In honor of Mr. Thom Browne acquiring the title of GQ's Designer of the Year I decided to post Mr. Browne's 10 Guidelines for dressing like a gentleman... Take notes fellas! ENJOY!
1. I don’t understand why everybody thinks that dressing casually is so much more comfortable. I’m as comfortable in a suit as I am in anything else.
2. Good champagne—good, not expensive—has been my cocktail of choice for as long as I can remember. I like them all—Bollinger, Taittinger, and others. I also collect champagne coupes; I have more than 10. They’re one of the few things that I collect.
3. Chariots of Fire, Death in Venice, North by Northwest, and The Thomas Crown Affair are some of my favorite films—and they’re all particularly inspiring for menswear. I watch movies all the time but I don’t like to go to the theater. It’s just too much.
4. Guys shouldn’t spend a lot of money on a haircut. I go to Chelsea Barbers in New York, where I pay about $30. The price went up, but I’m very loyal to the woman there.
5. It’s sad that the cell phone is replacing the watch as a time-telling device. I wear a vintage watch that’s really skinny.
6. When it comes to shoes, you don’t really need more than a few pairs of wing tips or oxfords. They’re classics. And I wear only black shoes in the city. Brown ones are for the country.
7. Men don’t know enough about being courteous toward women. You should get into a cab before a woman so she doesn’t have to slide across the seat. And you should always go first into a revolving door so she doesn’t have to push—unless it’s moving, then let her go first.
8. Seersucker and khaki suits are the key to looking put-together in the summer. I also wear shorts year-round. And I would never say never, but I don’t wear sandals. With shorts, it’s wing tips and tennis socks.
9. I like menswear from the late fifties and early sixties. It’s the uniformity and the lack of choice from that era that I respond to. It’s also the last time that there was such a distinct American style. Now it’s all jumbled up and homogenized.
10. I love white linen sheets, but they need to be ironed, so that limits my use of them. Otherwise, I like really good, starched white cotton sheets. They have to be white.