For our latest adventure with photographer William Gentle, a.k.a. Backyard Bill, we headed to upstate New York. But we weren’t there just for the pretty leaves; we had an idea in mind.

Bill’s forte is shooting subjects in their natural environments. At Park & Bond, we’re all about mixing it up, so we wanted to tweak the formula a bit. Early one recent morning, Bill and style director Josh Peskowitz drove to Stone Ridge. They met up with model Quetzal Saunders, who lives there in the house he built. (Repeat: in the house he built.)

Saunders, a furniture maker, would have looked at home in workwear. The heritage or Americana aesthetic has been a dominant concept in men’s style for the past half decade. But what exactly does it mean? Many of us who work in offices wear suits to get the job done. Is that not technically workwear?

It seemed sort of subversive to treat it as such, so we put Saunders in blazers and bowties—and then had him chop wood, mow the lawn, and wade into a river. “I should do this every day. It feels good,” Saunders said, as he raked leaves in a velvet dinner jacket. And he looked good, damned good, proving that work is what you make of it.

 

Stylist: Josh Peskowitz; photographer: Bill Gentle; stylist’s assistant: Lucy Armstrong; production coordinator: Ashley Boer; groomer: Scott McMahan; model: Quetzal Saunders; shot on location at the home of Quetzal Saunders