The 10 Most Overrated Menswear Icons

If there's one universal truth about getting dressed and taking risks, it's that it's so much easier to do when you have someone showing you how to look good. This is especially true when it comes to men. At the heart of every man's understanding of what looks "good" and what doesn't, there's a series of menswear role models. Everyone from Marlon Brando to Kanye West have left their mark on how men dress themselves, but for all of the groundwork that our menswear heroes have laid down for us, there's definitely a handful that are...well, overrated.

That's not to say that any of the names on this list aren't stylish—on the contrary—nearly all of the subjects have shown the ability to truly embody what it means to be "stylish" on a regular basis. However, so many men are instantly dubbed "fashionable" simply because they can pull off and/or wear a suit on the daily. We're afraid to break it to the menswear world, but being able to rock a suit and tie doesn't make you stylish—it means you know how to wear a suit properly (which, admittedly, isn't always the easiest thing to do).

We're not saying that you can't look up to these notable sartorial figures, but maybe it's time you found a few new inspirations if these are the guys that are informing your wardrobe. These are The 10 Most Overrated Menswear Icons.

Bruh, it's a dog wearing clothes. You're probably thinking, “Oh, is Menswear Dog [real name Bodhi] really a menswear icon?” Well, when you're making $15,000 a month simply by wearing clothes (and, I don't know, you're a freaking DOG) then yeah, you're an icon. But what was, at one point, a tongue-in-cheek way to make fun of #menswear bros became a nationally recognizable meme that translated into way too many “look an animal is wearing clothing” spinoffs that lacked the original punch and humor of the OG menswear dog. While most people have a hard enough time trying to Snapchat their pet, it's remarkable that the menswear dog has the patience to get dressed and sit in front of a camera; to be honest, most guys probably don't have that level of inner serenity. But if you're dressing yourself based on outfits you originally saw on the Menswear Dog, then you're looking at the wrong icons my guy.

For those of you who haven't paid much attention to the U.K. hip-hop and grime scenes, Tinie Tempah is more than just an oft-cited style icon but a musician with over 10 years in the game. That said, while Tempah dresses better than most, he's received an incredible amount of love from “old guard” publications like GQ for, well, basically wearing a suit. Other magazines have praised his modern sense of tailoring and formalwear—which admittedly is good— but his outfits when not styled for an editorial or suited up are just par for the course. That's fine if you're just a regular guy, but when you're named one of the best dressed men in England, and chosen as ambassador for London's men's fashion week, we'd expect just a little bit more.

Women may fawn over Ryan Gosling, but that doesn't mean you (and your wardrobe) have to. While he was playing a steely-eyed badass in Drive, and “Captain Save a Suburban Dad” in Crazy, Stupid, Love, his steez is far from icon-status. That's not to say that he hasn't had his own iconic looks—shouts to that embroidered satin bomber jacket—but when you look at his style outside of his films, he looks no different than most dudes that hit the gym and know how to wear clothing that fits their proportions. Besides, the sheer amount of henleys worn by Gosling belies any sense of style post-2008. He may be an incredible feminist, but menswear icon…maybe not.

Props where props are due, David Beckham knows how to clean up. His major underwear and collection campaigns with H&M tap his modelesque good looks—but when it comes to his personal style, it's clear that his handsomeness directly affects whether or not he's understood to be stylish. Beckham isn't necessarily a stylish guy, he's just a handsome dude who would look good in literally anything (a characteristic common to many of the guys on this list). That doesn't mean that Beckham doesn't have his fair share of bangers, but ultimately, he's just another celebrity model.

Hedi Slimane is a visionary. His design mentality has revolutionized Dior Homme, and breathed life into Yves Saint Laurent (now Saint Laurent). But with that popularity comes mimicry, and as the fast-fashion moguls have taking their slice of the world's biggest luxury brands, Slimane's Saint Laurent is one of the biggest casualties.

While Slimane captivated his fans with his '60s and '70s rock-n-roll style, the fact that its now become a globalized aesthetic in its own right has taken away some of the “specialness” (for lack of a better word) that made his entrance at Saint Laurent so exciting initially. Yes, he modernized the men's suit at Dior Homme (much like Yves Saint Laurent did for the ladies, ironically), and overhauled the “skinny designer jean” with his oft-cited 17cm denim. But both fashion insiders and fast-fashion shoppers are wearing down on his look.

We're not shading John Mayer's visvim steez—far from it. He's actually pulled off designer Hiroki Nakamura's designs incredibly well. But he's such a bizarre vessel for the Japanese label's transition to the United States. Of course, he's far from the first man to wear visvim apparel (the iconic FBTs are another story entirely), and it makes you realize that—if he wasn't wearing almost exclusively visvim (and a watch from his incredible watch collection)—he's not really that stylish of a guy at his core. Looking back at his style prior to his vis-level flourishing, he's mostly dressing to type: an acoustic guitar bro with some money to spend on clothing. Shouts to Mayer's modern-day closet (and dope knowledge of Japanese style), but to put it in perspective, he's not the only dude who can, and will wear visvim.

There's a lot of people who could be on this list because they embody the outdated mentality that says, “guy puts on suit, is deemed stylish.” Not only is that way of thinking simply unrealistic when looking at a man's wardrobe, it ignores the sheer depth of “style” that has bloomed in today's menswear. That said, James Bond is the name that crops up when it comes to guys being “stylish.”

The variety of Bonds over the years—coupled with changing tastes through the decades—have seen 007's closet stretching from Saville Row suiting to desert island beach chic. For that we applaud Bond for evolving with the times. But ask anyone on the street, and the image they have of Bond is undoubtedly of his latest iteration wearing a tuxedo (pistol in hand, natch).

We can recognize that putting on a suit is one of the few times that dudes actually are trying to be fashionable, but to sum up the best parts of menswear with one tuxedoed MI6 agent seems lazy at best. Bond is an icon, but he shouldn't be the household “menswear” symbol that he is—at least not in today's climate.

Don Draper is to the 21st century what James Bond was to the 20th. He's a cleaned up dude who's suave enough to effectively handle any curveball thrown at him, symbolized by his timeless-yet-in period suiting. It's not that this is inherently a negative, but anyone who was alive during Mad Men's historic seven season should be aware of how the show turned the spotlight onto men's fashion in a mainstream way.

Almost immediately, Draper became a motivator to men (and their surrounding circles) to push themselves away from their "regular" wardrobes into something more dressed-up. The show (and Draper) prompted such a zeitgeist that Banana Republic created a capsule collection that nodded to the fashion from the show. But like Bond, Draper is only a nostalgia play; a look at the way guys used to dress—something seemingly new years later, like anything that's retro. He may have sparked a '60s-tinged sartorial movement, but he's far from the first or last to do so; not everyone has their visage beamed into thousands of primetime T.V.s for nearly a decade.

It's worth saying that there's nothing inherently wrong about the way Steve McQueen dressed himself—in fact, I'm a fan of his personal style. Somewhere between “Wild West cowboy” and “motorcycle army vet,” McQueen embodied a sense of nonchalant dressed-up style that's helped cement him as an icon long after his passing. That said, it's time guys look to another major figure when attempting to build their closets. As the Internet provides modern-day influences from all over the globe, McQueen seems suddenly old fashioned and out of place.

That's not to say the man didn't bring several dope pieces into the foreground (shouts to Baracuta jackets), but the signatures of his style seem to date him (shouts to Baracuta jackets) when looking at the modern man's closet. He's certainly a major, positive influence on contemporary menswear, but we can safely say that most dudes under the age of 20 don't even know what his profession was—much less name any movie he's been in outside The Great Escape.

At the most foundational level, Jared Leto's “stylishness” culminates with the fact that—at one point in time—he was the symbol for the man bun. Well before man buns reached critical mass, several outlets were fawning over both his personal style and his hairstyle with a surprising amount of fanaticism. Sure the guy can pull off rock-n-roll style (he is the lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars, after all), but he comes off more as a style troll than a true style icon—whether you consider him one or not.

We've loved some of his red carpet looks before, and in that regard we can understand why guys may look up to him as an alternative to the usual favorites in the men's style arena. But anyone who would mix Alexander McQueen with Uggs, or wear one of those wolf-eared fur beanies, shouldn't be a name that pops into mind when thinking of menswear icons.