Dadicated Follower of Fashion
You are what you wear. At least you were what you wore.
I’ve spent the last two weeks sick, but making my way back to fighting fit and back with a three-in-one fashion special. First up, an essay on fashion and fatherhood, and how our relationship to what we wear changes after having kids. Then, a peak at the new Good Dads Club collection (as well as a discount code) and finally, a roundtable discussion with dads working in and around the fashion industry that covers highs and lows of parenting I felt deeply in my soul.
This is all in order of TNF’s annual drive to raise money for the Therapy Fund. 100% of profits from the Good Dad Club collection go into the fund, as do all annual memberships purchased this month. If you are a dad struggling with your mental health or know one who might benefit from getting therapy and they’re not able to get it, please point him my way. Help is out there, you just have to ask.
There were ten years when I was truly obsessed with what I wore.
I was a teenager in Manchester during the peak Oasis years; as long as you had a decent military jacket and an Adidas Firebird that wasn’t too battered, you’d be able to fit into the tribe. When I got a little older—just as the Reverend James Murphy prophesied—I sold my guitar and bought turntables. I spend the little money I made behind bars on records and booze. Whatever was left would be squirrelled away for a not-regular-enough splurge—a nice pair of selvedge jeans, a bold graphic tee, a long lusted-for jacket.
You are what you wear. It felt that way, back then. What you wore was intimately tied to your sense of self. What are clothes if not outward reflections of internal projections? I look back through old photos, my threads reflecting that moment in time, capturing the man (and boy) I once was. We wore our passions on our sleeves, quite literally. My cuffs were always drenched in music. I came of age before digital cameras and Facebook; all evidence of teenage Kevin as an ersatz Liam Gallagher is (blessedly) consigned to a few well-guarded shoeboxes. Years later electroclash was the name of the game. The music channelled the 1980’s, so did the looks. The latter should have remained there. In Manchester, we’d head to Romp and later Tramp, a close cousin to London’s Trash and Glasgow’s Optimo, where DJs like Erol Alkan, JD Twitch and JG Wilkes would effortlessly blend genres and eras, transforming dancefloors forever.
You get older. You get more comfortable in your own skin, without needing to adopt the uniforms of others to assimilate. You get a sense of who you are. Your look no longer changes every time your favourite band does. You find out what works for you. You tone down the oversized hoodies and logos. You even choose to wear shirts outside of work.
Fashion becomes less of a priority. And then you have a kid. And if fashion hadn’t already lowered on your ladder by a few rungs, it now drops off it entirely. You have been inducted into a club infamous for its terrible dress code. Don’t worry, you think, you’re a dad now—you’ve been granted permission to give up. You no longer need to worry about dressing well. Break out the New Balance and the cargo shorts: you’ve arrived. Comfort, convenience, and colours that best hide baby sick become your modus operandi. Focus moves from fashion to function.
For me, this moment aligned with a relocation from London to San Francisco, compounding its effect. A city once celebrated for counterculture and a psychedelic sense of style had become the home of grey t-shirts emblazoned with the logo of whichever tech company had the biggest merch budget that year. Locals would pair them with a set of grey Allbirds, the ubiquitous Apple Watch, and a Patagonia fleece stuffed into their Peak Design backpack, awaiting Karl the Fog’s inevitable arrival. Two of the greatest preachers of this new silicon religion—Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg—both delivered their annual gospel wearing the same outfit they wore to the office every day. This was apparently their way to reduce “decision fatigue” and enable them to better focus on what they deemed “essential” problems. (Zuck has since left those days behind and hired a stylist, or a team of them, for his strange glow-up.)
And what you wear can be a deep reflection of how you’re actually doing. After my son was born, I went back to wearing how I felt: dour clothes reflected the depression within. I would head out everyday in the exact same set of pants and t-shirt, purchased in bulk in a few essential colours: Black, Blue, and Grey. But when I started to feel better, and connect back with who I was, my clothing shifted too. This then conincided with a move to Barcelona, and a new sense of caring about what I wore. Each Sónar Festival, I’d spend as much time admiring the looks served by local hombres as what the DJs were playing on stage.
I started to care again, and help was close to hand.
TNF x Far Afield: The Good Dads Club
Mark, a close friend, founded Far Afield in 2016. His clothing brand had built a sterling reputation through killer design work that was on-trend and connected to the broader cultural pulse. One hit product from their archive was The Montana, a replica of the iconic red Hawaiian shirt Al Pacino during the infamous chainsaw scene in Scarface. Another had a series of Tony Soprano-inspired looks so you could serve New Jersey mobster from wherever in the world you are. We cracked an idea: a clothing collaboration to let dads fly the fatherhood flag high and do some good in the process.
Last summer, we launched the first collection of The Good Dads Club. 100% of profits went directly to our direct action Therapy Fund, which has now helped well over a dozen dads get mental health support when other avenues have failed. This year, we partnered with illustrator and fellow dad Daren Newman to create a whole new range of “better threads for screwed-on heads,” including oft-requested long-sleeve versions, just in time for cold winter afternoons when you’re pushing a stroller through the streets.
We’re delighted with how these turned out. They’re on sale now for immediate delivery. Check out the entire collection here, and use the code THENEWFATHERHOOD if you’d like 15% off.
A Fashion Fatherhood Roundtable
Put something into the world, and it becomes a lighthouse for the like-minded.
That’s why you’re here, reading this newsletter. And that’s why, after the initial Good Dads Club launch, I got to know Rikesh Chauhan—a photographer/writer/director/ dad/fellow slashie. To mark the new collection, I asked Rikesh to get a few dads together to discuss the intersection of fashion and fatherhood. (He took a couple of great photos to boot. Cheers Rikesh!) Over the summer, we sat down in London with dads working in and around the fashion industry—Jaheid Ahmed, Aaron Christian and Nas Abraham—for what started on fashion and ended up far deeper.
On Dad Style, Now and Then
Rikesh: I think our parents’ generation has inherently bad taste.
Kevin: No kid thinks his dad is cool. You guys are well-dressed and into interesting music, fashion, and culture. Are your kids going to follow that? Or are they going to rebel against it by wearing plain clothes and listening to pop music?
Nas: No. Our kids will rebel by staying away from the creative industries and getting proper jobs.
Aaron: Because fashion is so circular, we thought our parents were so uncool, but when I look back at photos of my dad in the 70s now, I think, “I’d wear that.”
Kevin: How has your relationship with fashion changed since you became a dad?
Nas: The emphasis on comfort has never been more apparent. I’m not going to wear anything I can’t crouch in, get sweaty in, or am worried about. It’s all about durability and comfort. If I’m thinking, “The hem of my jeans is getting muddy here,”, then my priorities are all wrong.
Aaron: I don’t think my style has shifted, but maybe it’s because my daughter is only 15 months old.
Jahied: When you hit toddler mode, you will.
Rikesh: COVID and remote working changed what we needed to wear. The emphasis became on comfort. Previously, dressing badly was an occupational hazard for me: I was working in fashion and needed to dress well for people to take me seriously at work. A lot of the stuff I was wearing definitely wasn’t comfortable.
Jahied: I used to think, “Oh, I like this, I’ll buy it.” And after having a kid, I found myself thinking, “There are so many other things I need to be buying”, so I stopped buying new things for myself. Now I’m a lot more considered: I buy things I really like, that I think will last for a while.
Aaron: There’s a guilt in buying clothes for myself now. Purchase guilt. I’ve always had it, but much more since becoming a dad.
Jahied: I purchased a white pair of jeans recently. It felt like a big deal. My kid is old enough now, I can do it.
Rikesh: There was a point after becoming a dad where I would just put on the first thing I could see. But then I realised after a while that there were little things I could do to make an average outfit look good; they became little things I always do. For example, with T-shirts, I always roll up this so it looks a bit more fitted. I'll always tuck it in. That immediately goes from looking really sluggish to something else.
Kevin: Is your sense of style fixed?
Jahied: It’s evolving more than ever. I lost some weight, I’m experimenting, trying out new things. The fundamentals of my look at simple with good materials, those things are consistent.
Rikesh: I’ve always loved your style because there aren’t big statements, but it’s all really seamless.
Jahied: Having a small wardrobe helps that. Everything that goes in has to work with others.
Nas: That’s my mindset at the moment too. I dress for the job I need to do that day—if I’m heading to the studio I wear certain things, but I don’t buy one item anymore and try to figure out how to build around it.
Getting kids ready, and learning to let it be
Jahied: When you’re leaving the house, do you get ready first, or do you get first?
Rikesh: It depends on how much time we have in the morning. My wife and I wake up, figure out who is “more awake”, and they can do the nursery drop-off.
Jahied: I’m a pro at getting ready in under 10 minutes from leaving the house.
Nas: Things get harder when you try and force things that aren’t going to happen when you stick to the schedules and ways of working from before you had kids.
Jahied: You learn to pick your battles. Which ones can you actually address? Sometimes you have to say “Let this one be.”
Nas: And that same mindset applies to everything: work, schedules, projects. When you’re going against the grain to such a degree that things are messing you up.
Kevin: I consistently notice that my frustrations are rooted in the situations when my kids won’t fit to my schedule. When I learn to let go of this, I’m much happier.
Nas: In my house, we have two types of being ready. There’s being ready to leave the house, and then being “Nas Ready.” This means that they’re actually ready: with shoes and socks on, actually ready to leave the door.
Kevin: I think “Dad Ready” in most houses would mean the opposite: they’ve got some clothes on, but haven’t got their teeth brushed or hair combed. It’s like that episode of Bluey where Bandit forgets everything important for their day at the pool. “Dad ready” often means not ready at all.
The shift to “pre-loved”
Kevin: Who chooses what your kids wear? Who buys their clothes?
Jahied: I buy most of my son’s clothes. Vinted is the thing for kids' clothes and adults. My son’s entire wardrobe is Vinted. Initially, his foot size changed monthly, and buying secondhand was the only answer.
Aaron: You can buy something, wear it for a few months, and then sell it for the same price.
Kevin: My daughter now understands the idea of “preloved” clothes. People will ask her, “Is that new?” and she’ll say, “It’s new to me.” It’s great how this idea is becoming more socially acceptable. When we were young, you’d die before admitting your clothes were second-hand.
Jahied: During Covid, there was no opportunity to dress up and go anywhere. I was just wearing two or three things on a continuous basis. But dressing my son made me think, “Oh, I haven’t worn nice clothes like this in a while.” I was finding cool stuff for him, and then looking for the adult version for myself!
Aaron. I don’t buy my daughter’s clothes. I think if I had a boy, I’d be more into it. And because my wife is in fashion, I don’t get much say. I’ve made a few suggestions—I just get shot down!
Jahied: We started giving my son two sets of clothes to choose. Now he’s like “I want to wear this one.” He’s so opinionated and it’s great. But the vision I had, the look for the family, this doesn’t go with it!
Aaron: When I see him on your Instagram, and his style, I think “He’s definitely your kid.”
Rikesh: It’s frustrating, but also hilarious. My wife is very much “let the kid wear what she wants to.” And I’m more like, “If we can just get her into this …” I dress my daughter unisex—a lot of graphic tees, stop leaning into the gender thing, but she is such a girly girl anyway—loves make-up, shiny things, skirts. We say that Frozen is spiritual—my daughter hasn’t seen the movie, but she’s obsessed with it. She sings all the songs, knows all the lyrics, she wants to have “Frozen hair” with the plait. It’s inescapable.
How fatherhood shifts thoughts around work and life
Jahied: When I look back at it, I stayed at a job for a year longer than I should have because that first year of fatherhood needed to calm down. I was playing it safe in my career because it was a job that I was good at and I knew how to do.
Rikesh: I quit my job the week before my daughter was born. It was affecting my relationship with my wife. I was absolutely miserable at work, and was essentially having to take a two weeks holiday because statutory paternity leave is so in the UK.
Nas: When you have a kid, it produces a drive in you, “By any means necessary, I’m going to make this thing work.” That drive pushes you, and that’s the positive side, but there is a physical and mental toil that it takes on you.
Rikesh: I was much more focused on my own thing. Selfish. But I’ve found that I don’t care about my own things as much because I have a much stronger sense of purpose. How will my every action be seen and felt by my wife and daughter? I’ve always grown up with the idea that every time you see someone, you should make their day better by your presence by being nice to be around, and I’ve doubled down on that since becoming a dad because I want to be the best version of myself for more than just myself.
Nas: Life is entirely different for this generation of parents. The size of the gap: technology, career, roles of parents. I almost can’t compare how I am as a parent with my parents because the measuring stick is so different.
Getting your groove back
Kevin: What would you say to dads reading this who used to care more about what they wore, and are trying to find more time, energy and effort to think about fashion?
Jahied: Get on Vinted.
Nas: Don’t sweat it. When you’ve got small kids, there will be a chunk of time when you don’t feel like yourself. But eventually, you’ll get back there. Your priorities shift naturally, and if you try to fit your old ways of thinking into your new life as a parent, you’ll struggle.
Kevin: If you’ve loved wearing white jeans your whole life, and now you can’t, then you’re going to start feeling mad at your kid.
Jahied: It doesn’t have to be immediate. It can be gradual over time. For me, it was one or two items that I wouldn’t have purchased a few years ago, but I bought them. It doesn’t start with a whole new wardrobe: it can be a new coat, a shirt, or an accessory.
Kevin: Fashion is an expression of self. And one thing I see with new dads is that they often lose their sense of self, the anchors that connected them to their life before kids. It might be a job, a hobby, or a sense of style. They look back at items of clothing they once wore and think: “That’s who I was, that’s who I am, that’s who I want to be.”
Jahied: And the newer version of you can be built around those items, rather than chasing the past version of yourself.
Nas: I think it comes down to a wider sense of identity. If your identity is solely focused on the things you wear and how you look, things start to break down. It’s important to step back and realise, “What is my foundation? What is my source of joy?” If your identity is centred around your job, and your job isn’t going well, you’re in trouble. It’s a reminder to be intentional about where you draw your sense of self from.
Rikesh: That idea of losing your sense of self has a lot of parallels with grief in that you're someone else before and you're someone else after. We’re trained to think that we've lost the old life instead of evolving into this new way. This is very personal, and it’s all about individual experience, but I am 10,000% a better human being now that I've had a kid than I was before.
Jahied: Yeah, I agree. You were horrible before. (Laughs)
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Branding by Selman Design. Photos by Rikesh Chauhan. Survey by Sprig.
Loved this article, I'm at that phase where I'm beginning to shed some of those old "comfort" clothes (and a few extra pounds) picked up during the early years and trying to find my own sense of identify and style through fashion, so this came at exactly the right time for me!
Loved this—really relatable.
I actually think I only really started to enjoy what I wear after I became a dad. There is a certain acceptance that hits us at some point and for me fashion was one of them. Comfort wins out above all other factors; but that’s evolved for me just beyond wearing trackies all day.
Also accepting that size-wise I’ve changed since fatherhood struck has meant that I’m not trying to fit into clothes I used to wear. Letting go of old sizes means I’m not trying to squeeze into the same pair of jeans over and over, and I can just go and get a pair that damn well fit, whatever the number on the label says.