For all the talk of “quiet luxury” that surrounded the release of the final season of TV fashion behemoth Succession, the trend seems to have already died a quiet, luxurious death — perhaps because it was never really a trend to begin with. People liked discussing the clothes on Succession, dissecting them, using them to decipher deeper meanings and motivations, but no one actually wanted to dress like Gerri Kellman or Kendall Roy. Plus, no one could, or can, afford to: the British economy is still very much giving “recession” not “succession”, and it hardly seems right to drop £500 on a Loro Piana cashmere baseball cap when you can barely afford free range eggs anymore.
But then came the welcome, familiar embrace of The Bear. Back and better than ever, the second season of the frenzied, high-stress chef show has proved to ignite just as many fashion conversations as Succession, but with one marked difference: people actually want to dress like the characters on The Bear. And, crucially, they actually can.
The fashion seen on screen in our favourite Chicago-set series is as delectable as the food being prepared, and just as meticulously curated. Costume designer Courtney Wheeler dedicated months of her life to observing the Windy City’s dining institutions, from high-brow to low-brow, in order to glean some insight into what chefs actually wear. “I was visiting restaurants and leaning across tables to see what my server was wearing, looking through open kitchens to see what the chefs were wearing, taking pictures of them. At first everyone was like ‘This is very strange,’ but now [The Bear is out] everyone’s like ‘Yeah you can take a picture!’”
These endeavours weren’t just for vague inspiration — rough moodboards of chef-esque style which would become Hollywoodified on-screen — it was for direct purchasing guidance. “The shoes that Ayo [Edebiri, who plays Sydney] ended up wearing were the Birkenstock Tokios, which were like the hit chef shoe at the time. One of the crew, her husband’s a chef in Chicago and she was like ‘Oh my god, Kevin has been looking for these everywhere, everyone wants a pair!’” says Wheeler. And if you spied Sydney’s pair of Birkenstock Tokios during season one episode seven, when she is laboriously removing them as she prepares to quit, you may have noticed that they bear a striking resemblance to the Birkenstock Boston clogs worn by Londoners up and down the central line.
But this is legit kitchen-wear: those Birkenstocks are marketed for “professionals”, pictured on site as being worn by a waitress and described as being developed for “occupations that demand a great deal of stamina from the wearers and their feet,” with added oil and grease resistance. This underpins the ethos of The Bear’s costuming, it’s authentic on purpose, stylish by accident.
So why do we suddenly find it all so fashionable? “I think that chefs do have this innate sense of cool,” Wheeler says. “That’s why I like watching them. They’re so detail-oriented and it’s so specific. Even for an outfit where you think ‘there’s nothing to it,’ it fits well and the quality is there.”
One item that encapsulates this is Carmy’s iconic white T-shirt, the standout clothing item of the first series, which spawned headlines like “The real star of The Bear is Carmy’s perfect white T-shirt”, “The Best Part About ‘The Bear’? That Timeless White T-Shirt,” and “The Enduring Sex-Symbol Allure Of The White T-Shirt.”
It seems like nothing special at first glance, just a simple, plain white tee, but it fits Jeremy Allen White like a glove, and as your watch time grows in minutes, so does your appreciation for his perfectly sculpted white shirt, worn nearly every episode, like a uniform. As it turns out, the weirdly perfect white T-shirt is perfect on purpose: it’s scrupulously crafted by German brand Merz b. Schwanen on their very own loopwheels, which lend it a density and softness that other white tees could only dream of attaining, and it specifically features triangular inserts under the arms so that the fit is *just right*.
Chefs know quality because they need durable, practical clothing. Londoners who take the overground to work, pop out for a Pret at lunch and then to the pub around 5pm? Not so much. But that hasn’t stopped the style of those working in kitchens here, and stateside, from infiltrating our fashion sense.
“Kitchen-wear and practical-wear have come a long way,” says London-based cook Will Hughes, aka @whatwillycook, who is known for his comedic cooking videos where he can often be seen donning Dickies, Carhartt, and other workwear brands, as well as food-specific hats with logos like “Crisps Artois” (in the Stella Artois logo style) and “Kold Sauce” (an East London hot sauce company). “I got sent a PR package from Edwin [the Japanese Selvedge denim brand] the other day and they aren’t even workwear but they threw in an apron,” he says. “There are loads of brands now that’ll make aprons that have nothing to do with kitchens, like Stan Ray [the Texas-based clothing brand].”
Hughes doesn’t think chefs try to be stylish, but rather that their “effortless” way of dressing has become more popular. “There’s been that change over the past couple of decades with Marco Pierre White, the original rockstar chef, and Anthony Bourdain, the coolest f***ing man that’s ever lived, who I think have made it trendier.” This, when combined with the recent popularity of workwear as streetwear, have doubled to make chefs the most stylish people on the planet.
Jesse Jenkins, a fashion photographer, skateboarder and trained chef who runs the popular food Instagram @adip_food (for “Another Day In Paradise”), compares this change in attitudes towards the way the skate community suddenly became the most stylish subculture of 2015. “I remember showing up to work one day [as a fashion photographer] and seeing a guy wearing a pair of Dickies and a Thrasher hoodie, and I was like ‘Oh, so this is going to be cool now’,” says Jenkins. “I think that’s happening here too, and being a chef just kind of had a facelift — it’s more rock and roll now. It has a different clout.” Though Jenkins does point out that people aren’t dressing like Michelin-starred chefs who work in Stockholm, they’re dressing like, well, Carmy. And Bourdain. And the chef at your local greasy spoon who worked all weekend and hasn’t even had time for a cigarette.
Both Hughes and Jenkins namedrop a South London-based brand called Service Works as one of their workwear faves. Set up in 2020 by Tom Chudley, 31, Chudley says Service Works was borne out of his upbringing working for his family-owned hospitality business. “I wanted to fuse [cook-wear and fashion] because I felt like no one was doing it properly,” he says. “There were fashion brands doing novelty takes on the chef pant but none of them were interacting with the hospitality industry or really designing the goods for purpose. I grew up wearing low-quality, commercial chef pants on and off the job and loved the elasticated waist and relaxed fit, it’s a winning combination for daily life.”
Service Works is now stocked in outlets around London, including END. in Soho, Couverture & The Garbstore in Notting Hill and Article. in Shoreditch and Brixton. “In some stores we’re stocked alongside £3000 jackets which I always find pretty funny,” Chudley laughs, “but it seems to work. It’s an interesting place to be, for sure.”
As for why chefcore has suddenly become such a thing, Chudley blames Covid. “It’s hard to know in what order it happened in, but during lockdown a lot of people’s go-tos seem to become Birkenstock Bostons or Crocs with a pair of elasticated waist trousers, probably for comfort,” he says. “Whether or not people knew that was a uniform worn by chefs in almost every kitchen is another question. Restaurants also really pushed merch during this time, as a means to keep trading, so people became more public with their support and bought into the spots that really spoke to them. Workwear has been appealing to people outside of the trades for years and I guess chefswear never really fell into that category. All of these little shifts seem to have lined up and formed some kind of food-clothing-workwear trend.”
So if you’re struggling to come up with outfit inspo this summer, stick on The Bear, or pop down to your local restaurants and have a peek round the counter, because it’s time to say “yes chef” to chef-core.
Shop The Bear’s best looks with these chef-core buys
Merz b. Schwanen 215 loopwheeled classic fit shirt, £64.35, merzbschwanen.com
Service Works trousers, £39, serviceworks.xyz
Carhartt knit cuffed beanie, £15.99, carhartt.com
Birkenstock Tokio super grip clogs, £105, birkenstock.com
Dickies short sleeve work shirt, £50, dickieslife.com
