Esquire Special Issue: Black Book

[scotrace]

Anyone else have this?

 

[MK]

.

I picked it up. It has some great info...though I don't agree with all of it. The best parts are the timeless bits on the rough paper.

 

[Zemke Fan]

I bought it, too...

I'm with MK, there are some real nuggets in here.

 

[Matt Crunk]

When I first entered the corporate world as a young, wet-behind-the-ears staff artist at a large tee shirt company, my immediate boss did me a huge favor that Christmas by giving me a gift subscription to Esquire magazine. This was 1985.

At the time Esquire seemed to me to be a perfect resource for learning the ways of civilized manhood. I keep a subscription for many years after that too, and always considered it sort of the definitive word on men's style.

But then I guess it somehow lost it's luster for me somewhere along the way, and I read it less and less until I stopped buying it all together.

Then a couple of years ago I happened to pick up an issue for old times sake, and, man, had it changed (maybe I'd changed?). All the fashions now seemed directed at boys, not men. Articles seemed more suited for Rolling Stone or SPIN than the old Esquire I knew and loved.

I know my prospective is different now at 40 than it was at 20, but it can't be all just me. What happened? Did Esquire change or did I?

Still, I'll bet the black book would be worth a look, if for nothing more than those nuggets from the past.

-MC

 

[Archie Goodwin]

My mother got me a subscription to Esquire when I was 12. I finally let it run out after 18 years. Over the years it seemed to change direction, and eventually got boring. That said, I did order the big black book, but it hasn't arrived yet.

 

[scotrace]

.

Esquire has produced several special issues that have been worth saving. I still have a very well-worn issue from the early 80's: "50 Who Made the Difference." Profiles of fifty men who had a major impact on the 20th century.

This one has some good information. How to properly polish shoes, deal with moths, tie a bow tie, care for neckties, and dress for Black Tie, among others. But it's still filled with pictures of clothing that are "classics" that I personally wouldn't be caught dead in. They are also modeled by rail-thin 20 year old bushy-haired slackers who need a shave. Then there's the section on tweeds - cool right? So why are the photos illustrating the various tweed fabrics all taken from far enough away that you cannot see the cloth?
It's worth picking up, but don't expect to see belted backs or high armholes.

Esquire is so-so. Classic Style will speak to a better audience, methinks.

 

[Johnnysan]

Same old, same old...

Earlier today, I picked up a copy of this and just gave it a quick once over. It's like looking at two magazines under the same cover. If you could strip out the grey "information" pages, you'd be left with a fairly decent primer on the basics that every man should know. The rest of the magazine however, is just more of the same drivel that has come from the editors of Esquire over the past several years.

While I understand that the publishing industry is driven by its advertisers, I was immediately reminded that I was thumbing through the same old Esquire when confronted by ads featuring a tattooed throwback from the 1970s complete with "bling", an androgynous looking shirtless man modeling an overcoat and another featuring four men acting out some freakish nightmare coupling "A Clockwork Orange" and "Queer Eye." All this before I even got to the first article!

The editor, David Granger, may have summed it up best in his "Letter from the Editor." He states:

"There's been a seismic shift in the way American men regard their success. Think back to our fathers and grandfathers. Think back to one of the defining elements of the idea of American manhood: sacrifice. When we were a middle-class country, a man provided for everyone else first -- wife, children -- and then himself. He sacrificed his own desires for the good of the family."

***​

"Whatever stratum we travel in, we are consuming class. We don't defer; we see what previous generations of men would have called extravagance as our right. We’re able to purchase the things that we want. The only variable is how well the things we choose, the things we allowed to define us, will endure -- how well they will carry their meaning throughout the years."​

Read this however you like, but the essence of what Mr. Granger is saying is that the men who came before us understood that self-sacrifice and self-denial were admirable traits, but in the current day and age, self-fulfillment and self gratification are the goals to which successful men should aspire. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that men of our fathers and grandfathers generation didn't need things to define who they were or to carry meaning throughout the years, they relied on their acts to define who they were and to carry on meaning throughout the years.

I'm as much a consumer as the next guy and spend more than my share of the family's bank account on the unnecessary, but these incessant endorsements of wholesale consumerism and confusing class and good taste with a brand name or an inflated price tag irritates me. I've found better information and advice right here on the Lounge and at any one of a hundred sites on the Internet. My advice is to save your 10 bucks and invest it in a good shoe shine instead.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting for my premier issue of Classic Style to hit the mailbox and hoping that it will serve as a model to a publishing and "fashion" industry gone far astray.

 

[ThomasV]

Big Black Book

I was able to pick up Esquires Black Book at the local Barnes and Noble. Nice section on Tweeds. The rough pages are a gem, however, I have to agree that Esquire is not what it was in the 80s.

 

[Phil]

I saw this issue in Barnes an Noble, it was by the comedy section ironically. Frankly I think that a truly sucesful man doesn't need to be told how to look and rather he defines his own look for his own success.

 

[Harp]

Esquire

lost it eons ago.

 

[Sefton]

I haven't seen this yet so I'll reserve judgement. Having read the magazine in recent years I'm not too optomistic about liking much of it. I pick up the old issues whenever I see one that isn't too expensive. I've got two from 1933 and five from the 1950s and they all contain sound advice (and the 30s ones have great articles including some Hemingway and an article by Douglas Fairbanks,Jr. on how awful hollywood actors dress!-himself and Sr. excepted of course. )

 

[thethinman]

vintage esquire mags

anybody looking for some early esquire mags ? the pomona antique shops on 2nd (the arts colony) next to kaiser billls. in back room ask for more just leave me some enjoy. ttm

 

[scotrace]

We who collect them would love to make you Mr. Middleman, if you're willing.

 

[moustache]

Hmmm

I thumbed through this the other day at B & N.it iwas ok but for the price, i thought it a wee bit expensive.I have plenty of books on what to where when,etc.I know how to tie bow ties and long ties,and what shoes i would love to have.A lot of ads.Too many .I have a subscription to GQ and that gives me all the ads i could ever want.
I know these magazines are geared toward the younger fellas,but would love to see some of the middle aged and older men in the ads and articles.We are still around you know ;-)

I have no doubt that Classic Style will be THE magazine of choice for intelligent individual!!!!

JD

 

[Matt Crunk]

Oddly enough, the magazine these days that I find comes closest to the old Esquire that I once knew and loved is . . . Cigar Aficionado.

I'm not a regular reader but have picked it up from time to time.

-MC

 

[Matt Deckard]

Cigar Aficianado was a nice breath of fresh air (yeah I know we're talking about cigars) when it hit the stands. There you saw the wooden desks and suited men and the hat here andthere on a few of the men featured in the articles. Nice writer contributions, stories about the new movie hitting the theaters that suits the aesthetic of the ones reading the magazine. It was and is more focused like was the old Esquire.