Sommaire pour Summer 2023 de Esquire

GROWING UP, BOOTS RILEY BADLY WANTED TO become a superhero. Like, a real one. Scrawny and nerdy and on the edge of adolescence, he started to hone his craft—swinging nunchucks, throwing stars, sneaking into and out of rooms without detection. “Had I stayed on that track, I probably would’ve become a cop,” he says over Zoom one recent afternoon. Instead, he discovered Prince, fell into music, fronted the rap group the Coup for some two decades, and then, in his late 40s, suddenly emerged as an in-demand movie director. Riley, now 52, is talking from his Oakland home, an early-20th-century Victorian fittingly built by a pioneer of art photography. Riley bought the place four years ago, after the success of Sorry to Bother You, his screenwriting and directing debut. An outrageous…

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN DIE-HARD WATCH fans couldn’t stomach wearing a watch with a designer label stamped on the dial. Now certain high-ticket fashion brands are shifting that narrative. At Louis Vuitton, that’s meant going to extremes. In 2011, the house bought La Fabrique du Temps, the Geneva-based manufacturer it had worked with since 2007, giving it a first-rate facility for everything from the development of movements to production and assembly. While this has proved invaluable in the evolution of the now 21-year-old Tambour watch line, it has also propelled the watchmaking arm of Vuitton into the stratosphere of low-volume, high-complication timepieces. The Tambour Curve GMT Flying Tourbillon, a sensuously curved riff on the original Tambour’s drum-shaped case, features a combination of micro-sandblasted titanium and brushed 18k rose gold. (A…

_SOHO HOUSE Developed when the first Soho House spa opened in Somerset, England, in 1998, Cowshed products are packed with essential oils and botanical extracts that are formulated to help you chill out. The line has ballooned way past inroom amenities and now includes home fragrances and eight different scent families. The House’s newest brand, Soho Skin, was created with jet-setters in mind. Products target skin fatigue, dehydration, and other issues that pop up when you’re frequently on the road. $20–$45; cowshed.com. $20–$115; sohoskin.com _THE RITZ PARIS The first thing you notice when you walk into the Ritz is the over-the-top opulence. The second thing is the signature scent. Just like the gilded finishes, the rich, floral fragrance is one of the ultimate “if you know, you know” travel status…

BIRDS WERE ON EVERY PAGE. Pretty ones. Ugly ones. Downright strange-looking ones. I was perusing the avian-themed cocktail menu at Meadowlark, an old library-like spot in Chicago’s Logan Hill neighborhood. Each drink was meant to resemble a specific feathered friend. You looked at the glass in front of you, sipped, looked at the bird picture again—and all of a sudden, it clicked. This joyfully odd drink menu was the brainchild of Abe Vucekovich, Meadowlark’s beverage director, who used to work in one of the country’s most serious temples to the cocktail, just a few L stops away, the Violet Hour. What, I asked Vucekovich, had sparked the idea to try something so delightfully trippy? And why were we seeing such a right turn away from cocktail classicism here and in…

OUR WAITRESS CROUCHED DOWN TO EYE level and said, “Hey, bitches,” then, earnestly, perhaps less joyfully than she might have earlier in her shift: “Are you thirsty bitches?” She said it with a sense of duty. We were at a restaurant called Bacon Bitch, and this is what is done there. Bacon Bitch had come up in a Google search for “brunch nearby” on a Sunday afternoon in Miami Beach, and when I’m presented with an option that sounds like a waking nightmare, I am powerless to pass it up. So we went and ordered the Bloody Marys with the hash brown and the fried egg on top, because we were both thirsty and curious bitches. You can picture the place, so I don’t need to tell you there was a…

THE SLEEKEST NEW TELEVISION IS NOT A TV AT ALL. It’s a projector. Instead of a black rectangular void staring you down when you’re not watching Love Is Blind, the projector relinquishes your precious wall space when it’s off. (No white wall? Opt for a retractable screen.) The latest projectors are minimal enough to be stowed in a credenza, or sit discreetly on top, but powerful enough to deliver images worthy of an art-house cinema. And with all the new streamer-exclusive films, home and theater are one and the same these days. Here are three beamers that will improve your movie watching and your interior-design game.…

AS THE CAPE IS TO THE SUPERHERO, THE NAVY double-breasted blazer is to the man. Put it on and, boom, you’re transformed. But instead of flight, your superpower is to fit in anywhere and stand out as the best-dressed guy. Wear it to impress your partner’s parents, score an upgrade, attend any and every party. You will never feel over- or underdressed. The double-breasted blazer is the low-effort, high-reward piece that your summer wardrobe simply should not go without. Hold on. Summer? Damn right. If you get the proper jacket—easy, breezy, and lighter than air—you can wear it when the sun’s high and the mercury is even higher. Enter Canali’s Kei collection, which is all about stripping tailoring down to the absolute essentials. The jacket is entirely unlined and unstructured, so…

I BOUGHT MY FAVORITE UNIQLO OXFORD IN 2007, ON a visit to New York a few months before I moved there. The brand had opened its first U. S. flagship store the year before in SoHo, and it just blew my mind. It was so ahead of the curve. And the price was great. Now, more than 15 years later, I’ve obviously gotten my money’s worth. The elbows are blown out. The collar’s blown out. It’s discolored. But when I put it on with a blazer or a jacket and tuck it in, it gives me the look I’m going for: super tattered, but intentionally so. What’s funny is that over the years, I’ve gotten five or six of that exact same shirt from Uniqlo. I’d buy one here, buy one…

__ A LADY, JUST A MOMENT AGO, stopped me and thanked me, which is kind of cool after what we’ve been through in the media these past few years. __ YOU CAN’T HAMMER PEOPLE for half an hour with nothing but dark, difficult stories. You have to find a balance: Give them something hopeful, give them something to smile about, while making sure we hit the big stories of the day. __ SECONDS COUNT. While the ending story is on, the producer will say, “Okay, you have fourteen seconds on the back side to say goodbye.” Sometimes I only have three seconds. __ I’M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who always has a tune running through his head. Could be country, could be R&B, could be jazz. __ GROWING UP ON…

OYSTER PERPETUAL “CELEBRATION DIAL” Folks were shocked when Rolex announced in 2022 that it was eliminating a handful of dial colors it had introduced in its Oyster Perpetual just two years earlier. More shocking: the new Oyster Perpetual “Celebration Dial,” which brings back all those colors and throws them together on a dial made from fifty-one individual circles of enamel applied on a light-blue background. It comes in three sizes—31mm, 36mm, and 41mm—and, like most fan favorites, has already earned an unofficial nickname: “Bubbles.” Rolex debuted a number of playful watches this year, but this one is the life of the party. And if you’re worried it won’t match your clothes, you’re thinking about it the wrong way. It goes with everything. PERPETUAL 1908 The dressiest of Rolex’s releases this…

There’s no bigger stage for an athlete than the Big Apple. Here, by decade, we boldly present Esquire’s list of the superstars—some larger-than-life, many of them Yankees—who have reigned supreme in the city over the past century. Let the debates begin. 1920S Babe Ruth, Yankees Jack Dempsey, heavyweight champ 1930S Lou Gehrig, Yankees Joe Louis, heavyweight champ 1940S Joe DiMaggio, Yankees Jackie Robinson, Dodgers 1950S Willie Mays, Giants (baseball) Mickey Mantle, Yankees Frank Gifford, Giants 1960S Joe Namath, Jets Tom Seaver, Mets 1970S Walt Frazier, Knicks Reggie Jackson, Yankees 1980S Dwight Gooden & Darryl Strawberry, Mets Lawrence Taylor, Giants Don Mattingly, Yankees 1990S Patrick Ewing, Knicks Mark Messier, Rangers 2000S Derek Jeter, Yankees 2010S Eli Manning, Giants Jacob DeGrom, Mets 2020S Aaron Judge, Yankees…

PROTECTING YOUR EYES IS FINE, BUT SOMETIMES YOU’RE PUTTING ON sunglasses because you want to evoke a certain feeling. Aloof. Unflappable. And, yeah, sexy. Maybe you’re wearing them at night because you know you’re the coolest one in the room (even if you have to squint to see). Maybe you’re wearing them the morning after because they hide a hangover as effciently as they cut the cruel light of day. Whatever the reason, nothing beats a pair of angular, jet-black shades from Celine. They’re the perfect way to tap into the slinky, downtown energy that designer Hedi Slimane has honed during his tenure at the French fashion house. Hell, you could even wear ’em to the beach; they look just as good with a swimsuit and sandals as they do with…

YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE RISE OF the five-inch inseam. Perhaps it was on TikTok, where style-savvy young guys go wild for short shorts. Or on this very magazine’s website. Or from a friend who’s really into podcasts and Patagonia Baggies, which have been white-hot ever since folks discovered the advantages of setting your legs free to feel the breeze. Whatever the source, the popularity is undeniable. But now that more men are embracing the “sky’s out, thighs out” mentality, those of us who want to separate ourselves from the pack have to zig while they zag. Enter the Long Short. It skims your knees with each step. It’s loose and easygoing—just like your attitude should be come summer. It’s a little retro but a lot more considered than those…

EVERYTHING SMELLED LIKE CIGARETTE SMOKE WHEN I WAS A KID. YOU COULD smoke in an airplane. You could smoke in a taxi. You could smoke in Burger King. I smoked my first cigarette when I was nine. It took a lot of practice to learn to inhale and exhale without choking, but I was passionate, and I got very good at it. Self-taught, as they say. Imagine a ten-year-old girl on Rollerblades doing figure eights on a quiet evening road in the suburbs, flicking a butt into the neighbor’s flower garden. That was me. I smoked riding my bike at night, no hands, with my eyes closed. That was freedom. I smoked waiting for my mom to pick me up from my piano lesson. That was relaxing. I stole cigarettes from…

THE LAST TIME I SPOKE WITH HIM WAS ON THE PHONE, THREE WEEKS AFTER WE DRANK BOURBON AT HIS house. We sat at the bar in what I’ll call the family room, a gleaming wooden bar with the bottles lined up behind, organized in neat rows by type of liquor. We ate Emmentaler cheese that Harrison Ford had sliced in the kitchen with a silver cheese knife and arranged on a plate with a handful of wheat crackers. That was in Los Angeles, where he lives when he’s not at his most-of-the-time home, the ranch in Wyoming that he bought in the eighties. He was now in Atlanta. His voice, the unmistakable rich, low grumble, came through the phone obscured by some shuffing in the background. “How you doing?” he asked.…

“The Yankees are, in many ways, the last vestige of old-time New York as New York has always liked to see itself: a stubborn belief that there is no other city. THIS is the city.” —New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro SPRING AFTERNOON, YANKEE STADIUM, THE BRONX, AND THERE’S only one place to be: in the 99 Burger line. There are a few dozen of us, some out of breath from sprinting upstairs to Section 223 the instant the stadium gates opened. Everybody in line is wearing a jersey with the number 99 on it. No. Really. Everybody. The 99 Burger is two four-ounce patties of Wagyu beef, American cheese, dill pickles, caramelized onions, and secret sauce on a brioche bun. The sauce is actually not so secret; Yankee Stadium executive…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. Blueprint, p. 21: Celine Homme by Hedi Slimane sunglasses and shirt, celine.com. P. 22: Louis Vuitton watch, louisvuitton.com. P. 24: Canali jacket and shirt, canali.com. Ron Dorff tank, us.rondorff.com. Nili Lotan jeans, nililotan.com. John Lobb loafers, johnlobb.com. Cutler & Gross glasses, cutlerandgross.com. Chan Luu bandanna, chanluu.com. Prada belt, prada.com. P. 26: Winnie shorts, winnienewyork.com. Sandro shorts, us. sandro-paris.com. Sabah shoes, sabah.am. Itä bracelet, itajewelry.com. John Hardy bracelets, johnhardy.com. P. 32: Uniqlo shirt, uniqlo.com. White Heat, p. 63: Brunello Cucinelli trousers, brunellocucinelli.com. Vans shoes, vans.com. P. 64: Herno Globe jacket and Herno shirt and trousers, us.herno.com. Marsèll shoes, marsell.it. IWC chronograph, iwc.com. P. 65: Prada tank and trousers, prada.com. P. 66: Ralph Lauren…