Justin Theroux was named one of Esquire’s Best Dressed Men of 2012. I know, I can’t believe it either. Most of the time he looks like the Leather Daddy from the Village People. He dresses like the most stereotypical hipster in the world, and considering that he’s over 40 now, there is an element of “Seriously, dude? Do you think you’re young enough to pull that off?” about his style. He even wears hipster skinny jean shorts in Cabo!!!!! But it’s true, he made the list. You can see Esquire’s full list here, and Justin is definitely on there. His inclusion on the list is funny enough, but Esquire published a first-person essay from Justin about his style and there’s just so much CHEESE. Here’s the essay, in full:

A friend once shared with me an idiotic maxim: Regardless of the season, a guy’s attire “should always be winter from the waist down: jeans and boots.” Chuckling, I dismissed the quote until it dawned on me that he had just described a hips-down uniform I’ve slavishly adhered to ever since I stopped wearing training pants and Grip ‘n’ Gos.

I’m the first to admit that jeans and combat boots might not always be the practical choice. Depending on whom you ask, denim was invented for either prospectors or cowboys, and seeing as I gave up wanting to be either of those things when I was six, why do I still leave my apartment ready to be dragged behind a horse or to operate a sluice box? Especially when it means dragging myself through a New York summer with a clambake happening in my boots and my body maintaining the same core temperature as fondue.

When I was a teenager, jeans and boots were a style choice that somehow made sense, but nowadays, like toenails or knuckle hair, they seem like some masculine evolutionary remnant that I could probably stand to lose. Sure, they’re useful in winter, but they become harder to justify at a pool party on the Fourth. I’ll frequently point to the fact that it’s safer to wear jeans when I take my motorcycle for a spin, but what’s my excuse the rest of the time?

Maybe it’s my long-standing aversion to almost anything loose fitting. “Breezy” clothing, for lack of a better word, just seems so untethered, whereas jeans and boots have a grounding effect. I’ve always had a kind of cheek-scratching awe (and, if I’m being honest, limited admiration) for guys who can amble easily down the streets of SoHo in a pair of loose linen drawstring pants and a pair of Havaianas. The same kind of guy who, if you told him you were stressed, might recommend that you “Just breathe, man.” (As if anyone could forget that particular component of not dying.) Often in summertime, these kinds of guys say things to me like, “Boy, I bet you’re toasty!” To which I usually offer up a shrug and “I’m good,” all the while looking like the guy whose face melted when the Nazis opened the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders.

In fairness to me, maybe my loyalty to these jeans and boots isn’t so much an endorsement of them as it is an expression of my distaste for anything else. Other options seem almost too grim to contemplate. Sweatpants? Cargo shorts? Light slacks?! Just the word slacks makes me anxious. And my boots might be functionally useless, but Teva sandals with Velcro fasteners? What’s the thing with guys who wear those? I may not be panning for gold anytime soon, but are they going on a hike under a waterfall?

I guess it goes without saying that we all make sacrifices when we choose what we wear, but the “winter from the waist down” mantra is not without merit. It’s just that between the months of May and September, I still have absolutely no idea what those merits are. The truth is, I’d feel naked without jeans and boots (a feeling that’s amplified when I’m actually naked), but in spite of the shin sweat that pours into my boots every summer, I’ll still likely be wearing them long after I’ve traded in my motorcycle for a Jazzy.

[From Esquire]

So he wears skinny jeans and Doc Martens in summer because he’s hardcore and he has a particularly hardcore “aversion” to wearing anything comfortable or season-appropriate. I wonder if Justin realizes that there’s a happy medium between “Leather Daddy” and “Linen-pants-wearing d-bag”. But maybe that’s just me – I’ve never been opposed to seeing men in shorts and sandals. I’ve lived in the South most of my life, and it gets HOT here. Seeing men in sandals is not the worst thing at all, and I don’t get why so many women are twitchy about it.

I guess the argument can be made… he’s 41 years old, he knows what he likes and he’s not going to change and why even bitch about it? I guess my problem with that is that he’s admitting how uncomfortable he is in the summer and he acts like he has no choice about it, lest he exchange his skinny jeans and Docs for a pair of cargo shorts and leather man-sandals from LL Bean and somehow become part of “The Establishment”. Earth to Justin: you’re engaged to Jennifer Aniston. You’re already “establishment”.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, WENN.