Style

The New York Review Of Looks

To stay current yet classic in an ever-changing business environment, take some style cues from these six accomplished men

Photographs by: Stephanie Stylander, Styling by: Don Sumada
[ Updated: Jul 14, 2008 - 4:55:38 PM ]

John McDonald
In a different era, the 35-year-old would have been called a saloon keeper, but today he's an entrepreneur. Born and raised in Phoenix, McDonald has become a force in Manhattan nightlife as the owner of Merc Bar and Canteen (and in Manhattan literary life as the publisher of City magazine). Now, as co-owner of the Lever House restaurant, he's taking his groovy Soho aesthetic to Midtown, where the Marc Newson-designed space offers an alternative to corporate watering holes like 21 and the Four Seasons.

"I'm wearing suits with greater frequency now, but the challenge for me is remaining a little out of the norm," says McDonald of the fashion dilemma he's wrestling with in his newly bifurcated world. "I can't customize my wardrobe for what street I'm on." Instead, McDonald customizes his John Varvatos suit and Thomas Pink lavender shirt with black and red Adidas sneakers.

John King
If any journalist could untangle the conspiracy theories surrounding Freemasons and President George W. Bush's reliance on royal blue ties, it would be CNN's ice-blue-eyed senior White House correspondent. "People have told the president he looks good in them; he didn't wear those during the campaign," says the 40-year-old Boston native, who got his big break while working for the Associated Press and covering Governor Michael Dukakis's campaign in 1988. "Now I have a cameraman who makes fun of me whenever I wear a blue tie, and I used to wear them a lot during the Clinton administration."
King, who admits to having a minor psychosis about not duplicating the same tie on camera in the same month, finds his greatest sartorial challenge is creating a unique personal style while not distracting news junkies from matters of national importance. "If the viewer saw senators and cabinet members in blue, gray, or black and then I came on the screen in a checked or tweed suit, I'd look out of place," he says. Here, King sports a black suit with an equally understated tie — both from Hermes.

Joe Torre
It seems as if the Yankee skipper has been in uniform since he graduated from Brooklyn's St. Francis Prep in 1958 — whether it was as a St. Louis Cardinal, when he was the National League's MVP in 1971, or as both a player and the manager of the New York Mets in 1977. Over the past nine seasons, the married father of four has become synonymous with New York Yankee blue; he's the first manager in the storied franchise's history to lead the Bronx Bombers to eight straight postseason appearances.

Off the field, the 63-year-old favors Ermenegildo Zegna, whose elegant fabrics and classic lines make him a perfect designer for the athletic American man. Says Torre, "I'm forced to wear pinstripes on the field, so I tend to stay away from them off the field." Looking cool and collected here in a Zegna shirt, tie, and coffee-colored suit — accessorized, of course, with his World Series ring — Torre was photographed in the heat of a pennant race.

Marcus Samuelsson
"As a chef and owner, I have to be involved with so many things. I have to be in business meetings and speak with my line cooks and go to an art gallery to pick out art for my new restaurant — all in the same day," says the James Beard Award-winning chef of Aquavit about the demands his wardrobe faces daily. Currently, the Ethiopian-born, Swedish- raised New Yorker is in the process of opening Riingo, a Japanese-American fusion restaurant.

Samuelsson's trick for dressing appropriately for these varied settings is wearing a very good jacket with classic jeans, or a conservative suit with a wild shirt. Here, the jacket is by Paul Smith, whose witty yet classical approach works on the 33-year-old's sleek frame. As Samuelsson says, "Women incorporate so many style aspects — shoes, bags, hair, makeup; men must be more direct, more precise in how we garnish ourselves."