Business -- 3 days ago
The Best Hoodies For Men
A well-made hoodie earns its place in a gentleman’s wardrobe by balancing comfort with clean design. The right one carries you from idle mornings to late errands without compromising style.
- Words: Rupert Taylor
The best hoodies for men are not the ones you wore to sixth form with mysterious stains and a broken drawstring. Nor are they the “free with membership” gym hoodies that could probably stand up on their own if you left them in a corner long enough. No, the best hoodies for men now are luxurious, deliberate, and unreasonably soft. They smell faintly of cashmere, nonchalance and generational wealth.
Once upon a time, a hoodie was a symbol of “didn’t try”. Now, in certain circles, the right hoodie signals that you have tried very, very hard to look like you didn’t.
This is the paradox of the luxury hoodie. It has crawled out of the student union and into the private jet, via the chalet, the Cotswolds and a boutique hotel lobby that serves negronis at three in the afternoon. And so, in the name of journalism (and also because I like being comfortable), I set out to find the best hoodies for men who have outgrown ketchup-stained cotton but still want pockets.
The Best Hoodies For Men, Once You’ve Grown Up A Bit
There comes a moment in every man’s life when he realises his old grey hoodie, the one that’s followed him loyally from university to three different flats, is not quite compatible with the rest of his wardrobe anymore. The tailoring has improved. The shoes have improved. The skincare has improved. The hoodie, however, appears to have lost a fight with a washing line.
That is usually when you encounter Brunello Cucinelli.
Cucinelli is the endgame. The Italian house makes the archetypal “quiet luxury” hoodie, cashmere so soft it feels morally questionable, cuts that sit somewhere between knitwear and tailoring, colours that whisper rather than shout. This is the hoodie you wear in an Umbrian hill town, in a Range Rover on a wet Sunday, or on a tarmac next to a plane that has fewer seats than your dining table.
A Brunello Cucinelli cashmere hoodie doesn’t say “I’m wearing a hoodie”. It says “I have strong views on olive oil and succession planning”. It is genuinely, unashamedly, the most luxurious version of the garment you are ever likely to encounter. And it instantly recalibrates what you think a hoodie can be.
From that point on, you realise there are really two species of hoodie, “gym” and “I might bump into someone I respect”. We are focusing exclusively on the latter.
Cashmere Hoodies For Men | Soft Power In Knitwear Form
Once you’ve crossed the threshold into cashmere hoodies, there is no going back. Ordinary cotton starts to feel like baking parchment. The best hoodies for men, in this new understanding, are less about logos and more about the fibre.
Loro Piana is the other great superpower in this space. If Cucinelli is the king of the hill town, Loro Piana is the man on the yacht who doesn’t say much but owns the marina. Their cashmere hoodies are ridiculously refined, with ultra-fine yarns, gentle colours, and construction that feels less “sportswear” and more “knitwear that happens to have a hood because one must travel”.
You don’t wear a Loro Piana hoodie to the gym. You wear it in Gstaad. You wear it on a boat. You wear it on an airplane, quietly pleased with yourself, while the cabin temperature fluctuates wildly and other people wrestle with scratchy blankets.
There is, however, an entire tier of brands for those of us who would like that level of softness without needing to sell a watch.
Luca Faloni is an excellent example. Italian-made cashmere hoodies, beautifully cut, conspicuously high-quality, but priced at a point where you could own more than one without a family intervention. They occupy that sweet spot of serious luxury, but still vaguely tethered to reality. If Cucinelli is the private jet, Luca Faloni is business class on a good airline. It is still very comfortable, still clearly better than average, still a minor thrill every time.
Then there’s N.Peal, a British brand that specialises in Mongolian cashmere and very Bond-adjacent knitwear. Their cashmere hoodies sit in that very British space between field and flat. You can imagine one under a waxed jacket in the countryside, or under a tailored coat in Mayfair. The fact they have been linked to James Bond over the years doesn’t hurt. It is, frankly, easier to justify a cashmere hoodie to yourself if you can mutter “well, Bond wore one” under your breath as you enter your card details.
Todd Snyder plays a similarly interesting role, but from the American side. His cashmere hoodies are thoroughly “luxe essentials”, 100% cashmere, often with handsome suede details, shaped with an understanding that some of us have shoulders. It’s where classic Americana meets “my knitwear has opinions”.
Then there’s Ron Dorff, sitting at the very appealing intersection of Scandinavian functionality and French style. Their hoodies come in cashmere and high-end cotton, cut like tailored sportswear. You can wear one with joggers and trainers and look like you are on your way to a tasteful gym, or with chinos and a coat and look like you live in a very good arrondissement.
Ron Dorff is sport-luxe done properly, not the cursed “going-out hoodie” of our youth.
At this point in the experiment, a pattern emerged. The best hoodies for men who want to look like adults are not really hoodies at all in the old sense. They are knitwear with a hood attached, hoodies as soft power rather than sportswear.
Designer Hoodies | When The Logo Is Doing Some Of The Talking
Of course, we cannot pretend that logos don’t matter. Some days, you do not want your hoodie to whisper. You want it to stride into the room and attach itself directly to the mood board.
On those days, you call Gucci.
A Gucci hoodie is not subtle. It is not meant to be. Heavyweight cotton, big logo, sometimes embroidery, sometimes graphics that look like they have their own PR representative. They are exceptionally well made, with proper weight, good structure, the sort of fabric that falls just so. But the main point is recognisability. If Cucinelli is the country house, Gucci is the hotel bar where everyone has an opinion.
Then there’s Balenciaga, which has essentially turned the oversized logo hoodie into a global uniform for the fashion-conscious and the dangerously online. Drop shoulders, heavy fabrics, prints that look slightly ironic even when they’re not. A Balenciaga hoodie is less “cosy” and more “cultural artefact”.
You don’t buy one because you’re cold. You buy one because you are participating in the ongoing performance art piece that is Balenciaga at this point.
Off-White sits beside them on the spectrum, graphic, logo-heavy, blending luxury and street without ever quite tipping into parody. These are the hoodies you see paired with thousand-pound trainers and a look which says “I have queued for something limited-edition at least once in my life”.
They are, without question, some of the best hoodies for men who view sweatshirts as an extension of sneaker culture.
Then we have Fear of God Essentials, which is, in many ways, the antidote to both the maximalism and the cashmere. Thick, high-quality cotton, neutral palettes, clean shapes, subtle logos. Essentials hoodies have become airport uniform for anyone who knows what a resale platform is. They are streetwear, yes, but “quiet streetwear”. This is the kind you could wear through Heathrow, into a black car, into a Soho restaurant, and never feel underdressed.
If you want a hoodie that signals you understand modern fashion without screaming about it, Essentials is a very solid choice.
How I Actually Wear These Hoodies (And When They Make Sense)
You can only really judge the best hoodies for men by how often you actually wear them. Not how much you admire them on the hanger, or how extravagantly you talk about them over drinks, but how naturally you reach for them on a Tuesday.
I found that the cashmere hoodies fell naturally into the “travel and weekend” category. A Brunello Cucinelli hoodie with tailored joggers and good trainers for a flight feels like cheating the system, you are essentially in fancy pyjamas that would not embarrass you in business class. A Luca Faloni or N.Peal under a coat for a Sunday walk makes you look mysteriously more put-together than everyone else in puffer jackets.
The streetwear-heavy hoodies, Gucci, Balenciaga, Off-White, became my “out and about” options. Worn with jeans and boots, or wide trousers and sneakers, they anchor an outfit in the present tense. They are less about comfort (though they are comfortable) and more about atmosphere. You don’t throw on a big Gucci logo by accident.
Ron Dorff and Fear of God Essentials became the real workhorses. Clean, structured, modern, easy to pair with almost anything. Shopping, coffee, the office (if your office believes in “smart casual” as religion rather than suggestion), they do the job without overcomplicating your life.
The Todd Snyder cashmere hoodie became my winter default on days when I had video calls from home and wanted to look ostensibly normal from the chest up while feeling, from the neck down, like I lived in an expensive chalet.
What I learned, in the end, is that the best hoodies for men aren’t about finding one perfect garment that does everything. They’re about acknowledging that a hoodie can now live in multiple parts of your wardrobe, with tailoring, with denim, with cashmere coats, with sneakers, in first class and on the sofa.
The student hoodie lives in one place. The luxury hoodie lives in many.
The One Hoodie I’d Tell You To Buy
After all this, the trying on, the wearing, the travelling, the lounging, the occasional moment of “this is too much money for something with a kangaroo pocket”, there is one brand I keep returning to as the single best anchor for a luxury-focused hoodie wardrobe, Brunello Cucinelli.
Not because the others aren’t excellent. Loro Piana is impossibly refined. Luca Faloni is smart luxury. N.Peal is very British and very reassuring. Todd Snyder is a triumph of American taste. Ron Dorff is effortlessly European. Gucci and Balenciaga have their place on the logo spectrum. Essentials is the best argument for elevated basics.
But Cucinelli cashmere hoodies do something the others don’t quite manage in the same way, they make a hoodie feel like a legitimate alternative to a fine knit. They slip into the same mental category as a really good crew neck or a roll-neck. You stop thinking of them as sportswear and start thinking of them as knitwear with options.
If you are the sort of man who reads Gentleman’s Journal, you probably own good shoes, decent shirts, respectable tailoring, something involving suede, and at least one coat that suggests you know what you’re doing. Upgrading your hoodie to something on Cucinelli’s level brings that off-duty part of your wardrobe up to the same standard.
Is it expensive? Absolutely. Should you start there? Probably not. But if you want one “best hoodie for men” recommendation, one piece that embodies discreet wealth, soft power, and the quiet satisfaction of catching your reflection and thinking “that’s not bad”, a Brunello Cucinelli cashmere hoodie is it.
After that, of course, you’re free to justify as many others as you like. For balance. For versatility. For airport style. For “research”.
