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There’s no lazier cliché in menswear writing than deeming a garment—or a whole outfit—versatile enough to take you “from the boardroom to the bar.” And yet, sometimes you really do wake up, push down your anxiety enough to peek at your Google Calendar, and find yourself faced with a godforsaken gauntlet of coffee dates, meetings that could’ve been emails, dinner parties, gallery openings, movie premieres, reunion tours, royal coronations, whatever.
On those occasions—the days you leave home at the crack of dawn and don’t return till the crack dealers are your only companions left on the subway—you need a look that’s functional enough to pass muster in a wide swath of environments but distinctive enough that you still look like yourself. In other words: An outfit that can take you from the boardroom to the bar.
Here’s my go-to formula for exactly that, concocted entirely using grails from the good folks at SSENSE.
Good-Boy Shirts
Let’s start sensible: Buttoning up a nice, crisp dress shirt is still your most direct route to outfit respectability. Especially when paired with…
Up in Knots
…an honest-to-goodness necktie. Reads like an act of civility in a workplace setting and a subversive swerve just about anywhere else. And for those keeping score at home: It’s still four-in-hand knots only on this side.
Sleeveless Wonders
Time to funk things up a little. The right sweater vest will deliver a punch of funk and character, pack just enough warmth to offset your overzealous office A/C in the spring and summer, and slide seamlessly beneath all manner of jackets and blazers come fall and winter.
Unbound Bottoms
Here’s the real linchpin of the whole operation: Your pants gotta be weird as hell. Ideally they’re cut loose and comfortable, so you’re not spending all day feeling restricted in tautly-tailored dress trousers or stiff-as-a-board selvedge denim. But then they also need to break from the relative restraint and tradition of your crisp collared shirt and neatly knotted tie, by way of offbeat tones or brash patterns or alluring textures.
Sultry Slip-Ons
Finish things off with the shoe of the moment: Daintier than a dress shoe, sluttier than a loafer, only a smidge more substantial in the sole than a house slipper. Graceful, effortless, goes with damn-near everything.
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