Inside menswear maverick and social media style superstar Nick Wooster's abode in the sky — hundreds of pairs of sneakers included

It was somewhere after his fifth or sixth&nbsp;conventionally charming <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/watches/omega-constellation-manhattan-29-mm-by-omega">Manhattan</a> studio that Nick Wooster decided it was time&nbsp;for a change. Swimming in a trove of covetable men&rsquo;s clothing and accessories, he&nbsp;knew that, in addition to a seasonal storage unit, he needed a proper home.

&ldquo;Living here is maybe not everyone&nbsp;else&rsquo;s dream of living in New York, but it&rsquo;s&nbsp;like the New York that didn&rsquo;t exist,&rdquo; he&nbsp;explains, sitting in his new living room.&nbsp;&ldquo;Because, listen, I&rsquo;ve lived in more studios&nbsp;than I care to remember, and there&rsquo;s something about a walk-up and a studio and&nbsp;just that struggle that most New Yorkers&nbsp;go through. I did it, but it&rsquo;s nice to not&nbsp;have to do that now.&rdquo;

Perched 30 stories above the ever-evolving Hudson Yards development, the space&nbsp;is drenched in sunlight thanks to its western&nbsp;exposure and offers a sweeping view of the&nbsp;Hudson River. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just a nice way to be,&rdquo;&nbsp;Wooster adds, turning to look at the view. Upon first inspection of chez Wooster, it&nbsp;might be easy to make a quick study of the&nbsp;lauded menswear fixture, who now boasts&nbsp;nearly 800,000 loyal <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/best-instagram-photographers">Instagram</a> followers. There are many tightly curated stacks&nbsp;of books and magazines, most of which&nbsp;include lengthy odes to his sartorial prowess. A guest bathroom is covered papered&nbsp;in portraits made by fans from around the&nbsp;globe. One is covered in Japanese characters, and when teased about being &ldquo;big in&nbsp;Japan,&rdquo; he shoots back with a smile, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m&nbsp;actually much bigger in Korea and China&nbsp;than I am in Japan.&rdquo;

Of the apartment&rsquo;s two bedrooms, the&nbsp;master has been converted into a double-height closet space, and while it may strike&nbsp;most as an unconventional setup, Wooster&nbsp;sleeps in the adjacent guest bedroom. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s&nbsp;the ultimate luxury,&rdquo; he explains of the&nbsp;master bedroom&ndash;turned&ndash;closet. &ldquo;You can&nbsp;also see the skyline better when you&rsquo;re&nbsp;lying in the guest bedroom.&rdquo;

All of this is to say that Wooster is&nbsp;indeed the stylish clotheshorse, devoted&nbsp;so much to his art of dressing that dozens&nbsp;of brands, from Thom Browne to Paul &amp;&nbsp;Shark to Calvin Klein to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/very-ralph-hbo-documentary-ralph-lauren-2019">Ralph Lauren</a>&mdash;the list goes on and on&mdash;are eager to collaborate with him season after season. It&rsquo;s&nbsp;not only his pedigree as a seasoned buyer&nbsp;for venerable department stores like Bergdorf Goodman and the late, great <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/barneys-bankruptcy-news-new-york-2019">Barneys&nbsp;New York</a> that makes him attractive to&nbsp;them, but his certain inexplicable panache&nbsp;that is only complemented by his silver&nbsp;hair and devil-may-care attitude. But if you can look past the several&nbsp;hundred pairs of shoes, over a hundred&nbsp;pairs of sunglasses, and that blown-up&nbsp;cover of GQ Taiwan, there are many hidden gems that lead a visitor to quickly&nbsp;discover much more about this self-proclaimed &ldquo;free agent&rdquo; of menswear.

Small bits of elevated erotica can be&nbsp;found dotted throughout the apartment,&nbsp;from a shirtless portrait of a buff, ginger-haired man from an exhibition by Thomas&nbsp;Knight called &ldquo;Red Hot&rdquo; to a coffee-table&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/princess-marie-chantal-etiquette-book-tips">book</a> simply titled BUTTS. There&rsquo;s even a&nbsp;small print of a writhing gladiator type&nbsp;of a man affixed to the refrigerator like&nbsp;a proud homework assignment. He wears&nbsp;an orange mesh jockstrap. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just a pervy old man&mdash;what can I&nbsp;say?&rdquo; Wooster confesses with a laugh. &ldquo;I&nbsp;think that maybe for most of my life,&nbsp;being a gay kid in Kansas in the &lsquo;60s and&nbsp;&lsquo;70s, I did everything in my power to not&nbsp;broadcast anything sexual. It was like,&nbsp;&lsquo;Oh, just be quiet,&rsquo; and that&rsquo;s one of the&nbsp;amazing things about where we are culturally is that we don&rsquo;t have to worry about&nbsp;that sort of thing.&rdquo;

Born in Salina, Kansas, Wooster is the&nbsp;antithesis of a town known best for its&nbsp;domestic manufacturing, but there are&nbsp;small hints of this <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/categories/politics-culture">culture</a> throughout&nbsp;the home. In the entryway is a schematic&nbsp;drawing of a Volkswagen, a nod to his&nbsp;father, who was a Volkswagen mechanic,&nbsp;and in a corner sits a handful of framed&nbsp;high school graduation photos. &ldquo;They&nbsp;were taken in the fall of 1977. That is so&nbsp;fucking long ago,&rdquo; he jokes. And while he admits that his family &ldquo;has absolutely no comprehension&rdquo; of&nbsp;his life, he has always maintained a firm&nbsp;stance in his styling.

&ldquo;I insisted on dressing myself,&rdquo; he says matter-of-factly. &ldquo;My&nbsp;mom could not buy me clothes or tell me&nbsp;what to wear, ever.&rdquo; Little did he know this would pay off&nbsp;for him starting in kindergarten. &ldquo;I heard&nbsp;this story, so it&rsquo;s third-hand, but I had a&nbsp;kindergarten teacher named Mrs. Voss,&nbsp;who died recently, who I never had contact&nbsp;with after elementary school,&rdquo; Wooster&nbsp;recalls. &ldquo;She told a friend of my dad&rsquo;s that&nbsp;she always remembered me and said, &lsquo;He&nbsp;was the best-dressed student I ever had.&rsquo;&nbsp;She taught at the same elementary school&nbsp;for her entire career and must&rsquo;ve been&nbsp;there for 40 or 50 years, but how is that&nbsp;possible in kindergarten? I don&rsquo;t even&nbsp;think she had any idea of this life that people know me for.&rdquo;

Tales like this make his undeniable&nbsp;success that much more inevitable. It&nbsp;appears it was fate that led Nick Wooster&nbsp;to become who he is, a universally sought&nbsp;after bellwether of good taste, evidenced&nbsp;not only in his wardrobe but his home too.&nbsp;However, no one seems more surprised&nbsp;by all this than Wooster himself. &ldquo;Maybe&nbsp;Ms. Voss could have predicted it,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;&ldquo;But I certainly didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;

Get a Glimpse of Fashion Mogul Nick Wooster's Skyscraper Apartment

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