Two Bits That Got Cut from My Atlantic Suit Article, Including The Menswear Guy and the Cantonese Danny DeVito
Recently, I published a piece on getting an amazing new suit at the Atlantic. Here’s the link in case you haven’t seen it. (The above photo is by the incredible Dina Litovsky.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/gary-shteyngart-bespoke-suit-mens-fashion-self-love/681441/
Now I always write too many words even for an enormous 10,000 word piece, and some stuff ends up on the cutting room floor. Here, two things stood out. First, was a conversation I had with Derek Guy, the Menswear Guy on twitter who was very generous with his time. Here’s the cut material below:
I got in touch with Derek Guy, better known as “the Menswear guy” on the platform that was once known as Twitter, who is also the editor of the crucial sartorial blog “Die, Workwear!” I sent Derek photos of me inside the few jackets and trousers that I already owned. He mostly approved except for the way my pants sat over the stump of my ass. “The fabric is collapsing down your seat, down your legs,” he told me. “The back rise is too long.”
“I just don’t want to look like Jordan Peterson,” I told him, referencing the far-right Canadian psychiatrist who was trying to play the Duke of Windsor’s “Baroque elaboration” game with uniquely terrible results.
“Mark and Yamamoto-san have incredibly high-level taste,” Derek reassured me. “With your frame you could wear anything. You’re in the middle slim build, so it’s really whatever you like.” Once again, my unremarkable body type appeared perfect for a suit.
Secondly, we had to cut a party that my friend Mark Cho threw at the Armoury in Hong Kong, because we already had two Armoury party scenes in the article. (Can you ever really have enough?) And that resulted in the bit below: