The Grammys are always a bit off the wall when it comes to style. It would be weird if every guy showed up in a regular old tux, Oscars style. Bonkers fashion is the norm at the music awards and last night’s festivities fit the bill perfectly. If we’re talking trends, we saw lots of leather and lots of colourful suits. It was further proof that men are sick and tired of sitting around in sweatpants and socks. Given half the chance, men will splash on the flashiest outfit they have and go, literally, to town.

That old maxim about shoes being the first thing a fellow human notices about you may belong to a bygone age, but there’s some truth in it. It’s not just a question of style, but of status. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, you can see the difference that proper craftsmanship makes. The time is now ripe for us to modernise the adage and replace the word “shoes” with “sneakers”. Trainers are far more ubiquitous than their hard-soled counterparts. And just as in the past a man’s scuffed or soiled Oxfords may have elicited a few disapproving tuts, likewise your choice of sneakers influences how others perceive you. It doesn’t mean you have to be Mr Classic Kicks every day of the week. A man’s sneaker wardrobe should be as varied as the rest of his closet. What you wear to work or in a professional setting will undoubtedly be different from what you wear on a long weekend walk or while meeting friends at the pub (any day now). Which brings us to our subject for today: how to build an outfit around whatever pair of sneakers you happen to be wearing that day. We haven’t set out to lay down any hard-and-fast rules here, but if you take one thing away from this sartorial seminar, think “feet first”. Follow our lead and you won’t put a foot wrong.

Conversations in fashion are shifting. Until recently, if you dropped words like “timeless” or “longevity” in a room full of industry insiders, you’d be faced with (barely) stifled yawns, not-so-subtle eye-rolls and pointed watch checks. The driving force in fashion – what people were really interested in, or so industry trendsetters would have had us believe – was the relentless pursuit of the new. In something of a 180, however, much of that momentum has fallen away. While design, innovation, excitement and creativity remain firmly on the agenda, in the wake of 2020 we find ourselves drawn towards something more enduring: something that never goes out of style. Which brings us neatly on to SAINT LAURENT.

It’s easy to overlook craftsmanship when you’re shopping online. If you’re scrolling on MR PORTER and a certain piece catches your eye, rarely is your first thought how or where it was made. You are much more likely to be drawn to the colour, the pattern and how well it fits. In the thrill of finding something you know will look great on you, the hours of painstaking work that went into crafting that item of clothing, or the intense research and design decisions that happened along the way, can easily be forgotten.

The Grammys are always a bit off the wall when it comes to style. It would be weird if every guy showed up in a regular old tux, Oscars style. Bonkers fashion is the norm at the music awards and last night’s festivities fit the bill perfectly. If we’re talking trends, we saw lots of leather and lots of colourful suits. It was further proof that men are sick and tired of sitting around in sweatpants and socks. Given half the chance, men will splash on the flashiest outfit they have and go, literally, to town.

That old maxim about shoes being the first thing a fellow human notices about you may belong to a bygone age, but there’s some truth in it. It’s not just a question of style, but of status. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, you can see the difference that proper craftsmanship makes. The time is now ripe for us to modernise the adage and replace the word “shoes” with “sneakers”. Trainers are far more ubiquitous than their hard-soled counterparts. And just as in the past a man’s scuffed or soiled Oxfords may have elicited a few disapproving tuts, likewise your choice of sneakers influences how others perceive you. It doesn’t mean you have to be Mr Classic Kicks every day of the week. A man’s sneaker wardrobe should be as varied as the rest of his closet. What you wear to work or in a professional setting will undoubtedly be different from what you wear on a long weekend walk or while meeting friends at the pub (any day now). Which brings us to our subject for today: how to build an outfit around whatever pair of sneakers you happen to be wearing that day. We haven’t set out to lay down any hard-and-fast rules here, but if you take one thing away from this sartorial seminar, think “feet first”. Follow our lead and you won’t put a foot wrong.