Page 26 - Esquire - USA (Winter 2020)

the Code: The Nick

(RE)CONSIDERATIONS

WAIT, AM I
A LOAFER GUY

NOW?

• • • I have a thing
about loafers. By which
I mean I don’t wear
loafers. I was dimly
aware of them as
a teenager in southern
England, when they
became a mainstay of
the mod-revival
dressing. That ought to
have been enough
to get me into a pair of
Bass Weejuns, but it
didn’t (partly because I
wasn’t a mod long
enough to save up for
them). Later, as I got
into fashion, loafers got
lower, meaner, leaner,
MORE and posher, becoming
an obsession of
bankers and other
CAMEL? upwardly mobile types.
But they still weren’t
for me: too casual
MORE to wear with a suit, too
casual even to wear
with chinos or jeans.
CAMEL. camel hair before, tweedy jackets in 100 as the progenitor of But G. H. Bass’s latest
If you’ve come across
has created a range of
the tailor widely hailed
chances are it was in one percent camel hair that the butter-soft Neapol- incarnation of its
classic penny loafer
CAMEL HAIR—the of those all-enveloping bring the fabric out itan style of tailoring— (above, $95), executed
supersoft, super- polo coats favored of the cold and into your and they balance a in oxblood and with a

warm material once by suit-and-tie guys in wardrobe in a much rough-hewn look with chunky but surprisingly
the teeth of a New York bigger way. They’re all the comfort of lightweight sole, has
confined to winter. That’s because expertly tailored— cashmere. You shouldn’t the magic combination
coats—is finally camel hair is ridicu- they should be; founder layer three at a time of heft and comfort
that was always lacking
making the leap lously warm. But camel Vincenzo Attolini as we did here, but you for me in classic
to some beautifully hair is also insanely is the grandson of the just might want to. loafers. I’m wearing
soft. Great for coats, but
Vincenzo Attolini,
tailored jackets why stop there? —Nick Sullivan them now, a late
convert (well, possibly)
This season, the Ital- Red-checked jacket ($2,928), beige jacket ($2,928), and to the laceless
ian brand Stile Latino gray jacket ($2,664) by Stile Latino. generation. —N. S.

22 Winter 2020_Esquire photographs: Jeffrey Westbrook