The Kyle Chandler Guide to Middle-Aged Style

Kyle Chandler has been making the rounds lately to promote Lanterns, his new HBO Max series based on the DC Comics hero Green Lantern. Judging from its premise (an old cop-young rookie procedural, except the cops are interstellar peacekeepers with superpowered rings), its cast (Chandler, Aaron Pierre, and veteran that guy Garret Dillahunt), and the buzz around its pilot (“a brilliant, prestige-coded detective drama,” per GQ’s Jack King), the show has all the makings of a solid piece of superhero fare. In the meantime, Chandler’s out here giving a free masterclass in dressing well as a middle-aged dude.Chandler, now 60, is best known for playing a certain kind of grizzled American patriarch (see: Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights; John Rayburn on Bloodlines), and his offscreen wardrobe treads similar ground. Decked out in a rotation of button-up shirts, dark denim jeans, and navy blazers, Chandler’s dad vibes radiate as powerfully as the Green Lantern’s ring, and we mean that in the best possible way. While the combination of jeans and a dress shirt is not, in itself, remarkable, it’s the rumpled ease with which Chandler wears his uniform—and the easy, wide cut of his dungarees—that sets him apart from the masses of over-40 men rocking skinny jeans and dress shirts with three-way stretch.To wit: Last week, Chandler rolled up to Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a black and burgundy gingham shirt, wide, dark blue boot-cut jeans, and a pair of croc-hide cowboy boots. The look, completed by a pair of clear acetate eyeglass frames, a simple brown leather belt, and an olive green ball cap, is the polar opposite of Colman Domingo in head-to-toe Ralph Lauren, and that’s exactly as it should be. (Chandler, after all, is a 60-year-old father of two who lives on a ranch outside Austin and does PSAs for volunteer firefighter recruitment in his spare time.)Chandler wore a suit for Lanterns’ LA premiere the following day, a double-breasted number with peak lapels over a pale brown shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and the result was equally flattering. Chandler’s sleeves and trousers are on the long side, sure, but in keeping with his slightly disheveled, wholly unaffected vibe, this is one situation where perfect tailoring might actually look out of place. Ditto his look from the show’s London premiere this week, where he combined his trusty dark denim with a crisp blue work shirt, a dark blazer, and another pair of cowboy boots, this time in pale suede. It’s the sort of look that countless political candidates try, and usually fail, to achieve, and it’s easy to see why. The secret ingredient is authenticity.