I went to my husband's family farm in England for Easter weekend and we had some friends to stay. One of them follows my blog and asked what my next theme was, and I told her it would be the evolution of hooded sweatshirts. She didn't get how they fit into the Men's Vogue worldview. Elaborating on what I had already begun to uncover in my research, she explained that in England hooded sweatshirts, especially when worn with the hood up, had downgraded from urban or athletic streetwear to an active display of aggression and malice. So much so that if she saw a guy walking down the sidewalk with his hood up, she would steer clear and cross the street. Furthermore, many malls across the country have banned hooded customers from the premises, since thieves were using their hoods to mask their identity from security cameras.

From my perspective, it seems the opposite has happened in America. Here, hoodies have migrated from sportswear and inner-city status symbol all the way up to standard "well-dressed white guy" fare. I see guys using hoodies to add a bit of street cred to an otherwise too formal, too serious blazer and button-down-shirt look. Others wear them merely to keep warm -- a more casual incarnation of the wool scarf. My friend Josh, who is a writer, almost always wears some kind of sweatshirt with his tweed blazer, well-loved Levi's, and wingtip shoes. If he's going out to dinner with a friend or to lunch with an editor he'll wear a crew neck sweatshirt with his everyday look, but for the weekend he dresses the whole look down with a hoodie. If only everyone had such a simple formula for getting dressed.

Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali trains for his title defense match against Sonny Liston in a hooded sweatshirt. (Ali won the match with a first round knock out that came to be known as "the Phantom Punch" in one of the most controversial fights in boxing history.) It's hard to believe this classic athletic look would be outlawed today in England. Lewiston, Maine, 1965. (Image: Getty)

Growing up, the only time I heard of William F. Buckley, Jr., was when I overheard people telling my stepfather how much he looked like him, and how they had the same "Long Island lockjaw" accent. It wasn't until I was older and read the newspaper regularly that I got my own sense of who William Buckley was. There's no doubt he was a talented writer and an influential political figure, as all the obituary writers celebrated when he died a few weeks ago, but what they failed to mention was how stunningly well dressed he was. Upon first glance you may just think, "Oh--classic preppy WASP," but actually his style was more nuanced and subtle than any simple classification would suggest. Yes he was preppy and classic and WASPy, but he had the knack for wearing one thing to give an outfit some personality (plaid shorts or a striped tie) without adding anything to distract from that (no monogrammed belt to match). Today many preppy guys I see in Palm Beach, Southampton, or Greenwich wear old school classic pieces as status symbols, like logos. They'll wear the Ray-Ban sunglasses with the Nantucket Red shorts with the yacht club belt with the polo shirt with the braided rope bracelet. Yikes! In my twenties I decided I really hated the preppy look for men--it had become about overstatement instead of understatement--but I realized recently that I just hate what it has become. If we could get the preppy look back to the elegant restraint of Bill Buckley I'd be proud to say I was a fan.

William F. Buckley, Jr., at home in Stamford, CT, August 1965. (Photo: Getty)

I do know men who can carry off wearing a fur coat. My stepfather, for instance, has a coyote parka that he wears at his house in the Adirondacks. I also have a more scruffy friend in his thirties who looks utterly convincing in a vintage beaver overcoat. But beyond that it's challenging for me to think of many cases where men pull off wearing an abundance of fur. However a bit of fur, most popularly a fur collar, is a different story. There are tons of options--a bomber jacket with a shearling collar, a down parka with a raccoon collar, or an overcoat with Persian lamb collar being among my favorites. And while an uptown man looks great wearing a fur-trimmed winter coat with a polished business look, I tend to think downtown guys look better if they dress down their fur with jeans and sneakers for a younger, more laid-back look.

This is a fantastic coat. I've never seen one like it. I like everything about it--the color, the fit, the combination of materials. Also, it's hard to pinpoint--it could be from the army-navy or from a very expensive designer. West 13th Street, NYC, January 2008.