Five Menswear Shops Worth Staying For
Buying clothes used to be quick. You went in, found what you wanted, paid and left. That rhythm has mostly gone from the part of menswear worth caring about. A jacket needs a fitting. Shoes worth the money need a conversation first and a decent haircut needs someone who already knows your head. None of it happens standing up.
You usually leave better dressed than you meant to.
So the shops that do this well have quietly stopped behaving like shops. You turn up for a coffee and find yourself an hour deep in the bookshelf, or drawn into a discussion with the tailor about how a collar should roll.
We picked five that get it right. They sit in different cities and disagree on plenty when it comes to taste, but the afternoon plays out much the same in each: you go in, you slow down and you usually leave better dressed than you meant to.
1. RA in Antwerp
Set among the antique dealers and galleries on Kloosterstraat, RA was started by two graduates of the Fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. The building holds several things at once: a gallery, a cafe, the main shop floor and a separate second-hand space. Clothing, furniture and art are arranged together the way they might be in someone’s flat, so nothing feels merchandised.
The buying is deliberately narrow. Expect handmade, small-run garments, much of it limited or made exclusively for the shop. Start with a coffee at the bar, take the gallery slowly, then work the rails. It’s quiet and hard-edged, all concrete and nobody pushes you along. Look for the handmade overshirts, the archive Belgian pieces and the rare magazines stacked on the book table.
Kloosterstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium.
2. Trunk Clothiers and Trunk Labs in London
Trunk Clothiers stocks a considered mix of labels, some established and some newer, drawn from Japan, Italy, Britain, Sweden and the US, alongside its own collection. A short walk away, Trunk Labs handles everything that isn’t the main wardrobe: handkerchiefs, luggage, grooming, a bit of homeware and stationery.
The rooms are calm, wood underfoot and brass on the fittings, and the staff tend to remember what size you take. Have a coffee while you browse and let a conversation start about how a pair of trousers ought to drape. There is time here to try things on properly. The own-label knitwear is the reason most people come back, though it is worth leaving with a Porter tote and a bit of incense too.
8 and 34 Chiltern Street, London W1U 7PU, United Kingdom.
3. The Armoury in New York
The Armoury built its name on tailoring, working with houses such as Ascot Chang, Ring Jacket and Orazio Luciano. It opened in Hong Kong in 2010 and became one of the most respected traditional menswear shops anywhere, then added the Tribeca branch at the end of 2013. What it sells amounts to a whole wardrobe rather than a rack of suits, right down to the shoes and the shoe trees that keep them in shape.
Fittings are not rushed, and you can get a shoe shine and a coffee from next door while you wait. It’s a good place to learn what a jacket is actually meant to do on the shoulder. The Model 3 sport coat is the house signature. Pair it with an Oxford Cloth Button-Down from Ascot Chang and, if the budget stretches, a pair of Saint Crispin’s.
168 Duane Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10013, United States.
4. Barkers High Street and Groom Room in Auckland
The Auckland flagship sits on High Street, the same street where Ray Barker opened his first shop years ago. Head up to the mezzanine and you reach the Barkers Groom Room, a proper barbershop that also runs Burrs and Grind espresso. The barbers do wet shaves and beard work as readily as a sharp cut, and the whole place is set up to make a bloke feel at ease rather than processed.
The pattern most people fall into is a cut upstairs, a fitting on the floor below and a flat white somewhere between the two. Leave with a New Zealand wool overshirt and a pair of tailored trousers, and book in for the straight-razor shave while you are there.
1 High Street, Auckland, New Zealand.
5. Bryceland’s Co in Tokyo
Ethan Newton opened Bryceland’s in Shibuya in 2016, and it has become a fixture for men who care about tailoring and classic menswear. The stock runs across shirts, ties, denim and soft tailoring, all of it altered on the premises, with far more attention paid to cloth and construction than to whatever is current.
There is no real signage, so people mostly arrive because someone tipped them off, then stay because the staff will happily talk you through every seam. The sawtooth western shirt is the one to know, along with the club tab collar. If you buy the jeans, they will hem them while you wait.
1F, J-Hillside Building, Jingumae 3-15-4, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.
Why these five
What connects them isn’t a shared look, since they pull in fairly different directions. It’s closer to a shared manner. There is somewhere to sit, something worth drinking and enough judgement behind the rails that you needn’t check every label yourself. Nobody is counting your purchases. You give an afternoon over to it and walk out better dressed than when you came in, and usually better groomed too.
“Menswear’s most enduring luxury is no longer exclusivity but attention. In an age built around speed and convenience, the rarest retail experience is simply having enough time to make up your mind.”
