Chic new fashion trends for dirty hipsters like myself

I don’t take New Year’s resolutions lightly. Many people, those hacks, say they’re gonna go to the gym more, just to buy a membership at Planet Fitness for the Judgement Free Zone and go once before deciding any more will kill them faster than heart disease and quit right there. That’s weak. No, this year, I will hold tough. This year, I will live my life according to GQ magazine. That’s ridiculous, you say, breathing handfuls of chips into your mouth and looking so November 2017 in your denim jacket. I have never been accused of having good style, and of late the concept of fashion is back in fashion, so if ever there were a train to hop on to, it may as well be one that makes you look clean as a whistle. That’s a rap lyric. My lifestyle is changing around me already.

   First, I had to familiarize myself with a few concepts. Streetwear was new to me. I couldn’t get past it. I saw pictures of it everywhere, but it seemed all it could do was pose. That was the second concept: stunting. That’s what it’s all about. No matter what your hustle, doctor, social worker, teacher, you gotta stunt. Graphic tees are in. Limited release is synonymous with quality. There has even formed a “hype market,” wherein keen fashionistas succumb to their capitalistic nature and buy the latest and greatest only to sell back later on for profit. Casual is cool. Suit pants with a ripped hoodie. It’s all in the name of expression, or something. I’ll have to find something to express. Confusion, I think, will suffice. For today, GQ recommended “my sexiest business suit dressed down with a neck tattoo.” Maybe I’ll get a dragon, or a liger. Lion mixed with a tiger. Nothing screams business casual like a liger.

The magazine released “Men’s Essentials” earlier this year. It’s a smattering of items ranging from white t-shirts to Rolex watches. The list includes several pairs of loafers differing only in the treatment of leather, monogrammed pinky rings, and Gucci flannels. All of these things are essential, all $22,000 of them. I didn’t want to go to college anyway. I got five of the same jacket, but one is for sports and one is for blazing and one is for suits. There are trousers and khakis and chinos and parachutes and clam diggers and capris and more types of pants than legs out there to wear them. So, for the sake of style, GQ recommends I change my pants six times a day, because staleness is the bane of class. And class is everything. You don’t want to be the white bread of fashion. You want to be the marbled rye, plus an APC Hughes chain metal bracelet and Givenchy straightlegged trousers. Tomorrow I will be wearing nothing but H&M socks and my new tattoo.

    Dress is one thing, but what about the rest of my carefully cultivated and curated life? What do I do with myself after looking this great? Stunting isn’t just the look, it’s the way you make everyone around you know about the look. I gotta take my coiffed and buttered-up self and blow the coop. Luckily, GQ has got my back again, coming in clutch with a $4000 suitcase from Louis Vuitton that I can’t travel without. They recommended I go to Gstaad to ski with the ambassador in the fall, all of which they for some reason call “Leaf Peeping.” I’ll walk you through my vacation plans: I fly in to Paris and drive down to Provence. I’ll know I’m there once I hear the incessant and ear-splitting screech of cicadas. Home sweet home right when I hit the room and find out they don’t have central plumbing or heating. I wanted to get away, didn’t I? I’ll be in my navy travel suit dressed down with Balenciaga trainers when I get the call from the embassy. Mr. Grey will see me now. Or at least the trade minister will, for a brisk game of racquetball, which I will trounce him in, at which point I will declare my country naturally superior and we never needed France anyway because all those Frenchies have ever done is get themselves saved by us every world war, and I’ll shove my Omega Seamaster right in his face as soon as he starts to even think about the Revolutionary War.

After four outfit changes and an emotional breakdown that wakes my therapist up due to the time change and forces him to tell me that eggshell is more or less the same as off-white, I saunter down to the central market looking like a naturalized local in my camouflage Bape streetwear and luxe gold chain juxtaposed with oxford loafers. I improvise a selfie stick from a cattle prod I found on the side of the road, and after electrocuting myself and feeling alive for the first time in five years, I proceed to photograph the entire village and talk over a video blog in French as broken as my mental state. As it darkens outside I board a helicopter that flies me to the Cote d’Azur. I invited several supermodels to join me on a sunset cruise along the coast, but every single one of them declined, and so me, dressed now in a white blazer and neglecting to wear pants, and the brutish captain of a small tuna boat float in a very tense silence broken only by his fits of violent coughing. Since GQ recommended I use foot cream, I rub my feet down and then drink half a liter of the stuff for good measure. I also dunk my head in essential oils and tell the boat captain not to let me up until I am struggling intensely. I walk many miles back to my hotel and sleep for 35 minutes because that’s how long GQ said Jeff Bezos sleeps for. In the morning, I go back to the airport, but not before burning everything I had worn on the trip, lest I slip up and accidentally wear it again. I fly back and take several pictures with the flight attendants, who I shame for their uncouth dress.

I cannot and do not ask questions of GQ magazine, just let it slowly coax me into deep pits of envy and a low self-esteem as I cut check after bouncing check to pay for a tissue once used by Diane von Furstenberg.

I enjoyed this article, and I hope you found your ten minutes reading this article to be useful.