Call me naïve, but I once saw someone at a fashion party wearing incredible wide-wale corduroys. I summoned up my courage, complimented his trousers and asked where he got them. The stranger scrunched up his face in a look of sour pity and said, “They’re vintage.” That’s all. He turned away. I went back to my friends confused. The trousers looked new, complete with modern fixtures. What brand were they? Who was the designer? Was he lying? “Honey,” a friend said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “They were gatekeeping.”

This confused me. Why would anyone not want to tell the story of what they were wearing? It’s fun to know the story behind what you wear and share it with others. And maybe that’s why I, along with hundreds of thousands of other listeners, are drawn to the podcast Throwing Fits. “We’re the opposite of gatekeeping,” says its co-host Mr Lawrence Schlossman. “We’re knocking down the gate.”

Schlossman and his co-host Mr James Harris cultivate something of an abundance mindset when it comes to fashion. They believe everyone should enjoy clothing, everyone should take risks with it and everyone should know the prickle of excitement that comes from wearing something outside their comfort zone. Part of this, Harris says, is that everyone should fail, and know it. “And also getting brutal, honest feedback,” he says. “Where you can think you’re doing something and your homie comes up and is like, ‘Bro, what you’re doing, what you think you’re doing is not happening.’ Good to know. Good feedback. For the next time.”

No one exemplifies this process of trying and growing better than the (active) Throwing Fits community. If you post an outfit on the Throwing Fits Discord channel, honest and opinionated fellow listeners will tell you precisely what they think. “Yeah, but it’s iterating,” says Harris. “It’s learning. It’s having a sense of curiosity and being brave enough to find new shit and indulge in that curiosity.”

Throwing Fits has made a world where brands are shared, names are dropped and stories are told, although, to be clear, Harris and Schlossman are not living in what they call “extreme recommendation culture”. Throwing Fits will not offer a list of the five best loafers for under $200. They’re not into the mass commodification of clothing. “Because,” says Schlossman, “that removes all of the romance and narrative and boils it down to affiliate links and a price point, which is so uninspired and so algorithmic.” Throwing Fits is somewhere in the middle, somewhere between gatekeeping and extreme recommendation. It is a sweet spot, where people gladly talk about the clothes they love and the conversation is interesting.

Each episode of Throwing Fits starts with Schlossman and Harris asking their guest to run through their outfit, piece by piece, and tell them the story of each item. Usually, the stories are good.

Throwing Fits, together with MR PORTER, has created a specially curated, specially recommended collection of pieces from a mix of global brands. At the photoshoot, which includes several of their friends and contemporaries, the tables are turned. I am sitting with Harris and Schlossman at the Chelsea hotel in Manhattan and I am asking them what I am wearing. It turns out I am wearing a brown double-breasted suit from Kaptain Sunshine, a “GOAT level” Japanese brand that seems to do everything well. “It’s like the perfect distillation of when people talk about the Japanese interpretation of modern menswear,” Harris says. He was starstruck to be able to work with the brand.

And I am honoured, as a former guest on their show, to model it. “It’s all friends and family, people who have been on the show and people whose personal style and point of view we also respect and love and we want to see how they work,” Schlossman says. “How are they gonna wear it? How are they gonna freak it with their own personal style?” We, the “models”, are allowed to make an edit from this curated collection. It is, Schlossman and I agree, “inception levels of curation”. One by one, we arrive at the Chelsea and make our choices from the selection of clothes Harris and Schlossman have laid out.

This brown double-breasted suit is a touch outside my comfort zone, but it feels fresh and exciting, especially because I have the added comfort of built-in approval from Harris and Schlossman. “Having a rich, vibrant brown suit – that’s just like a no-brainer,” Harris says, like it’s the most obvious thing. I have never considered a brown suit before, but now that Harris and Schlossman have presented it to me, I adore it. I need it. I beg the stylist to let me take it home. I can’t. It’s fine, but this is what Throwing Fits brings to the table: elegant, subtly unexpected styles and colourways to add just the right amount of risk.

After a successful collaboration in 2022, the podcasters once again sat down with MR PORTER to create a list of brands they love and respect, from established companies such as Diemme (“the best boot makers in the world”, says Schlossman), to Ostrya, a small Montreal brand of gorpy fashion that stands up to outdoor use (Harris took some of it climbing), to the sexy, sleazy California chic of SECOND / LAYER (the founders took Harris out and showed him a “whole new side” of LA. He refuses to give details).

Then Schlossman and Harris worked with each brand, suggesting bold new cuts, colours and tweaks. For example, for the Copenhagen-based NN07 Schlossman asked to see its knit polo in a vibrant Kermit green. (“You know, something less Scandinavian. Without sounding too pejorative.”) Some of the experiments were risky, such as the collaboration with andafterthat, “Throwing Fits being such a New York brand and andafterthat being such a Texas brand. Like, what would that look like?” Harris says it was all based on iteration. “This is a pretty collaborative process where, you know, we were sharing references back and forth.”

Fashion, by and large, is one-directional. Perhaps the designer draws fantastic creations from their head and dictates it to consumers. Or maybe it’s the other way round: designers rip off what they see consumers doing on the street. This unconventional collaboration between MR PORTER, Throwing Fits and eight labels, swirls that dynamic. The wearers, consumers, sellers, designers and distributors are all working together to decide the direction clothing can take. And the garments come to life when styled and personalised by guests from the extended universe of Throwing Fits.

Mr Alex Hartman, the man behind the Instagram account @nolitadirtbag, is in the next room at the Chelsea, waiting for his turn to pose for photos, and Harris and Schlossman are excited to see what outfit he’ll pick. “He’s like the jester of Downtown,” says Schlossman. “But his critical eye is what we respect,” says Harris. “He’s able to not accept things at face value, but be like, let’s take a second to think critically about this.” When Hartman emerges in snakeskin-patterned golf warmer pants, the Throwing Fits hosts are unsurprised. “Metalwood is the rare golf brand that non-golfers wear and that is an anomaly in the golf world because golf guys are not cool,” says Schlossman. It’s taking the tradition of flamboyance in the sport and making it good. Hartman has softened the snakeskin pattern with a more neutral, classic top. “It’s just interesting to see what maybe the harshest critic is drawn to,” Schlossman says. “And then seeing him pick a loud piece that’s then grounded in a basic is like, oh yeah, that makes sense.”

The hosts are more surprised by the choice made by the “fuckin’ menswear design legend” Mr Aaron Levine. Schlossman first reached out to Levine years ago, asking him to be a kind of mentor when he was just getting started in the industry. And Levine is still keeping them on their toes. “I’m surprised that Aaron went with the cosy sweater,” says Harris. “But then seeing him wear it, I’m like, wow, that is him. He’s kind of like a swaggy dad from Ohio.” In a very on-brand move, Levine has to dash off to catch a flight back to Columbus. The sweater he is drawn to is from Karu Research, a brand manufactured in and inspired by New Delhi, India. The company was started in 2021 during the Covid pandemic, but its founder, Mr Kartik Kumra, cultivated and developed his clothing line through feedback – from the Throwing Fits Discord. “He is one of the few brands that we’ve been fans of since day zero,” Harris says, smiling like a proud father. “We got our hands on some of the earliest samples and it’s so cool to see how far he’s come,” Schlossman says. “I don’t know, it’s just inspiring.”

Harris and Schlossman are still waiting on one last model to arrive, the design consultant, DJ and “walking encyclopaedia” Mr Jordan Page. “We’re very excited to see how he puts some stuff together,” Schlossman says. “We think he might be drawn to a beautiful set from 4SDesigns. Our friend Angelo Urrutia is the designer, so that’s where I feel like there’s going to be perfect synergy, but we’ll see if my guess is correct.” Harris agrees that Jordan will love 4S. He sounds like he is pitching his friend on a blind date. “I call Angelo Urrutia the most interesting man in menswear,” he says. Over martinis and fries at Keens Steakhouse one evening, Urrutia floated the idea of making luxury workwear out of leather but embossed to look like corduroy. Harris and Schlossman were blown away by the concept. “That’s just like how Angelo’s insane brain works,” Harris says. “Like, who can think of that?”

Sure enough, Page is immediately drawn to 4S and the buttery Italian leather disguised as common workwear. “Yeah, they knew it,” he says. “It makes me feel good because people like to be known. So, if Larry or James know my taste before I even see a rack of clothes and they get it right, that makes me feel good.”

It is not often that you get to be dressed by your friends, to be seen in this way. I am touched that they knew I would want to wear this suit. It is the same feeling as when someone cooks your favourite meal without asking. It is satisfying and gratifying in an existential way. “[Dressing each other] would be an added layer to personal relationships,” Page says. “I think we should dress each other more.” Or recommend designers, tell their stories and tear down the gates.