Issue #35 | Open Season
Looking good at Flushing Meadows, Alain Delon, a sweet spot watch, the Jets, a couple podcast recs, and more
Well, hello!
Welcome back to Front of Book. Summer went by quickly, didn’t it? But that’s OK. Here in New York we’re heading into the best time of year in the city, when the humidity breaks, social life reactivates, and layering season appears on the horizon. It all kicks off with the U.S. Open, and so that’s where we’ll start this week’s issue.
1. Style Inspiration for the Open
Last September, GQ published an article titled “The U.S. Open Makes Its Case for Most Stylish Major.” Look, I get it. GQ needs content and clicks. But the editors there are smart, and they know that the U.S. Open is not the most stylish major. There’s no debate: The most stylish major—perhaps the most stylish sporting event in the world, period—is Wimbledon. The U.S. Open might not even be the second most stylish major (French), although I’d wager it’s more stylish than the Australian.
Part of the problem is that just like everything in this country, you’re not expected to dress up for anything. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. I love how creative director and Instagram fashion guy Denny Balmaceda uses any occasion to dress up (he wore a white suit to a Yankees game earlier this summer), and he set the pace for the U.S. Open this year with the dapper look above.
The Open is a casual affair. So I think you have two safe approaches that can be both stylish and fun: The Ralph Approach, and The Andre Approach.
The Ralph Approach, inspired, of course, by Ralph Lauren, means classic American casual. We’re talking polos, Oxfords, khakis, navy blazers, loafers. Check out this All-Star team here (Alec Baldwin, Sean Connery, and Ralph himself) making it look easy:
You can have some fun with this look. I’m hoping to go next week, and so I recently picked up a pair of cheap, pleated Made in America Polo chinos and a funky striped Polo button down from eBay for the occasion. Very ‘90s, very U.S. Open. I also found this vintage cap to complete the look:
The Ralph Approach is a safe bet for looking good at the Open. The riskier, but perhaps more exciting, option is The Andre Approach, also known as Full Agassi:
That means embracing full throttle ‘80s and ‘90s sports style, head-to-toe, like these fellas:
Or kitting out in a throwback FILA track suit:
You can’t lose with those looks.
Or, if you just want to look like a well-dressed dude checking out some tennis, take some inspiration from Adam Gallagher, who wore this outfit to the Open in 2016 and wouldn’t look out of place today (although the shirt might fit a bit looser):
Whatever you wear, have a blast at the Open if you can make it. It’s one of the best sporting events I’ve ever attended. And, damn, those Honey Deuces go down easy.
2. Speaking of Tennis, Check Out This Book…
Former Esquire editor Nick Pachelli is about to publish The Tennis Court, a photography book compiling the most interesting and beautiful tennis courts on the planet. From the publisher:
Nick Pachelli curates and profiles 200 of the world’s most beautiful, iconic, significant, alluring, and idiosyncratic tennis courts from across the globe, each breathtakingly photographed. He explores the heavyweights, including Wimbledon’s All England Lawn Tennis Club, which employs a hawk to keep stray birds from soiling the meticulous lawns. Arthur Ashe, the Grandstand, and Court 17 in Flushing, Queens, where hundreds of thousands of tennis fans gather every summer for the US Open. And there’s Court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland-Garros, whose clay seems to take on a different shade—burnt orange, burnt red, burgundy, umber—every time you see it.
This is a brilliant idea and can’t wait to have this on my coffee table. Congrats, Nick.
3. One Last Tennis Thing… On x BEAMS
Last month, On and the Japanese brand BEAMS launched a tennis collection, inspired, in part, by a chance meeting between a BEAMS buyer and tennis fan named Shingo Arai and On partner Roger Federer. (Read more about the collab’s backstory here.)
The collection—a track suit, limited edition Ts and shorts, and the ROGER Pro Beams shoe—isn’t your country club tennis kit. It has a very ‘90s streetwear influence that works on or off the court, with baggier fits and loose silhouettes.
“We’re making all the garments a little bit bigger, so people can wear the collection to play tennis, or they can wear the collection if they’re going for a drink in Harajuku,” Keita Kobayashi, another BEAMS buyer, said. “The collaboration is somewhere between serious tennis and street culture, which is why we called it the Street Tennis Club.”
4. R.I.P. Alain Delon
French Actor Alain Delon died a few weeks ago. I wasn’t familiar with Delon until the recent New Yorker article, “Can a Movie Star be Too Good Looking?” “Alain Delon, in his prime,” Anthony Lane writes, “was the most beautiful man in the history of the movies.”
He was also incredibly stylish. The other day I found myself digging up old photos of Delon from the ‘60s and ‘70s. In every single one, whether he was being captured in a movie or on the red carpet or out in public, he’s dressed immaculately, thoughtfully, but also easily and never forced. It was a time, certainly, when people cared more about what they wore and how they wore it, but it also takes a certain kind of man, a certain kind of swagger and natural ease to make clothing look this good. Alain Delon had it. R.I.P.
5. The Sweet Spot Watch
Let’s say you’re looking for a stylish watch but don’t want to fork out the minimum amount (which is a lot) for a luxury watch. There aren’t a lot of good options, frankly. Watches in that few-hundred dollar range tend to feel and look cheap. But when I saw this watch on Canoe Club’s website the other day I wondered if this was it, that elusive watch that’s both stylish and affordable. Kuoe is a small watch brand in Kyoto, Japan, launched in 2020, that focuses on vintage style pieces and made right there in Kyoto. Canoe Club has a nice selection starting at $275 up to $725. These are every day watches that you can also beat up a little and not worry too much about the pricetag.
6. Front of Book Endorses: The New-Old Jets Unis
When I moved to New York in 2013, I began adopting local sports teams to root for. Baseball was easy. As a Blue Jays fan, I absolutely hate the Yankees, so the Mets were a natural choice for my Number Two team. (It helps that I love the Mets’ hats and games at Citi Field are a party.) For basketball, the Nets were also easy, since they play just a few neighborhoods down from where I live and tickets to Barclay’s are reasonable. (I am, however, bitter about how they badly they fucked Steve Nash and the whole Durant-Kyrie-Harden catastrophe, plus who couldn’t love this current Knicks team?) I’m hockey agnostic in this town, so that only leaves football.
The Jets were the last team to join my roster of New York sports teams. But thinking about it, Gang Green is actually the most natural fit. I grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, which has its own tortured relationship with its football team, the Roughriders. The Riders, whose uniforms also happen to be green and white, have won just four championships in one-hundred and fourteen years! In a league that historically had only eight teams! That’s an unbelievable legacy of failure, and yet the people of Saskatchewan, like me, remain hopelessly devoted to these losers.
So yeah, joining a fanbase that so deeply loves a team they know will only crush them was a no-brainer. And I’ve gone all-in on the misery of Jets fandom. I watched every game last season, the most Jets-y of Jets seasons, and I’m approaching this season with a nice balance of optimism and dread.
But when they inevitably blow it, even with the loaded roster they have, at least, at the very least, we will be watching a team with really cool uniforms. The Jets have reverted back to a classic two-tone color scheme and a sweet retro logo they used from 1978-1997. That they happen to be the same unis they wore in Game 1 last season when Aaron Rogers tore his achilles is an unhappy coincidence. These uniforms kill. Just like the Jets kill their fans’ spirits.
The Feature Well
I’m all about Texas these days. Such a fascinating, weird, wild place. It shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the country’s best magazines is based in Texas, since so many bizarre stories happen there. Texas Monthly is well known for it’s stranger-than-fiction narrative features, and during a long drive in West Texas a few weeks ago, I listened to one of the magazine’s true crime podcasts, “The Problem With Erik.” It was riveting tale of murder-for-hire, greed, and stupidity. When I got back to New York I listened to “Tom Brown’s Body,” about the mysterious death of a high school student in a Panhandle town that’s actually called Canadian, Texas. Both of these series, equally great, were two of the best longform podcast I’ve listened to in a long time—or ever, come to think of it. Ten out of ten. Check them out.
Another interesting pod I’ve just started is Evan Ratliff’s independently produced “Shell Game.” Evan, co-founder of The Atavist, is a terrific journalist and all-around good guy, and I love this idea: He creates a clone of his voice, hooks it up to an AI chatbot, and sets it loose in the world, mostly to chat with confused call-center folks. It’s a funny, and quite troubling, look into our AI near-future.
That’s all for this week. Have a great long weekend and see you back here soon!
Mitch
Question? Comment? Suggestion? Caught a typo? Email me at mitch.moxley@gmail.com