On defining individuality in fashion and purpose with Peter Nguyen of The Essential Man
Meet Peter Nguyen, the New York and Austin-based founder of The Essential Man, where he helps men elevate their style and look really fucking good.
Meet Peter Nguyen, the New York and Austin-based founder of The Essential Man, where he helps men elevate their style and look really fucking good. Peter shares how his creative journey started with working towards an oil painting degree in San Francisco to eventually making a series of decisions that landed him at Parsons School of Design, where he studied under Tim Gunn. His career continued for over a decade in the fashion industry, including working with renowned designer Robert Geller, the current Head of Menswear at Rag & Bone. After launching a leather jacket line, he pivoted to create The Essential Man, blending his expertise in menswear design with a passion for helping men express themselves authentically. Peter shares how his diverse experiences shaped his approach to blending creativity with business strategy, the lessons he learned from trying, and the importance of connecting diverse inspirations to foster originality. Peter has built The Essential Man into a platform for inspiring transformation through small, actionable goals and a commitment to personal growth.
Interviewed in May 2024 | This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Please introduce yourself. My name is Peter Nguyen. I've been a private personal stylist for men for nine years. Before that, I was a menswear designer in New York for 11 years. I've lived in New York for about 20 years.
I originally moved [to New York] to attend Parsons [School of Design]. Tim Gunn was my mentor and the head of the department. I moved here right after the first season of Project Runway premiered. They filmed in our building on 40th Street near Times Square. It was crazy because they didn't know how big it was going to be.
Presently, I've been running a personal styling business for the last nine years. I was doing it solo up until last year. I have one employee, and it's just me and her. I primarily work with guys who are going through a big life transformation. Many of my clients have sold their company or gotten a big promotion. They may have lost a lot of weight. I have a couple of divorced clients who are looking to date again. There's always some catalyst for wanting to reach out to someone to help with their style because they're on a whole self-improvement journey or need something to kickstart it. Most of my clients are successful and have a lot of supplemental income. They have money to finally be able to work on themselves, which is pretty cool.
Let's go back to the beginning. Can you share how you started your creative journey? I originally studied fine art to be an oil painter. I went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I knew I wanted to do something in art because I didn't know anything else.
While I got good at oil painting, I switched to fashion later because I had a crush on a girl in the fashion department. laughing So I took a lot of fashion classes like fashion drawing and fashion theory and ended up really liking them.
My professor, Simon Ungless, who used to be on Alexander McQueen's original team, was the head of the department there, and he loved my drawings; he said, "You should think about switching over." That was the lightbulb moment when I thought, "This is really interesting now." [Simon Ungless] would spend his entire class showing us old runway photos and videos of McQueen on VHS. He would talk about all the collections. It was so fascinating to me because it was like another world.
Did he also have all the details of the behind-the-scenes? Yeah, it was really interesting because there's a famous collection from the mid-90s, '95. It was the Roadkill collection where McQueen made these beautiful garments, and they put screen printing paint on a wheel and ran over the clothes he was famous for. They pieced together dead-looking animals, and it was very controversial. Well, yes, because it makes you talk and create conversation. Yeah!
Growing up, my older sister studied fashion. My sister and mom would watch Fashion Files, and I grew up watching that, too. I saw it, but, like most people, I didn't understand it. I wondered why the dresses were so huge. Who is wearing this? Who is buying this? I didn't understand. Studying fashion gave me context, which was really fascinating. To connect the dots. I see the creativity. I can see how you can go beyond aesthetics, have a point of view, and do interesting things.
[While at Academy of Art San Francisco,] I applied to Central St. Martins in London and Parsons in New York. Central St. Martins because Ungless went there, and he said I should if I could travel. But I also applied to Parsons because it’s where Marc Jacobs went. He was really big at the time for his Louis Vuitton collection with Takashi Murakami. I got into both, but my mom said, "You're not going to England." So, as a compromise, I went to New York.
I'm surprised she was so accepting! Well, here's the thing. I have three older siblings: two older brothers and one older sister. My older sister dropped out of college, and my two brothers didn't go. So, I was the only one to go to college. They were just happy that I was doing something. All the money they saved up for college went to me, so I had no student loans, which is pretty amazing. That allowed me to leave art school three years in, even though I was so close to graduating from oil painting. When I went to Parsons, I ended up leaving my senior year.
Can you discuss the transition from the Bay Area to New York? I initially looked on Craigslist and found an apartment in the Upper West Side from this guy who had just graduated from Dartmouth and was starting a job and needed a roommate. So I got a ticket and moved to New York with a backpack, even though I had never visited before. I went straight from the airport to the apartment. I didn't even know how the trains worked.
I was 22, and it was the summer of '05. I would start school in the Fall. Before I started classes, I got a job as a styling assistant from a friend. I knew about it while interning at a magazine in San Francisco, where I did graphic design and illustration. They had worked as a stylist in New York before, so I became her assistant, which was my first experience. It's very cool how you were able to bridge the gap and leverage your network to figure out your footing in the city. It was a terrible job! As they usually are! In retrospect, it gave me insight into editorial styling that I don't think I would have ever gotten because I had gone to school for design to make stuff, so I would not have pursued or looked into styling after that.

Taking a step back, did you decide you needed a job lined up before starting school? Well, it's just one of those things where I shared, "Hey, I'm moving to New York." And then someone tells you, "so and so lives in New York." You say that casually! Only a few people find jobs along the way to something else through their network. Well, everyone knows that networking is important. But they think of it as saying, "I need a network with a stranger to get me somewhere." But people that you know probably know people. And people overlook that.
…everyone knows that networking is important. But they think of it as saying, "I need a network with a stranger to get me somewhere." But people that you know probably know people. And people overlook that.
I feel it's the same way: You have friends who probably have a huge network you're not tapping into because you're like, "I can always maybe reach out to him," rather than going to a networking event where you're there for a single purpose. It's about being open to possibilities and asking for help.
So, how did the Parson's program go? It was crazy because that was the summer after the first season of Project Runway premiered. There were around 11 or 13 sections when we entered the program. Each section would have 15 students at the most. The following year, they got so many applicants. By my junior year, there were 23 sections with 30 students each. What timing for you to join. When I think about the timing of my life, it's crazy. But you were prepared. The opportunity came, and it happened. A lot of people think it's luck. I think it's all about preparation. If you prepare yourself, you're more open to the opportunity.
A lot of my clients will ask me, "When will I ever need a suit?" Or "When will I ever need a tuxedo? I have no place to go." But if you get one, you find places to go in your nice clothes. That's the same idea where things happen if you prepare.
Were there any people or experiences during the program that helped you get excited? Oh my god, so many! The teachers at that school are so good. It's trendy to say that college isn't needed, but unless you're a hardcore self-learner, it's better than nothing. It's better than flailing because you can access other people's decades of experience, knowledge, and insights. That's something you cannot YouTube your way into.
We had a class where you learn to develop a collection. Say I want you to design a children's line for Fall/Winter—open inspiration. My professor always stressed that we need at least two sources of inspiration because if I were doing a women's collection inspired by the 20s, it would look so much like the 20s. After all, I only have one point of reference. However, originality starts coming in when I start combining multiple sources. So now, I will design a women's collection based on hip-hop from the 1920s and 1980s in New York. It will automatically be more interesting. Then I'm going to throw in some of my Vietnamese upbringing—then it's completely original. And it's also personal. Yeah! So you can apply this to everything. There are a lot of people who are so worried about being original when they're doing anything. They don't realize that once you learn the basics and add something you're interested in, it automatically becomes something original.
There are a lot of people who are so worried about being original when they're doing anything. They don't realize that once you learn the basics and add something you're interested in, it automatically becomes something original.
After deciding to leave fashion design, I thought about how I wanted to become a stylist and put myself out there. How do I do it in a way that is true to me but also helps me stand out a little bit: how do I be original? I thought about what if I was a menswear influencer without photos of myself. That was the rule. Now, I have to teach, and so I thought about going to take the things that all the influencers do, which is social media, and then combine it with the things I used to love watching when I was growing up, like Bill Nye, the Science Guy type of edutainment.
Combining these two things, what if Bill Nye was a menswear influencer? What would that look like? It's the idea of combining two things and creating something new. Because if I came in and played the influencer game, I would look like everyone else. So that was a big lesson from the program that I still use all the time.
Putting this approach into context for myself, as a product designer, often when designing, people ask, "Well, what are our competitors doing?" That feels boring to me. We're not leveraging your team's skills and talent and are only looking to one data point as inspiration.
Speaking of competitors, I don't follow any other fashion influencers. Because you could get influenced? Yes, even unintentionally, too. I follow travel bloggers and food reviewers. It also helps me combine inspiration. Okay, so what if I did this for fashion?
I'm starting a YouTube channel, and the prompt I wrote for myself when I decided to start was: what if Sofia Coppola made a YouTube channel? What would that look like? I'm doing a bit of Wong Kar Wai and Sofia Coppola film grain, and it's a little artsy. It's a little pretentious, but that's what I'm into.
Moving forward in the timeline, what happened after the program? So, I didn't graduate. I gotta backtrack a little bit because when I was still in San Francisco, I was working for that magazine. I was reading a lot of fashion articles and collections. That was my gateway or exposure to brands that weren't common for a 21-year-old dude who doesn't follow fashion. I knew Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and other name brands. But then I started discovering designers like Helmut Lang and Cloak, which are gothic and cool and look like vampires. It looked like nothing I'd ever seen.
Specifically, Cloak was started by two people from Marc Jacobs: Alexandre Plokhov and Robert Geller. It's super cool, and to me, it was like, "Oh shit! I didn't know fashion could be this way."
Fast-forward to New York. I'm in my senior year, and I saw in Women's Wear Daily that Robert Geller is starting his own line for men. I googled and emailed him, asking, "Hey, do you have any internships?" And he said, "Yeah. Come by. My office is on Bleeker and Broadway in NoHo." My first apartment was at Bleeker and Lafayette, right across the street.
So I asked, "Can I come over for lunch now?" And he responded yes. So, I walked over there, and we started bonding after I saw tickets to The Cure were pinned behind him. I grew up listening to a lot of 80s music. And so, he asked me, "When can you start?" I was like, "I'm going to start next week."
School was starting again in a month, but I decided to quit school. I got the money back from paying tuition and lived off that for a bit. That's when I quit school because I knew people spend a lot of money on their senior thesis where you'd build a collection and compete to be in the senior show.
The senior show at Parsons was legendary because Barneys and all these designer buyers and magazines would show up. In 2002, Barney's bought Proenza Schuler from their senior collection. So, the senior collection is a huge deal for a lot of people, and they would spend ten or twenty thousand dollars at that time, and now, I'm sure, hundreds of thousands of dollars on collections.
Wow, so you forgo the senior thesis to work with Robert Geller? Also, at that time, Parsons didn't have a mentor program. You do general design, and then in senior year, you would specialize. The curriculum would change every semester because they were getting so many new students and trying to shake up the whole system.
They kept trying different things, and many students who came in then were frustrated because Parsons didn't know what they were doing. I was a little annoyed with that, too. A class I loved last semester isn't around anymore because they decided to scrap it. They would make us take a history class, but it might have been more helpful to take a business or sewing class instead. All of this helped me decide to leave.
How did the internship go? I worked with [Robert Geller] for five, almost six years, and it was amazing. It was life-changing. It was a different and very rare setup. Robert Geller was a small designer who a Japanese company funded. So, he was independent of the American fashion system, which is a different beast. We could do things that most brands wouldn't be able to do. It was five or six people, including a couple of patternmakers, a couple of stylists from Japan, and then Robert, me, and the other intern, Joey.
What does it mean to be independent of the American fashion industry? Fashion, especially Menswear at the time, wasn't very interesting in America. There's a joke in fashion design that, given enough time, you end up working at Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, or Banana Republic. I've had friends who worked at all those companies. And at that level, if you go to Ralph Lauren, you'll specialize in one thing. You may do men's denim, and that's all you do. Then you have someone who specializes in knits for women. Versus Robert, Joey, and I would design everything together. We would sit down and hand draw everything while everyone was using Illustrator.
It was an amazing experience because it's like a small startup. You get to experience all the parts, as I helped on the runway shows. I would call the runway models out. I'm also painting the stage! We're doing a lot of hands-on stuff and realizing that a lot of people who have been in the industry now don't get to experience it.
That's wild. Reflecting on my experience as well, many people will never get to experience what I've experienced. My first job here in New York was at a small 30-something-person startup where I was the second designer and did a bit of everything. An early career colleague recently told me, "You sound like a product manager." My response was that it was because I was trained by product managers, and up until I joined a large company, at every startup, I was reporting to either the CEO or product leader. The big learning was that designers are more effective when they can understand the business to influence the strategy and vision and not just create visuals. Some days, I dream of being an intern again so I can go back to basics, learn from that lens, and try everything again.
It's the same thing in fashion! If you talk to any fashion person now who grew up in the Tumblr era of Menswear, most of these folks are Gen X. Robert Geller was in his thirties when he left his corporate job to start his own thing. That's why it was such an exciting time for these starting brands, like Robert Geller, Thom Browne, etc. It was exciting for Menswear because American fashion didn't have much except for hip-hop in the late '90s.
What happened after this internship? I had nowhere else to go because we were a small company and team. I can't replace Robert Geller, and so I'm stuck. He's also a small company, so he couldn't afford to bring us all in, so many of us had side jobs. For example, me and my other colleague started an online shop. I would freelance and specialize in leather jackets because I learned so much from Robert and would apply that to other places. I did a lot of ghost designing and freelancing.
Ghost designing is similar to ghostwriting. A celebrity launches a brand, but most of the time, they won't actually be designing. Instead, they hire a team and take the credit—which is fine. I did a lot of that. But it got to a point where I thought maybe I wanted to start my own thing.
I had a good amount of savings, so I started a leather jacket company. I didn't know what I was doing. It's really expensive to make things in New York and pay a living wage to people while using high-quality materials. You're sourcing everything and paying for shipping, inventory, a warehouse, and raw materials.
I didn't have enough capital to buy leather in bulk, so I'm paying near retail price, which is insane. It got so expensive that I burned through my savings in two collections. In retrospect, learning what I know now and talking to people with brands, they're like, "Yes, of course, you need at least a couple million." Many people who start their brands first work in corporate in their 20s and 30s and then in their 40s and 50s start their lines because it's impossible to get funding. So, I blew through my savings and didn't know what I wanted to do next.
Was that a year or two with the two collections? Yes, I had my line for about a year and a half. I sold a few, but not enough to pay rent, and I was living off my savings and credit cards and borrowing money from my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time. She was super supportive and awesome, but it was a really stressful time for sure.
It sounded like you had a proof of concept, and then the concept went to launch, but you needed more to continue pushing. Yeah. I've always been good at selling, but I didn't know enough about business to think about cash flow, etc.
So, how does The Essential Man come in? The Essential Man used to be my Tumblr blog. It was where I would write and show behind the scenes of fashion in New York, my life, and just things I was into.
I had also been following this personal finance guy named Ramit Sethi for a few years. Ramit had a course called "Zero to Launch," which is about creating a business using your knowledge or skills. I took that course and followed it to a T, and the whole point was that you find something good that you can monetize and how to test and validate a business idea around that.
So, I brainstormed a business idea around what I could do, like teaching people how to be designers, or styling, and how to shop. I did some research and saw people advertise. I talked to my friends who happened to be in tech, and one guy hired me for a conference. That's how it snowballed from there.
Some people feel that they need to show credibility when they start something. Did you feel the same way? My credibility came from being in fashion and dressing cool—that and having gone to Parsons. I have been a menswear designer for over a decade and can help you pick an outfit.
With credibility, you already have the confidence to do it. Was there anything that you learned along the way that helped you push it even further? Yes, so I always thought the worst-case scenario was that I could get a corporate job. Or that I would work at Starbucks. I knew that rock bottom wasn't possible and that there were other careers I could have until I figured it out.
You say it so simply! laughing With many of the conversations I have with my friends, we're always so fearful about what happens next. Some of us, especially in corporate jobs, end up in golden handcuffs even if we know we can leave and try something new. But the risk and time it takes to go into the next phase of our lives also takes a lot. But to you, you're just like, "Oh, cool!" I'll tell you why. My parents have always started businesses when I was young. I learned from them that you can figure it out. It's sometimes easy to forget that my parents escaped a war. My mom's first job was as a hotel maid, then worked at Burger King and figured it out.
We often forget that it's not the end of the world. Rock bottom is almost like a joke because did you die? Because no, you didn't die. I understand the fear of everything going to shit, but if you really sat down and listed out that if this happens, I can do this, and you can keep going forever until you get to the point where there's nothing left. The other part is reminding ourselves that we're highly capable and that it takes more effort to fail.
Rock bottom is almost like a joke because did you die? Because no, you didn't die. I understand the fear of everything going to shit, but if you really sat down and listed out that if this happens, I can do this, and you can keep going forever until you get to the point where there's nothing left.
To the point of how things take a long time: The advantage of being older is that you understand how long things take, so you take your time. For example, the YouTube channel I'm starting: I don't want it to begin to blow up, but I know that in two or three years, it will be killer. Because when you're young, you haven't lived enough. And you need to live longer to know that things will eventually work, and they can work out. For example, you go through a few breakups, get fired a few times, move a few apartments, and things will be fine five or six years later because that's what experience is. You have the context, and that's why failing when you're younger is scarier than when you're older. Yes, you have no clue yet! It took me nine years to get to where I am, and I can do it in another nine years.
Because when you're young, you haven't lived enough. And you need to live longer to know that things will eventually work, and they can work out.
I recently guest lectured with a friend at my alma mater to talk to design students about our careers journeys. My friend, Triệu Thanh Nguyệt, shared that we need more data points to make better conclusions or arguments for the next thing. That and you don't need to have all the answers to make a firm decision. Additionally, earlier in our lives, we hear a lot from everyone else around us about how they've made choices, what they wanted to do, or how they got to where they are. We don't realize that it's an accumulation of many choices, and nothing was ever that final. If things are meant to be, I also believe you'll find your back to it. You're more capable than you think.
Were there more learnings you experienced when you started your styling journey? Whenever I start something new, I set goals. My first goal with the styling business was to book three clients because one is a favor, two is lucky, and three is a pattern. I do that with anything when I start. For example, I will focus on three YouTube shorts, and if the first or second one gets some views, then it's okay. But if I do three or four more videos and no one is watching, maybe something's off here.
So far, I've posted a few videos, and they've been killing it. So, it's already given me the confidence to repeat. Whenever I try to test something new, for example, I'll go to three pottery classes and see how I like it. It's a small investment, and it's still low, and it's enough for you to get the data points that you need.
Out of everything you've done so far, why is any of this important to you? Every phase is something new. Initially, it's been about "what's interesting to me?" And then, as I get older, it's more, "How can I help more people?" or "How can I affect certain things?"
Fashion is interesting because it's a creative and artistic business that is still commercial and functional. If I weren't in this industry, I would probably be in food, interior design, or something artistic, creative, and functional. That's what attracts me to styling "regular guys" rather than editorial or celebrities. I have to think of them in the context of their lives, interests, and more.
It's a creative challenge, and I get the artistic aspect of where I get to dictate what that looks like. I always tell my clients that they are characters in a movie, and it's my job to figure out the costumes for their characters. I'll ask them, "What's on your Spotify playlist? What kind of movies are you watching? Where are you guys going if you and your wife go out?"
That's fun for me, but helping people is my whole thing. I always wanted to be the [Anthony] Bourdain for men's fashion where he's showing you all this cool shit, but also he's showing you that food is culture the same way clothing is culture. Sometimes, we think it's frivolous or purely functional, but it's integral to who we are and our expression. It is essential to show guys that fashion is fun and that you don't have to be super nerdy to be in it. But at least you can appreciate things about it and be interested and be a more interesting person through it.
Are there any misconceptions about the work you do, the industry you're in, or yourself? A lot of people think fashion people are snobby. Whenever I'm at a party, and someone finds out I'm a personal stylist, they'll ask me, "I don't want you to judge me or what I'm wearing." They're judging themselves. I get it! But I always joke to them that, "I only judge people who pay me."
First of all, that's completely true. Don't do anything for free that you can get paid for. Fashion gets this snobby, pretentious rap, and it is in some aspects. However, there is a good kind of snobby that I find fun. People are scared to investigate the fashion world or be interested in fashion because they believe everyone's snobby, but most people aren't.
And the good people are good snobby. A bad snob makes you feel bad about your choices—like what you would think a fashion person is like in a movie. Bad snobby is when someone says, "Ew, you're wearing that?" or "Ew, you're eating that?"
I know what you mean by good snobby. It's the people who are passionate about how they dress, what they put on their bodies, and how things are made. It's more about the care they have versus a projection of themselves cast as judgment to others. They care about the thing or topic itself. I think of myself as the older brother who goes to school in Europe, and I'm back in town for a week. I'm like, "mom and dad are out, I'm going to show you some cool shit."
With my clients, whenever I recommend something to someone, I learn early on instead of saying, "Don't wear those; those are ugly." I would say, "I think you're the type who would wear Loewe. You're a Loewe girl." Now, suddenly, you're like, "What does that mean? He sees me as something, and I can be a little different. I should investigate this."
So that's a good kind of snobby where if I was your brother and I came home from college, and I say, I'm going to show you a cool drink I had in Paris and say, "It's the craziest shit!" That's what [Anthony] Bourdain does. He'll say, "Let's go to Vietnam," and show you the little stools, the little carts, and a place that makes the best bowl of pho ever. Now you want to go. And that's the fun snobby that is missing a lot of the time. It's also a way of creating an inviting atmosphere, encouraging someone to be part of the experience rather than casting judgment or bullying. Sometimes, snobbiness can come across as making something exclusive and incomprehensible.
Yes, to be fair, fashion that gets presented online or, in general, is that bad snobby because that's what people think. It's almost cliche, but if you are talking to anyone like Cathy Horyn, Anna Wintour, or really respected fashion writers or editors, people respect them because they are not the bad snobby. They're the fun snobby.
A perfect example of a fun snob is Rajiv Surendra. Rajiv played Kevin in Mean Girls. He quit Hollywood to become a calligrapher and does all the signs in restaurants in New York. He also has an amazing YouTube channel where he'll show you how to wash your linens and wrap a gift. He's like the male Martha Stewart; all the videos are in a beautiful film grain. He has the most fascinating life, and it's so aspirational and snobby, like he goes to Europe to find tweed to make a jacket! But that's the thing that is missing in most spaces.
Do you have any advice for a younger Peter? I don't have any advice because I love where I've gotten and feel if I had advice for my younger self, it would change my trajectory, which sounds like a cop-out answer!
But it may be better not to work so hard. I'm at a point where I've worked with many ultra-successful people. Right now, I have a client worth nine figures, which is mind-blowing. I've seen the ultra-wealthy in many ways that most people don't get access to, and nothing's changed. Just a little more zeros at the end! They have bigger places, but I've also seen shitty marriages. I've seen people stressed out and constantly working while shopping, and ultimately, people are all the same.
My wife and I talk about our finances a lot, our goals, and stuff we want to save for. I've sat and reflected that we lived a good life. New York for 20 years is insane. We've had multiple apartments; we lived in a new building with a doorman. I can buy whatever I want relatively. I take Uber a lot because of work.
I'm grateful for where I am, but I don't know if I need to work too hard. I have no aspirations of being a billionaire or running a multi-million dollar company. At the same time, money is an important aspect of our society. But I've gotten calmer as I've gotten older, and I wish my younger self could feel this way. I'm just very chill.
Because when you're young, you're told you gotta work hard, gotta hustle, and all that stuff. You're told what other people's aspirations are because you have yet to form your own. You wouldn't believe how many of my clients I've talked to wish they had smaller companies, who wish they had more time, who complain about back pain, or who complain about money. It's all the same shit.
A lot of folks who are anti-hustle culture have experienced hustling very hard. As you get older, and the more you ask for help and open yourself up to other things, you also welcome a lot more of other people's aspirations and thoughts. The hardest part for an individual is to decide at what point "this is actually my path."

Give us a list of 3 things; you pick the topic.
Herman Miller Aeron chair. It's so worth it.
Get good cashmere is always nice!
Get stationery from Terrapin Stationers. I believe in writing thank you notes because I think no one does it anymore, so you stand out easily.
Here's a little trick I'll teach you. To get VIP treatment at clothing stores but basically anywhere: whenever I go to a new store, and I work with a client or meet the person, afterward, I always come back and give the staff a thank you note and some Levain cookies or something similar so that they'll always remember me. It's so easy, and it'll only cost a couple of dollars. It's all about building relationships and getting the habit of doing things to do them. Yes, you can send an email, but something about writing a note and giving it to someone is so nice.
What is your favorite song of the moment or something you currently have on repeat?
Whenever I'm in New York, I listen to Frank Ocean, specifically Channel Orange or Pink and White. It came out at a time when I remember always just listening to it while I was walking around. I also listen to a lot of hip hop, jazzy lo-fi, and J Dilla. which all feel very New York to me.
Enjoyed the Conversation with Peter Nguyen?
You can find him at www.theessentialman.com, and @theessentialman on Instagram, Tiktok, and Youtube. Peter also offers styling in-person and virtually with more information at https://www.theessentialman.com/styling-services.
Peter is also passionate about giving back to The Trevor Project.
The Trevor Project is an American nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth; they offer a toll-free telephone number where confidential assistance is provided by trained counselors. A donation was made to The Trevor Project as part of this Conversation.
You can support The Trevor Project by donating directly.