The First 10 Things You Should Buy to Start a Wardrobe in 2023, Part 2

The second half of this guide to the perfect timeless wardrobe.

Welcome to this week’s Haute Garbaggio, a compilation of my thoughts and feelings about mostly clothes but also other stuff occasionally.

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Welcome to part 2 of this little doomsday thought experiment in which your entire arsenal of jawnery has tragically gone kaput, leaving you to rebuild your wardrobe from scratch and rise once again like an extremely swagged out phoenix from the ashes.

So, same deal as before. I’m gonna list off the pieces that should make up this idealized 10-item wardrobe, tell you why I think they’re actually essential, and give you a few worth buying. Even if their these items are simply additions to your current rotation, my hope is that you’ll find their usage rate to be league-leading, which in the process will help illuminate the fact that you really don’t need a lot of things to be stylish. “Buy less, but buy better” is a tired refrain in 2023, but the rise of Shein and places like it make me feel like there are those who still need to hear the message.

6. The (Probably, But Not Necessarily Vintage) Bomber Jacket

Steve McQueen, a first ballot hall of fame jacket-wearer, in a perfect-fitting MA-1.

When I think of a jacket—and I use that word specifically over coat—my mind tends to auto populate a bomber. That doesn’t mean yours does too, but the case for the bomber (and when I say bomber I mean nylon MA-1 styles) as the essential jacket is this: