Men's Lifestyle September 21, 2026 0 Comments

Unlock the Secret Fall Style Hacks Every Guy Needs to Upgrade His Look—No Fashion Degree Required!

Have you noticed how menswear lately seems to be doing a bit of an about-face? It’s like the wild “anything goes” party we’ve all been to is winding down, and instead, guys are reaching back for that quiet confidence found in simply nice clothes. You know, the kind you can just throw on, mix, match—and not spend five minutes stressing over whether it’s “on trend” or not. It’s like menswear hit the snooze button and decided normal is actually pretty great. Now, I don’t buy the theory that this switch was sparked by a preppy revival alone—sure, the classics from our dads’ and granddads’ closets are getting a second look—but the real trigger? I’d wager it’s exhaustion. Tired of the social media spin on what’s cool this week, men are craving ease, versatility, and pieces that actually make their lives smoother. And guess what—this shift is good news. Because embracing staples like straight-leg jeans, Oxford shirts, and light jackets means building a wardrobe that’s less about chasing fleeting fads and more about timeless style that works with you, and not the other way around. Ready to get back to basics, but in a way that’s anything but boring? Let’s dive in. LEARN MORE

6 min read

If you’ve been keeping a close eye on your social feeds—and your social feeds are dominated, like mine, by people who think way too much about the way guys get dressed—you might have noticed a theme emerging recently. Menswear is experiencing a recalibration. The “anything goes” mentality is retreating into the background, replaced by an impulse to gear up in clothes that are nice. Normal. The sort of stuff that you can mix and match, wear and not worry about.

Some folks posit that this is a consequence of the resurgence of preppy style. I’m not so sure. More and more men are indeed looking at the wardrobes their fathers and grandfathers cultivated and thinking, “Hey, maybe that could work for me.” However, I don’t think that the preppy thing was the instigator for this reevaluation; it was the other way around.

Exhausted by the churn of social media, the questions about what shoes or pants or what-have-yous are cool right now, men first started to think about a return to normalcy. So, the cause was actually the desire to invest in and wear clothes that make our lives easier. The effect? Embracing an archetype built on long-lasting staples and versatile pieces that can pair with pretty much anything in your wardrobe.

So now we’ve got a whole lot of guys thinking about pieces that might have seemed boring or staid just a few years ago. Straight-leg jeans. Oxford-cloth button-down shirts. Trucker jackets and field jackets and Harringtons. If you’re an adventurous dresser, this might strike you as worrisome. Where’s the fun in that? I actually think it’s good news.

Wardrobes need basics, building blocks, the foundational pieces upon which you can build your own personal style. Now that fall is rolling in, it’s a very good time to invest in those items. If you want to add a crazy print or a shock of color or an unexpected silhouette later, feel free. But you should start with the essentials. And you really can’t go wrong with any of the five below.

A Great Light Jacket

2026 Comic-Con International: San Diego - Marvel Studios Hall H Presentation

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Ryan Gosling: light jacket enthusiast.

Almost every outfit is better with a “third piece,” a phrase I’m stealing from American designer Todd Snyder. This is the extra bit, the item that takes your look from purely utilitarian—a T-shirt and jeans will adequately cover your top and bottom—to considered. A light jacket is the ultimate third piece, and getting to wear one regularly is the very best thing about fall.

On the casual side of things, you can’t go wrong with something like a trucker, a field jacket, or a Harrington. Chore jackets and barn jackets have both been wildly popular in recent years, and with good reason, but their sheer ubiquity means that they should be approached with caution and styled with care, lest you look like just another guy hopping on the trend. (That said, it’s hard to really go wrong, especially if you’re not particularly concerned about the judgement of the overly online.)

And then, of course, there’s the sport coat. Heavy tweeds might feel stifling right now, but something that breathes a little more but still delivers the requisite texture—a wool-and-linen blend, perhaps?—can pull a lot of weight, sartorially speaking. I could go on. This could, in fact, be a whole story about light jackets and why we all love them. But that’s an exercise for another day. Just find something you love and wear it as often as you can. Light-jacket season doesn’t last forever.

Straight-Leg Jeans

Celebrity Sightings In New York City - August 18, 2026

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Drew Starkey’s been wearing a lot of not-too-loose jeans recently.

It’s hard to say when, exactly, the handwringing about the way your denim fits turned from a niche concern into a universal anxiety. Maybe then answer lies in the early 2000s, when skinny jeans thrust everyone into uncharted waters. Maybe it started even earlier, when Calvin Klein turned “designer denim” from a nonsense phrase into a legitimate market segment. What we know for certain is that these past couple of years have confused a lot of men. As trousers of all sorts got wider, baggy jeans suddenly started showing up everywhere—not least of all on your FYP. Maybe you tried them, maybe you didn’t. If you did, think about retiring them. If you didn’t, don’t start now.

The pendulum has already started swinging back toward more streamlined, tailored silhouettes. That doesn’t mean you need to get ahead of it and shrink your jeans so they cling to your legs, though. Instead, it’s best to remember what the mid-point of that pendular swing is: straight-leg denim. It’s rarely the hottest thing, but it’s always a good call. And if the goal is to dress in a way that just works—with your life, with the rest of your wardrobe—it’s never going to let you down.

An Oxford-Cloth Button-Down

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Paul Newman in a button-down in 1962.

The oxford-cloth button-down is so popular in some menswear circles that it’s received its own acronym (well, technically, it’s an initialism, but whatever). Folks needed a shorthand way to refer to OCBD, as it’s known, because they were recommending it so often. To the guy who as just getting into style. To the guy who liked the Ivy League look. To the guy who needed to break out of a T-shirt-and-jeans rut. To, well, pretty much any guy.

The OCBD is just that versatile. You can wear it casually with chinos or cords or jeans or trousers. You can throw it on over a crewneck T-shirt. You can ever wear it with a suit, assuming you subscribe to the American style rules dictating that, although it isn’t really a dress shirt, it can function as one because upper-crusty types wore their OCBDs with suits so long that it became socially acceptable. Make sure you choose something with an appropriately long collar (all the better to get that elegant “roll” traditionalists obsess over) and a sturdy fabric that’ll get better as it washes down and wears out. Get one in white and one in a blue-and-white stripe and then build your collection from there.

Easygoing Boots

Celebrity Sightings In London - August 19, 2025

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Austin Butler booted up in 2025.

Man cannot live on loafers—or sneakers, or sandals—alone. So now that fall is here, it’s time to take a look at your footwear rotation and make sure there’s a good pair of boots in there. It’s still a transitional moment, weather-wise, so chukka boots would be a good place to start. With a lower shaft, you don’t run the risk of sweaty shins when the temperature ticks upwards in the afternoon. Plus, chukkas look great in lighter-weight, breathable suede.

If chukkas aren’t your speed, I don’t have to tell you that there’s a wide world of boot options out there. You could opt for something with a workwear background, like a moc-toe, or something outdoorsy, like a hiker. There are combat boots and cowboy boots and Chelsea boots. Each style can occupy a slightly different space in your wardrobe, so the trick is to find a pair you love and wear them enough that they look like old friends by the end of the season.

A Crewneck Sweater

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Jazz musician Max Roach in a fantastic crewneck sweater in 1989.

We’re talking about nice, normal clothes here, and the crewneck is the epitome of a nice, normal sweater. It does the job and looks good doing it, all without any buttons or zippers or fancy neck shapes. It also happens to look great with every other item on this list. Wear it over an oxford-cloth button-down and let that all-important collar stick out just a little bit. Wear it under a light jacket when the weather cools and the wind whips up. Wear it on top of your straight-leg jeans, which in turn are worn on top of your new boots of choice. See? Everything on the list.

As for what crewneck, exactly, that’s up to you. By keeping the patterns to a minimum, you increase mix-and-matchability, which is crucial to this whole mode of dressing, so I’d encourage a solid color. This time of year, I’m partial to cotton, which feels a little cooler and reads a little more casual, visually. But wool, be it merino or cashmere or shetland, works, too—especially as we transition from fall into winter and insulation becomes an even bigger concern. I’ve also seen some interesting linen blends over the years, as well as options with mohair, silk, and all other sorts of stuff. But if you want something easy, something that’ll age well, just pick a classic color—navy, gray, chocolate brown, hunter green—in a hardy cotton or wool and don’t worry about it after that.