That’s because you’re not shopping like a guy.Enter the clandestine world of men’s shopping where T-shirts are dry-clean-only and buying online is mostly a no-no – because anyone can do it, unless you’re a regular on Racked. Stores are stripped back to art gallery-esque bareness and absolutely no Instagramming goes on in the changing rooms. Take Duke’s Cupboard, a brand-new menswear store that deals in elite vintage sportswear on a semi-sleazy Soho alleyway – the latest addition to the area’s word-of-mouth shopping scene.
DJ Luke Storey, musician Donae’o and Stüssy creative consultant Jordan Vickors (aged 23, and my guide today) are all regular clients of Harley’s, who is busy manning the till and hosting the small party gathering in the stockroom next to a makeshift sound system. He recently upgraded to bricks-and-mortar from his Berwick Street Market stall to meet the demand from a new wave of twenty- and thirty- something casualwear fanatics, and he knows most of his customers by their first names. “They’re friends and they’re influencers,” he admits – it’s a dirty word around here, because the act of influencing essentially blows their cover to a mass audience that isn’t involved in the treasure hunt on the ground.
My first mistake is calling it “shopping”. Guys don’t “shop”, I am told categorically – or at least they don’t call it shopping. “This” – unlike my nightly trawls on Mytheresa – “is about building relationships,” Vickors explains. “The internet doesn’t get you very far. If you’re passionate about it, and you’re going to make friends, you get access.” It is also about tracking down rare vintage brands that others can’t. Like many other women, I am primed to ride off the cachet of wearing a full new-season look. That competitive thrill of the new drives most of my spending.
Later that week, I’m again reminded how unsociable women’s shopping has become while wandering Portobello Market with my friend the designer Duro Olowu on a sunny Friday morning. For him, shopping is an offline experience. He knows the traders personally, and spots such as Vintwear2 are hangouts. The laid-back approach makes me nostalgic for Saturdays in the Noughties when the whole day was dedicated to the pursuit – with lunch thrown in – and the actual “shopping” took place in between record-store visits, rather than on-screen. I can’t remember the last time I shopped like this with a female friend.
On the modern menswear scene, private communities rule, and your wardrobe is only as good as your face-to-face connections – the opposite of my persistent refreshing of Net-a-Porter’s “What’s New” tab, lured in by a mailout dispatched to millions. This is socialising rather than shopping (hence the in-store house-party vibe at London menswear haunts such as Machine A). The subculture spirit means that menswear hangouts aren’t always friendly places, however. When I email London’s Basement Approved (nicknamed “streetwear’s hardest online community” by Hypebeast), attempting to infiltrate one of their sales, I receive a jarringly formal reply. They don’t know me and I haven’t been admitted by a trusted connection, so I don’t get invited in to spend – something Selfridges would never do. I’m outraged, and doubly keen to get in, which I’m learning is a familiar feeling in the menswear scene.
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