For our fifth annual search for The Best Dressed Real Man in America, Esquire scoured the country and found more than one thousand men who believed they should hold the title. This year, as in the past two, the competition was run exclusively online, and the quality of entries was so high that judging the entries was particularly difficult.
From that online pool of stylish men emerged Columbia student Dan Trepanier, whom Esquire readers elected their "fan favorite" to join four other finalists. And it was for that everyman quality — and a damn good mastery of his haut-preppy wardrobe — that Trepanier was awarded the title this morning by fashion director Nick Sullivan on NBC's Today show:
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"Dan was a front-runner in our eyes from very early on, but since the competition was so close, we didn't really know who was going to win until the very end," Sullivan says. "But between the Esquire readers' online vote and Kenneth Cole's online vote — both in favor of Dan — the final decision was unanimous, and that stood out."
At 22, Trepanier is by far the youngest contest winner to take home Esquire's annual prize — this year totaling more than $30,000, including a $10,000 wardrobe from Kenneth Cole and Esquire, a one-year supply of Nivea for Men products, an IWC watch, and, you know, his face on the Today show. He's also the first blogger to win, and the first to name his mother as a top fashion influence. "I think subconsciously I dress well as a way of showing her, and everybody else, how far my family has come," Trepanier wrote in his online entry.
It goes without saying that everybody else — or at least the Esquire judges and a couple thousand voters — was impressed. "Dan's style is instantly recognizable as American," Sullivan says, "but it's modern and individual and it avoids the more predictable preppy combinations. He can pair a tweed jacket with a rugby shirt and a pair of serious dress shoes — that takes cojones, but it also underlines the evolution of men's style in America.
"Over the five-year history of Esquire's Best Dressed Man in America competition, there's been a clear evolution away from men who dress only to get noticed — the show-offs — toward men who dress increasingly for themselves and as a way to express themselves. We're delighted to celebrate that."
