Esquire Magazines Best Dressed Man of America for 2009

A young man from Belle River Ontario Canada
very close to our home
has been named Best Dressed Real Man in America for 2009.

His name is Dan Trepanier.

How proud we all are............



Source Windsor Star
September 3, 2009

Belle River's Trepanier is Best Dressed Real Man in America
By Dalson Chen, The Windsor StarSeptember 3, 2009Comments (45)
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Dan Trepanier, a 22-year-old from Belle River who's currently living in New York City, has been named the Best Dressed Real Man in America for 2009 by Esquire magazine. This image of Trepanier modelling a suit comes from his style blog, mensstyleblog.blogspot.com.Photograph by: Handout, Special to The StarHe likes sleek custom-made suits, classic wingtips, vintage denim and elegant watches.

It’s a long way from rural Lakeshore to the pages of Esquire magazine, but 22-year-old Dan Trepanier of Belle River has been named the Best Dressed Real Man in America for 2009.

“When people are looking their best, they’re feeling their best,” says Trepanier, who now lives in New York City. “First impressions are only fabric deep.”

Esquire magazine holds its Best Dressed Real Man in America contest annually. Since 2006, the contest has been run exclusively online.

This year’s competition attracted more than 1,000 entries. From that wide field of self-styled snappy dressers, five finalists were chosen.

Trepanier was revealed as the ultimate winner on the NBC’s Today Show on Wednesday.

“It’s an honour, definitely,” he said. “There were a lot of well-dressed men in the competition.”

According to Esquire, Trepanier is the youngest man to receive the title since its inception.

Along with Wednesday’s television appearance, Trepanier’s winning dress sense has earned him more than $30,000 in prizes including: $10,000 in clothes, a one-year supply of Nivea beauty products, and a Swiss-made IWC watch.

Nick Sullivan, Esquire’s fashion director, said Trepanier was the unanimous choice because of his combination of an “everyman quality” with “damn good mastery” of his “haute-preppy” wardrobe.

“Dan’s style is instantly recognizable as American... but it’s modern and individual and it avoids the more predictable preppy combinations,” Sullivan noted.

However, Trepanier downplays his style choices, claiming it takes him only about 20 minutes to get dressed for the day — just like anyone else.

As for his style being “American,” Trepanier has to chuckle. “It is funny … I absolutely want to live in New York permanently, but I am Canadian, and I always will be. I haven’t forgotten where I came from, and I never will.”

That’s not the only irony about Trepanier. As a teenager, he was more interested in basketball than the width of lapels. He was an all-star guard with St. Anne high school and his abilities on the court helped earn him a sports scholarship with Columbia University.

Diane Trepanier, Dan’s mother, said that she never imagined her youngest son would eventually turn into a fashion plate. But now Dan’s father turns to him for advice. “Anything he wears, he looks good. People tell me that all the time. He seems to have a knack of putting things together.”

Nevertheless, Trepanier names his mother as his biggest fashion influence, saying that he dresses well to show her — and everybody else — how far the family has come. “My mother grew up in a family with 12 kids. They grew up pretty much with nothing. She taught herself how to make her own clothes out of necessity, and she got pretty good at it.… I definitely got it from her. My mom’s a stylish woman.”

Regarding how Trepanier can afford his own taste in garments with such high-end labels as Thom Browne and Ralph Lauren, Diane said Dan’s secret is the online auction site eBay. He started wheeling and dealing sneakers there in his basketball days and now he does the same with dress shoes and tweed jackets. “He could turn it around and actually make a profit,” Diane said.

Trepanier graduated from Columbia this past spring with a B.A. in psychology. Asked what are his plans, he said he wants to pursue a career in fashion, and he has ambitions of becoming a designer and having his own clothing line.

There are those who might say there’s something un-masculine about a man caring so much about clothing. As a former jock, Trepanier said he’s received more than his share of flack about being “metrosexual.”

“All my buddies would bust my chops about it. But there is a certain confidence you have to have when you’re doing something different.”

Trepanier says the fact is that people will often base their first impression of you on your appearance — so you might as well look your best. “That’s just how it is sometimes. I always want to put my best foot forward.”