What’s perhaps most singular about the Harrington is how unsingular it is—that is, it doesn’t belong to any one subculture or time period, but rather appears Zelig-like at fashionable points across history. It’s a style that has felt as much at home with British punk rockers as American Ivy Leaguers, mods and presidents. Arnold Palmer was known to sport an imitator of the G9 from Grenfell, originally known as the Golfer. Ryan O’Neill’s character on Peyton Place wore one, too, such that some American clothiers started marketing the jacket by his name. Perhaps the biggest moment for the Harrington jacket, though, came when Steve McQueen appeared on the cover of Life Magazine, casually riding a motorcycle in an enviably cool, off-white version.

We’re aware of the legacy we’re stepping into with our own take on the Harrington jacket, crafted with cotton cavalry twill (that only gets softer over time) and just the right amount of stretch. So we thought we’d pay our respects to a few of the greats…

“I was turning 40 and going on my own health journey,” he recalls. “And I decided I was ready to do something different with my life.”

Over the course of his tenure, Juice Press has vastly expanded its operations, not only through additional brick-and-mortar stores, but also an online market, which ships everything from cold-pressed beet juice to blue spirulina protein powder.

Ahead of our smoothie collab, we caught up with Karsch to see how he goes about starting his day…

First off, Karsch is addicted to Spelling Bee from The New York Times…
He’ll wake up at 3 in the morning to check out the new puzzle. Sometimes, he’ll fall right back asleep, although other times he’ll play for 10 minutes or so. “I kind of consider it my warm-up brain exercise,” he says.

When he actually gets up…
Karsch drinks a Maca shot, often called “Peruvian ginseng,” which is made from a nutrient-dense vegetable from the Andes. (They’re stocked in his fridge, as well as at Juice Press stores.) Then he’ll drink a double espresso or iced coffee while finishing Spelling Bee. “I have to get to Amazing or Genius before I can do anything else for the day.”

From puzzles to meditation…
Karsch has been trying to meditate more using an app called Open. “Even if I’m not in the mood, when I listen for 10 to 12 minutes, I really resonate with what they’re saying.”

The first call of the day: Karsch’s partner in Long Island City…
“He works harder than me, so I always call him just to catch up and show my support.”

Gym + Juice Press…
Before heading into the office, Karsch hits the gym and drinks one of his favorite Juice Press beverages, Game On. “It’s our lemon-lime electrolyte drink. It’s like a healthy Gatorade.”

Parting thoughts on daily productivity…
”There’s productivity in terms of focus, and then there’s productivity in terms of self-discipline, like creating checklists and detail orientation. I find that I’m better at the former rather than the latter. But I have to self-talk a lot. I have to give myself a break in terms of [maintaining] a certain productivity level. If I just keep chipping away at [a problem], it’s going to unlock. You just have to stay with it…

“For me personally, the best form of optimism is continuous learning. Not only does it keep you young, but it’s a very optimistic thing to feel like there’s always that chance that if you keep learning, eventually something good is going to happen.”

They’re plopped down sometime after the diver scallop tostadas and before the chocolate-y mole poblano, a soul-deep aromatic ring of them surrounding impatient cups of miso consommé and vivid red salsa. Emptied shots of unsolicited Hennessy litter the table. One of my dining companions is, somewhat discordantly, biting into a cheesy double smashburger. I’m not even sure if I’m still hungry? But the tacos, beef birria tacos on squid ink tortillas blanketed in queso, are so rich, and gooey, and crunchy, that I’m powerless to stop at just one before the meal is over.

The man responsible for this glorious smorgasbord is L.T. Smith, the executive chef at Chilte—one of the Southwest’s most inventive restaurants—and the star of our latest campaign. His path to cooking is as surprising as his food: A standout wide receiver in college, he made it to the NFL in 2015 but was released before the season started. In the aftermath, he found a new calling in the culinary world, a collaborative, high-energy environment not dissimilar from the football field.

“I was able to apply all those things from sports right into the kitchen,” Smith says. “The grit, the perseverance, working under pressure, building a team. It was just such a natural fit.”

Chilte has humble origins. It started under a 10x10 tent at the Mesa Farmers’ Market, where Smith and his wife sold tacos on hand-pressed tortillas, deploying some of the fine dining techniques he picked up during his training.

“A little before it was trendy, we did the birria taco,” he recalls. “And the second we did it, I knew we weren’t going to move away from it. It’s still a staple on our menu today.”

Since opening in 2023, Chilte has picked up a number of serious accolades. Esquire and Bon Appétit each included it on their list of Best New Restaurants in 2023. In 2024, Smith was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs. And just last year, he was a semifinalist for a James Beard award—essentially the foodie version of an Oscar.

Despite all the attention, Smith is still unapologetically himself. On one wall of the restaurant, flanked by a hodgepodge of funky, cacti-inflected artwork, the words “Me Vale Madre” are displayed in a combination of turquoise neon and graffiti. Translation: I don’t give a damn.

“If you really want something that defines me,” he says, “I put a burger on the menu because I like a burger, and it bangs.”

In college, Smith was known to mix strawberry ice cream with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and top meatball subs with chocolate chip cookies—a so-crazy-it-just-might-work creation that would stump even the most stoned guy in your dorm. At Chilte, he focuses on sourcing fresh, local ingredients, if only to use them in unexpected ways.

“It’s important to challenge people’s palette—to challenge people’s ideal of what Mexican or Southwest or Black food is,” Smith says.

While his vision for the restaurant may be singular, Smith still sees cooking as a fundamentally team sport. And he’s willing to play at whatever position he’s most needed: Even after a day-long shoot with a friendly (if particular) menswear brand—not to mention, a busy dinner rush—Smith was still planning on heading back into the kitchen after close, to fill in for a dishwasher who called out sick.

“You know, we get to tell stories and use fun ingredients, but building that team and that community is badass,” he says. “I’m ambitious to a fault. I’m always looking for a new challenge. I love things that are uncomfortable—I love seeing people grow, and growing with them.”

Before we took off, we sat down for a cup of coffee with co-owner Jill Arden Lukeman to discuss the inspiration for the shop, her favorite menu items, and her gifting strategy heading into the holidays.

What was the impetus for opening the shop in the first place?
When I was a kid, I wanted to open a bread company. It was going to sell half loaves of bread and be called Singles Bread. I was in fourth grade, and I thought, okay, one single person will be shopping…they’ll see somebody else in the aisle…it’ll be great marketing. That never happened, but I’ve always had this entrepreneurial itch. Moving out to Rowayton from the city, I really missed the experience of a community-driven coffee shop. And I felt like there was an opportunity out here. So much of what we’ve tried to build is bringing something that people from the city want and bridging it with the history of this town.

How important is the community aspect to Arden’s?
For me, that’s been the most rewarding part. It’s been beyond what I’d anticipated. We kind of built the space thinking, ‘Let’s see what it becomes.’ And the community has dictated a lot of that. Window Shopping Wednesdays [during which our pop-up was hosted] is a perfect example.

It’s very much a living, breathing thing. So many talented people live here with very diverse backgrounds and experiences. That’s the magic of it.

What inspired the overall decor and vibe in here? It’s so specific.
We wanted it to be a reflection of the town and this area [which is close to the water]. But we also wanted it to feel travel-inspired. Some people will say, ‘Oh, it reminds me of California or it reminds me of Portugal,’ and so it kind of resonates differently with different people, which I love. But we wanted to keep the space relatively simple and let the people be the color in the room.

What’s your favorite item on the menu?
I get asked this a lot, and it changes so often because our menu is seasonal. My favorite item of all time is only available for, like, a month and a half, and that’s our tomato toast. We use these heirloom tomatoes, we basically only serve it in September, and it’s just the simplest toast with sea salt flakes.

What’s your go-to coffee order?
Usually I’ll have a drip coffee for the first cup, which is what I’m having right now. Our coffee, Ilse Coffee, is unbelievable, all single-origin, super thoughtful. I actually had the chance to go with them to Colombia on a coffee sourcing trip when we first opened, which was the experience of a lifetime. And then [for my second cup], I’ll switch to a latte. I’m an oat milk gal.

What are you giving as gifts for the holidays this year?
I’m in the process of opening a vintage store for home furnishings and small wares. It’s called The Mariner and the Muse. And so I’m trying to gift my friends and family recycled treasures from there with little stories that are specific to each of them.

Any favorites from our pop-up here?
My partner, Skyler, he’s a big Mack Weldon enthusiast. I want the oatmeal-colored cable-knit sweater. Obviously, the boxers are so comfortable—it’s like I want to steal them for myself. And he has the sweatpants, but he only has them in navy. So maybe I need to get him the Sage Heather over there. Those three items for me are crowd-pleasers.

I still don’t know who actually owned this cardigan; I never found out where it came from. It was way too big on me, which meant it was even bigger on the octogenarian store owner, who sat across from me gossiping while blithely glueing book bindings and plastic-wrapping dust jackets. On arctic winter days, I would wrap myself up in this oversized wool sweater, itchy in a homey way, and read back copies of The New Yorker, interrupted by the occasional customer buying or browsing for a book. When my shift was over, I would drape it back over the chair; arriving the next day, I might find my coworker wearing it, reading Nietzsche or Freud. Suffice to say, the cardigan didn’t belong to anyone. It belonged to the store.

Insofar as the bookstore was tantamount to a home—an idealized version for an aspiring writer such as myself—that communal cardigan served as the ultimate house cardigan. What is a house cardigan, you ask? It’s a cardigan you wear in your house, while you’re clacking away at The Great American Novel, reading romantic poetry, preparing coq au vin, or doing none of those activities. It’s not like you can’t wear it outside of the home. It’s just that the home is where it feels…most at home.

Thus the house cardigan is typically a chunky, woolen affair—loose-fitting, cable-knit, musty. Pockets are paramount. Slippers are recommended. Pants are optional. Right now, my personal choice is our very own WARMKNIT Wool Cardigan, in a size up. (Mustiness not included.)

Should you require some outside inspiration, though, see below for a few standouts of the genre.

Logi first got on his board as a teenager, in waters cold enough to give the average person hypothermia. Since turning pro, he’s surfed everywhere from California to Indonesia; he’s also been the subject of a Netflix documentary, wherein he manages to catch some waves under the Northern Lights. (Which, crazy sentence.)

“There is more surf to be had in those [other] places—it’s easier to find good swells and the winds aren’t as wild,” he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “But there is a fickleness about Iceland that makes you appreciate every wave.”

We spent the day with Logi, starting at his home outside Reykjavík before heading out to one his favorite surf spots. Along the way, we chatted about his most memorable surf, how he stays warm, and his new favorite hobby.

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Knowing the water is as cold as it is, what drew you to get in there in the first place?When I was a kid, I used to see photos of people surfing and I was just drawn to it. And I had a friend who would let me try for the first time. I made a deal with my mom that if i would pass all my school tests, she would buy me some gear and I would start surfing.

How did you learn to tolerate the cold?
The cold is just something that you learn to navigate. You just know it’s going to be cold and [eventually] it doesn’t surprise you anymore.

Can you describe the difference between surfing in Iceland and surfing elsewhere?
The difference between surfing here and warmer climates, first of all, it’s the crowd—here we don’t have that many surfers, so there aren’t that many people battling for each wave.

But it’s harder to surf here. The weather is more inconsistent and unreliable. I’ve had friends come over and some absolutely love it. Some don’t. It just depends on where your interest in adventure lies.

What’s your most memorable surfing experience?
The one time me and [my friend] Elli were surfing together on the summer solstice—you know, in Iceland we have 24 hours of daylight. To have waves that time of year is pretty rare, and to have conditions perfectly lining up at this place where we surfed was very special.

What’s been your most challenging surfing experience?
One time we went up to the West Fjords [region of Iceland]. We had been traveling for a few days shooting a video. I just didn’t have a lot of energy, and we had to hike this path to get to the wave, and once we hiked there we went surfing. On the way back, I was absolutely finished.

When you go surfing and you catch the perfect wave…can you describe what that feels like?
It’s the best feeling ever. When you’ve been chasing waves for weeks, and when you finally get that perfect day, you release so much dopamine and happy hormones that I’ve often had, like, a hormone hangover the day after.

Can you make a case for why Iceland is the best place to surf in the world?
It’s not [laughs]. It’s absolutely not. But we have good days once in a while. As a surfing destination, it’s hard work but it’s fun to pursue.

How important is it to stay warm before and after a session?
I feel like the most important part of staying warm before a session is to eat energetic food before you go, like fatty foods. But also, to keep moving. Even on the coldest days of winter, if there’s a lot of wind and you’re moving around quite a bit, you don’t necessarily feel it. But as soon as you stop moving, the cold creeps in.

After a after cold surf, it’s important to have a good first layer. So I usually wear a lot of wool—a wool sweater and an insulating windbreaker does the trick.

One last question: How did you get into fly fishing? What do you like about it? In some ways, it feels like the opposite of cold-water surfing…
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a hard time relaxing and slowing things down. A couple of years ago, when one of my childhood friends introduced me to fly fishing, I could immediately feel extending [the line] in the water by the river and just focusing on each cast, and the next cast and the next. It just creates this kind of focus out of nature, and time flies by without me even noticing.

I wanted to pick up this conversation, albeit from a different angle, with Nico Lazaro. A crucial voice of the menswear commentariat, Lazaro was a founding member of Grailed, and spent the last few years heading up brand storytelling for Buck Mason. He also runs a popular Substack called The Bengal Stripe, where a recent post caught my attention: “Style Authority Is a Lie.”

Like Dougherty, Lazaro is of the mind that quote-unquote “real” style is much more a byproduct of the life you lead than any adherence to the advice of voices on high—particularly when the TikTok-ificaiton of menswear (see also: everything) has laid bare the relative inefficacy of those voices in the first place.

“The so-called authorities look more like weather vanes than prophets,” Lazaro argues. “It seems like just yesterday the industry decided slim trousers were dead; now those on the fringe are telling you wide trousers are already over. Authority dissolves the moment you realize it’s just taste in motion, constantly repositioned for clicks, engagement, or sales.”

Taken by this sentiment, I called Lazaro to talk about his article, trend cycle velocity, style experimentation, and the value (or non-value) of gatekeepers in 2025.

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Apropos of your overall claim here, I find there to be a real oversaturation of “style authorities” now, to the point where it’s difficult to hear the signal through the noise. How does one respond to that?
What I’ve found helpful is not necessarily hard and fast rules, but more inspiration and guidance. One of the people [I looked to] was Glenn O’Brien, who was the original style guy at GQ. If you look at the advice he was giving, a lot of it wasn’t about the clothes, but more about how you carry yourself and develop confidence. If you’re able to have a clear idea of what your values are and what you bring to the table, the clothes kind of come after that—as a natural extension of who you are as a person.

Something you bring up in the article is the speed with which certain menswear “takes” or trends age nowadays. Can you talk about that a bit?
The world of menswear has been cracked open. With the advent of TikTok, there’s so much exposure which leads to quicker fatigue. And because there’s less substance there, it’s more about virality, and catching your eye, and being exciting in the moment.

You look at older men that dress well and that’s something they’ve developed over a very long period of time. When I think back to what got me inspired about fashion, it was kids in skinny jeans. But that hasn’t lasted for me. What has lasted is being inspired by the way my grandparents’ generation dressed, and the older men I was around growing up just having this casual confidence in how they presented themselves to the world. There are other elements at play there beyond the clothes that you need to cultivate if you want to have a real, enduring sense of style.

To what you’re describing, do you think about ways that guys might slow these cycles down?
Yeah, I think the more you can educate and inform yourself [the better]. I don’t mean reading books and stuff, but when it comes to developing personal style, I think you need to go through a period of exploration, understanding your body and how things fit you, how you like to move around in the world and whether your clothes add to that or take away from it.

You need to try things. I can say for myself that [the reason] why people trust and value my opinion now is because I did a lot of experimentation. A lot of that is failure, a lot of it is walking out the door and looking dumb and feeling embarrassed. But that’ll lead you to the stuff you feel good about.

In general, do you think we’re heading towards a place of greater experimentation?
The optimist in me is saying, because there’s so much exposure and fatigue, there’s no rules at this point. You can kind of wear whatever you want, and people might have opinions on that, but no one’s going to say you’re on-trend or not.

This is sort of a straw man argument, but I feel like I’ve seen more and more takes that along the lines of “Gatekeepers are good, actually.” What do you make of that?
I don’t think gatekeeping has much of a place anymore. I think that gatekeeping can be a way to try to preserve things in amber. And I don’t think that’s necessarily the healthiest way to move through the world. It’s important to understand history and the context that gives things value or power. But I don’t think that’s the only valuable part of clothing. And I think breathing new life into things is just as valuable.

There’s always going to be people who ruin things for you. But it’s an interesting time [for said people] to reflect on, like, “Why does that irk you so much?” I do want to see a better-dressed world, but it’s really up to people to take it upon themselves to do the research or not.

Something I took away from your article, too, is that it’s harder than ever to identify what a particular gatekeeper’s real agenda is.
A lot of new voices in this sphere are trying to present themselves as authorities, and for me it was interesting to explore that because it’s perpetuating a sort of false ideology in my mind.

A lot of gatekeeping comes from this desire to maintain some level of authority, but when you look at the bigger picture, [style] is still entirely personal. At the end of the day, no one can take that away from you.

Any last words of wisdom you want to offer?
Style is iterative, and something you’re constantly growing and evolving. Anything you look at and think, “Oh, that’s cool, I wonder if I could pull that off”—just give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen?

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

I was starting to develop a complex. So I went. For the culture and cooler weather and, maybe most of all, for the drinks.

In Ireland, the pub still serves as the country’s beating social heart. It’s a gathering place in good times and bad, and every neighborhood seems to have an anchor pub on the corner serving pints and provisions. If you want to hunker down among dark woods and sip a properly poured Guinness or a native whiskey, perhaps while a live band provides a bit of craic, the pub provides. But Ireland evolves just like everywhere else, which means that a rising cocktail scene, modern wine bars, and new craft breweries and distilleries now live alongside centuries-old bars and historic hotels. And while it’s obviously impossible to capture an entire country during one trip, it’s this merger of tradition with innovation that stood out during my 10-day bar crawl across Ireland.

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Dublin: Where Old Meets New

The science hasn’t quite caught up with the anecdotal evidence, but years of experience have confirmed that nothing kickstarts your system after a long flight quite like a cold pint. Food doesn't hurt, either, but you have to be careful not to eat yourself into a post-flight nap when the sun’s still out.

For my first drink of the trip, I went to Ireland’s oldest bar, The Brazen Head, to enjoy Ireland’s most famous beer, Guinness. In the U.S., anything over the century mark qualifies as very, very old, but that doesn’t scratch the surface in Europe. This pub was purportedly founded in 1198—a mythical time that was after the dinosaurs but before the plague. The arched stone entrance confirms that this place is indeed old, but don’t worry—they’ve updated things a few times over the past 800-plus years. Enter through a patio that, with some luck, might even be sunny, then explore the cozy confines within. Check out the 1750s-era fireplace flanked by framed photos, and the bric-a-brac—vintage beer steins here, an old suit of armor there—stashed around the bar. Once you’ve settled in, fill your table with pints and plates, sticking to traditional serves like the beef stew or fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce, and consider all that’s transpired within these walls.

Other top-notch pubs include John Kavanagh the Gravediggers, which is situated next to a historic cemetery, hence the name, and The Palace Bar, which has fed and watered Irish writers and intellectuals since it opened in 1823 (Irish poet and novelist Patrick Kavanagh described it as “a most wonderful temple of art”). It also happens to stock one of the city’s best whiskey selections. Then there’s Temple Bar, a bright-red pub adorned with flowers that draws visitors from all over the world for pints and photo opps. Each is worth a stop to soak in the culture, and the Guinness—yes, it really does taste better in Ireland. (According to locals and a Guinness Brewery staffer, the prevailing theory for this is freshness (it’s made down the road) and a high turnover rate, so there’s always a new keg ready to go. Also, Irish pubs take pride in cleaning their tap lines—something American sports bars could stand to replicate.)

When you’re ready for a cocktail, try Bar 1661. It’s named for the year that Ireland’s native spirit, poitín, was banned (it was legalized again in 1997). Poitín, pronounced “pot-cheen,” is a high-proof, un-aged spirit made from grains or potatoes that’s like a precursor to Irish whiskey. Sample a couple at Bar 1661, then turn to its cocktail menu, where you’ll find the city’s most interesting drinks. Case in point: the Sanbokan Sun, made with poitín, rum, fino sherry, apricot, butternut squash, fenugreek, tea, lime, coconut, and marmalade bitters. Other fine cocktails can be had at 1661’s sibling bar, The Sackville Lounge, and at Sidecar, a good-looking spot with creative drinks and Art Deco style. None would feel out of place in London or New York, but each brings its own sense of Irish hospitality and local flair.

If you’re pressed for time and want to hit multiple spots under one roof, check out The Shelbourne, a historic hotel located just off St. Stephen’s Green that houses several great bars on the premises. I can confirm that the batched freezer martini works equally well as an aperitif and a nightcap.

Galway: Where Music and Drinks Flow Freely

This charming waterside town is highly walkable and primed for pub crawls. Start at The King’s Head, which sits in an 800-year-old building and has multiple bars and a full-service restaurant across its three levels. The pub hosts free live music seven nights a week, so stick around to see a show. Or skip over to Tigh Neachtain, a mere infant at just 130 years old, but one of the best bars in Galway to see traditional Irish music. The Crane Bar and O’Connell’s Bar are two more worthy additions to your list, both offering good pints and music.

Galway’s cocktail scene can’t compete with Dublin’s, but should you require a properly made mixed drink, that can be arranged. I enjoyed the cocktails at Rúibín, which also happens to be one of the city’s better restaurants, so that’s an easy two-birds-one-martini situation. The food is contemporary Irish, with lots of local proteins and seasonal produce dressed up with chef-y touches. And the drinks match—I’m still thinking about the clarified punch made with kombu-infused rum. Buddha Bar serves fun and creative drinks, though you have to like puns to get through the menu, and Hyde Bar has one of the city’s best gin selections. Ask to see the Gin Bible, and you can browse through 500 bottles from around the world.

The Aran Islands: Where Rough Seas Require Stiff Drinks

Taking a ferry to the Aran Islands seemed like a pretty foolproof plan, but the waves had other ideas. The boat swayed and dipped aggressively in the rough waters, and many (many) passengers got sick on the way. It was not a pretty sight, but I managed to narrowly escape such a fate. Once we arrived on Inisheer, the smallest and most eastern of the Aran Islands, I thanked the mercifully stable ground, steadied my resolve, and set out for a few drinks.

I tell you, nothing tasted better than that first post-ferry Guinness. Except maybe the local Spiddal River ale, or that glass of Aran Islands whiskey. Or that second post-ferry Guinness. Get a drink and a hearty stew at the Inis Oírr Hotel, or a drink and a sandwich at Tigh Ned. Then make a small prayer to your preferred sea god—that would be Manannán mac Lir, if you want to praise local—before getting back on that boat.

Small Town, Ireland: Where More Pubs Await

Irish author James Joyce wrote in his novel Ulysses: “The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue...”

After 10 days in Ireland, I know relatively very little, but a lot more than I did going in. And much of what I learned came with a pint in hand while seated beside a friendly local. So it’s worth venturing outside the major hubs of Dublin and Galway and visiting a few other cities and small towns as time allows. Maybe you’ll hit Cork, Killarney, Waterford, Kilkenny, or Kinsale. Maybe you’ll head over to Dingle, or drive up the coast to see what Donegal is all about. Whatever your itinerary, leave some room for beer-related side quests, because Ireland is best experienced via pub.

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What is a passeggiata? Well, it’s a walk—but a walk Italian style—per Merriam-Webster, “a traditional evening stroll in the central plaza by a town's residents.” It’s taking a post-prandial turn around the neighborhood, gossiping with passersby, looking at stuff, digesting your dinner, doing nothing in particular. It’s a cousin to the promenade, less productive than a constitutional, more communally oriented than a ramble. It’s like the term “sprezzatura” got up from its rattan café chair and started ambling about.

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, passeggiata made its way into English in the 1950s, likely through the writings of playwright Tennessee Williams, an expert on lethargic indulgence if there ever was one. Here is its (likely) debut in Williams’ early novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone: “The chair was always turned at such an angle that both could watch the fashionable parade of the sidewalk at that hour when Romans go for their passeggiata. It was an agreeable habit, the late afternoon passeggiata, that Americans easily fell into, so that from the barbershop one could see, at that hour, practically everyone that counted in Paolo’s world of wealth and elegant delinquency.”

As a cosmopolitan reader, you might be thinking: Wait, doesn’t English already have a loanword that glamorizes walking around? Yes, it does, but the differences between the two are instructive. The French noun “flâneur”—“an idle man-about-town,” per Merriam-Webster again—has been gracing English since 1854. Flâneurs got famous in the 19th century for being pretentious rich loafers with nothing better to do than meander about looking annoyingly handsome and indifferent. Unemployed behavior, as they say on the internet now. For a certain type, there was no higher aspiration than to be one of these proto-hipster latter-day dandies, buoyed by the condescension of the non-participant, endlessly wandering the streets of Paris.

If you think this resembles the aimless strolling above, I would remind you that there are different ways of doing nothing. The flâneur walks instead of working; the taker of a passeggiata has finished their work. They’re not wandering to new places; they’re savoring the place they live. A flâneur is someone outside society taking it in; the passeggiata is a way of existing within a community.

Consequently, there are some impediments to the contemporary American hoping to fall into the passeggiata habit back home. For example, we live in a distressingly atomised society largely without physical town squares, most of what passes for communal interaction now happens on a smartphone, and everyone’s somehow both busy and lazy. But that’s all the more reason to take your first passeggiata this evening. Be the friendly strolling stranger you wish to see in the world. Your surroundings will grow more familiar each day, and you and those around you will grow more familiar to each other. Maybe you’ll start trading neighborly nods with someone. That’s a start.

Myself, I go on two walks every day, one first thing in the morning, the second just before dinner. The first gears up my brain to start the day, the second tells me it’s time to stop striving. The morning walk is too early to be a passeggiata, but my evening walk probably isn’t one either. I’m walking like a New Yorker, or at least like an American, which is to say, way too fast and with noise-cancelling over-ear headphones blasting, like, lectures on 20th-century China. In other words, I’m still turning this time into something productive and solitary. I’d probably be happier if I went on a passeggiata instead.

The real value of these words is less to introduce you to a fresh concept than to make you reconsider how you approach what you already do, to do what you do in a better way. I may not know my neighbors, but a few blocks away someone keeps chickens in their yard. They’re kind of locally famous. At the end of the day, I like to go see them. I say, “Hello, chickens.” It makes me feel like I live somewhere. Maybe tonight I’ll at least take my headphones off when I pass by.

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You know the kind I’m talking about. A rakish, loose-knit thing in an off-white shade or hue that complements the sea. Salt-sprayed and worn, like an old paperback you bring to the beach. A sweater you can imagine emerging on the bow of a sailboat, or strung around the bare shoulders of an aging Frenchman, or on a log next to a bonfire where some dude is playing “Wonderwall” (again). Something like this.

There remains in this world of ease and efficiency something deliciously profligate about the summer sweater. Not just because of the wealthy Cape Cod of it all. But because the article itself can feel wonderfully excessive, running counter as it does to its own primary function (i.e., keeping you warm). Unless you’re on a fishing expedition, a summer sweater remains a contradiction in terms—a vestige of a time in menswear, replete with suits and void of shorts, where guys never seemed to actually break a sweat.

To wear one today, then, is to say, “Not this time, sun.” To say, “I’m totally cool and not at all perspiring right now.” To greet a chill in the air and remark, “This old thing?” before throwing it on and staring ponderously towards the horizon.

Below, a little inspiration (or motivation), should the humidity subside before summer’s end…

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For our latest campaign, though, we managed to convince him to stay put for some R&R at the Rockaway Hotel. Over a Loverboy or two on the rooftop, Kyle shared some tips, takes, and hard-earned wisdom on summers in the city.

The first thing you think of when you think of summer in New York.
A cold bevvy on a rooftop, overlooking the best city in the world.

The quintessential New York summer event.
Governor’s Ball. Summertime in the city just screams good times, good music…Gov Ball.

Your most coveted restaurant reservation (and your go-to order).
4 Charles. And I’m probably starting with the burger with extra-thick bacon and finishing with a porterhouse…[Editor’s note: I think Kyle’s joking?]

Your most frequented bar (and your go-to order).
Gitano took over this incredible space on Pier 17. If I’m not drinking a Loverboy, I’m ordering a mezcal margarita with a Tajin rim.

Your NYC song of summer.
Calvin Harris’s “Blessings.”

Flip-flops on the subway: Yay or nay.
Flip-flops anywhere—subway included.

Best mode of summer transportation: ferry or Citi Bike.
Citi Bike, all day.

The most underrated place to be in the city during the summer.
You don’t have to look too far or get too creative, just find yourself a nice little coffee shop.

The most overrated thing to do in New York during the summer.
You really can’t go wrong with summer in New York, but try to stay away from tourist traps in the heat.

Your biggest summer pet peeve.
The beach is great. But my biggest pet peeve is sand everywhere….is it worth it? It’s debatable.

You’re mayor of New York for one day: What policy do you implement to improve summer in the city?
If it’s a beautiful day, I’m going to let every single bar and restaurant empty out into the street, serve people cold ones, and let them mingle in the concrete playground that is New York City.

Your best advice for staying cool during summer in the city.
When you’re on a New York City street that’s when you’re going to feel the hottest, because the asphalt is just radiating heat. So if you’re trying to avoid the sticky-icky, just get off the street level.

The absolute worst place to find yourself in New York during the summer (be specific).
In the subway, having just missed the train, and you’re there for another 10 minutes and sweating through your entire outfit.

The thing you miss most about New York when you’re away for the weekend.
This is going to sound pretty cliché, but the hustle and bustle—the work-hard, play-hard attitude that the city thrives off of. Every time I travel, things are just moving at a snail’s pace.

You’re famous on the show for saying “Summer should be fun.” What’s your one non-negotiable for a “fun” summer in the city?
Don’t worry about losing your summer body in the summer. Get out there, eat, drink, and be merry. We’ll worry about it in the fall.

Fortunately, the universe is boundless in its creativity, its wisdom, its grace. And so for those of us who refuse to settle for the oversaturated mediocrity of the Aperol Spritz, we’ve been rewarded with its delightfully louche alternative: The Spaghett.

The Spaghett (or Spagett) is a study in summertime simplicity: an ice-cold Miller High Life combined with a shot of Aperol and lemon juice. Despite the name, it’s not some niche drink besuited Italian men enjoy on the streets of Florence. Apparently, it originated in Baltimore (kind of the Florence of Maryland?); back in 2016, a local barkeep had the clever idea to make a bastardized version of an Aperol Spritz—subbing out actual champagne for the “champagne of beers.”

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There’s a DIY ethos to the humble Spaghett. Ideally, you take a measured swig of the High Life and pour the shot in yourself—an elegant task that nonetheless requires a brute swiftness to perfect. With beer instead of wine, and lemon juice instead of an orange garnish, the drink is never in danger of becoming sickly-sweet; it carries the subtle flavors of the liqueur before hitting you with that shandy-ish burst of citrus. Plus, it’s easy to pack for a day at the park or the beach—just batch the Aperol/lemon juice mixture in a thermos, pick up a sixer, and be on your way.

If you’re in New York, a great place to order a Spaghett without having to explain it to your bartender is Park Slope Ale House—they make theirs with Campari instead of Aperol, so it’s slightly more bitter (my personal preference). Otherwise, here’s how to make one on your own:

The Spaghett

½ ounce Aperol or Campari

½ ounce lemon juice

12-oz bottle of Miller High Life (no substitutions)

1. Mix the Aperol or Campari with the lemon juice in a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake well, then strain into a shot glass.

2. Crack open a cold one and drink until the neck of the bottle is clear.

3. Decisively pour the shot into the beer and enjoy.

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First up is Jonathan Thompson. An award-winning travel journalist, he’s currently the host of the Discovery GO series Adventure Cities, where you’re liable to find him hiking in Geneva, ice canoeing in Québec City, river boating in Australia, or otherwise living up to the name of his show.

The object that makes you feel most at home.
My car—a 2023 Mini Cooper. It’s weird, after a few days away, I really miss the sensation of driving it, and the familiarity of being behind the wheel.

The one non-clothing item you have to pack for any trip.
My St. Christopher pendant. I always wear it when I travel—not for any religious reason. It’s just a source of comfort, as I know I’ve survived some utterly ridiculous situations while it’s been around my neck. It’s still here, and so am I. And that's a real comfort.

The best seat you’ve ever sat in.
An F-18 Super Hornet Fighter Jet with the Blue Angels. I was very proud of the fact that I didn’t puke on that flight—I did black out at 7Gs though.

The person outside of your family you’re most yourself around.
One of my closest friends is Lee Thompson, the founder of Flash Pack. It’s funny when you’re just completely on the same wavelength as somebody else, and even though we live on separate continents we always pick up exactly where we left off.

The topic you never tire of discussing.
Football—both types, for as long as you have time. Both of my teams play in blue—Everton and the Dallas Cowboys—and they both last won a trophy in the 1995 season, so it’s been a rocky few decades. I guess I like to share that pain with anyone who'll listen.

The joke you can rely on to make people laugh.
I have a well stocked quiver of dad jokes, but what normally makes people laugh the most is when I try to say "water" in an American accent.

The most comfortable place in any airport (minus the lounge).
That sweet first step after security, when all the stress is over, everything is back in your bag and the airport is your oyster.

What you consider your personal “comfort food.”
I always resort to British recipes when I fancy comfort food. So Toad-in-the-hole, Lancashire hotpot, things like that. The ultimate British comfort food, though, has to be Shepherd’s pie. (With lamb, not beef, obviously).

The piece of clothing you’d wear every day if you could.
Mack Weldon’s Maverick Tech Chino. Honestly, I’ve been high up mountains in them and I’ve been in high-end restaurants with them. There’s nothing they can’t do and nowhere they can’t go. I LOVE them. [Editor’s note: We did not ask Jonathan to say this. But we also agree.]

A moment of the day that brings you peace.
Whenever I can open a book, even if it's only for 10 minutes. I’m a firm believer in the maxim that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Now my perfect book time is on my porch in the early evening, after my one-year-old son has gone to bed.

The specific time and place you’d most eagerly return to.
May 1995, the last time my football team, Everton, won a trophy. Then I’d hang around for 8 months to watch the Dallas Cowboys with the Super Bowl too.

The weather you’d choose if the weather never changed.
This is easy. I love bluebird days. Cold and crisp…but with that sharp sun in the sky. Maybe a little breeze. The perfect kind of day for the Stormchaser jacket.

A song that soothes your soul.
“Shiny Happy People” by REM. The first single I ever bought. It always makes me smile and makes me think of good days past... and good days to come.

Words of wisdom you can’t live without.
All the best words of wisdom seem to come from Winston Churchill. And one I always remember is: “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

The last time you left your comfort zone.
This morning, I jumped off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. I’m actually afraid of heights…but I’m more afraid of failure.

I blame the stories I read and watched as a kid for creating in me this romantic image of an adventurer in flap-pocket safari jackets, uncovering lost wisdom, forgotten civilizations. Wonder. Astonishment.

The last time I was in this part of the world, I had come for front row seats to the Mayan apocalypse, in December 2012 (and if nothing extraordinary happened then, I guess none of us realized how slowly the world would end, in tiny increments). Much has changed in the time since. Tulum, which was still then a spit of beach with a dozen-odd hotels, ranging from beachy to boutique, now looks a bit like a burnout who has been hitting spring break as hard as a hurricane ever since. The new railway, intended to make easier the visits to the magical Mayan archeological sites, is indeed open. But the new airport, deep in the jungle, felt, on my arrival, like a bizarre civic works stunt, massive infrastructure for an Olympics or something that will never come.

When I arrived, in late February of this year, the Hertz desk at the airport was overrun, and I was told I’d have to wait some hour and a half for a car to be washed. I said that a wash was wholly unnecessary and managed to get out of there, not with a charming old Land Rover as I had imagined, but a kind of apple-red Kia utility vehicle in an hour and twenty-five minutes flat. If you want to make Itzamná laugh, tell him about your plans, etc.

And I had been planning this visit for ages, gone through myriad drafts of itineraries, with various partners in crime signing on to join, before cancelling. But I normally travel alone. I’m probably more accustomed to going solo. And I love a road trip—I can stop whenever, wherever, and change plans on a whim without having to worry about someone else’s schedule.

Except of course the ticket offices of the ruins themselves. Because of the crazy delay in securing my car at the airport I had to fight my way into the Tulum archeological site, to join the very last group of tourists admitted to the compound of ruins sitting atop the blazing turquoise sea. By the time I’d caught up with the group, having sprinted through the humid tropical heat, I was drenched, and blinking in the sun.

I am very hard on my gear and my clothes when I travel, often bundling together one batch of things for three, four, six, ten months on the road. Crumpled into a suitcase, battered around on safari and assaulted with the salty heat near the sea. So the notion of linen is not entirely incidental. If I look, in my wandering through airports, a bit like I’ve been on the run from Belloq and the Iquitos, I love the versatility of a linen capsule wardrobe. And in the books and tales that I love, it seems as though the explorers in the jungle are always having to be ready to weather the worst and then pop into the embassy or some institution to raise money, to attend a gala or whatever. So when Mack Weldon told me they had a new line to tough-wearing, easy-care linen, I thought what better place in the world to take it for a spin.

When I left the Tulum ruins, I got a note from my hotel that their power was out. The whole city grid was down. The charms of the jungle, they’d said, and offered me an exchange, with a stay at their property in the colonial town of Valladolid. Which was sort of perfect. After a couple hours’ drive, I arrived at this old stone town, beginning to soften in the purpley dusk light, its walls painted in mustard and watermelon beginning to glow orange with the last rays of the sun, and checked into the hotel, their only guest.

From Valladolid, I would make my little daily sorties, to Chichén Itzá and the nearby cenotes, rambling around, taking pictures, rereading Charles Portis’s Gringos—looking for, what, exactly? Adventure, surely. And a connection to a romantic ideal of my childhood, perhaps. Looking for the me I had always hoped to be.

Because maybe the thing is just to set out. Maybe the paths themselves, and even their end points, are incidental. All the gold is gone, carted off to the (wrong) museums. What treasure there is, we bring with us. And maybe that's the point of it all, not to travel in pursuit of the souvenir, to extract meaning or worldly wisdom, but to sprinkle what good we carry, what good we see, wherever we may be. Not to become more whole, but more diffuse, as we leave bits of ourselves with the people and places we encounter on the road.

After a couple of days, the city lights came back on and I returned to Coba, thinking about ghosts. About the ghosts of the gods and the ghosts of those who prayed to them at these wonderful pyramids. About the ghosts of our former selves, and the selves we never quite got to be. At the hotel where I’d original planned to base myself, I set my camera on a tripod and pulled out my linens’n things to play out some of the various characters I keep in my suitcase, to see if I could capture some of those ghosts on film.

Be careful what books you get into when you are young, is all I’m saying. If you are like me, you may end up blissfully lost, deep in the Yucatán jungle, in search, less, of treasure, than of yourself. And you would absolutely love it.

But a year removed and it would appear, to this humble blogger, that the inseam wars are over. The dust has settled; the discourse has shifted. Is there a reliable metric an average guy like me can use to judge the appropriate bagginess of a given pant? (Still unclear.) Anyway, gone is the artificial pressure to adhere to a certain length or style; in an age scrambled by the algorithm, the current approach to men’s shorts is a free-for-all of unprecedented proportions. Walk down any street in New York this summer and you’re as likely to see someone rocking shorts like a member of an early-aughts ska band as you are imitating that iconic photo of '80s Harrison Ford. The only certainty, as far as I can tell, is Golf Dad—a neutral take on chino shorts that never goes all the way in or out of style.

And yet, presented with a tyranny of choice, what is a shorts-buying citizen of the world to do? Should they enjoy, in the words of trusted menswear guy, Clayton Chambers, an “Armani long shorts type of summer”? Or should they pick up where things left off last year with internet boyfriend-approved micro shorts?

The answer to this, as with most style-related questions, is to dress within yourself. Balance risk with familiarity—when you’re trying a new inseam length, maybe buy it in a style you’re already comfortable with first. There’s no need to take a huge leap of short-related faith. If you’ve lived in that classic 7” zone (a short that tends to hit at the knee) but are interested in a more fashion-forward inseam, you might reach for a 6” before the 3”; if you’re curious about going the other way, you might opt for Adam Sandler-esque basketball shorts before slipping into a pair of taut, Euro-style capris (which only a handful of Americans have ever managed to pull off). As a rule of thumb, the higher they rise the tighter they should fit, while the lower they fall the looser they should feel.

At the end of the day, there’s no “right” way to wear shorts anymore, meaning there’s no “wrong” way to wear them either. So I’d implore us all to use this summer as an opportunity to explore some options that fall a bit outside of our comfort zone.

Here’s a little inspo to get you started (and, of course, some quality shorts of our own to try)…

“‘Personal style’—defining it, finding it, cultivating it, expressing it—has been the go-to directive in menswear for a while now, all up and down the food chain,” Dougherty writes. But what if we’ve been misled? What if the fervid pursuit of personal style has only succeeded in pushing it further and further out of reach? Like a kind of grail (but not that kind of grail).

As a menswear brand invested in a “think less, do more” approach to getting dressed—see: the name of this blog—we took a special interest in the points raised in the story. The other week, we called Dougherty, a longtime brand director and consultant, to talk through his conception of the term, creativity in the age of the algorithm, and what comes after the apocalypse.

For people who haven’t read the piece, can you provide a working definition of personal style? It’s pretty self-evident, but I think the way you use it here is a bit more layered.
I think what I was trying to get at in the article is that there seems to be a tension now between “personal style™,” as you might see dictated by an Esquire or GQ or menswear brand, and then the “personal style” that comes a bit more organically through social media.

If it’s coming from that editorial channel, it’s taking more of a how-to approach. It’s service journalism. From the brand side, it’s in service of marketing. The idea of, “Here’s how to look good, and oh, by the way, it’s our brand that’s going to do that for you.” So that’s the former. The latter is this idea of people on Reddit or Instagram or TikTok (although I’m not on it) discussing with each other, “How do I come up with a look that feels unique to me?”

And I think that's the operative word here: Everyone wants to feel unique. No one wants to be the Patagonia vest bro. They want to be Bill Cunningham or David Lynch or James Baldwin.

Can you point to a specific moment in time when you saw this shift from personal style to what might be called the Personal Style Industrial Complex?
It’s been around for a long time—as long as I’ve been working in menswear. Some of the people who commented on the piece pointed out that, at the time [10 to 15 years ago], it felt new. It felt like a fresh concept. And these tutorials, these how-tos, the service journalism or brand content around it felt genuinely helpful because it seemed like a noble goal. But I think what happened was, just by virtue of repetition, there was sort of a tyranny of it. People started to feel like, well, what if I don’t want to develop a personal style? Or, what the hell does that even mean? The more it was repeated, the less impact it had, the less organic it was. Instead of being helpful, it felt prescriptive.

I almost find the notion of personal style incompatible with Instagram and the “algorithm.” Things are metabolized so quickly. As soon as you put something out there, someone else is doing it—and then it’s not “personal” anymore.
It’s hard, especially these days, to even know what the original thought is anymore. I talked to Nick Tazza [for a recent piece], who was the original digital director at ALD. And we talked about a lot of mood boards having the same types of images wherever you go, because we’re all just pulling from the same reference points. What does that do to creativity? What does that do to innovation and culture?

In the article, you gesture to an alternative—that is, a style that flows from your life and your interests as opposed to the other way around. Can you elaborate on that a bit?
I think back to how Clay Chambers, who runs sprezza, put it—that personal taste came as a byproduct of interesting stuff the people [he referenced] were already doing. That’s the through-line to Richard Haines. He’s an artist first and foremost, and so he wants clothes with a lot of pockets because he needs to have pens and notepads. He’s sketching everywhere, so he needs pieces that have the functionality built into them. He’s just living, and the clothes he’s choosing are supporting that lifestyle.

I realize this is somewhat antithetical to the nature of our conversation…but how might guys practically put this into effect?
Don’t copy anyone, no matter who they are. You can certainly take inspiration from some of these so-called menswear icons. Especially for a guy who's maybe a little bit more reserved in his style, it’s helpful to be able to look to a Donald Glover or Tyler, the Creator and say, "Well, maybe I could integrate a color or silhouette or type of piece that doesn't come naturally to me."

But at the end of the day, it has to fit your life and lifestyle. It’s about being open to new ideas, but also being true to you. As the father of a toddler, there are ways I want to dress, say, with more tailored clothing, that does not support my lifestyle. At some point, maybe I'll go back there and that's fine. But for now, that's not the stuff I'm wearing because it doesn't naturally fit within my lifestyle.

Sometimes, I feel like we end up conflating authenticity with uniqueness. But it seems to me that what you’re suggesting is a way to have the former without necessarily requiring the latter.
I always look at the Starter Pack meme as evidence that we're not as unique as we think we are. We're following the same trends, we're following the same designers, we're into the same current ideas, so of course you're going to end up wearing the shoes or pants or jacket likeminded people are also gravitating towards. And that's fine.

If you feel bad about your style, go to an airport. You’ll instantly be the best-dressed guy there.

I hesitate to place you in this position, but do you have any predictions? What comes after the personal style apocalypse?
Oh, man. I'm truly awful at predictions. I think menswear has to have an organizing principle, right? It has to have this North Star idea. The magazines need it, the brands need it, the influencers need it. They need something to kind of coalesce around.

What that will be, I don’t know. I think inevitably some of the more rules-based aspects of the #menswear era, those will start coming back. Counterintuitively, people who never had rules are going to want rules, and whereas the rules felt fussy and antiquated a few years ago, they're going to seem helpful to a generation that grew up without them.

Any parting thoughts?
Log off, live your life, go see your friends, have interests, explore new things. Naturally, you'll wake up one day and have a personal style without even realizing it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Few things are inevitable in the last 18 holes of a major championship. There are too many players, too little room for error, too much at stake for the pressure not to take root in the head and branch out to the hands, which must, in sync with the rest of the body, perform the small miracle of perfect contact, swing after swing. But without fail, one event would always come to pass on those fateful afternoons. At some point, leaning back in his white leather recliner, a half-empty glass of sherry by his side, my grandpa would doze off—dreaming, I’d like to think, of either his deceased cocker spaniel or a Tiger Woods victory (maybe both).

For non-golf fans, nodding in and out of wakefulness as you gaze limpidly upon a six-hour telecast would seem—if you’ll pardon the pun—par for the course. But falling asleep during the Masters is a pleasure distinct from falling asleep during other tournaments, because the Masters itself is distinct from other tournaments.

Unlike golf’s remaining three majors, the Masters takes place at the same course every year: the famed Augusta National. Co-founded by the game’s preeminent amateur, Bobby Jones, the conditions at Augusta are the stuff of legend. Each fall, the crew “installs” the fairways as though they were carpet (very, very expensive carpet). Miles of drainage pipe travel under the lengths of the course to absorb water, helping to maintain the speed of the greens. After every round, the groundskeepers replace divots on the tee boxes with specially-grown sod; divots on the fairways, meanwhile, are filled with a green sand that’s virtually indistinguishable from the grass. So immaculate is the course that people routinely question whether its iconic azaleas are real or fake; so telegenic is the broadcast that some have accused CBS of piping in prerecorded bird sounds. The result is a hyperreal vision of a golf course—perpetually untouched, conspicuously out-of-time.

Contributing to this feeling, of course, are the traditions Augusta goes to great lengths to preserve. The Masters bestows the only trophy of the year that champions hang in their closet rather than place on a shelf; for over six decades, the tournament has hosted a par-3 contest the day before play begins. Despite representing an Instagram version of reality, patrons are still not allowed to bring their cellphones to the course. Concessions are resistant to inflation: You can still get their famous pimento cheese sandwich for a buck-fifty.

In the sense that the Masters is a dream, enshrined behind our screens like a museum piece, it follows that we might enjoy it in a kind of hypnagogic state. Featuring Jim Nantz’s whispery poetics and the dulcet tones of Dave Loggins’ theme song, the telecast is sport’s ultimate lullaby; far from being sacrilegious for golf fans, I’d argue that “sleeping through” the final round puts us in communion with elements of the sublime the tournament is engineered to evoke.

Assuming you wake up in time to watch the finish.

But evidently this thought did occur to Danny Sheehan, because he’s telling us about it now, his long jog through fall foliage on a brisk November day, with the matter-of-fact tone of someone discussing, I don’t know, laundry, or a bagel, or a rerun of Seinfeld.

I guess it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though. We’re talking at Mile High Run Club, after all, where Sheehan and his fellow running coaches have gamely agreed to put our new Stealth Pro performance boxer briefs to the test. One of New York’s premier fitness studios, Mile High takes the pace of a HIIT workout, puts it on a treadmill, and adds some exhilarating music and neon lighting—the result of which is sweating. A lot. But in a good way.

Still: Might this be intimidating to the average person?

“Honestly, I think the hardest part is just getting in the room,” coach Andrew Lyle says. “Once you’re there, it’s easy to say ‘yes’ to the challenge.”

“You can clearly see that when you're struggling or tired,” coach Shódan Rodney adds, “the person next to you or in front of you is going through exactly the same thing.”

The ethos of Mile High Run Club feels particularly well-suited to the moment. A recent study found that, in 2024, there was a nearly 60% increase in run club participation; people signed up not only to workout, but to socialize. Articles and thinkpieces abound, positioning the trend as a natural response to a post-pandemic world dominated by remote work and digital devices, less “partying” and more dating apps. “These clubs,” one New York Times article suggests, “help people build communities in cities that can feel alienating.”

Certainly, New York may be considered one of those cities. But its alienating qualities can also serve as the wellspring of its collective spirit.

“The amount of runners by sheer volume in New York City is higher than anywhere else in the country,” Lyle says. “The competitiveness and intensity can be overwhelming, but I also think it can sharpen you, especially when it comes to running.”

For 45 minutes in-studio, Mile High can feel like a microcosm of the greater New York running community—albeit one where competition, over the course of a class, gives way to camaraderie.

“The beauty of running is that literally anyone could put on a pair of sneakers and go outdoors, and they know that there's other people in the world probably doing it at the same exact time,” coach Alain Saint-Dic says. “What I love about a Mile High is you take those people and you put them in the same environment.”

Coincidentally, Sheehan was coaching a real-live running team—with the delightfully onomatopoeic name, “Dashing Whippets”—when a heat wave rolled through the city. Ducking into a class at Mile High, he quickly felt a kinship with the format.

“In my classes, I always say we're a team in the room whether you buy into it or not,” he says. “But if you do buy into it, you're really going to feel surrounded by that energy.”

Learn more about our collaboration with Mile High Run Club here.

For better or worse, that’s what the general population (including your humble blogger) tends to think about when they think about linen. But there’s a lot more to the classic textile than meets the mind’s eye.

Just this month, we launched an expansion of our cult-favorite Tech Linen collection, including a new long sleeve crew, button up sweater polo, and hoodie. To mark the occasion, I caught up with our Design Director Henry Martinez to put together this brief primer on the fabric—and share some of the thinking behind our own pieces.

An Insultingly Brief History of Linen

Believe it or not, linen was the fabric of choice for many millennia. The Ancient Mesopatamians dressed their ruling classes in it. The Ancient Egyptians wrapped their mummies in it. The Ancient Greeks clad their soldiers in layers and layers of it, as a breezier alternative to metal armor (hey, comfort is king). In the runup to the Revolutionary War, American colonists cultivated it on their own in order to stick it to the British.

Then, in the late-1700s, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, making the textile cheaper to produce at an industrial scale. Gradually, linen became more of the “luxury” fabric we know and love today.

How Linen Is Made, in One Paragraph

Most people assume linen comes from cotton. But it actually comes from the flax plant. Through a long and complicated process we won’t describe here, the flax plant is broken down and fibers are derived from the bark to spin into a fabric you can ultimately wear while cruising along the French Riviera.

Wovens vs. Knits

Like pretty much all fabrics, linen falls into two categories: wovens and knits.

Wovens are made by interlacing two yarns together in a checkerboard-esque pattern. They’re highly structured and durable, but oftentimes less soft and stretchy. (Think: oxfords, blazers, pants.) Knits are made by interlooping one set of yarn. They’re soft and stretchy, but oftentimes less durable. (Think: sweaters, socks, scarves lovingly crafted by your grandmother.)

Stay tuned for the launch of our woven Tech Linen styles—coming soon.

The Natural Benefits of Classic Linen

Like cotton, linen is a natural fiber. Consequently, it offers a host of innate benefits, which make it the ideal fabric for warmer weather:

• It’s hypoallergenic. Meaning it’s ideal for anyone with sensitive skin.

• It’s antimicrobial. Fighting bacterias that generally cause odors.

• It’s breathable. Linen is loosely woven for an airier look and feel.

• It’s lightweight, but durable. Due to the hollow fibers of the flax plant.

• It dries quickly. Lucky for us, the fabric does not hold moisture well.

In general, linen may have a crisper handfeel at the beginning—but it’ll soften over time.

The Modern Benefits of Tech Linen

Not content to rest on the fabric’s natural laurels, we sought to enhance our own linen collection in a few critical ways. As a result, Tech Linen is…

1. Stronger. We blend our linen with cotton to fortify the fabric.

2. Smoother. Because it’s a blend, Tech Linen is much less prone to wrinkling than classic linen. (It’s also machine washable.)

3. Breezier. We harness moisture-wicking COOLMAX® tech to make it even more breathable than usual.

In other words, it’s a great fabric for everyday wear, but it’s exceptionally well-suited to being placed in a suitcase for your next vacation.

Inspirational Cues

Last year, we launched our Tech Linen collection with two knit styles: the half-zip and sweater polo. This winter, we’re expanding the knits to include a long sleeve crew, button up sweater polo, and hoodie.

You might consider these “summer sweaters”—they’re warm enough to wear year-round, sure, but they’re also cool enough to wear on a breezy night in late-July (or while you’re sailing the high seas).

In terms of inspiration, these styles harken back to classic ‘50s and ‘60s weekendwear—the postwar period that saw a growing middle class, and thus an uptick in American leisure time. (The sweater polo, in particular, was a popular choice among dads looking to crack open a cold one on their porch.)

As for the color palette, we opted to keep things simple, sticking to earth tones with vacation-ready hues, like sandy Nomad Heather and sky blue Gulfstream Heather.

Explore the full Tech Linen collection in-store and online now—and keep an eye out for new drops in the months to come.

The result is this expert guide, featuring everything from library bars, to winter spas, to red wine baths (which is…exactly what it sounds like).

An informal poll taken around Mack Weldon HQ in conjunction with the release of said article revealed the following:

1. Most people were into the more traditional options, such as the bar at Delmonico’s and fondue by the fireplace at Black Mountain Wine House.

2. A small but vocal minority preferred the “activities”—a staycation at The Rockaway Hotel or stand-up comedy at The Stand.

3. One brave soul confessed to his coworkers that he would indeed take the plunge (into a tub full of red wine at Aire Ancient Baths).

To which we say: Cheers?