAYOMALI Noah Sportswear With a Purpose Brendon Babenzien learned plenty from a decade and a half running design for Supreme: how to make some of the coolest clothes on the planet, for starters. He learned the value of applying that know-how to unheralded pieces like cardigans and rugby shirts, too, and of then constructing those clothes unusually well. But Babenzien also learned that even red-hot brands have limits—and that choosing community over clout might yield its own benefits. So when he launched Noah (tentatively in 2002, then for good in 2015), he grounded the brand in his personal values (racial justice, environmental awareness, ethical production) and history (the equally preppy and punky vibes born of a childhood on Long Island). The result was a sort of Patagonia for the downtown set, or maybe a Supreme for the dads who've moved on from their younger, gnarlier days. Babenzien's flagship shop on Mulberry Street may be only a few blocks from his old Supreme stomping grounds, but his brand occupies a whole new kind of world. —S.S. Evan Kinori The Old Soul of New Menswear Evan Kinori makes things slowly, using hard-to-source materials from Japan and Italy and tricky techniques like French seams and single-needle stitching. He produces everything in small, hand-numbered batches, mostly in California, and personally inspects each piece before shipping it from his studio in San Francisco. The result is a kind of invisible meticulousness. At first glance, Kinori's simple field shirts, single-pleated pants, cropped zip jackets, and crewneck cardigans don't reveal the labor that went into them. They don't have the machine-made sheen of clothes made in bulk in far-flung factories. They come with wrinkles and smell like freshly smudged palo santo. They're clothes that invite you to wear them hard, with everything you've got, until the wheels fall off, which they never will. Kinori trained as a patternmaker before launching his brand, so he's well versed in the unsexy ways of building gear to last. Each Evan Kinori collection is a slight refinement of the one prior, featuring new fabrics and a small number of fresh silhouettes. In Kinori's world things move at a deliberate pace, and there's no virtue in the new. Quality is proven with time. —N.J. Salvatore Ferragamo Nearly a Century of Fashion Breakthroughs Before introducing his first menswear collection at Pitti Uomo in Florence last June, Salvatore Ferragamo creative director Paul Andrew declared in no uncertain terms that he would not be chasing trends on the runway. “You go into any so-called luxury fashion house, and menswear is predominantly about hoodies and sweatpants and tank tops and T-shirts with logos all over them,” he said. “I don't really find that luxurious.” Andrew's vision of luxury for the 100-year-old house centers instead on sartorial staples re-energized for a young fashion fan. Who wants to wear sweatpants, a logo hoodie, or sneakers after seeing Ferragamo's flattering trousers crafted in dusty shades of napa leather? Or an oversized cotton parka nipped just so at the waist? Or chunky moccasin loafers with punkish studs instead of banker bits? Andrew has discovered a potent fashion formula befitting the Salvatore Ferragamo name. —S.H. Marine Serre Upcycled Optimism For Marine Serre, whose moon-print logo you are surely familiar with, sustainable design is a vivacious act of extreme creative courage. Serre, who launched her label in 2017 at age 26 following stints at Maison Margiela and Raf Simons's Dior, channels Margiela's unorthodox approach to materials—antique carpets become tank tops; fake fur, leather, and bedspreads turn up as fresh outerwear; and a bisected gymnastics ball is her signature It bag. She's innovative and experimental, but her shapes are culled from centuries of fashion history. In short, they look like nothing else. Indeed, Serre's ability to confront the future so directly has made her work strangely prophetic, most notably in her air-filtration masks and the shell-shocked atmosphere of her runway shows. But there's an inherent optimism in Serre's designs: It's not the apocalypse she imagines but civilization building anew after the disaster. The triumph of her upcycling is that it makes a sartorial statement that the junk, waste, and regrets of the past can be the stuff of a better future, with a new idea of beauty. —R.T.
