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In dropping our first-ever Quality List, we brought together 50 labels and designers who, in our estimation, are committed to making—and selling—clothes the right way: with exquisite craftsmanship, singular vision, enduring quality (of course), and higher ideals in service of sustainability and permanence. We also espoused a shopping mantra we’re holding ourselves to: buy better, buy less. So no, don’t throw away everything in your closet that isn’t one of those 50 brands, please. But if you’re in the market for something—whether it’s a tee or a suit—these 100 pieces are some of our favorites, from the 50 brands we back (and wear) wholeheartedly.
Martine Rose
The Global Queen of Cool
Her square-toe stomper boots, jumbo loafers, and big ol’ blazers have influenced every emerging designer out there (and reveal her background as a menswear consultant to Balenciaga design chief Demna Gvasalia). But she operates with an under-the-radar cool, always from a place of warmth and authenticity that reflects her genuine love of rave culture and London’s legendary freak-fashion contingent. —Rachel Tashjian
Loewe
A Homespun Take on LVMH Luxury
Since becoming the creative director of Loewe in 2013, Jonathan Anderson has led the charge in decentralizing luxury from its Italian and French perches to a broad appreciation of global craft. The fall collection is a pansexual’s dream wardrobe, like something pulled from a bon vivant grandma’s overstuffed steamship trunk. —Rachel Tashjian
Giorgio Armani
Effortless Perfection
In the work-from-home era, Armani’s iconic slouchy, voluminous post–power suit has never looked more enticing. But even when you’re opting for something from the label that’s more low-key and Zoom-ready, you still get Mr. Armani unmatchable ability to make you feel like a powerhouse.
Bode
Making the Old New
Designer Emily Adams Bode has steadily expanded her purview in the past four years since she launched her debut collection made entirely using reclaimed fabrics. Still, every Bode garment, whether rugby shorts made from African country cloth or a crocheted tank top, celebrates and dignifies the traditional crafts from around the world that have been steadily eroded by the modern fashion system. —Samuel Hine
RTH
A Universal Approach to Style
“When I think of quality, there’s a level of service that it provides. Even if an item is made with great materials and at a prestigious factory, it doesn’t mean you’re going to want that thing three months after you buy it. It just has to serve you well.” —René Holguin, founder an designer of RTH
Raf Simons
The Bleeding Edge of Menswear for Two Decades and Counting
Die-hard Raf Simons fans read his collections like books, which consistently highlight the appealing swagger of disaffected youth. But Simons isn’t designing a uniform for truants, anarchists, and delinquents; he’s appropriating their indifference to taste—good and bad, high and low—and capturing their inherent propensity for beauty. —Noah Johnson
Patagonia
Outdoors, Activism, Irresistible Shorts
There are the unbeatable and practically indestructible Retro-X fleece jackets and versatile Baggies shorts. There’s the romantic legacy of a brand built by a group of roving dirtbag climbers in the ’70s—an era when spending one’s 20s living in a van was aspirational. And there’s the fact that Patagonia sued President Trump for shrinking two national monuments in Utah. Looked at a certain way, Patagonia is not a clothing company at all but a pioneering environmentalist organization funded by an extremely well-developed apparel line. —Samuel Hine
A. Sauvage
Made-to-Measure Heaven
Without fail, A. Sauvage cooks up the most elevating, badass suits on planet Earth. Each piece is handmade in Italy—and surpasses the standards of even the snobbiest suit enthusiast. But the attitude and feel, as seen here on Adrien and friends of the house, is unabashed, beatnik, and cool. —Mark Anthony Green
Dior
Street Culture Transposed Onto High Fashion
“I know streetwear is a dirty word now, but if you look at [Dior Men’s creative director Kim Jones’] early collections, he lives that language. When you are authentic, you just do your work and you just keep an ear to the ground. He sees what’s happening before it’s going to blow up in a mainstream way. When you are in the culture, you’re of the culture.” —Honey Dijon, DJ, fashion icon, and Dior collaborator on Dior Men’s creative director Kim Jones
Brunello Cucinelli
The Italian Fashion Philosopher
Brunello Cucinelli’s achingly beautiful flannel blazers and heavenly white shirts are manufactured by people who are paid higher wages than the industry standard, who are provided home-cooked three-course lunches, who have complete access to a library full of Cucinelli’s favorite philosophical texts. It all goes down in Solomeo, the medieval Italian village that serves as the hub of his humanistic experiment. —Samuel Hine
Thom Browne
The Freaky Tailor
“I relate to Thom Browne because taking a classical form and injecting myself into it in a way that feels forward-looking is largely what I try to do with my music. To Thom Browne’s spring 2020 show in Paris, I wore a long black skirt, boots with a really thick heel, and a tank top, and I’ve never been so comfortable. It’s super radical to me to see basketball players holding Thom Browne bags and wearing Thom Browne skirts. I think it’s very futuristic.” —Moses Sumney, musician
Supreme
Still the Coolest Name in Streetwear
When James Jebbia launched Supreme in 1994, he essentially invented the idea of premium streetwear. Supreme is the rare example of a company that still appeals to its core customer—thanks to a skate team that includes legends like Mark Gonzales and young stars like Tyshawn Jones—while becoming a global fashion phenomenon with an entire hype economy all its own. Today, Supreme has a billion-dollar valuation, but Jebbia and company still do things the way they have since day one on Lafayette. —Noah Johnson
Issey Miyake
It’s Gotta Be the Pleats
“Issey Miyake’s famous signature pleats are one of fashion’s greatest innovations. They are like origami meets ready-to-wear: They never lose their shape, they seldom need a wash, and they are impossibly, gloriously comfortable. During our collective period of home confinement, I parted ways with anything that felt too tight or too pristine for me to wear comfortably. The Issey stuff—overalls, dress shirts, cropped trousers, and a blazer—all gets to stay.” —Phillip Picardi, GQ grooming columnist
Sid Mashburn
The Local Clothier Who Cares
Sid Mashburn’s easy-wearing suits, “not too skinny, not too fat” ties, and English-made dress shoes are among the finest you’ll find on this side of the Atlantic—and the best value. To reinforce his notion that the quality of his service is as important as the cut of his suits, Sid kept some of his closed-for-the-pandemic stores staffed on the off-off-off chance that some poor groom-to-be, having decided to carry on with his wedding plans, might need a last-minute tailoring job. That is the Mashburn way: The clothes, of course, are great. But the experience—before the pandemic, during it, and most certainly once it’s over—is even better. —Sam Schube
Levi’s
The First and Last Name in Denim
“I love the way Levi’s wear in over time. They look great new. And if you don’t wash them, and you dry-clean them a couple of times a year, and then you just wear them, they fall apart in the most beautiful way. They get rips, they start fitting to your body, and the denim patinas. To me it’s a beautiful process.” —Tremaine Emory of Denim Tears and No Vacancy Inn
Louis Vuitton
French Luxury Gets an Internet-Era Overhaul
“I want to urge the industry not to just focus on easy-to-sell garments that we know work commercially but to foster new territories by deprogramming our minds from the images of obsolescence that lead to overload, overproduction, and waste. How can my design impact the future, create a new qualitative narrative for generations to come? How do I create opportunities and a road map for those that will follow me, open doors, and expand new territories to redefine pre-existing notions? Time is what matters more than ever: claiming it, owning it, and making the best of it. As a designer, you aim to create the world you want to see, and I want my design to serve my community.” —Virgil Abloh, men’s artistic director for Louis Vuitton
Jan-Jan Van Essche
The Shaman of Slow Fashion
Jan-Jan himself is a tea-sipping gentleperson from Antwerp. He makes the patterns for his pieces by folding magical, soulful fabrics into a shirt, pants, or a kimono-like jacket, creating as few seams and cuttings (read: waste) as possible. When I put his future-primitive clothing on, it hangs off my frame—the opposite of a Western-style suit, which exaggerates and constricts—leaving room to do future-primitive things like, say, stir a communal pot of food or fold my legs for meditation. I can’t yet tell whether 2020 is going to yield the apocalypse or the ascension. Either way, I’ll be dressed for it. —Will Welch
Bottega Veneta
Millennial Fashion From an Old World House
At designer Daniel Lee’s Bottega, the clothes, not the universe around the clothes, create the fantasy. And the fantasy is built on beefy proportions, kinky cutouts, and the uncompromising commitment to beautiful fabrics and innovative use of the house’s famous woven intrecciato. Judging by its recent popularity with elite dressers like Rihanna and Dev Hynes, Lee’s work has captured a moment in style and forced us to reconsider how designers break through the noise in 2020. —Samuel Hine
Ralph Lauren
A Brand Built for a Lifetime
Ralph Lauren—the brand, the designer, the whole Ralph world—has always been the pinnacle of fashion for me. I remember drooling over Ralph Lauren’s iconic ad campaigns in magazines I read while growing up in Springfield, Virginia. And even though, over the years, my style has evolved beyond the preppy phase, Ralph is still life today: a single-breasted herringbone blazer, a striped silk blouse, perfectly cut white trousers (a holy grail if you ask me!). Ralph remains a reliable go-to—an increasingly rare thing in fashion these days. —Nikki Ogunnaike
Our Legacy
Setting the Tone for Global Menswear
Founders Jockum Hallin and Christopher Nying ushered in the wild-style era with increasingly wavy prints and psychedelic knits and then predicted our genderless present via delicate lace shirts and Cuban-heel boots. Plus, the label has used only ethically sourced textiles from the jump, and for the past four years it has been upcycling the leftover scraps of those same fabrics into one-of-a-kind grails through its super-coveted Work Shop program. —Yang-Yi Goh
Celine
The One-Man Barometer of Cool
Over the course of a two-decade-long career, Hedi Slimane has harnessed the energy of youth style subcultures to intoxicating effect. The through line—besides a devotion to rail-thin cuts—is Slimane’s commitment to achingly pure design and construction. There are no tricks or gimmicks in Slimane’s world. In fact, Celine clothes and accessories are as performance-built as anything with a Swoosh on it, but the performance in this case is closing down Lucien or Café de Flore—and looking outrageously, almost impossibly cool in the process. —Samuel Hine
Ziggy Chen
Old World Technique by a New World Visionary
The sublime designs of Shanghainese designer Ziggy Chen are timeless, not just in that they feel disconnected from modern trends but in that they literally look like they could be from hundreds of years ago. His construction process is unique, using traditional Chinese and Western sewing techniques he learned from studying antique clothing, resulting in pieces that look worn-in yet also totally fresh. —Rachel Tashjian
Hermès
The O.G. Old World Artisans
Since its founding in 1837 as a humble harness maker, Hermès has employed skilled craftspeople to produce its vast array of quietly exquisite goods. Most of Hermès’s overall manufacturing occurs in its 43 specialized workshops across France. The gloves come from the commune of Saint-Junien; those legendary silk scarves are printed near Lyon. That devotion to craft is what has lent men’s artistic director Véronique Nichanian the confidence to dream up some of the most refined and understatedly elegant menswear collections for over three decades and counting. —Yang-Yi Goh
Fear Of God
A Holistic Approach to Style
“I would argue that Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo is making high fashion and it’s only called streetwear because he’s Black and it’s been made in America. I’ve always been really impressed with his attention to detail in the kind of fabrics he uses. The construction has always been incredible, especially because most of the product has been made in L.A. Some people argue that part of being sustainable isn’t just about using organic cottons. It’s about not filling the world and the landfills with your shit. Jerry’s direct-to-consumer business model and no seasonal collections: That is all him. I’ve worked in this business for 25 years. I don’t know anybody else who did it like that.” —Union L.A. owner Chris Gibbs
Prada
The Gold Standard of High Fashion
“When I started buying more Prada a few years ago, I was growing and I wanted to dress like a man. What better brand to help me do that? Prada has always embodied simplicity but still keeps it classy—simple but really good garments. When we were deep in quarantine, I was like, ‘Yo, I just want to go to the Prada store. Y’all can keep everything else closed, just please open up the Prada stores—that’s it.’ I go back so much I feel like I live at Prada. Go to Rodeo or the stores in New York and ask about me and my card, they’ll tell you.” —A$AP Nast
Rick Owens
The Drapery Demigod
Rick Owens, more so than most designers, has a wildly varying design spectrum. One end consists of monochromatic knits and sweats, perfect for building a uniform and for subtly signaling taste. And on the other end exists a wardrobe for an intergalactic sex ninja whose idea of business casual is metallic flight pants and platform boots. From human backpacks (google it) to some of the most comfortable tees in the world to snow boots that look like a yeti went to fashion school, there’s never a dull moment from Rick. —Mark Anthony Green
Dries Van Noten
Fashion’s Mind Gardener
For more than 30 years, Dries Van Noten has done something singular: make clothes that are unmistakably his own. A Baroque-period painter staring at a musty bowl of fruit would flip their powdered wig if presented with Van Noten’s palette of colors evoking juicy tangerines, earthy mushrooms, over-ripe lemons, freakishly bright blueberries, or iridescent eggplants. Most importantly, Van Noten does not speak in trends. To wear his clothes is to be part of the designer’s exacting, ever evolving, and colorful language. —Cam Wolf
Craig Green
The Avant-Garde Extraordinaire
Every season since 2012, when Craig Green founded his eponymous label during his final year as a fashion student at Central Saint Martins in London, is essentially built around a simple padded work coat. From there he creates powerful collections that break with convention every chance he gets. Craig Green proposes that clothes can be unusual and extraordinary and appealing in ways that you never imagined. —Noah Johnson
Tom Ford
Suits, but Sexy
Tom Ford has always embodied unabashed elegance. But his fall 2020 collection was looser, easier, even edgier than ever—some of his best work in years—with its extravagant combinations of jewel-toned pajama trousers and impeccably tailored jackets. You can throw it on and look incredible all day—and, if you’re embodying the Fordian life—all night. —Rachel Tashjian
A-Cold-Wall
Clothing as Industrial Design
“With A-Cold-Wall, I’m making sure that when we’re designing a product, it’s filled with a purpose and intent, to be an item of service. The essential element of the brand is this approach to not pander to trends and think about our clothes the way an industrial-design company thinks about its products. Quality represents information. Information in terms of intelligence and purpose behind what’s being proposed. It’s something that you can’t compromise—it’s more a philosophy.” —Samuel Ross, founder and creative director
Missoni
The First Family of Italian Knitwear
No one else can do knitwear like Missoni. Seemingly hundreds of colors of thread are in one zigzag sweater—it’s amazing. The colors are orgasmic. The world of Missoni is also about family and togetherness. It’s been a family-run business since it was started in the ’50s, and [creative director and president] Angela Missoni has preserved her parents’ vision. When you see a Missoni piece, you know exactly what it is. —Mobolaji Dawodu
Arc’teryx
The Tesla of Gorpcore
Arc’teryx’s state-of-the-art ARC’One facility, tucked away in a nondescript Vancouver suburb, is a veritable Wonka factory of high-performance-sportswear innovation. Advanced prototypes are torn down and reassembled to uncover manufacturing efficiencies, Alpha SV climbing jackets earn their warranties via an over-four-hour-long construction process that involves 190 meticulous operations. It’s that obsession with lasting perfection and experimentation that has made believers out of folks as disparate as ice-climbing legend Will Gadd and all-around legend Frank Ocean. —Yang-Yi Goh
Drake’s
The Haberdashery Revived
In the midst of a pandemic that’s kept our butts in sweatpants on the couch and for an endless blur of months, no other brand makes getting dressed up as exciting as the British haberdashery. The brand’s ties are habitats for towering giraffe necks and ambling pandas. Drake’s ornate pocket squares could be popped into a frame and hung on a wall. And if you give a man a tie and a pocket square, he’s going to need a suit—which Drake’s makes in Italy using relaxed shapes and fabrics like corduroy and linen. The brand is perfectly positioned for this moment: In the absence of needing to wear a suit, shouldn’t getting to wear one just be fun as hell? —Cam Wolf
Kapital
Masterful Japanese Maximalism
Designer Kiro Hirata has an unparalleled knack for creating irreverent and sometimes absurd apparel that can be surprising and is always ridiculously cool—overshirts sized up 10 times into smock-like layers, hoodies adorned with an abundance of tactical pockets and pouches, skeleton-embroidered denim, and, of course, those irresistible smiley-face ragg socks. But the secret to Kapital’s global recognition lies within the Kojima-based production facilities, which are more like laboratories than ateliers. There, dye techniques and intensely detailed handwork are tested and sampled hundreds of times for the development of a single piece. —Noah Johnson
Ermenegildo Zegna
Historic House, Futuristic Silhouettes
In his tailored-clothing laboratory at 110-year-old Ermenegildo Zegna, artistic director Alessandro Sartori is cooking up the suit silhouettes of the future. And with the resources of one of the largest fabric companies at his disposal, Sartori he’s simultaneously developing suits made from groundbreaking fabrics.
Telfar
Downtown Gone Global
Telfar is one of the smallest brands on this list, but Telfar Clemens has been one of the most exciting and original independent designers on the planet since he launched his brand in 2004 at the age of 18. He’s spent years working against the grain of the fashion establishment, building a non-gendered, all-inclusive line for anyone who felt ignored by the mainstream. And all the while, Telfar’s unisex and surprisingly wearable collection—which draws equally from American westernwear and Renaissance Florence alike—has only gotten more intriguing. —Samuel Hine
Yohji Yamamoto
The Cerebral Tailor
With its soothing inky-black silhouettes, Yohji Yamamoto’s clothing is often described as poetry. His playful approach to draping, economic ornamentation, and deconstruction is as strong in this collection as it was when he shocked Paris in 1981 with his first collection: ski suit overalls with roguish panache, military coats studded with talismanic toggles, and scarves of chain and silk that swing with equal ease. Now, when menswear overvalues the flex, Yamamoto is for those who wear clothes to deeply savor the perfect sweetness of true individuality. —Rachel Tashjian
Pyer Moss
American Fashion Reinvented
Over the past three years, Pyer Moss founder Kerby Jean-Raymond has become one of the fashion industry’s most essential voices, pushing designers to produce less, editors to pay closer attention to Black designers, industry associations to invest in diverse talents, and younger designers to take control of their businesses. His image of colloquial Blackness has been nothing short of revolutionary. —Rachel Tashjian
Kenneth Ize
Taking Nigerian Fashion Global
Kenneth was born in Lagos and raised mostly in Austria. He started his brand in 2013 to support local Nigerian craftsmanship, because the artisans who make traditional textiles are disappearing. And you can see the craftsmanship immediately in coats tailored out of colorful plaid aso-oke fabric, or in the caftans made with adire, an indigo-dyed cloth that’s been made in Nigeria for centuries. Kenneth Ize is about more than the colors and the shapes. It’s about a designer who is bringing Nigerian traditions onto a global stage. —Mobolaji Dawodu
Gucci
Pushing Italian Luxury Into the Future
“I’m a test site for Gucci quality. It has been very loyal and faithful and has taken the wear and tear. The woven fabrics that they’re doing now are amazing. Gucci led the charge on that. And the detailed appliqués and embellishments. Gucci led the way with that. And it’s one thing to create something elegant, but it’s another to use it in a way to make a social statement as well. So what creative director Alessandro Michele did was really groundbreaking because he blurred the gender line. That’s a big deal.” —Dapper Dan, designer and Gucci partner
Saint Laurent
The Pinnacle of Parisian Chic
It’s been only two years since Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello debuted his first menswear collection for the historic house, but already the nimble designer has proved that he knows exactly what his customer covets: pieces that blend the old SL (back when it was still YSL) with the rock-and-roll edge the brand has recently become known for. Suede jackets, dark skinny jeans, sharp blazers, and silk blouses (unbuttoned to the navel) hark back to the company’s heritage while also sending it in a fresh direction. —Nikki Ogunnaike
Wales Bonner
Where Style and Spirituality Meet
Grace Wales Bonner’s clothes embody a serene spirituality, which has helped her hone a vision of delicate masculine beauty that has made her, at 29, an icon to an emerging generation of global Black designers. For fall she looked to her own family history, including her grandfather’s arrival in England from Jamaica in the 1950s and her father’s role in the reggae scene of the ’70s, striking a more personal note. She is slyly one of menswear’s best tailors, too, establishing in this collection her highly appealing signature suiting silhouette: a sharp hand with jackets and a loose approach to trousers. —Rachel Tashjian
Engineered Garments
New York Tough
New York City is undoubtedly a fashion capital, but how many brands make their clothes there? Engineered Garments has kept the “Made in New York” tags on almost every piece it’s made since Daiki Suzuki founded the brand in 1999, ensuring a superior product and fostering a sense of community among designers, sewers, and regular customers. EG also happens to put out collections that are consistently a step or two ahead of the fashion masses. While trends come and go—big pants get skinny then big again; workwear morphs into leisurewear and back, into something like work-leisure—EG remains unperturbed, never chasing, always leading. —Noah Johnson
Nicholas Daley
The Rhythm of Modern Menswear
“Nicholas is very hands-on with every aspect of the business—from the look and what the season’s going to be to working with the material, doing the historical research, making sure the whole choreography of the shows is right. It’s not that he just makes clothes and there’s a vague idea of what it’s about. You feel like there’s a real underlying message and a continuity between everything that he does.” —Shabaka Hutchings, South London Jazz musician and Nicholas Daley collaborator
Dolce & Gabbana
The Kings of Sharp Suiting
Though the duo are known for over-the-top runway productions in exotic locations, it’s the slick suits that really steal the show. And they’re built out of a perfected sense of tailoring. Some say that to master a craft, you need to put in at least 10,000 hours. Domenico Dolce apprenticed for his tailor father and made his first pair of pants at age six. Now, you do the math.
Acronym
The Visionary of Techwear
Acronym, the highly advanced and moody outerwear label founded by Errolson Hugh and Michaela Sachenbacher in 1999, is known for wind- and water- and presumably nuclear-fallout-resistant fabrics and funky silhouettes. Hugh’s designs explode conventional ideas of what clothes are meant to do, whether it’s outerwear that opens fully with one short tug thanks to the Escape Zip system, or the built-in Jacket Sling that allows you to wear your jacket on straps like a crossbody bag. Even the most microscopic details feel intensely considered. (That’s what quality is, right? Giving something all the attention in the world.) —Chris Gayomali
Noah
Sportswear With a Purpose
Brendon Babenzien learned plenty from a decade and a half running design for Supreme: how to make some of the coolest clothes on the planet, for starters. He learned the value of applying that know-how to unheralded pieces like cardigans and rugby shirts, too, and of then constructing those clothes unusually well. And when he launched Noah (tentatively in 2002, then for good in 2015), he grounded the brand in his personal values (racial justice, environmental awareness, ethical production) and history (the equally preppy and punky vibes born of a childhood on Long Island). The result was a sort of Patagonia for the downtown set, or maybe a Supreme for the dads who’ve moved on from their younger, gnarlier days. —Sam Schube
Evan Kinori
The Old Soul of New Menswear
Evan Kinori makes things slowly, using hard-to-source materials from Japan and Italy and tricky techniques like French seams and single-needle stitching. He produces everything in small, hand-numbered batches, mostly in California, and personally inspects each piece before shipping it from his studio in San Francisco. The result is a kind of invisible meticulousness. Each Evan Kinori collection is a slight refinement of the one prior, featuring new fabrics and a small number of fresh silhouettes. In Kinori’s world things move at a deliberate pace, and there’s no virtue in the new. Quality is proven with time. —Noah Johnson
Salvatore Ferragamo
Nearly a Century of Fashion Breakthroughs
Salvatore Ferragamo creative director Paul Andrew’s vision of luxury for the 100-year-old house centers instead on sartorial staples re-energized for a young fashion fan. Who wants to wear sweatpants, a logo hoodie, or sneakers after seeing Ferragamo’s flattering trousers crafted in dusty shades of napa leather? Or an oversized cotton parka nipped just so at the waist? Andrew has discovered a potent fashion formula befitting the Salvatore Ferragamo name. —Samuel Hine
Marine Serre
Upcycled Optimism
For Marine Serre, sustainable design is a vivacious act of extreme creative courage. She’s innovative and experimental, but her shapes are culled from centuries of fashion history. In short, they look like nothing else. The triumph of her upcycling is that it makes a sartorial statement that the junk, waste, and regrets of the past can be the stuff of a better future, with a new idea of beauty. —Rachel Tashjian
