Bite-sized style news to know what’s happening in menswear this May
Everything you need to know that's happening in menswear
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WELCOME TO ‘Bite-sized style news’, a monthly dispatch where we discuss the news, rumours and conversations that are dominating the men’s style discourse, and therefore, our Esquire water cooler chitchat.
Scroll on for this month’s edition
Song For The Mute drops SFTM x adidas 007
It’s the month for acquiring some decent kicks! This time, there’s an extended wardrobe to add to cart, too.
The adidas Originals collaborations have become a reliable measure of where Australian fashion sits globally, and cult Sydney-based label Song for the Mute has been one of the more consistent performers in that conversation. This is their seventh chapter together.
ADI007 takes childhood uniform dressing as its starting point: hand-me-downs, scuffed school shoes, clothes that are pulled from the floordrobe and layered for more for the pleasure of it than the practicality. The two footwear pieces translate that directly. The Tokyo is a low-profile gym shoe in nylon and mesh with paint-splattered suede overlays and a deliberately scuffed outsole. The Samba LX Freizeit goes the other direction – full-grain leather, structured, built for corridors.
Props to the campaign, too, that looks like old school photographs that look like they’ve been found in a discarded album of an estate sale.
SFTM exclusive pre-release on Friday, 8 May at 11am AEST. Global release 15 May.
Words Benjamen Judd
ASICS x Earls is back with a slick new Gel Cumulus 16
The ASICS SportStyle collaborations have been building momentum, and Earls Collection, the Sydney label founded by former NRL player Lewi Brown, has become one of the more compelling repeat partners. Their first drop, a GT2160, sold out in 2024.
The second is a GEL-CUMULUS 16, and the design detail is worth noting. The insoles recreate the carpet of Brown’s childhood home in Christchurch. The aged texture of the SILKYWRAP stripes references his mother’s years of work. Brown overlays reference family. It is, in other words, a shoe built almost entirely from autobiography (the shoebox recreates the family home too). There’s also a football boot, because naturally.
Check the dates on your calendars because you will be able to grab a pair on 21 May at ASICS.com, Earls online and the Earls store in Paddington.
Words Benjamen Judd
Louis Vuitton is on the Chase
The revival of Chatswood Chase as a luxury precinct has truly locked in. Dior, Australian jewellers Musson, Bvlgari and Celine have all stamped their logos on front doors. The latest arrival may be the grandest – Louis Vuitton.
The centre has spent the past few years repositioning itself as one of Sydney’s premium retail destinations (and a good excuse to escape the city).
120 metres of textured cladding wraps the building, with animated LV signatures and a video screen embedded. The Maison has done this kind of architectural statement before at its flagship stores but for this new boutique, three Australian artists, Estelle Asmodelle, Amy Wright and Amy Kim, were chosen to provide artistic counterpoints to the house’s own historic prints.
Two entrances, one for women’s, one for men’s, the latter marked by a timber wall reworking the Damier check. Worth the drive up the Pacific Highway.
Shop 1-026, 345 Victoria Avenue Chatswood
Words Benjamen Judd
All the best-dressed men at the 2026 Met Gala
