Esquire

Esquire is a funny, informative, connected magazine that covers all the interests of American men: Politics, style, advice, women, health, eating and drinking, the most interesting people of our time

Esquire3 min read
A Living Legacy
THE FIRST ISSUE OF ESQUIRE, PUBLISHED in October 1933, is a lodestar for us. Its founders believed America needed a magazine for men who wanted advice on how to dress, where to travel, and what to eat and drink, as well as articles from the best writ
Esquire1 min read
Make It Yours
PRESENTED BY THE HOME DEPOT The elements of a home office will vary based on needs, but an aesthetically pleasing room is universal. Accent a bold wall with necessities in neutral colors for a polished yet vibrant look. A creative space is sure to in
Esquire2 min read
Esquire
MICHAEL SEBASTIAN EDITOR IN CHIEF NICK SULLIVAN_Creative Director BRIAN O’KEEFE_Executive Editor ABIGAIL GREENE_Executive Managing Editor ROCKWELL HARWOOD_Design Director JOHN KENNEY_Managing Editor KELLY STOUT_Articles Director KEVIN SINTUMUANG_Cult
Esquire2 min read
POP a Cork WITH US!
“SERVE A COCKTAIL in the drawing room, and keep it down to one or two unless you are sure that your dinner is not going to be fit for consumption by sober people.” MARCH 1934 “AT A COCKTAIL PARTY, restraint can be tossed to the winds: let liberality
Esquire1 min read
BACK TO THE FUTURE: Esquire’s 1941 Old-Fashioned Formula
The first mention of the old-fashioned cocktail in Esquire was in October 1933. It would be nodded to throughout the decades with no real proper recipe included: It’s just sugar, bitters, and whiskey, after all. But the drink became something else ov
Esquire4 min read
Are We Not Men?
I DON’T WANT TO ALARM YOU MEN, BUT you’re not men anymore. You can be forgiven for not noticing that men aren’t men anymore, because men are always not men anymore. “Men aren’t men anymore”—like “nobody younger than me wants to work” and “this isn’t
Esquire9 min read
Don’t Meet Your Heroes, Especially The Dead Ones
WHEN ERNEST HEMINGWAY WASN’T AT FINCA VIGÍA, HIS HOUSE 30 MINUTES FROM HAVANA, he was likely at the Floridita, drinking frozen daiquiris at the end of the bar. Hemingway was very specific about those daiquiris, as he was with many things. They contai
Esquire1 min read
A Kinder Cashmere
THREE DAYS. THAT’S ABOUT HOW LONG IT TAKES TO CREATE A SINGLE piece of knitwear in Loro Piana’s LORO collection. Each crewneck, polo, turtleneck, and V-neck is made from recycled cash mere from the label’s production surplus. The extraneous bits—zipp
Esquire2 min read
Jersey Boy
EVERY SUMMER IN NEW YORK, MEDIA BRANDS play one another in a softball league. Until the pandemic started in 2020, Esquire fielded a team. My first season was summer 2016. I played left field in the jersey you see here. I wore it with pride: Working a
Esquire6 min readCrime & Violence
Jim Crow Returns
FOR AS LONG AS THERE HAS BEEN A UNITED STATES OF AMERica, its highest-ranked somebodies have been white, educated men of means. The nobodies have changed across the ages, but for longer than there has been a U. S. of A., the somebodies have conspired
Esquire1 min read
The NEXT_90
Humans are hardwired to look ahead. We make to-do lists. We bet on the Cowboys to cover the spread this weekend. We fantasize about the cocktail we’re going to have after work. We make bold plans for new jobs, new lovers, new lives. At Esquire, a big
Esquire3 min read
What I’ve Learned
WRITER, 91, NEW YORK CITY __ YOU’RE TALKING TO A GUY who just turned in a book. Jesus Christ, I’m 91 and I finished a book. Not only did I finish a book, but I also read it over and I like it. Looking over 70 years as a published writer, I’m not anyt
Esquire3 min readPolitical Ideologies
The Future Is Too Important To Just Wait For It
PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE SEPTEMBER 4, 12:05 a.m. IT IS night in Ukraine at the moment. Another week of war is over. And probably no one in Ukraine will remember which week of the war it was. It is the first minutes of a new Monday. The day when most of t
Esquire12 min read
The Making Of barry Keoghan
RENWICK STREET, BEING BLIND, MUST BE ONE OF THE LEAST traveled streets in all New York, a one-block one-way that dead-ends at Canal and doesn’t see much traffic, foot or car. There’s a gym at the blind end, and he’s in there behind the tinted windows
Esquire3 min read
The Majesty Of Telling great Big Stories
I WENT TO THE THEATER AGAIN AND AGAIN to see Return of the Jedi. I vividly remember the scene in which Luke is hiding from Vader in the Emperor’s room and Vader gives the speech that ends with “If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps your
Esquire2 min read
Gaming’s Final Frontier? It’s Already Here.
TODD HOWARD ALWAYS KNEW HE’D HAVE TO make a video game about space. And the signs of his fascination are obvious as the fifty-two-year-old game designer excitedly shows me around his office at Bethesda Game Studios in Rockville, Maryland. In addition
Esquire8 min read
The End Of The World As He Writes It
“I THOUGHT I CRUSHED A BUTTERFLY THE OTHER day,” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah says, sounding genuinely rueful. “I felt so bad.” Today at least, the lepidoptera we have come to see at the Museum of Natural History are safe from harm: It turns out that tic
Esquire1 min read
Persons OF INFLUENCE
2 million YouTube subscribers Dimoldenberg turned awkward dating into an art form and reinvented the celebrity interview in the process. On her YouTube show “Chicken Shop Date,” the British comedian questions famous guests in a fast-food restaurant a
Esquire2 min read
In Praise of feuds
AT A CROWDED NEW YORK APARTMENT IN 1977, Norman Mailer uppercut Gore Vidal in the mouth. Vidal, who had infuriated Mailer by comparing him to Charles Manson in a review six years earlier, is said to have replied, “Norman, once again words have failed
Esquire1 min read
MUSEUM OF Home Video
We always wanted to have the world of entertainment at our fingertips, to be a quick click away from infinite options. As always, we were not careful what we wished for. “Now we all have that,” says video archivist Bret Berg, “and we all hate it.” Wh
Esquire2 min read
Esquire Endorses
_ Wearing a suit when it’s not required _ Dogs with human, adult names: Stanley, Frank, Nancy, Linda. _ Having a third martini. _ THURS ______ DAY. _ Luxury slippers AT THE OFFICE. _ Horny K-pop (see Jung Kook’s “Seven”). _ VOTING____. _ Words THAT r
Esquire13 min read
Magic Man
THERE ARE MORE THAN EIGHT BILLION PEOPLE ON PLANET earth, and very few of them can remain relatable while they’re telling you about the time the diamond fell out of their mouth. Not just relatable, likable. Your heart breaks when you hear how he hung
Esquire1 min read
Shelf Life
For store information see page 120. ■
Esquire1 min read
ATTACK OF THE NEW INDIE Filmmakers
Will anything fend off our dystopian, AI-curated future? As far as cinema goes, it will probably be filmmakers so inimitably idiosyncratic and human that the machines just can’t compute. Fortunately, a rising tide of independents are storming the sce
Esquire2 min read
A pop maestro Without Borders
TIMES HAVE BEEN TOUGH FOR THE middle-class musician. Streaming sucked out the album revenue, Covid cooled the touring business, and the race to place songs in shows and commercials has pop music sounding more same-y and stagnant than ever. “We entere
Esquire2 min readAmerican Government
What Will Maxwell Frost Do Next?
“THE JOKE IS, YOU WALK INTO THE CAPITOL, look around, and you’re like, ‘How did I get here?’ ” says twenty-six-year-old U. S. representative Maxwell Frost. “Then you spend a few months listening to some of your colleagues, and you’re like, ‘How the h
Esquire3 min read
Women’s Sports Are Smashing It!
IF YOU HADN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION AND FOUND YOURSELF IN DOWN town Lincoln in late August, it might have seemed like a mirage. On a clear summer evening, a staggering 92,003 people lined up at the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ fabled Memorial Stadium to get
Esquire5 min read
What If things Get … Better?
TOMORROW IS MY DAUGHTER’S FOURTH BIRTHDAY, AND AS I WRITE THIS, THE temperature is projected to be 107 degrees here in Portland, Oregon. Our kids wanted to cool off in the river, but the extreme heat has caused toxic algal blooms. The scale of our cl
Esquire2 min read
HOW TO SAVE CLASSICAL MUSIC: An Overture & FIVE MOVEMENTS
Overture: Jorge Viladoms, a thirty-eight-year-old classical musician and professor, is teaching the world to sing and ensuring that a new generation appreciates the music that changed his life. 1) Piano. Jorge’s father, a surgeon, has a century-old B
Esquire3 min read
Future Shock
MY EDITOR IS A VERY NICE PERSON. MY EDITOR IS ALSO UN-fathomably cruel. A while back, she told me that this magazine would be celebrating its ninetieth birthday this autumn and, as part of the celebration, she would like me to write about what things
Esquire17 min readCrime & Violence
Forgiveness
Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil…. Exodus, 23:1–2 “I’M DEDICATING MY LIFE TO BEING USE-full,” he says. “To my community, to my neighborh
Esquire2 min read
Grief Is the New happiness
UNTIL VERY RECENTLY, WHENEVER DADS WERE shredded by some tragedy, they dug a hole somewhere inside themselves and wept in it. Even the non-alpha, non-hard-ass data-enterers and periodontists born in the shadow of Nixon will tell you, proudly, “My kid
Esquire1 min read
Yes,! Chefs!
HAIR: DENNIS LANNI AT SEE MANAGEMENT. GROOMING: DEANNA HAGAN AT STATEMENT ARTISTS USING FURTUNA SKIN. PRODUCTION: SCOTT LACEY. FOR STORE INFORMATION SEE PAGE 120. ■
Esquire5 min read
The No -------Limits quarterback
PATRICK MAHOMES II DIDN’T WANT TO BE A quarterback. He wanted to play baseball. Of course he did. Pretty much every kid whose dad is a Major League Baseball player wants to be in the big leagues, too. Think of the sport’s astonishing list of Juniors—
Esquire5 min read
Oysters Will Save The World!
FOR SEVEN SEASONS I HAVE WORKD as a commercial oysterman along the waters of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Current mapping shows that there are 4,664 acres of wild oyster beds that grow between the limits of high and low tide here. I am responsible
Esquire2 min read
A TRILLION-DOLLAR PLAN TO KEEP the Earth FROM BURNING
THE AFTERNOON OF AUGUST 8 WAS TYPICAL for the Hawaiian island of Kauai: sunny, breezy, and powered mostly by renewable energy, thanks to steady solar and battery-storage investments over the past decade. But two hundred miles away, a climate-amplifie
Esquire22 min read
God & Me magic Mushrooms
AND SO I SIT THERE, HIGH ON MUSHROOMS, TAKING A SHIT IN THE BATHROOM OF THE pastor’s home. It’s been hours since I ate the chocolate, and I still feel no closer to God. Everything remains so far away: Jesus, Sonya and the kids, and (most of all) any
Esquire1 min read
Credits
For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. Blueprint, p. 38: Loro Piana sweater, turtleneck, polo, shorts, and pants, loropiana.com. The End of the World as He Writes It, p. 63: Yohji Yamamoto pou
Esquire2 min read
The Rules For __________the Next 90 Years
_RULE NO. 1 IN AN ARGUMENT BETWEEN TWO MEN, THE ONE CHEWING A CIGAR NATURALLY HAS THE UPPER HAND. _RULE NO. 104 A man may own exactly one pair of holiday-themed boxers. _RULE NO. 596 A man should never own more than two pairs of convertible pants. _
Esquire1 min read
Ascent
Welcome to the Big Black Book. First published in 2006, the Big Black Book appeared twice a year as a stand-alone magazine. We’d conceived it as the style manual for successful men, with an emphasis on fashion and design. Then came the very unstylish
Esquire2 min read
The Hook
Moncler’s meteoric rise in high fashion hasn’t stopped the brand from making the sort of rugged performance gear preferred by professional explorers. This puffer, from the fall/winter 2023 collection, takes its design cues—like the short shape and pl
Esquire2 min read
Following The Thread
TUCKED INTO THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ALPS in northern Italy is the Oasi Zegna nature preserve, 100 square kilometers of mountainous land blanketed by half a million trees. Company lore holds that the founder of the luxury label that shares his name, Erme
Esquire3 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Secondhand Sanctuary
MAURIZIO DONADI LOOKS THE part. White-haired, with a burly beard to match, he’s pushed his wirerim glasses up above his eyebrows so they’re resting comfortably on his perfectly tanned forehead. Big, baggy camouflage pants and a white tee hang loose o
Esquire2 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
French Revolution
NEAR THE CENTER OF PARIS, IN THE ELEGANT 2nd Arrondissement, a tight-knit group of French creatives is plotting to overthrow the status quo in men’s fashion. Italian and British tailoring has long been the standard. But these folks are pushing for a
Esquire1 min read
You Sexy Thing
THE NAME ATTOLINI IS SYNONYMOUS WITH great Neapolitan style. Vincenzo Attolini, who pioneered soft Italian tailoring back in the ’30s, made sure of that. But we’re here to talk about a different Vincenzo Attolini: his grandson, who founded the Casaln
Esquire2 min read
Into The Night
ON THE ARCTIC ISLANDS OF SVALBARD, IN MID-February, the sun still hasn’t groped its way out of its four-month winter hibernation. At most, an eerie half light hangs over Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world, for a few hours. Temperatures
Esquire2 min read
A Pattern Of Islands
The Guernsey is defined more by fit than by pattern or texture. It’s long and loose, with a drop shoulder and split hem instead of a ribbed welt. All those elements were incorporated for freedom of movement—pretty handy when you’re hauling in fish al
Esquire2 min read
Alpine Chic
ALTITUDE, IT SEEMS, COMES WITH attitude. The social life at places like Sugarbush and Gstaad is everything. As one rather grand lady I met at high tea in Badrutt’s Palace Hotel told me, “I simply don’t have time to go skiing when I’m here. There’s ju
Esquire1 min read
Head Case
THE MARRIAGE OF HIGH PERFORMANCE AND HIGH FASHION ON THE SLOPES was inevitable if you think about it. Skiing is as aspirational as it is athletic. And locales like St. Moritz, Deer Valley, and Zermatt are basically built for engaging with unabashed o

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