Table of contents for Summer 2018 in Esquire

It takes confidence to reinvent yourself after leaving the family business the way Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche did in 1972, when it was decided that the automotive empire would do better without too many relatives reaching for the wheel. He started Porsche Design instead, creating everything from watches to motorcycle helmets with the same streamlined style as the Porsche 911 (which he also helped conceive). Another triumph? The P’8478: the first sunglasses with interchangeable lenses, housed within swaggering aviator frames. Forty years since their debut, a limited-edition pair is being reissued with a titanium body, gold details, and five sets of lenses in various shades. To switch them in, just lift up the hinge at the bridge and slide them in place. It’s not a rear-mounted, air-cooled six-cylinder engine, but it’s…

A Cultural Guide to Just Enough of Everything When it comes to pop culture these days, it’s always July. But this never-ending wave of candy content is actually a gift for brainier, meatier stuff. Summer’s probably the only time you’re able to truly unplug from work—so shouldn’t you use your long, lazy weekends to dig into the books and movies that require a long attention span? On the following pages, we’ve gathered the smartest of the season as a start. Trust us, those overbaked action flicks will still be in theaters come September.…

It’s not for nothing that many dive watches have a distinctly midcentury look about them. Professional and amateur diving exploded in the ’50s and ’60s, bringing significant advances in equipment—including the timepieces that indicated to divers the most important metric of all: how much time was left before they ran out of air. Jacques Cousteau and his team on the Calypso were wont to wear Rolexes, Omegas, and Blancpains below the waves, as well as more obscure brands like Nivada and Doxa. The functional demands on such watches—heavy-duty curved steel cases, rubber straps, black high-visibility dials, and chunky unidirectional bezels—also define a sporty, nautical aesthetic that feels perfectly suited for summer, even if you’re miles from any body of water.…

We just want people to like us. It’s the reason we work out, buy new clothes, and spritz cologne before a night out. That last, intangible element—scent—must be working somehow. It’s about a $40 billion worldwide market, and American men who buy the best, the high-end luxury juice, dropped a couple billion on the stuff in 2017 alone. Almost every major fashion house has a piece of this pie—except Louis Vuitton. That’s the brand with the unmistakable monogrammed luggage, the one that generated deafening buzz with last year’s Supreme collaboration and this year’s hiring of Off-White’s Virgil Abloh as its men’s artistic director. It’s been pulling ahead in every arena except fragrance, where it was leaving (heaps and heaps of) money on the table. Until now. This summer, the company…

1 THE CHAIN BRACELET An accented version of the steadfast chain—build from here. 2 THE WOVEN BRACELET Emit that just walked off the docks look. No Boat? No problem. 3 THE BEADED BRACELET Shape, texture, and versatility—strong on its own and pairs well with every other bracelet on earth. Masculine, innovative, cultured and curated—elevate any look with the Esquire Men’s Jewelry Collection.…

What makes a bar a best bar in Esquire’s ever-growing hall of fame? It’s the feeling: There is no other place you’d rather be right now. How that emotion arises is a mystery, however. For the past twelve months, our lead barflies, Jeff Gordinier and Kevin Sintumuang, with an assist from many friends, set out to solve it. Mysteries aside, these are the places that made them want to go back. ATLANTA TICONDEROGA Club Is this corner of a food court really where Peach State cocktail kings Greg Best, Regan Smith, and Paul Calvert have decided to set up shop? Gaze upward and the theatrical lighting through the beams may give you the impression that you’re embedded in a sitcom soundstage: The Iceman Cometh meets Cheers. After a few minutes,…

JoE CaRDO was out hunting for half-smoked cigarettes. From my perch at the white-boys’ table of the A Block yard, I watched his eyes scan the patched grass and cracked pavement. Shuffle, stoop, shuffle, stoop. It was evening rec period, May 2015. A warm front had settled over Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, and prisoners were taking advantage. Days earlier, on the ground where Joe now stood, a Crip had been shanked in the heart and dropped dead like someone hit his off button. I called out to Joe. He snapped up his head and lumbered over. I introduced myself and asked if he’d answer a few questions. “John thinks he’s a reporter,” said Dave (not his real name), pointing at me. I placed a pouch of tobacco on…

Deadlines loomed. Episodes needed editing. The L. A. suits expected callbacks. But first, we rode. Or rather, Taylor Sheridan straddled a sleek quarter horse named Rosie and I held fast to Mr. Blue Jeans, a white nag. It was a gloomy morning at Jake Ream’s ranch in Palmyra, Utah, about sixty miles and a century removed from the ski lifts and limos of Park City. Sheridan pulled his white hat over his Irish brow, grabbed the reins, and whispered softly to his favorite bay. “Good girl.” Seven years ago, Sheridan was a forty-one-year-old struggling actor living in a dingy Hollywood apartment with his wife, Nicole; their young son, Gus; and a few hundred silverfish. He has since established himself as a writer-director and creative force with Sicario, Hell or High…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Code, p. 31: Salvatore Ferragamo T-shirt, shorts, and shoes, 866-337-7242. Ray-Ban sunglasses, ray-ban.com. P. 32: Birdwell shorts, birdwell.com. Rowing Blazers T-shirt, rowingblazers.com. Hermès polo shirt, hermes.com. Junya Watanabe Man x Carhartt WIP jacket, comme-des-garcons.com. P. 33: Seiko watch, seikowatches.com. Breitling watch, breitling.com. Rado watch, rado.com. Anonimo watch, anonimo.com. Zodiac watch, zodiacwatches.com. SavyBoat model boat, savyboat.com. P. 34: Vans sneakers, vans.com. Closed trousers, closed.com. P. 40: Orlebar Brown swim trunks, orlebarbrown.com. P. 46: Canali sunglasses, 212-752-3131. Dries Van Noten jacket, barneys.com. Finamore shirt, finamore.it. Casio watch, shopcasio.com. Watch the Throne, pp. 92-93: Hermès cardigan, hermes.com. Banana Republic shirt, bananarepublic.com. AG jeans, agjeans.com. Versace jacket, versace.com. Ermenegildo Zegna sweater, zegna.com. Ralph Lauren trousers,…

The neutrality of this information is disputed. And rightfully so. Snakes are creatures that have been around for millennia yet still haven’t learned to pick up their old skins, which they leave lying all over the place. They are members of the reptile suborder Serpentes, meaning “makes a cool tattoo.” Snakes have no limbs and crawl on the ground, but they often provoke fear or hostility in people because they won’t look for the contact lenses that you dropped. Snakes are drawn to the kind of climate described in Jimmy Buffett songs because they need the warmth of the sun for body heat. But they can live anywhere, and there are even species of vipers that live above the Arctic Circle, assuming there is still an Arctic Circle. For centuries,…

Hot Summer Nights The year is 1991. But change the drive-in movie from Terminator 2 to The Poseidon Adventure or The Blob, and the arcade game from Street Fighter II to Asteroids or pinball, and Hot Summer Nights could have taken place anytime between the interstate highway system and the iPhone. It gets at the essence of the pre-digital American teenage experience. After his dad dies, Daniel (Timothée Chalamet) is sent to live with his aunt in Cape Cod, where he becomes an unlikely sidekick to the local pot dealer (Alex Roe) and falls hard for the hottest girl in town (Maika Monroe) as Hurricane Bob barrels toward them. (Out July 27.) —AshCarter Sorry to Bother You On its surface, Sorry to Bother You is about a down-and-out telemarketer (Atlanta’s…

By my doctor’s standards, I’m a pretty healthy guy. My blood pressure’s good, I can touch my toes, and I rarely order pizza more than once a week. But compared with acolytes of the wellness-industrial complex pushing crystals, cleanses, and whatever a “microbiome” is, I’m an unrealized husk. Women may lead this charge (looking at you, Gwyneth), but every day I meet more men who do hot yoga and evangelize about the art of breathing. If they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, they at least seem at peace. I wanted a piece of that peace, but I’m too sedentary for the physical demands and too cynical for the spiritual stuff. Then I learned about some increasingly popular treatments during which you just … lie there. Call it passive wellness. A recumbent recharge.…

Even in an age when new sneaker drops trigger mass hysteria, Vans isn’t fixing what ain’t broke. The checkerboard slip-on? That’s an unqualified hit. So too are the brand’s collaborations with Japanese-American artist Taka Hayashi, whose capsule collections for Vault by Vans (the skate stalwart’s premium line) have become such cult favorites that they’ve now partnered a whopping 19 times. It’s easy to see why. Hayashi’s designs build on the brand’s SoCal street cred with sophisticated materials and global influences while still respecting the original silhouettes. The standout this year is a new spin on the classic checkerboard slip-on, now rendered in basket-woven nubuck leather—the kind of luxe kicks you could imagine Spicoli wearing if he were to take a junior year abroad. Sure, they’re handsome, but their greatest strength…

All the game in the world won’t help you if your cologne doesn’t smell good, and that comes down to the juice: the mix of natural and synthetic ingredients carefully calibrated to rest on your skin and suffuse in a kind of time-release. You’ll smell the lighter, brighter top notes first, and after they wear away, the warmer, muskier base elements will stay with you throughout the day. Below, we’ve mapped out the notes in each of the new fragrances, along with some editorializing from Cavallier Belletrud (left).…

The right shades don’t just add instant cool—they can also become your trademark. Think of Dirty Harry’s wraparounds, Hunter S. Thompson’s yellow-tinted Ray-Bans, or Kurt Cobain’s out-there oval frames. If you’re still searching for the right fit, the timing couldn’t be better: Italian tailoring house Canali is breaking into the specs game with a variety of vintage-inspired silhouettes and reissued lens tints dating back to the 1920s. With 15 shapes to choose from, it won’t be long before you, too, find a signature shade. —A. W. WRIST WATCHER AN UNBEATABLE BEATER There’s a time and place for investment watches, but usually it’s not in the summer, when fair weather has you mowing the lawn, hitting the beach, and generally upping your activity level. For this, plastic watches are perfect. They…

Esquire celebrated March cover star Donald Glover and the 2018 Mavericks of Hollywood, a list of 23 men and women who are ushering in a brave new era in entertainment as they beat the odds, take creative risks, and make bold, innovative work. Esquire set up shop at the WeWork Congress building in Austin to host a 3-day pop-up portrait studio during South by Southwest. More than 100 actors and directors came through to escape the madness and chat with our editors.…

Along time ago (well, forty-plus years) in a galaxy far, far away (spiritually, if not literally), the young writer-director George Lucas was doing preproduction work on his upcoming space fantasy. As author Dale Pollock recounts in the book Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars “was considering what would have been some radical casting ideas: He considered Japanese movie star Toshiro Mifune for Ben Kenobi and thought of having a Eurasian girl play Leia. He interviewed several black actors for Han Solo and almost chose a young performer named Glynn Turman. Lucas was aware that if he developed the love interest between Han and Leia, an interracial romance could cause problems.” As Lucas himself acknowledged to Pollock, “I didn’t want to make Guess Who’s Coming…

Because Style Is Always Personal It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since the Reagan era: Summer means vacation. But when the season turns, a lot of guys resort to the adult version of playclothes (cutoffs, old tees, flip-flops) and miss the opportunity to have some actual fun with how they dress. And that’s a shame. So we’ve assembled the strongest style swerves out there right now: stuff like a polo shirt with sex appeal, a fresh take on your favorite slip-ons, and five watches that’ll keep ticking at 100 meters. But summer really starts with shorts, and this year you’ll want a pair in corduroy. No, they won’t be too hot. Yes, they will help you channel the painfully cool ’70s heyday of the…

For all the inspiration we take from red-carpet rigs, the best style is often right in front of us (or at least a quick scroll down the timeline). Provided you’re following the right guys, Instagram can be the perfect place to pick apart the strategies of the sartorially savvy. This summer, we’re taking our cues from @tomoyoshi_takada.…

Unless you’re holding a surfboard, we don’t want to see you in board shorts (and even then, you might want to reconsider). Swimwear like that works best on a very specific body type: a build like Laird Hamilton’s. For the rest of us, shorts that hit below the knee make legs look stumpy, and lowslung waistbands can create the wrong kind of cleavage. Your beachside look should be as fitted and streamlined as anything else in your summer wardrobe, and Orlebar Brown has made its name creating just that: grown-up swim shorts with tailored details that fit right in on the sand or off. The label is also known for its bold prints, and this year it’s featuring work by photographer Slim Aarons—each pair is an instant hit of balmy…

“When you put your mind to something, amazing things can happen.”—Idris Elba “To be bold is to follow your heart and not concern yourself with the outcome.”—Laird Hamilton “Design’s purpose is not only to show us the future but to bring us the future.”—Yves Béhar “Bold is a state of mind.”—Neville Wakefield The new Cartier Santos watch was inspired by its first owner, Alberto Santos-Dumont, a turn-of-the-century aviator who stuck his neck out for a science not yet proven to work. The timepiece was an anomaly as well, a square-faced wristwatch in a world still reliant on big, round pocket watches. It was in this same innovative spirit that Cartier united a host of creative neck-sticker-outers for a three-day shindig in April, in the tech and culinary capital of San…

1919 OSCAR MICHEAUX, the most prolific black filmmaker in the pre–World War II era, releases his first movie, The Homesteader, based on his novel. Heading his own production company, he will go on to make more than 40 films as a writer, director, and producer. 1933 PAUL ROBESON, already a big draw on Broadway, stars in The Emperor Jones, an independent production adapted from the Eugene O’Neill play—one of the first times an African-American movie actor receives top billing in a mixed-race cast. 1940 HATTIE McDANIEL becomes the first African-American Oscar winner, as Best Supporting Actress for Gone with the Wind. “My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel,” she says as she accepts the award. 1941 The Blood of Jesus, one of the most artistically…

According to an ancient Chinese proverb, wealth never survives three generations. Whether the billion-dollar fortune at the heart of the new HBO series Succession will make it that far is an open question. Our first glimpse of the self-made market mover and political kingmaker Logan Roy (Brian Cox) finds him pissing on the carpet in confusion. In a few hours, Logan’s four adult children will gather at their father’s mansion of an apartment for a “surprise” eightieth-birthday party, after which he is set to anoint his number-two son, Kendall (Jeremy Strong)—recently dubbed “the heir with the flair” by Forbes—as the next CEO of Waystar Royco, the fifth-largest media conglomerate in the world. Kendall’s older brother, Connor (Alan Ruck); younger brother, Roman (Kieran Culkin); and sister, “Shiv” (Sarah Snook), have all…

In the course of our eighty-five years, Esquire helped define the celebrity profile, matching our most prodigious reporters with the iconic figures of their generation, from Gay Talese’s celebrated 1966 portrait of Frank Sinatra to Chris Jones’s 2010 profile of Roger Ebert. These accounts are candid, revelatory, and definitive—like Richard Ben Cramer’s 1986 treatment of Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams, regarded as the greatest hitter of all time but also a first-class son of a bitch, excerpted here. Williams was a mythic John Wayne character—he interrupted his career twice, serving as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. He also feuded with Boston’s press and fans, refusing to tip his cap even after hitting a home run in his final at-bat. When the Red Sox…