Table of contents for May 2019 in Esquire

ALL-STAR DAD CONTEST CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! Do you know a Dad who is a real “All Star” to his children, his family and his community? If so, nominate him today as the National Father’s Day Committee searches for America’s #1 “All-Star” Dad. Every Dad is special. But does your Dad or another Dad you know demonstrate such important attributes as dedication, love, unselfishness, support, and community service on a regular basis? If so, he could be the Father’s Day Committee “All-Star” Dad for 2019. GO TO ALLSTARDAD.ORG TODAY AND SUBMIT YOUR ESSAY…

We didn’t need a leaked memo from Goldman Sachs announcing a new, more relaxed dress code to know that the Chicken Littles of men’s wear would use this as an opportunity to once again declare the death of the suit, as if cowed by the Brooklyn School, which has made normcore with a touch of lumberjack the look of choice on the F train. But for those of us who pay attention to style trends as minutely as those who study the markets, it’s a prediction about as accurate as Paul Krugman’s when he said Donald Trump’s election would trigger a recession in perpetuity. The occasion for a suit may get redefined and the number of times you wear one in a week may change, but the suit is not…

In the months leading up to the publication of my collection of essays, The Souls of Yellow Folk, I would occasionally muse about the ways I might be ambushed online. I imagined certain passages of my work being torn from context, screenshotted, placed on threads, and annotated with murmurous insinuations. I envisioned them juxtaposed against inflammatory material from unrelated sources, meant to establish an associative link in readers’ minds. So begins the online inquisition. After several years of doing more lurking than posting on Twitter, I became well acquainted with the distinctive rhythms of these confrontations. Sometimes they were spontaneous. Sometimes they appeared to be coordinated in advance. Sometimes they ensnared celebrities for attempts at transgressive humor (Kevin Hart and James Gunn). Sometimes they captured mi-nor toilers within the clickbait…

MY PERSONAL STYLE Is always evolving, but I like to keep it classic and professional. My mom always told me to dress like I have a meeting with a CEO or someone very important. That advice has always guided my sense of style. SIGNATURE STYLE I always accent my look with a bracelet or ring. The right piece of jewelry brings everything together. MY STYLE ICON President Obama has a very classic sense of style that’s never over the top but exudes confidence. He always looks polished, like he’s ready for anything. PRO TIP It’s all about fit. As a bigger guy, it’s a lot harder for me to find pants and shirts that are long enough, while still being tailored. The choices that are out there tend to be…

Sometimes, when I’m on a business trip, staying in a hotel in a strange city, feeling stressed out, needing a release, I’ll call the concierge and ask if he can find one for me. “It’ll help me relax,” I tell him. “Surely, sir,” he says. “We…understand. Any special requirements? Special …needs?” “No, just a hot one.” I’m talking about an iron, of course. Does anyone else share my love of ironing? I admit I came to my passion later in life. All through my childhood, my mother ironed my shirts, her ironing board set up in the family room so she, my brother, and I could all watch TV together. Laughing at Cheers, Mary Tyler Moore. Once I left home and moved to New York, I took my shirts for…

Wearing neon might be one of those style moves that seem crazy at first. (Does any guy intentionally set out to look like Vanilla Ice?) But whether you realize it or not, you’ve already been on the neon tip for some time. Over the past year or so, neon has infiltrated your accessories in all the right ways. (Lime-green Nikes! Acid-yellow hoodies! Day-Glo orange beanies!) Now, much the way camo did a few years ago, neon is crossing over from bit player to big time. And here’s the important part: Neon injects the perfect jolt of attitude into your summer style game. But remember: A little goes a long way. Whatever you do, you do not want to look like a human highlighter. Use neon as an accent, not head-to-toe.…

When it comes to entertaining at home, the little things are what your guests will remember. Go ahead and roast a whole lamb on a spit, if the grand, smoky gesture is how you want to welcome the spring. We’re guessing the people at your party will savor the smaller touches: Good, warm tortillas. Fragrant heaps of fresh herbs. Cocktails served in glassware that doesn’t date back to the eighties. A rare digestif that you rescue from the back row of the bar for a meal-capping flourish. “Go big or go home” doesn’t make much sense when you’re already home. Put your ego aside and rely instead on these smart, modest hacks to make your spring party unforgettable.…

GOOD IN THE HOOD • Anyone who has lived in a cramped N.Y.C. studio apartment knows that a well-seasoned steak (typically) requires that you turn off the smoke detector. Although my home kitchens are bigger these days, I still rely on an über-competent ventilation system. Most home hoods are painfully anemic and still entail an ancillary effort to expel smell or smoke—which is total BS when you are throwing a fancy dinner party. As in my commercial kitchens, I will never compromise on ventilation; a powerful hood fan is the least sexy thing you never knew you needed. DEEP THOUGHTS • Deep > long. Say it with me. Home buyers are wooed by yards on yards of kitchen counter, disregarding the most important metric: depth. Deep counters allow you to…

You’ve made an ice-cold pitcher of martinis, stirred the spring punch, and … you’re going to serve it in what? One of those wide-brimmed triangular things that haven’t been in vogue since the debut of Moonlighting? A chipped tumbler that you’ve been carting around since college? Would you dress for your own party in a burlap sack? No. In the same spirit, a good drink served in an inferior glass is an instant embarrassment. Invest in coupe glasses and Nick & Nora glasses that make your cocktails easier on the eyes—and the fingers. Pour elixirs in to Nachtmann’s studded punk-style tumblers and highball glasses. And when it comes to wineglasses, make names like Zalto and Riedel your new mantra. Think before you drink.…

…If you have traveled in Mexico, you know that most denizens of the United States continue to cling to a tediously limited definition of the word taco. In Oaxaca or Mérida or Ensenada, as the chef Gabriela Cámara schools us in her new cookbook, My Mexico City Kitchen, anything and everything can qualify as a taco. High-quality tortillas accompany all meals in Cámara’s home country, and there is no dogma regarding what should be layered on top of them. “A taco with just avocado and salt is delicious,” says Cámara, the chef behind Contramar in Mexico City and Cala in San Francisco. Or pinch a bunch of salad with your tongs and pile it on the pressed, toasted masa. Or use grilled asparagus and fresh marjoram. Or a smear of…

For store information see page 110. Casting by Sydney Bowen. Hair and men’s grooming by Rudy Martins for Redken. Makeup by Yuki Hayashi for Clé de Peau.…

IF THIS WeRe A MoVIE INSTEAD OF A MAGAZINE piece about the directors Anthony and Joe Russo—who, in the course of a twenty-year career, have helped fashion two network-TV cult hits (Arrested Development and Community), three feature-film comedies (including Welcome to Collinwood and You, Me and Dupree), three Marvel blockbusters (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War), and another sure-to-be Marvel blockbuster (Avengers: Endgame)—it might begin like this: The stakes are nothing less than the universe itself. And not just any universe, but a particular universe, Hollywood, where the midsize movie seeks to survive the change from pre- to post-Anthropocene, a time of dying, after which the cinematic landscape is seemingly fit for nothing but Marvel stompers and their superhero competitors at DC. In…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Code, p. 31: Louis Vuitton coat, T-shirt, jeans, and shoes, louisvuitton.com. P. 32: Louis Vuitton hooded sweatshirt, T-shirt, trousers, jacket, shirt, and trousers, louisvuitton.com. P. 33: IWC chronograph, iwc.com. P. 34: Bottega Veneta jacket and sweater, 800-845-6790. P. 38: Beams Plus shirt, B. at Bergdorf Goodman. B. x Clarks Originals boots, B. at Bergdorf Goodman. P. 40: Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh sneakers, off---white.com. Polo Ralph Lauren hat, ralphlauren.com. Comme des Garçons zip pouch, shop.doverstreetmarket.com/us. Prada Lina Rossa sunglasses, sunglasshut.com. Gucci bag, gucci.com. Versace socks, versace.com. Pierre Hardy wallet, pierrehardy.com. P. 42: Blue Blue Japan jacket, nomanwalksalone.com. Fortela jacket, fortela.it. Le Mont Saint Michel jacket, lemontsaintmichel.fr. L. C. King jacket, lcking.com. Mono…

Unless you’re some kind of green-thumbed clairvoyant, your houseplant can’t talk to you—but SproutsIO is the next best thing. It’s essentially a Wi-Fi-enabled garden that links to a mobile app, which tells you when the plant needs water and fertilizer and shows you a time-lapse video of the plant’s progress via a camera in the lamp. So pick an herb, a fruit, or a green (below is a Genovese basil plant) and get growing—just don’t get too attached. $799; sprouts.io…

In a 1972 catalog for Chouinard Equipment, future Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and his then climbing and business partner, Tom Frost, explained why they had stopped producing the steel pitons that launched their company. “No longer can we assume the earth’s resources are limitless; that there are ranges of unclimbed peaks extending endlessly beyond the horizon,” they wrote. “Mountains are finite, and despite their massive appearance, they are fragile.” The company’s aluminum wedges enabled climbers to move more quickly, without breaking or scarring the rock. The decision revolutionized climbing and marked the beginning of Chouinard’s career as an ethical entrepreneur. He switched Patagonia’s apparel line to organic cotton in the mid-1990s, a choice not motivated by profit—the move cost the company millions in the short term—but by his desire to…

…“I went down to fackin’ Onset with the kids this weekend, picked ’em up from my fackin’ ex-wife. I know it didn’t work out between us, but I couldn’t be prouder—she’s fackin’ blossomed since the divorce. She opened a pottery studio, dood. “Fackin’ Bruins—we need a new goalie, bro. Somebody like Tim Thomas, but without the coded language used to disenfranchise women. Dood, he won the Conn Smythe trophy when he was 37!” …“I’ve been to every women’s march, dood. Get there fackin’ early too, bro. Don’t take the Mass Pike in, though. Just take the 1A to Dedham, hop on the 95 to the 93, then take the T in from Braintree. I like to bring a book. Simone de Beauvoir is a fackin’ page-turner. “Women make up 50…

Ever since Virgil Abloh took the reins at Vuitton last year as men’s artistic director, you could, looking at the two collections he’s shown so far, be forgiven for believing that everything that comes out of the storied 165-year-old house is now centered on vivid neon-style colors, graphic knits, and bold patterns. In other words, strong on street and casual looks but less focused on what has been a pillar of the brand: understated, timeless tailoring. As with just about anything that involves Abloh, however, it’s not wise to make assumptions. This month, Vuitton launches the Staples Edition, a new line de-signed by Abloh in which he takes the staples of any successful guy’s wardrobe—the pieces that you were always counseled to invest in but that had seemed lately to…

…In life and in fashion, it’s important to keep everyone guessing. This Bottega Veneta jacket, from new creative director Daniel Lee’s outing for the veteran leather house, is exactly the sartorial trompe l’oeil you need. ¶ At first blush, it’s a rain slicker, but on closer inspection, you’ll note that it’s not rubber but leather. The buttery, traffic-light-yellow jacket is the ultimate style optical illusion—a surprising material transformed into an unlikely garment. Seam-sealed zipper details and a drawstring hood lend athletic edginess to the elevated windbreaker, which advances Lee’s mission of creating back-to-basics, livable essentials from luxe materials. People shouldn’t be able to figure you out with just a glance. Why should your clothes be any different?…

…It used to be a given that the bare minimum, the threshold, of acceptable officewear was a blazer—properly constructed, with lapels and all that. But that has changed. Unlined, unstructured jackets have become the norm—especially in summer. And that has given new significance to the chore jacket, the ubiquitous, patch-pocketed, multiversatile unfitted garment that has its local expression in any country where mechanics tinker with cars, bakers bake bread, and choppers chop wood. For men who like their clothes to raise the bar with honest-to-goodness style, the chore jacket is now the perfect balance point between dressed up and casual. And the sheer breadth of choice out there gives them plenty of fashion options, from Japanese-style boro patchwork to bleu de travail—the midblue popularized and worn every day by original…

…If you’ve ever pitied a lonesome sprig of parsley that has been wasted as a garnish on the side of your plate, we’d like to rewire your mind with a simple suggestion: Herbs are not meant to be reduced to pathetic pinches and dashes. Herbs are meant to be scattered with wild abandon. Herbs are meant to roar. Basil, chives, mint, thyme, lovage, sage, cilantro—when the warmer months have delivered you baskets full of such gifts, whether via backyard garden or a SproutsIO setup (see page 6), use them profligately. Rip them up to release their flavor and rain herbs down by the handful on top of pasta dishes, grilled fish, roasted potatoes. Think like author Tamar Adler and create an entire salad out of wood sorrel and chamomile and…

…There is a school of thought that insists you should never adorn a steak with anything more than salt and pepper. Well, we dropped out of that school long ago. We believe that the fatty, ferrous flavor of grilled beef can only be magnified by a splash of spice, and in her new cookbook, Indian-ish, writer Priya Krishna provides you with an easy and crowd-pleasing method for doing just that: Pour some chhonk. What’s that? It’s a fistful of flavor, tempered and amplified by a fast toast of oil, that’s often used to finish off a dish in Indian cuisine. Maybe you choose black mustard seeds and fresh curry leaves, as Krishna advises, or perhaps her suggested North Indian mix of cumin seeds, red chile powder, a dried chile, and…

• • •Restaurants are obvious inspiration for food and drink, but you can look to them for your party’s music, too—some of the best is now online. Take Celeste, the Boston-area Peruvian hot spot. Its hypercurated list of wild, funky, high-energy psychedelic takes on cumbia, salsa, and merengue will keep your guests asking, “Who is this?” all night long. Find Radio Celeste at celesteunionsquare.com. For a more low-key hang, check out Tourists Radio on Spotify, courtesy of Tourists, a 48-room resort from John Stirratt, the bassist from Wilco. Like the food there, it changes often and with the season yet always pairs well with whiskey. But to really loosen things up, do like Angler in San Francisco, our number-one Best New Restaurant of 2018, and simply play Pandora’s 80s Pop…

…“This traditional British dessert is utterly delicious but I fear not seen on many American menus because it sounds too similar to a furry rodent,” says Ed Szymanski, the chef at Cherry Point, a bastion of delectable English dining in Brooklyn. But it’s so simple. Here’s how Ed does it: Bring ⅔ cup of sugar, 2⅔ cups of cream, a vanilla pod, and the zest of 1 lemon to a boil for 1 minute. Then add the juice of 3 or 4 lemons, pour immediately into 6 shallow bowls you’ve already placed in the fridge, and chill for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight. Top it with anything crunchy—like meringue or cookies—or seasonal fruit, and that’s it. Light, bright, easy.…

From CLASSIC cap-toe oxfords to double monk-straps, there’s a black shoe for every man’s TASTE, no matter how … elevated? Nothing says “rakish and maybe SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS” like black loafers. For store information see page 110.…

An airplane is a flying vehicle that makes it possible to depart from New York City and, in only six hours, arrive in Los Angeles with the flu. Flight is possible because of the presence of wings, finlike structures that keep the aircraft aloft and also prevent it from using most parking spaces. The person in charge of the airplane is the pilot, the member of the flight crew responsible for turning on the autopilot. The hub where passengers go to be most effectively inconvenienced is called the airport. Before boarding an airplane, passengers must surrender all of their stray dimes and half-empty water bottles to the TSA, the agency tasked with making sure terrorists don’t lose their creativity. Although Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with inventing a flying machine,…

Legendary Entertainment commissioned Jeff Lemire to adapt Black Hammer, his ongoing deconstruction of the superhero genre. Meanwhile, Hulu has optioned Lemire’s Sweet Tooth, featuring a man-deer named Gus. Husband and wife Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s production deal with Legendary Television could mean adaptations of DeConnick’s Bitch Planet (think Orange Is the New Black … in space) and Fraction’s Sex Criminals (The Twilight Zone by way of Judd Apatow). Brian K. Vaughan’s hilarious Y: The Last Man follows the life of Yorick Brown, the only survivor of a “gendercide.” Set to debut on FX next year, Y will star Barry Keoghan (the weird kid from The Killing of a Sacred Deer) alongside Diane Lane, Amber Tamblyn, and Imogen Poots. Grant Morrison’s magnum opus, The Invisibles, about an occult group…

It’s hot, humid, and overcast, and I’m ripping down a desolate stretch of road in Minnesota on the new Indian FTR 1200 S. I roll on the throttle and nudge the speedometer north of 100 mph. And then it hits me. A beetle the size of a silver dollar kamikazes itself onto my forehead, a bull’s-eye on one inch of skin between goggles and helmet. Bug guts spreading across my face, I look out onto the vista and think, Jesus, a bike like this might be the best way to explore America. “How do you make something so brutal for the street and sell it globally?” asks Indian’s Rich Christoph, the bike’s designer. “You try and focus on the straightforward, honest approach. It’s a weapon. It’s a tool for raising…

You’ve seen them. Probably in mirror selfies on Instagram. A round piece of plastic, sometimes adorned with a logo, attached to the back of a behemoth phone so that you can more easily grip said behemoth phone. I’ve struggled to understand why these things have annoyed me for so long. So I tried one for a few weeks. And then I understood. They are like the selfie stick. Or the beer helmet. In other words, they’re unsightly solutions to lame First World problems. (Yes, having to lift a beer glass counts as a First World problem.) Our hands are too small for the ginormous phones we crave, and so: PopSockets. I get it. But the more sensible solution? Maybe buy a smaller phone? They still make them. Or use two…

Not to be prickly or anything, but it isn’t always about the movie, okay? In our Hollywood-obsessed world, it’s worth noting that the IWC Pilot’s Watch Top Gun series was created not in homage to the epic ’80s Tom Cruise–Val Kilmer broverdose but to the actual, reallife Navy flight school where elite fighter pilots are trained. We’re talking about the genuine article here. And Swiss high-end horologer IWC Schaffhausen specializes in very genuine articles indeed—obsessively purpose-built tool watches that practically qualify as military equipment. The most distinctive of its newest pilot models, the Mojave Desert, looks like something you’d be issued in a basic-training field kit, along with your compass and canteen—though it’s far from a simple survival tool. Should you happen to find yourself, say, in the cockpit of…

Drop in to any high-end men’s store and you’ll see that tastes have shifted streetward of late. Guys have adopted color, pattern, and scale like never before. But while that hunger shows no sign of abating, Bruce Pask knows that when it comes to style, there are a lot of men searching for something more substantive and distinct. Now he’s given it to them with B., a small, multibrand shop-in-shop at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman. Pask is a reassuring fixture on men’s-wear feeds, often captured at the debuts of men’s collections in Europe, where his deceptively simple wardrobe—there’s always something new and compelling going on, but you’ll be damned if you can quite put your finger on what’s changed—has been the subject of style-hound scrutiny for at least two decades.…

There’s no shame in getting a little help. Plenty of guys work out in order to look good, and it can be tough if all of that effort doesn’t pay off as much as you want. Luckily, we’re living in a body-contouring renaissance, in which technology has made it easier than ever to supplement exercise. These treatments are designed for detail work, so they’re best for people who want to “refine their appearance,” according to plastic surgeon Darrick Antell. But they can also help kick-start a weightloss routine if you don’t already have one (like me) or need a little more motivation to get to the gym (also like me). FREEZE (OR MELT) IT When CoolSculpting ($2,000 to $4,000 per treatment) was approved by the FDA in 2010, it sparked…

…Everyone deserves a break. That’s why you’re seeing, on bar menus across the country, more and more drinks that aren’t built around spirits but rather everything else that goes into a drink. The results are well-crafted elixirs that put teetotalers and imbibers on equal footing when it comes to sipping something that’s festive and delicious and doesn’t have to be extra work for the host. CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: Watermelon + Thai Basil + Mint A complex yet easy-sipping drink adapted from Clean + Dirty Drinking, by Gabriella Mlynarczyk 5 large Thai basil leaves6 mint leaves1 Tbsp simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water)½ Tbsp rose water (like Sadaf or Al Wadi)¼ cup fresh watermelon juice (can be juiced with mint leaves)1½ Tbsp fresh lemon juice2 oz bourbon (optional) Thai basil…

…Rule No. 1: Guests should never have to walk up or down steps for a drink. Stairs are hazardous for a trayful of martinis. Besides, the moment is now and the kitchen is far. Relocate to a ranch, hire a server? Nah. Unless you have room for a single killer mainland bar, think archipelago and strategically position satellite bars around the house. Repurpose a cabinet near the fridge for your Bloodies and blender-drink fixin’s. That one Ikea bookshelf we all have easily stores all-purpose base liquors, while ne’er-used nooks hold sippin’ spirits that don’t need ice. In your home office, stock one top-shelf quaff in the bottom drawer for closed deals and conference calls. And a snort of whiskey in the closet steels nerves when you’re fastening knots. Elsewhere, keep…

WheN THE WHOLE THING COMES TO A PRESUMABLY DRAMATIC HALT on Sunday, May 19—the last gasp of what we once called “appointment television”?—Game of Thrones’ tale of magic, broadswords, and power politics will have played out over eight seasons and seventy-three episodes. If this were a movie to be watched in a single viewing, you would be stuck in your seat for three days. The number of credited cast members reached 635 through season 7, by IMDb’s reckoning—and that’s not including hundreds, if not thousands, of extras. Shot on locations and in studios across three continents and ten countries, the series is one of the most expansive physical productions ever mounted, with a budget that Variety claims has grown to $15 million per episode, a fiscal height rarely scaled by…

NEW AG GRADUATE TAILORED JEAN The best-selling men’s jean is now available in a vintage blue wash designed from 360 Denim, an exclusive, all-direction stretch denim sourced from Japan. bit.ly/agjeansgraduate GET PREPPED FOR SUMMER WITH BEN SHERMAN Looking good isn't important, it's everything! As warmer weather arrives stay sharply dressed and keep your wardrobe on point by opting for a selection of Ben Sherman romford polo shirts available in a cornucopia of fresh colors and designs. Visit BenSherman.com to shop the collection THE SHAQUILLE O’NEAL COLLECTION AT ZALES Style and sophistication are the core of this special men’s jewelry collection found exclusively at Zales. Featuring stainless steel styles, this collection is both durable and masculine. Shop the Collection zales.com/Shaquille-Oneal…