Thursday, November 06, 2025 |
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Over the years, I slowly replaced the shade with navy. I blame the Italians. |
Welcome to the first edition of Big Black Book, a dive into the world of men's style written by me, Nick Sullivan, Esquire's creative director (and maybe a few other interesting voices in the future). You're getting a first look, but be sure to sign up to receive the next edition. Every other Thursday, you can find me in your inbox with thoughts on everything from the way guys get dressed these days to the coolest people, brands, and, of course, clothes that I've seen recently. Don't worry, we're not here to get into the weeds with industry news or runway reviews—unless it's something you really shouldn't miss. Instead, this is a place to celebrate real-life style and tell a few interesting stories along the way. |
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I'll start with a bit about myself, because it's funny how life has a habit of throwing up serendipitous style moments. Last week, my son asked me if I could cough up a black suit for him to wear to a Halloween bash in Manhattan. He and some mates were doing Men in Black.
"I cannot," I told him. "I don't own a black suit. Not even a tux."
"Why?" he asked.
It's a good question, especially when you're asking someone who's approaching 35 years in the fashion mag business. For most of that, though I must have styled a thousand of them, I have not owned a black suit. So, I thought it might be interesting for this first Big Black Book-themed newsletter to parse out what led me to this position.
Black is, arguably, the soul of fashion—the ultimate neutral. Ubiquitous and functional, the black suit is as much a no-brainer in men's fashion as the little black dress is in women's fashion. But as I got into the industry, rubbing shoulders with designers, stylists, brand leaders, and other fashion writers, a persistent voice in the back of my mind told me that flat black was too obvious—a lowest common denominator and too easy a palette to live by. Gradually, and entirely unconsciously, I phased black out of my wardrobe.
Unless you spend far more time than is sensible thinking about things like this, the evolution of a man's wardrobe is pretty much like Darwin's theory of natural selection. Unwitting choices are made, one by one, until you only ever wear jeans, or suits, or sneakers, or whatever. In my case, there was no black left in my closet. No black tees, no black jeans, no black leather. What there was however—and lots of it—was navy. |
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When it comes to my aversion to black, I blame the Italians. You can't throw a stick in the fashion industry without hitting an Italian. They are weavers, designers, and makers, and it doesn't matter if you like your clothes hot off a runway in Paris or from a bespoke tailor in London—somewhere along the line an Italian probably had skin in the game. So, what they think about color inevitably has had an influence. That includes, of course, the late Giorgio Armani, who, as narrator of the short documentary Made In Milan he made in 1990 with Martin Scorsese, said "I don't own what you would call a designer wardrobe. I have many blue jackets, blue sweaters, gray pants. In my mind it's like a uniform. You have to know yourself and your body and your personality to know how to dress. Why blue? Because I think blue looks good on me." |
For many Italians, who wear their snobbery about style relatively lightly, black is the color of two things: service and death. Waiters wear black, undertakers wear black, even the deceased wear black. Which is why you shouldn't do the same, at least while you're alive. Unless you're a waiter. Somehow, though I'm not remotely superstitious and have even been briefly a waiter, a kind of osmosis set in.
Italy-approved navy blue it was, then. You'll never stick out in a dark navy suit amongst a sea of black, but then again you might. When everyone is in black, navy is a kind of 10 percent extra effort thing. I've always thought—with no scientific reasoning to justify it—that navy blue suits my skin tone better than black, which washes me out any time I don't have an Onassis-like tan. Navy blue goes better with brown shoes and even works equally with black shoes. Navy T-shirts tend to hold their color longer than black, which can take on a brownish hue as dyes leech out in the wash. |
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Over time navy has become my uniform. Navy tees (always), blue jeans, navy blazers. In winter, Uniqlo's fine merino wool knits (crew necks or turtlenecks) are everyday realities and, sitting a notch style-wise above a sweatshirt, they're just the thing to look suitably dressed while being comfortable on a night flight. They have the added advantage of being very affordable, which is good given I tend to wear them to death with all due speed.
My wardrobe may not be a riot, but it's not a wake either. I wear other colors. White jeans, beige chinos, and gray flannels are always on my packing list. Tweed is welcome. But navy is the base because everything goes with navy. It may seem boring, but I don't care. I love the fashion business in all its creative excitement and potential for enriching people's sense of self. At Esquire we shoot black clothing just as much as we shoot any other color. Navy is not what I do; it's just what I wear.
Navy blue has other unexpected advantages. I learned a lot over the years researching the Duke of Windsor, a rebellious royal whose functional style rules still work today (if you can get past the questionable politics). The duke was a style revolutionary who went to great lengths to make his clothes comfortable, favoring the draped tailoring style of luminaries like tailor Frederick Scholte and having zippers put in his pants instead of faffy fly buttons. If he were still around today, he'd probably be into athleisure. But one thing above all struck me about what he said about navy, or rather midnight blue. Under electric light at night, he reasoned, the black dinner suits of the day tended to take on a brown cast (like T-shirts in the wash) and the finer details like the rakish cut of a lapel could disappear. Fully cognizant of his public role as a clothes horse, he also thought midnight blue tended to make his clothes look better in press photographs because those sartorial details stood out better than black (ironically) in black and white photography. |
Navy blue has other unexpected advantages. I learned a lot over the years researching the Duke of Windsor, a rebellious royal whose functional style rules still work today (if you can get past the questionable politics). The duke was a style revolutionary who went to great lengths to make his clothes comfortable, favoring the draped tailoring style of luminaries like tailor Frederick Scholte and having zippers put in his pants instead of faffy fly buttons. If he were still around today, he'd probably be into athleisure. But one thing above all struck me about what he said about navy, or rather midnight blue. Under electric light at night, he reasoned, the black dinner suits of the day tended to take on a brown cast (like T-shirts in the wash) and the finer details like the rakish cut of a lapel could disappear. Fully cognizant of his public role as a clothes horse, he also thought midnight blue tended to make his clothes look better in press photographs because those sartorial details stood out better than black (ironically) in black and white photography. |
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If, like me, you are not regularly prey to the paparazzi, a midnight blue tux up close looks like you thought just a tad more than the other penguins about your tux—but not too much. That 10 percent thing again. Fortunately, you don't need to go to Savile Row to get yours. You can find midnight blue tuxes all over the place these days and at a pleasing array of prices from a few hundred bucks to thousands. For this, Suit Supply, with branches in several U.S. cities and a fully stocked website, is a slam dunk, with plenty of options between $700 and $1,000.
Be wary, though. Lighter shades of blue tend creep into your peripheral vision once you've decided to go for navy blue. It's a rocky road that leads to a peacock blue tux.
I'm not evangelizing at all for navy. I'm fully aware that for most men black is always going to be the coolest color. But I'm willing to bet I'm not entirely alone in my preference. And if I am, that's OK too.
You may be wondering how we did with my son's Halloween outfit. Well, he wore the darkest navy one I could find. "It's Prada. And it's almost black," he said, satisfied. That's my boy. Almost black. But not quite. |
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- If you haven't had a chance yet, check out the fall/winter 2025 issue of the Big Black Book.
- Watch nerd? Just a casual fan? Either way, you can learn more than you ever thought you needed to know about Tudor right here.
- Here, in a recent installment of the ongoing Five Fits With series, is a fascinating look at the man behind Ivy Style outfitter Tailor Caid.
- And a chat with Aaron Pierre—star of the upcoming DC show Lanterns and Star Wars movie Starfighter—about superheroes, fashion, and gratitude.
- Don't miss the next edition of the Big Black Book newsletter. You can sign up here.
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 Thursday, November 06, 2025 |
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We have a series called The Secret Lives of Men, comprised of topics that guys only talk about with their closest friends, or maybe no one at all. Through the course of the series, men have talked to us about sex, drugs, gambling, career, parenthood, and much more. In one Secret Lives, a man tells us about his divorce from his wife of many years. The piece is bracing and honest, told with astonishing detail. You can read it here. – Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief Plus: |
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The end of my marriage unfolded in stages. The pain and uncertainty of the first two didn't prepare me for the revelation of the last. |
My wife and I had been in couples counseling for a decade when our therapist called it quits. In the previous session, she'd told my wife—let's call her Vicki—that Vicki wasn't The Boss and our partnership was a collaboration, but The Boss rejected that notion. "This is who I am," she said. It was her anthem. We sat on opposite sides of the couch. Vicki leaned away from me, finding some fascination in the flooring. On the end table on my side was a small, sad succulent I sometimes stared at. I tried to figure out if it was fake. The therapist sighed and waited for us to continue. We didn't say anything.How had it come to this? When we made our wedding vows, we were all in—I was so sure I would grow old with this person. But I came to realize, about halfway into our 20-year marriage, that growing old meant You grow your way, and I'll grow mine. I'd become resigned to my troubled marriage but hoped that it was temporary. Though as time went on, I felt misled, estranged, and increasingly unhappy. One hurtful recurring theme, for example, was how we handled the kids. The Family CEO also appointed herself the Good Cop, forcing me into the other role, which I played with authority but huge reluctance. When she stepped in to shield the girls from that authority, it undermined me with two blows: She looked like a martyr, and I looked like an asshole. I was playing poker with a group of guys around this time, a few of whom were divorced—my sage elders—and one of them had a practical suggestion: Ask her if she wants to work on the marriage or if she would prefer to work on a divorce. I did. She answered, "I want to stay married." It bought us a few more years. |
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Founded in 1854 as the Waterbury Clock Company, Timex made its name with everyday icons such as the 1930s Mickey Mouse watch and the 1960s Marlin, proving that good design and dependability didn't have to cost a fortune. More recently, it has found favor with a younger, more trend-oriented demographic via such hits as the reissue of the 1970s Q Timex—particularly the model that brought Rolex GMT styling into a sub-$200 price point. Before launching the new, higher-end range, creative director Giorgio Galli had already tested the appetite for something more elevated with his own Giorgio Galli line—minimalist, architecturally inspired models built in Milan and powered by a Japanese automatic movements, which successfully nudged the brand toward $2,000 territory. Last month marked another milestone: the debut of Timex Atelier, designed to bring fancier materials, better craftsmanship, and a new sense of ambition to one of the world's most famous watch companies. "Watch design is all about experience," Galli says. "You only learn by doing." |
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In 2021, some good news for Japanese-whisky fans arrived in the form of new labeling standards set forth by the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association, which were codified a few years later … sort of. Japanese whisky is now subject to rules that clearly define what is in the bottle, although at this point it's really an agreement among producers rather than a legal requirement. According to Kris Elliott, cofounder of High Road Spirits, which imports Japanese whisky, among other spirits, the intent is for these standards to become law within a few years, ensuring that Japanese whisky will be defined as specifically as Scotch or bourbon is. Kris Elliott, cofounder of High Road Spirits, believes that the new standards will benefit the industry as a whole. "Even though Japanese whisky is growing as a category, it is quite small compared to other global whisky categories," he said. "As the industry matures and the regulations are recognized, there will be less brands 'faking it until they make it.' It will be an evolution, a curve, until we reach a level of transparency all the way to the consumer." |
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