Fashion

We’ve recently shipped a lot of travel-themed trunks to guys attending seasonal events (e.g. Kentucky Derby, Coachella, SXSW), but requests for Vegas trunks roll in all year long. This week we asked some of our stylists to give us their top picks for Vegas-ready clothing, along with notes on what makes each item special.

The specific contents of your own Vegas trunk might vary—depending on your conversation with your stylist—but here are our general suggestions for what to wear when visiting Sin City.

Lightweight blazer and linen shirt

Laura recommends the blazer pictured below because, she says, “It’s the perfect weight for the desert heat, fits amazing, and looks great over any shirt.”

Trunk Club is known for investment-level clothing, but it’s possible to invest in your wardrobe without spending a fortune. For a case in point, check out the four warm-weather classics listed below. Not only will these pieces look great for years to come, but each one comes in at $100 or less.

V-Neck Sweater

Last week a Trunk Club member emailed his stylist, asking:

Neckties with oxford shirts: yea or nay?

According to prevailing fashion rules, the answer would most likely be “nay.” Oxford shirts, the thinking goes, are generally considered casual, while neckties fit into the “formal / dress” category. The thing is, we don’t particularly care about fashion rules. (We’re the people who advocate wearing white pants all year round, after all.)

Instead of hard-and-fast rules, we prefer general guidelines for dressing well. Here’s our thinking around oxford shirts and ties: As long as the two items share a similar texture, we vote “yea.”

Yesterday we introduced five of our favorite things about spring, including booze, bold colors, and free money. But our enthusiasm for the new season can’t be contained in just one post, so here’s a sixth item for the list.

If you had to pick one—and only one—belt for your wardrobe, we would suggest a brown leather belt, to match shoes of the same color. Luckily, you’ll never have to face such a cruel decision, as belts of all varieties abound.  

Now that spring is finally here, a lot of guys at Trunk Club reserve leather belts for more formal occasions. The rest of the time, it’s all about casual alternatives.

Spring belts—such as the ribbon, woven, and braided varieties shown above—introduce seasonal color and nicely complement warm-weather staples like chinos and gingham shirts. (Bonus: They also keep your pants from falling down.)

For the following outfit, a leather belt probably wouldn’t be the best choice. A woven blue option, however, ties everything together perfectly.

This post is taken from an email that our V.P. of Product sent to our members earlier today.

From the Desk of J. Smith: Spring Essentials

At Trunk Club headquarters in Chicago, it looks like spring has finally arrived (knock on wood). I can’t wait to start riding my bike to work along the lakefront, and I look forward to taking my year-old son on his first trip to the zoo. Plus, it’s almost time to re-open the Trunk Club roof-deck, which I hope each of our members has the pleasure of visiting at least once.

To share my enthusiasm for the months ahead, I’ve created a list of my current springtime favorites: bold colors, light outerwear, loafers without socks, and adult beverages.

Color

This post wraps up our series on the six men’s clothing essentials. So far we’ve emphasized the importance of versatility when investing in shoes, belts, blazers, sweaters, and shirts. It’s only fitting, then, that we finish up with jeans, one of the most versatile items you’ll ever own.

While summarizing the six essentials for a magazine, our CEO offered this advice about jeans: “Invest in a great pair of high-end denim. Cleaner washes and rinses look better with blazers and dress shirts.”

A Trunk Club blog reader named Tyler asks:

“There was a pretty heated intra-office debate that raged on today about when it’s acceptable for a guy to wear dressier shoes with jeans. I submit that it is never acceptable. Care to weigh in?”

Before getting into the Trunk Club–specific take on this issue, we passed Tyler’s question onto Bill White, founder of one of our favorite shoemakers, Scarpe DiBianco.

Here’s what Bill had to say:

Jason Smith, our V.P. of Product, prefers oxford shirts and loafers without socks. Michael Barkin, our Director of Sales (who also doubles as the mastermind behind our new custom-suiting service), favors well-appointed neckties, and has never needed a special occasion to break out the monogrammed tuxedo slippers.

Despite their differing styles, Jason and Michael both keep one particular item on heavy rotation: the navy blazer. Below you’ll see examples of how Michael dresses the blazer up, while Jason uses the same classic garment to anchor a more casual look.

“Most guys’ wardrobes are long in blue and white,” Michael says. “Those basic colors then branch out into lavender and pink, and navy looks the best with all of those. So you can easily dress the navy blazer up or down. It’s easy to wear.”

Below you’ll see a photo of a sweater. This garment started out as a regular, good old-fashioned size small. But a few weeks after a stylist sent it to one of our members, it came back to us in a return trunk. (Trunk Club members only keep what they love and send everything else back, with free shipping both ways.) 

When the folks on our Ops team unpacked the return trunk, they noticed that the sweater, even for a size small, seemed awfully little. So we did some investigating.

After a light back-and-forth with the gentleman who received the sweater, we learned that, sure enough, he had neglected to read the care label before cleaning the garment, and ran it in his dryer.

Unless you’re wearing a tuxedo or working as a referee, we suggest avoiding black shoes. Brown provides a much more versatile footwear option because it pairs nicely with every color of clothing except black (navy suits in particular look good with brown or burgundy shoes). And versatility, of course, is the key to each of the six men’s clothing essentials. 

Our Director of Sales, Michael Barkin, shows how to fold a blazer—a skill that’s particularly useful when traveling.

We moved onto blazers after tackling the subject of how to tie a necktie. What other tips would you like to see?

Like all the items on our essentials list, we love the v-neck sweater for its versatility. The distinctive shape of the neckline does an excellent job of framing your shirt collar and face, making the garment ideal for layering over button-ups.

For a more sophisticated presentation, the v-neck can be worn simultaneously over a dress shirt and under a blazer.

We believe in investment pieces. With rare exception, we recommend that our members choose durable, classic clothing instead of disposable items. The same goes for flip-flops. With spring vacations coming up and summer not far behind, getting a new pair of flip-flops means one of two things:

During the next several weeks, we’ll feature each of the six clothing items that every guy should have in his wardrobe. As we’ll see, all of the pieces are incredibly versatile, able to be dressed up or down across a range of styles. This is particularly true of the crisp white shirt, which leads off our six-part series on the men’s clothing essentials.

Because it fits every situation from business casual to board meetings, we previously included the white shirt in our post on the office stash. The garment works just as hard off the clock, as the ideal complement to a casual blazer, or even on its own.

To fully understand the white shirt’s power, consider its relationship with two men widely recognized for their style.