A chaotic list of 15 things I’m into this month (and a few things I'm not)
From the 5 best "come the fuck on winter" jackets, to the 4 words I NEVER want to hear in relation to clothes again and the story of my 2 years of sobriety
Hello subscriber o’ mine! Welcome back to The Closet. This week your inbox is in receipt of my latest 15-in-5. A meandering, chaotic-yet-entirely-exhaustive rundown of the 15 tips, trends, clothes and ridiculous things I want to buy this month, broken into five digestible categories.
This week I’m also sharing an extra special piece to celebrate my second sober anniversary. It’s personal and a bit intense (would you expect anything else, at this stage in our relationship?) and you can read it below.
There are lots of great shopping recommendations too, don’t panic.
5 “Come the fuck on, winter” Jackets
I don’t know about you but I’m really not feeling these six-month-long summers which global warming seems to be enforcing. Up until recently, one of the best things about living in the UK was the fact that layers were essential from September until May. No longer.
The good news is that even if it’s not big coat season yet, you can still enjoy a spot of light layering by way of these neat little “come the fuck on, winter” jackets. From all wool varsities and bouclé pop overs at high street stalwarts Zara and Arket, to tweed and crepe cropped kimono jackets at Bottega Veneta and Prada (not forgetting the corduroy worker blazers at Paul Smith), consider yourself covered till big coat weather kicks in.
Aka, February, at this rate.
4 words I never want to hear in relation to clothes again
Neon
Hold onto your Hadouken merch, neon is back - at least that’s what the retina-searing pieces adorning the winter collections at Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta seem to be suggesting. No one looks good in it. You won’t look good in it. Don’t even think about it.
Skinny
I don’t really understand how “skinny” clothes became trendy in the first place. Yes, high priest of chic Hedi Slimane put them on hairpin models back in the early noughties when he was in his Dior Homme hayday; but surely people who ate more than one meal a day must have realised, even then, that they’d look like a superheated Richmond sausage wearing anything prefixed with that cursed word. Maybe people just did more drugs when skinny was a thing. We’re clean living and as slick as seals these days, monsieur Slimane, so skinny can stay dans la poubelle.
Investment
I’m as guilty of using this word as any other fashion writer worth the feathers in their hair, but “investment” is always a euphemism for “overpriced”. It’s 2023, people. Let’s just call a spade a pick up truck.
Wearable
As opposed to?
3 men whose style I want to steal
Joe Casely Hayford
British design legend Joe Casely-Hayford died in January 2019. The late designer will be recognised with a special gong at the Fashion Awards in December. The BFC has also this week introduced the Joe Casely-Hayford MA Scholarship, which serves to fund and support a student from a Black or mixed-heritage background.
It’s an appropriate dedication. Casely Hayford’s way with men’s tailoring was second to none. His understanding of proportion, of fabric, of the subtle design interplays which make a garment stand out on the rail was astonishing. He also dressed beautifully - a lesson he taught his wonderful son Charlie. If I could exhibit even a modicum of Casely-Hayford’s grace and style for a second of my life I would be a happy man.
A$AP Rocky
Rocky was last week pictured carrying a bright pink Bottega Veneta intrecciato handbag. He was wearing full look normcore Bottega with it. The man is fearless. He also understands the power of contrast and, most importantly - he has an instinct for colour.
Most men tend to underestimate the power of colour in elevating an outfit; so make like Rocky, shelf the sartorial scaries and throw pops of pink, orange, red and lime into your more muted looks. An accessory is a good place to start. You can always just put it down if it starts to look silly.
Giorgio Armani
I often find myself falling into a "Giorgio Armani Young” Google image search hole. Try it. You won’t be disappointed. Indeed, you’ll soon understand the reason why Mr A has been at the top of his game for over five decades (and why he’s worth $8 billion, at last count). The gloopy, Japanese-inspired cuts of his suits and separates was/is timeless. He has also made navy blue his signature into old age. Which is precisely what I plan on doing from, well, now. 36 is the new 80!
2 years of living sober
On the 17th October I celebrated two years of sobriety. Something I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would achieve. I wrote about the lessons I’ve learned for The Times. The piece is readable there, behind a paywall.
This story isn’t strictly style-related, but I hope you enjoy it/find it useful/inspiring, regardless!
It used to be entirely normal for me to booze my way through the week: a glass of wine at a Tuesday work dinner, a few at home on a Wednesday, a boozy lunch on Friday and a bottle with friends in the evening, the same on Saturday, hair of the dog on Sunday and a day off on Monday before starting over again. It felt normal — necessary, even. All part of the breakneck rhythm of London life.
The pandemic made things worse. I started to drink in secret, draining miniature bottles of wine in the kitchen as I cooked elaborate meals. During this time, living with my partner 24/7 brought the issues in our relationship into a harsh light. I was sad and lost, but I never considered that alcohol might be the problem. At the time it was the solution, a boozy raft on life’s stormy sea.
It was my therapist who first told me I should stop drinking.
“It’s the only way you’ll manage your anxiety,” she said.
“It’s not alcohol,” I fought. “It’s just my brain.”
“Alcohol is a depressant,” she continued. “It’s making it worse.”
“I’m not so sure,” I countered grumpily, mentally navigating myself to the pub nearest her office, desperate for the session to end.
Still, I never considered that the roots of my thorny relationship with alcohol lay much closer to home. Like many children of the chardonnay and cab sauv-swilling baby boomers and Generation X (in England 55 to 64-year-olds are the most likely group to be drinking more than 14 units a week, while 16 to 24-year-olds are now the most likely to be teetotal), alcohol played a key role in my formative years. When I was young my parents would plough through the best of a bottle most evenings at home while watching telly. The pretext: post-work relaxation. Mum would become soft-eyed and relaxed, while Dad’s mood would darken with each sip. My most crystalline memories of alcohol were shaped less by the presence of full wine glasses on side tables and more by the events that resulted from its consumption.
Dad, who was a pilot for the duration of my childhood, spent at least two weeks of every month abroad. As a consequence he became a double-headed figure: a grumpy shadow on terra firma and a mythological being who I would boast about to my friends when he was off in some far-flung destination. I was proud of him, even if he scared me a bit when he returned from his trips.
As Dad grew older, his ability to deal with the jet lag diminished and there were regular angry outbursts, often fuelled by alcohol. Christmases were particularly fraught. The evening of December 24 would inevitably result in both my parents getting tipsy on mulled wine. One year Mum fell on me giggling as she put my stocking on my bed. Another, Dad screamed at me for defending her from one of his furies. I remember squaring up to him in front of the stove, the smell of Campo Viejo and cloves strong on his breath.
“How dare you speak to her like that, Dad,” I said, my voice trembling. “It’s Christmas.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Shut up, you little sod. You don’t know what goes on in a marriage.”
We spent most of Christmas Day in simmering silence. Dad only apologised after lunch, when sufficient quantities of wine had been imbibed to soften the memory of the altercation.
My parents split up the year after I left university. I had moved to London and, perhaps thanks to my own well-honed habit, felt numb to the situation. Dad, on the other hand, was in bad shape. So, after one traumatic day during the break-up, he decided to stop drinking for good.
“That’s it, Tay. I’m not touching another drop,” he told me determinedly. His eyes were watering and he looked like Gulliver, perched on a small sofa in the front room of his new house.
I didn’t really believe his assertion at first, partly because I struggled to accept the idea of my dad without a glass of rioja in hand, but also because by that point I couldn’t envisage life — his life, my life, any life — without booze to erode its edges.
I started my own relationship with alcohol at 12. I got drunk for the first time with my cousin after we stole a bottle of Malibu from Grandma’s drinks cupboard. I’d never experienced anything like the heady feeling of warmth and excitement that coursed through me after those first tentative sips. The sensation disappeared when I vomited the contents of my stomach into her loo, but it didn’t stop me itching to drink again.
I spent my late teens illegally procuring bottles of Smirnoff Ice from Bar 29 in Guildford with my friends. I would pretend to my parents that I was going to the cinema. Back then it seemed entirely normal to get rat-arsed at the weekend, all a merry part of the binge-drinking culture that pervaded at the time.
As Dad settled into sobriety, my own relationship with drinking ramped up. My twenties were a heady blur of work trips, weddings and lost weekends all fuelled by booze. By the time I reached my thirties I would often end up crying on friends by the end of drunken evenings, unsure why I was so unhappy.
With my family I became belligerent — fun at the beginning of the evening, brittle by the end. I wasn’t yet able to recognise the similarity between drunk me and drunk Dad, though I’m sure he did, watching with quiet concern from the sidelines.
That was a pretence I maintained until, one morning in October 2021, after a drunken argument with a friend in the wake of breaking up with my partner, I realised my therapist was right. I woke up having blacked out, small shards of anxiety punctuating my brain. Puffy-faced and scared, I went to my first and only AA meeting later that evening.
The gathering was held in a side room of a church. I remember being surprised by how normal the handful of people in the room seemed. They were predominantly young — I learnt that one was an actor, another a marketing executive — and they encouraged me to share my experience, which paled in comparison to theirs.
When the meeting was over, the graphic designer offered to be my sponsor. Unsure of what the process entailed — and not entirely convinced that I needed one — I agreed to meet him for a coffee the following day.
“I’m telling you, pal, if you don’t stop drinking, you’ll be downing pints in the morning and injecting your toes with crystal meth by the end of the year,” he said when we met. I finished my coffee, thanked him for his time and politely declined his offer. I know sponsors work wonders for some people, but meth didn’t yet feel like it was on the menu for me. I think my brief encounter with AA helped to show me that life without booze might be possible. I haven’t touched a drop since.
Dad had been sober for seven years by the time I stopped. Bearing witness to the man he had transformed into proved to me that I could do the same, and my love for him expanded. Now I often tell him how proud I am to call him my dad, and it’s true. I don’t think I’d have been able to stop drinking without him.
Sober Dad was softer, more patient, and our relationship blossomed. We started going out for lunch regularly, talking about the past without the acrimony that had once shaped our relationship. It was Dad who encouraged me to continue with my sobriety after my dalliance with AA, his pride propelling me more efficiently than a sponsor ever could.
“You can do it, Teo,” he said seriously over chicken skewers at Bill’s in London Bridge, our meeting point of choice. “If I can you can.” He paused, smiling. “It’s our strong Dutch stock!”
My life without booze is undoubtedly better. Now 36, I sleep like a baby, day-to-day challenges are surmountable and I’m less anxious. But it’s also true that my life has remained similar. I may go out less and to bed earlier, but my brain is still my brain, my heart still my heart. All my issues are still there, they’re just not as amplified. The main difference is that I now feel a sense of pride in myself, which had all but disappeared during my drinking years.
I may start again, I may not. I like to think that after this reset — it will be two years next month — I’ll be capable of re-embracing alcohol in a healthy way. Then again, I can’t really see a good reason to resume. And if my continued sobriety means that I can maintain a good relationship with my dad — a relationship scented by trust and respect rather than vinegar and danger — then I think I’d be a fool to even consider it.
1 item which is burning a hole in my shopping basket
Back to fashion! OK, so it’s technically two items, but the cut of this chocolate brown future suit from Stefano Pilati’s brand Random Identities is a thing of razor edged, form-flattering beauty. The width of the lapel! The tie at the waist! The length of the trouser!
It’s also incredibly reasonable for a designer suit. Show me another beautifully conceived two-piece which can be worn as easily to work as it can to a wedding, for less than £1200, and I’ll show you a fake.
Ok ok, this segment is definitely not about just one solitary garment I’m loving, but isn’t the below the best coat you’ve ever seen? Jaguar! Roll on February…
P.S. I absolutely promise I’m not on the payroll of Stefano Pilati, I just think the man’s a genius.
Oh, and one more thing
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