In 2011, he decamped to Hearst as the editor in chief of Town & Country. Since taking the Esquire job, he has remained on the Town & Country masthead as editorial director. He will also lose that title as part of his departure from the company.

Hearst Magazines said in a statement that Mr. Fielden would continue to contribute to both publications. “We thank him for his leadership and contributions to Hearst Magazines over the years and wish him the best with his future plans,” the statement said.

For decades, Esquire was a bible for the sporty American male with a taste for bourbon and literary heavyweights like Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, David Foster Wallace and Tom Wolfe, all of whom appeared in its pages.

Mr. Fielden set out to update the magazine’s sensibility. “There’s no cigar smoke wafting through the pages,” he told The New York Times a few months after taking the job, “and the obligatory three B’s are gone, too: brown liquor, boxing and bullfighting.”

The editor circulated easily during fashion weeks in Milan and Paris among the top designers and fashion-industry moguls whose brands provided Esquire with much of its ad revenue.

As the editor of a men’s title during the rise of sexual fluidity and the #MeToo movement, he navigated sexual politics in a manner different from that of his predecessors. The last edition of Esquire’s “Women We Love” issue, an annual package featuring a cover photo of a scantily clad actress, appeared under Mr. Fielden’s predecessor.

That franchise has continued to appear on the Esquire website — the most recent installment was headlined “25 Hot Videos From the Women We Love” — but Mr. Fielden’s purview did not include oversight of Esquire.com.