Take It From a Woman: 5 Hero Pieces for Fall
Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear these items.
Rachel Seymour is a stylist, writer and menswear consultant. She is the founder of her own men’s styling practice and has built a large following on X and Substack around her mission to help men dress better. She splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, and is currently writing her second poetry book. You can find her on Instagram @rachcorrine.
I’ve worked in fashion, mostly menswear, for most of my career. I’ve styled hundreds of editorial and e-commerce shoots, and these days, I spend the bulk of my time helping men dress better. I have a number of private clients from all walks of life; CEOs and tech founders, professional athletes, even recently divorced dads who are ready to put themselves back out there. Different men, different lives and different wardrobes, all with the same goals: Look better, feel better, be hot.
That last part has become a bit of a thing, with my personal “brand” (ugh) on Substack and social media built around what I jokingly (but also not really jokingly) call “making men hot again.” We talk about clothes, obviously, but we also talk about confidence and the interplay between the two.
A lot of the advice I dole out starts with the fundamentals: what to buy, how things should fit, how to put it all together. You don’t need that. You’re well past it. You don’t need me to tell you that a white Oxford is timeless and works with a suit, under a sweater, with a great pair of jeans or thrown open over swim trunks at the beach. If what I dish out on Twitter (I’ll never call it X) is Freshman 101 survey course material, consider this article a graduate seminar.
Once you have the foundation things get a lot more interesting. You don’t need another list of basics; you need the pieces that make those basics better. The ones with delicious texture, a perfect silhouette, a gorgeous fabric or just a little something that makes the people around you think, Oh, wow, that guy knows what he’s doing.
Which brings me to what I call wardrobe heroes.
What makes a piece a hero? A hero gives an outfit an immediate point of view. A hero has a superpower. Perhaps it’s the material, the texture or the silhouette. Maybe it’s the way it develops character, a shape, a patina, after years of wear. Whatever its particular superpower, the hero does enough work so everything around it can stay relatively basic.
Here are the five heroes you need for fall, each with a range of price points to work with every budget.
The Suede Jacket
Few pieces make getting dressed as easy as a great suede jacket. Take an ordinary fit: white tee, jeans, brown boots. Now throw on a suede jacket. Everything changes.
The material brings depth and texture that cotton (and god forbid, fleece or Polartec) simply can’t. Suede also gets better and better once it has lived a little (provided you keep it out of the rain). The nap changes. The color develops dimension and patina, and eventually starts looking like your suede jacket rather than one you just bought.
How to wear: With a white tee, dark denim and leather boots. Or, one of my personal favorite looks for this fall: layered over a gray knit with cream trousers.
The Selvedge Jean
Something I tell guys often: A truly great pair of jeans will change your life. While the gravity of that statement may be a bit hyperbolic, the sentiment is not. I wholeheartedly believe this, and I believe that the life-changing pair in question is made from selvedge denim. It molds to your body and gets better the more you wear it.
Start with a straight cut. Dark blue. Rigid. And then wear them. A lot. The indigo will fade where you move. The denim will take shape around your body. They will look incredible.
As for care, less is more. Denim people have all sorts of crazy care rituals. There’s the shrink-to-fit method where you put your new jeans on and sit in a bathtub for a while, then walk around in damp denim to let them dry and really mold to your body. (Is there a worse feeling than wet denim on skin?) When it comes to washing them, rarely is the rule of thumb. (Legend has it that the Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo, who owned a denim shop back in the day, used to recommend never washing them, but occasionally putting them in the freezer to kill odors.)
My advice is much less exciting: wear them often, wash them only when they need washing, preferably inside-out, in cold water and let them air dry.
How to wear: With a white Oxford or a denim shirt in a slightly different shade of blue, and brown loafers, with a knit crewneck and sneakers or with that suede jacket and a simple tee.
The Spectacular Knit
When it comes to knitwear, the idea is to find the sweater that makes your look feel like an actual outfit. Leaning into texture to create visual interest is the best way to accomplish this.
Texture is everything. Think Donegal wool, with its signature flecks of contrasting color spun throughout the yarn. A chunky cable knit. Brushed Shetland or gorgeous cashmere. Texture you can feel and see. In selecting a great knit, you’ll want to keep the color neutral and let the yarn and construction create interest. When it comes to cut, give me a classic crewneck (relaxed fit, ’90s style) any day of the week. I also love a man in a cardigan with some heft to it (worn open over a white tee, or, weather permitting, a tank, the world is your oyster).
How to wear: With wide chinos and brown loafers. With gray pleated trousers and a suede shoe (loafer chukka or sneaker all work here). Layered over an Oxford paired with a relaxed trouser.
The Not Another Navy Blazer
You already own the prerequisite navy blazer. Your next sport coat is a chance to bring a little more personality to your wardrobe. My vote is a brown herringbone. From a distance, it reads almost like a solid, but up close, the weave gives it depth and character. It’s subtle, but that bit of pattern is enough to transform a basic outfit into something much more interesting. It also makes tailoring feel less formal, so you can style it a million ways and wear as an everyday thing.
Plus, there’s something undeniably sexy about a man in brown herringbone. It’s giving hot professor. A little I have a library in my house and actually read the books in it-ish. You get the idea.
How to wear: With gray flannel trousers and a fine-gauge crewneck. Or cream trousers, an Oxford worn open at the collar and brown loafers. Remember. You’re going for hot professor here, not actual professor, so you can keep the rest of the outfit simple.
The Pleated Trouser
You do not always need to treat your trousers like the supporting act. Every once in a while, they deserve the lead role. Nothing crazy (baggier is not always better, despite what the trends suggest). I’m talking mid- to-high-rise with a pleat, some room through the thigh and a straight leg. This pant is every bit as versatile as your flat-front chinos, but makes everything you wear with them look better. The major difference here is the silhouette. A little more rise to lengthen the leg. A pleat to create shape rather than cling to the thigh. A fuller leg to give the rest of the outfit some balance. Need a reference? Check out this old photo of Gene Kelly (slide 2) and tell me he doesn’t look modern. And amazing.
How to wear: With the textured knit or simply with a tee and loafers.
One Final Rule: One Hero at a Time, Please
The hero works precisely because most of your wardrobe isn’t actually heroic. The white Oxford gives the brown herringbone jacket somewhere to land. The simple tee allows the suede to do its job. The loafers keep the pleated trouser grounded.
Basics are still the foundation. But at a certain point, you don’t need another perfectly acceptable navy sweater. You need the hero piece.
No cape required.
