In honor of Father's Day, we decided to thank our dads. Not for their wisdom, or their financial support, or their jokes, but for something else: their closets. We asked nine GQ editors to pick the pieces dad passed down, or that they stole, that they still wear today. Dad style is all around us—and sometimes it even looks pretty damn good.
I won’t beat around the bush: I learned everything I know about how to dress from my very stylish parents. There’s my mom, an island child of Jamaica and lover of fine fabrics and prints, and then my father, the skate rat with a love of sneakers and graphic tees well before anyone called it “streetwear.” This REI parka was an old go-to of his that he would wear when he snowboarded, a perfect mix of utility and style. He gave it to me a few years back, and it has become my de-facto all season rain jacket, worn with a sweater in the winter and shorts in the summer. The Stussy shirt I have on in these photos was also his, a favorite shirt to skate in back when he was a teenager. I would’ve been inspired by the pictures of him alone, but its even better that we can share sizes. —Shakeil Greeley, Channel Manager
I have a distant but vivid memory of my dad wearing this chain in the early 90’s, a gift from my mom shortly after they were married. I always used to ask him about it because I thought he looked so damn cool in it. Fast foward 20-plus years and now I proudly wear it! I’m not too sure that I look as cool as I thought he did back in the day. But it's a pretty bad ass chain, so who cares? —Matt Martin, Visuals Editor
My dad gave me his watch—a Movado with a small face, gold trim, with a skinny black leather strap. It’s a handsome little thing. But it doesn’t work. It stopped keeping accurate some six-odd months after he gifted it to me and, for reasons I can’t explain, I still wear it. Sure, donning your father’s broken watch sounds like a metaphor for unresolved paternal issues, but I swear it’s not worth reading into. It’s just an object that looks nice. So there wasn’t any kind of ceremony when Dad asked if I wanted the watch he’d been wearing for over a decade. No talk about it being an heirloom or a hand-me-down. The reason he was giving it up? Dad got a Fitbit—which, in addition to counting the very few steps my dad takes in a day, also tells time. Wearing a watch, he posited, would be redundant. I couldn’t argue with that Dad logic. Like I said, it’s not worth reading into. —Kevin Nguyen, Senior Editor
My parents love few things more than to go on these long, meandering road trips alone together: Yosemite, San Juan Capistrano, Salt Lake City. Bless my dad, but he somehow always manages to forget a hat, so he'll stop at a kitschy gift shop in the middle of nowhere to pick up a new one. Last year when they visited me from SoCal, they did a big ol' loop from NYC to Maryland to Maine and back again, and somewhere along the way he picked this Portland hat up and, of course, forgot it at my apartment. It is the most literal dad cap in every sense of the word and holds no special meaning other than it bears the name of a geographic place he happened to pass through. I wore it all summer long, including when I proposed to my now fianceé. On some level it's probably lucky. —Chris Gayomali, Senior Editor
When I was growing up, my dad worked for the Jim Henson Company, but I told all my friends he was Kermit the Frog's lawyer. This jacket was always floating around our house. I assume it belonged to pops at first, but everyone borrowed it. I distinctly recall my mom wearing the hell out of it as I got older, and my younger brother grabbed it for a few years in there, too. (I'll assert older-brother privilege by insisting that the hole at the neck is definitely his fault.) I've got it now, and I don't think I'm ever giving it back. The best pieces of clothing acquire a couple different kinds of patina. There's your regular wear-and-tear, which this jacket has in spades. But it's also got something a little weirder—almost an emotional patina. In its worn-down Kermit embroidery, there's a whole story of my family: trips we took, and grocery runs we made, and evenings we spent watching someone play sports in a too-deep portion of the San Fernando Valley. I look forward to my dirtbag children stealing it from me one day, and adding their own nicks, frays, and tears. —Sam Schube, Deputy Style Editor
My dad worked every weekday of his adult life as a carpenter and general contractor building houses in the beach towns of L.A.'s South Bay. That meant that he was outside incessantly, but outside in mild if not dream-breezy conditions. It never would've occurred to me growing up that the uniform I saw him leave in every morning around 6:30 was a uniform I would pick and choose from as I grew older, but, obviously we are all our fathers, or whatever: I took his sunglasses in high school and college; his hats and flannels shortly after; his boots when I realized I couldn't march around New York City in SeaVees all winter. I'll never be able to wear everything at once—the uniform belongs exclusively to carpenters in L.A. in the summer of the '84 Olympics—but I find myself basically wearing one of his somethings most days of my own very different life a long way from home. Here's the uniform from the job-site:
- Red Wing work boots
- Gramicci shorts (built-in belt, bros) or Ocean Pacific cord shorts
- Fruit of the Loom cotton t-shirts (Riley Construction edition)
- Patagonia fleece
- Tag Heuer watch (velcro band)
- Vuarnet sunglasses with attendant croakie (when they were for contractors and fisherman, not just Kappa Sigs at UGA)
—Daniel Riley, Features Editor
My dad's '60s high school letterman jacket is a treasure. Among its best features: blue-and-cream striped shawl collar, ghostly outline of long-since ripped off fighting Irishman chest patch, mostly disintegrated firecrackers still in left pocket, and, yep, high school girlfriend's telephone number written in blue ballpoint ink on the right arm. The leather sleeves and wool torso are pretty weathered, so I usually try to juxtapose the antique patina with a crisp white button down or a white t-shirt. If I'm really having a varsity-level confidence day maybe some black Bass Weejuns loafers. —Martin Mulkeen, Commerce Editor
As a kid, my dad was almost always in a pair of cowboy boots—whether he was coming home from a night shift in the E.R., or just having a beer. At the time, I asked myself: Why doesn’t the man just wear a more normal, seemingly comfortable pair of shoes? A father/son trip to Allens Boots in Austin for my very own pair of Luccheses clarified things. Yes, we’re Texan (transplants), and while we weren’t lassoing any cattle, these boots were more about who we were and where we came from. A few years later, I spotted an old pair of his boots—faded black leather, ripped pull straps, worn-down soles—and knew that with an unfortunate difference in shoe size, I’d never have the opportunity to wear them myself. Having them immortalized on a bookshelf is a close second. —Sam Todd, Social Editor
T-shirts, like new hires, are better with experience. The older, the softer. And since the oldest people have the oldest clothes, Dad’s closet is the best place to shop for tees. (Seriously, someone should open a store called Pop's Tops.) He let me borrow this “NHL: Old Time Hockey” jam last year and I never gave it back. It’s broken-in, a little too big—which is fine because you can’t put a size on a memento—and it’s a regular in my weekend lounge rotation. The great irony is that for as many baseball, basketball, and (both kinds of) football memories my sports-obsessed pops and I share, none of them involve hockey. I’m cool with this being the father/son puck memory we never made. I’ll cherish it forever—or at least until he takes his very dope shirt back. —Clay Skipper, Staff Writer
