I remember when Vincent balked at my fishing vest. Vincent is my former boss from when I worked at American Style magazine, and the man who fired me for accidentally drenching a Tom Ford dress shirt with an upholstery steamer back in 2014. He was in town from Milan, where he’d recently started another magazine, and we were meeting at some hotel rooftop bar in the West Village where everyone smelled like Cedar and looked like walking Bud Light commercials.
I was wearing my typical summer outfit at the time: shorts (they were slim but not skinny, ok), a linen shirt (pressed, sorta), and … let’s pause for Vincent to nearly spit out his negroni … a FISHING VEST. * Not some ironic Normcore appropriation fishing vest. An actual vest designed for fishing. Complete with compartments and loops for tools and a mesh back panel for airflow.
I’d purchased it at Cabelas for $42 on a weekend trip to Maine three months prior, and immediately fell in love with how useful it was. Seriously … it was probably the most useful item of clothing I’d ever owned. * “How do you even DO that to yourself, Jackson?” Vincent asked, leaning his glass gingerly on the bar as if setting it down any other way would surely send me down a path of eternal poverty-boho sack dresses. “Jackson, what the actual fuck are you wearing?” * It’s now four years later and I have three fishing vests in different colors.
But I’m also far from alone in championing what was ostensibly written off in fashion media as an “ugly dad trend” a few years ago but has since crossed into legitimately mainstream territory: Technical outdoor gear worn as actual streetwear. * Think fishing vests, Teva sandals, trail runners with jeans, backpack/ers, waterproof messenger bags, cargo pants with useful pockets, etc. etc.
Fashion trends love to mock dedicated outdoorsy attire for years – case in point: The entire persona of Dad wearing a fanny pack, cargo shorts, and a bucket hat on vacation is the hill that streetwear died on. (All of which, I will note, are cool in SoHo as we speak.) But now suddenly every rugged backpack brand with a jacket/er that isn’t actively banned from Yosemite is being thrown into Downtown boutiques and sold at impossible markup. * At its best though, this “dadulic” movement has heralded a very welcome development in American menswear culture: Functionality. Because at the end of the day, clothing that’s supposed to be “ugly” but highly useful – like the kinds of items you’ll find in your best camping supply shop – is actually some of the most honest clothing trends we’ve seen in a long time. Trends dictated not by celebrities or Instagram moguls but because men actually went out and recognized that maybe the non-fashion-forward solution was the correct one. * For example: My fishing vest.
Ever think about how many things you need to carry around on a given day? Phone (growing bigger each year), Wallet (full of cards), Keys, AirPods, Glasses, Masks. All of those things don’t comfortably fit in your pants pockets anymore without creating a bulging., depressing lump that ruins an otherwise nice outfit.
So you just DEAL WITH IT and shove everything into your pockets unevenly and pray the sweats you’re wearing hide the bulge. Who wants to do that? Not me.
My vest has eight different pockets that are surgically engineered to separate and organize everything I own. It’s basically a cheat code. * Remember when those eye god sandal things everyone mocked were actually just Tevas? Thought not.
But what’s crazy to me is that I first noticed the sandal situation was officially “legit” back in … let’s see … 2019? I was visiting Portland for a trade show and nearly half the stylish young men I encountered were wearing some variation on “Normcore hiking sandals” with otherwise casually-dressed outfits. Not the Elevated Basic paeans being peddled by menswear fashion “brands” but REAL hiking sandals made by the companies that make hiking sandals – Salomon, Hoka, etc.
Like the hiking shoes were actually being worn for sidewalks, not trails. Crazy! All those amazing footsteps designed INTO shoesoles to keep your ankles stabilized and comfy on rugged terrain are also just super comfortable for casually walking ten blocks in NYC.
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Who’d have thought? * When I asked my friend David, a professional photographer who wears Salomon hiking shoes and never makes any sudden moves without me present, how long he’d been rocking the trail runners – he’s worn them annually for YEARS – he shrugged and explained how everyone used to ask if he was “heading to the trails” after photo shoots but now just complimented his shoes. “Nothing about them changed,” he said. “People are just cool with wearing comfy shoes now.” * It’s like that with almost all of these exceptions. Functional clothes that were once consigned to campground ignominy are officially having a moment because men finally said ENOUGH with the pants that bunch uncomfortably around our shoes, the dress shoes with zero tread that slip and slide all over the place when it rains, and clothing that exists in our closet just to hang around and mock us with their shitty pockets and general suckitude. We’re allowed to want our clothes to work how they’re supposed to again.
It’s the American way. * I first started to notice my dad subscribing to this philosophy when I was younger. He would come visit me in New York each summer from Florida and I would strong-arm him into “updating” his wardrobe so he didn’t look like a veritable baseball card collecting encyclopedia. We spent three hours one summer trying to convince him to ditch his New Balance “dad shoes” for “actual footwear” so stylish I donated his NB’s to Goodwill after he returned to Florida because he refused to wear them once, they were so uncomfortable compared to his cherished walking sneakers.
Now good god do those same NB dad shoesSignal-boost every fashion blog on the planet and I’ve sent enough salty emails to his Facebook/profile suggesting otherwise. * “You FINALLY caught up, son!” he proudly proclaimed the last time he was in town when I pulled out a pair of deliberately clunky sneakers to match his equally dad-core tire they were throwing during our annual pal dads reunion outside of Rome. He wasn’t wrong…. * …But let’s not forget that huge part of this rug superces was when serious brands started putting out collaborations WITH technically-derived outdoor companies rather than just slapping “mountain” on nylon jackets and calling it a day. All of a sudden Salomon wasn’t just selling shoes FOR mountains, they were releasing limited edition runs WITH boutique shops.
Arc’teryx wasn’t just keeping climbers alive on Everest, they were hosting their own shows at New York Fashion Week. The North Face wasn’t just protecting your butt from snow when biking to work, they were doing FUCT capes. * Thank god we live in a world where function rules. Because when something works really fucking well – toilet paper, for example – it often elicits a kind of beauty that most things we covet for STYLE purposes don’t.
There’s a reason we’ve raided the closets of military uniforms and chicory-workers for decades: THOSE PEOPLE HAVE SOME STANDARDS. Garments are engineered to DO tasks, and when they do those tasks REALLY well, it creates a coolness that can’t be synthetically reproduced by studying Instagram. * * Fishing vests aren’t beautiful. Neither are Tevas, cargo pants, or unnecessarily chunky running shoes.
But they serve a purpose.
They help us live our lives with greater ease. And when everything sucks to some degree – but your clothing doesn’t – that’s kind of a beautiful thing, too. * On that note, here are some tips on how to properly wear outdoor garments as outdoor-inspired streetwear. * Buy one key “technical” item that speaks to your needs.
Backpack/ers work great if you live in a city and have to commute places, throw on a bunch of layers for unpredictable weather, or simply need to fit more shit in your closet than your jeans can hold. Compact but waterproof jackets that look and feel like parachutes are also amazing, as are lightweight yet moisture-wicking shirts. Figure out what you wear that you have a hard time finding room for, and shop for gear that can solve that problem. * * Balance your technical apparel with normal-looking shit.
Throw that vest over a plain ol’ button-up and chinos. Rock those trail runners with some regular jeans and a sweater. Pair that insane weather-jacket with a plain coat and tie.
The key is to take one fucked with/engineered for function garment and balance it out with some normal clothes so you don’t feel like youre about to climb K2 when grabbing a latte. * Know where to look. Brands like Japan’s Snow Peak have long embraced an almost architectural minimalism to their camping gear that makes it just as suitable for city living. But even “regular” outdoor brands like Patagonia have held such high design standards for so long now that their venture into “streetwear” hasn’t felt forced or disingenuous.
