In Medias Res: Kevin Brown

A style feature on one of my best friends.

For new subscribers who might have missed it (and my first installment with Nico Lazaro here), I started a version of In Medias Res almost 13 years ago on Tumblr. Originally, it was just a five-photograph series featuring stylish people I knew personally—mostly people who worked in menswear in New York City. Each outfit photo was taken daily over the course of a work-week. Over time as my audience grew, the legendary but defunct Four-Pins hosted In Medias Res. Later, I carried the series with me to Grailed where we added an interview component. When Grailed chose to stop publishing the series, I brought it to Esquire and thus, Five Fits With was born.

In restarting the series here, I’m going to feature friends with good style who might not be a fit for Esquire given they don’t have a substantial following. Some of my best friends are the most stylish people I know, but quite a few of them have jobs well outside the bounds of the menswear industry.

One such friend is Kevin Brown. Similar to my features with Alex Delany or Sam Saliba, given I’ve had countless conversations with Kev, I decided to conduct our chat on the record organically. I didn’t write any questions prior. Kev is a highly successful accountant, but has a deep love of clothes—more than some of the people I’ve featured in Five Fits With, not that those two are mutually exclusive. Obviously there is endless dialogue about personal style and searching for it, but Kev’s got it. He’s also British and has that super dry, biting wit he and some of his countrymen are known for. A conversation with him is always a ride—and a roast. I love him dearly.

He and I discussed his Essex origins, growing up in England in the late 80’s and early 90’s, his favorite music memories, how music influenced his style, loving Stone Island before the hype, how he found Japanese clothing and why he’s obsessed, the one piece missing from his closet, and more topics. I’ve left a little preview below, but there is a paywall here and on all future In Medias Res posts.

Kevin wearing an Engineered Garment suit with Doek sneakers.

So, who are you?

I grew up in a new town in Essex that was built post-war. My mom and dad and pretty much everyone from the East End that was displaced after the second World War because everything got bombed were rehoused there. It's predominantly people that worked at Ford, which was the biggest employer, and all kinds of dock workers; blue-collar working-class people. Everyone moved out to Newtown because they were now out of the city and got a garden, so everyone was fucking happy thinking it was way nicer. Not realizing that it's still for the people from the East End and therefore it's a fucking shit hole. My brother and I grew up in something like the projects, in a small, two-bedroom house-shed. There weren't many bright people around at all where I grew up. In school, a whole host of us realized we were pretty bright and were able to do something with our lives. Growing up in those sorts of areas, the only two things you have that don't cost much are playing football and listening to music. They were literally the only things we loved and did as we were growing up. Everyone's dream was to do something like play football, but I loved doing art. Went through school and college, always wanted to do art. Get to college, and they're like, “No, you're not going to do art. You're too bright. You should do law.” I've had a great life, great career, and it's done well for me. But I really wish I'd fucking done art. I love the creative side of life, which was different where we grew up. Most people were not like that. Most people were still working class.

Glasses by Blanc, t-shirt by Uniqlo.

Well art is definitely a leisure thing.

It is. Hard to have time for that. My art teacher in particular growing up had the only class where you could play music. He'd play The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, all the stuff that he grew up with. And then he had let us play music we liked [which helps you to like the activity]. Like, “This is cool, man, I like this. I'm doing something that's enjoyable.”

When did you decide that you wanted to move to New York?