You might not know: Before Abercrombie & Fitch became the clubhouse of hypersexed coed undergrads on Vespas, it was the original heritage sporting-goods emporium. It was also the place that sold snakeproof sleeping bags to Teddy Roosevelt; expedition gear to Admiral Richard Byrd, for his trip into the depths of Antarctica; hunting coats to Hemingway; and fly rods, Magnums (as in guns), roulette wheels, and even 13-foot fiberglass pedal-propelled submarines to whomever else. It offered the equipment required by explorers—even those trapped in concrete jungles. In 1931, E. B. White wrote of Abercrombie that it "carries the clothes men want to wear all the time and don't; they carry the residual evidences of what men used to be before they became what they are."

The same could be said of the clothes that now inhabit Abercrombie & Fitch. They are the best of what's in the vaults, brought into the 21st century for persisting escapists.

"We can best serve that history by evolving it to the next level."

This is the handiwork of Abercrombie & Fitch's new head of men's wear, Aaron Levine, a man practiced in fashioning clothes younger working men actually want to wear. Before coming to Abercrombie & Fitch, the Virginia-born 39-year-old turned Club Monaco into a mecca for ascendant and decidedly unstuffy professionals. Now he's tasked with reasserting one of the world's most recognizable—and proudly historic (since 1892)—brands for a very similar set.

Duffle coat ($260), denim jacket ($110), sweater ($88), shirt ($58), and trousers ($88) by Abercrombie & Fitch; boots ($160) by Timberland; bag ($350) by Filson; gloves ($115) by Hestra; binoculars ($1,000) by Maven Optics; football ($150) by Shinola. Ben Goldstein/Studio D

"Nothing is safe," Levine said one Friday morning this past spring. "We're moving the whole needle. We're questioning everything. Like four-year-olds, we're just being curious and kind of, like, picking away at it, you know?"

To start, Levine and his team rooted through the Ohio headquarters' office cabinets for back catalogs and scoured eBay for vintage pieces. They studied the consideration given to details throughout the 124-year-old company's history—the pocket shapes, the horn buttons, the beautiful stay stitches bolstering the undersides of collars—a devotion Levine says he himself witnessed as an Abercrombie & Fitch assistant manager in 1999, during its second golden era. Steeped in the tradition, Levine decided, "we can best serve that history by evolving it to the next level."

Sweater ($78); Puffer Jacket ($220) Ben Goldstein/Studio D

He clarifies: This shouldn't be construed as an attempt to make Abercrombie & Fitch's clothes modern. Levine and his company prefer words like honest and fresh. By uniting the new and the old, they seek to create uncommon experiences—to explore. "What new fabric can we put into a silhouette to make it just feel like 'Oh, wow, that's refreshing,' you know?" he says, adding, "It's a very tactile industry. It's a very emotional industry."

Levine's other guiding descriptor: usable. But although a man's needs may have stayed somewhat consistent through time—clothing that accommodates seasons and weather and is appropriate for work and play—that doesn't mean, Levine says, the clothes shouldn't advance. "Things need to be purpose-driven for our customer. But we also want to have things that are going to challenge him a little bit."

The result is a portfolio that is at once rugged and stylish, traditional and new—and developing. "We're working our hardest," Levine says, chuckling. The landscape is still shifting, still growing up. But the rewards are already worth reaping.

Seeing A&F exploring its roots, we dug into our archives and discovered this ad from the March 1962 Esquire. The coat looks quite familiar.

Nate Hopper Associate editor Nate Hopper is an associate editor for Esquire magazine.

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