Getting Snappy With the Boys

A visit to an agnès b. homme store in Paris with the designers of Small Talk.

Jun 30, 2024

If you’ve subscribed to this newsletter for the last few months, you know I always bring an agnès b. snap cardigan with me when I travel. Created by the French fashion designer (née Agnès Troublé) in 1979, the fleece-lined, pearl-buttoned sweaters are the perfect combination of comfy, casual, and cute—a '“Chanel jacket meets a Champion hoodie meets a baby onesie” is how I described them for a NYMag article in 2020. Agnès herself calls them a “child’s garment for grown-ups.”

My mom was the one who introduced them to me, and I eventually stole hers from her closet. The best thing about snap cardigans is that the more you wear them, the better they get, like a fine, machine-washable French wine. I’ve collected a handful of different cuts and colors over the years and have also bought them vintage. Now, the next gen is catching on—sales for the “Le Classique” style spiked 253 percent in 2019. The brand is also super popular in Asia. There are at least 25 agnès b. stores in Japan alone.

The one market that hasn’t really gotten into the snap cardigan yet, though, is American men, and I’m determined to change that. On my flight from New York to Paris this month, I spotted Mike Eckhaus of Eckhaus Latta wearing one and was reminded how good they can look. As I dozed off in a Zzzquil Ultra-induced haze, I wrote an urgent note in my phone that said: “Get snappy with the boys.”

When I landed, I texted my friends Nick Williams and Phil Ayers of the brand Small Talk to see if they’d be down to visit an agnès b. homme store with me while we were in town for Paris Men’s Fashion Week. There are no hommes-only stores in the USA, so I figured, when in Rome.

Nick and Phil are two stylish guys with open minds and great taste. I’ve been a fan of their brand since day one, and their new collection is so so good. I was pretty sure they’d be down to get snappy with me in the name of social progress. (They were already familiar with agnès b. because of the snappy women in their life.) I was also confident they could pull off a snap cardigan, which is not something I’d say about every guy I know. It takes a certain level of self-assuredness to be a Snap King. *You also have to be a size 0 to 6.

“We’d love to,” they replied. We planned to meet at the Beaumarchais location on a Saturday afternoon. I told them there was “no pressure” to buy anything, but it was implied that if they didn’t, they’d be letting their entire gender down...

When we arrived, we learned that there are only two snap styles for men to choose from: Le Classique and Le Nouveau Yvan. The latter is slightly more fitted, with a stand-up collar and bigger, more traditionally “masculine” bronze buttons. The pearls are half the fun of a snap cardigan, though, and Yvan looks a little too much like the 18th-century jackets that inspired Agnès. So Nick and Phil kept it Classique.

Left: The “New Yvan” style. Right: What not to look like.

The next thing we had to figure out was sizing. Agnès designed the sleeves to be roomy so that you can “raise your arms and kiss someone.” Phil landed on a black cardigan in a men’s size 2, which wasn’t too tight or too oversized. Nick, meanwhile, wanted something a little more cropped to go with his Silphium pants, so we headed to the women’s side of the store for more options. There, we found a wider range of colors, plus a white fedora that made Phil look like a flirty retired Frenchman vacationing in Cap Ferret.

Nick was drawn to a hot pink women’s cardi, but unfortunately, the store didn’t have one available in a size bigger than a women’s 4. He was warned that it could shrink half a size in the wash, so he went with a black women’s size 5 instead. “It’s infantilizing, but in the chicest way possible,” he said as he took a good, hard look at himself in the mirror.

“Can we both get the color black?” Phil asked. I rarely see the two men apart, so they might look a little like the dancing twins emoji in matching snap cardis. But we all agreed that they’d get the most wear out of the color black. Also… CUTE. Once they put them on, they didn’t want to take them off. I couldn’t believe it. They snapped!!!

Nick was so stoked that he also bought a grey embroidered agnès b. baseball cap, while Phil, a true gentleman, picked up a Classique for his lady back home as well. I can already imagine them styling their snaps with pieces from their new collection, especially the shirts featuring vintage toy catalog images, which they drew by hand.

“It’s a casual layering piece,” said Nick when I asked him if he had any advice for snap-curious men out there. Phil plans to wear his with “at least” 4-5 snaps undone. Oh la la. Neither have any regrets. Perhaps we’ll see some snaps in the next Small Talk collection…?