View this email in your browser | Update your email preferences 

THE POLO SHIRTS ARE THE BEST THING ABOUT BEEF

In a second season that feels like one long, late capitalist Mexican standoff, there is some hope: the staff uniforms are the paragon of preppiness

BY  MURRAY CLARK

If I took one thing away from Beef, A24's smash hit tragicomedy, it's that people fucking suck. Power and pound signs corrupt all; boyfriends cheat on girlfriends, girlfriends blackmail their colleagues, employees fleece their bosses and in return, bosses actually kill their staff - all in the gilded enclave that is a Californian country club (with dreamy murals described as "colonial" by a withering observer). It makes for glorious, morbid viewing. What makes for nicer viewing though, is the staff uniform.

Clean, classic and in a dark shade of privet green, I can't stop thinking about it. The shape is deeply normal, the stripes minimal and the fit just right. It's expensive but pedestrian. Which is the point, says Beef's costume designer Olga Mill. "The guiding idea was that the staff should look just as polished as the members. We also wanted a range of uniform variations - having everyone look slightly different made the environment feel more elevated and exclusive," she tells me.

Which begs the question: how can a deeply standard polo shirt bewitch me to this level? Like the act of digging a pointless hole, or a couple of hours pressure-washing the drive, there is something reassuringly, satisfyingly dull about the polo - especially when it is intended as a uniform. The country club polo shirts should leach the staff of all personality, which is kinda the point. But so crisp and cool are they that I want them to exist IRL, and not just because a lot of people confuse me on the daily for Charles Melton, the show's big-armed, generously-curled, pneumatically-handsome lead who fills out a polo shirt like a Grecian statue.

"While I did look at high-end club uniforms, I was more inspired by tennis wear and a preppy aesthetic," says Mill. "There's something interesting happening as brands are reinterpreting that all-American, elite country club look, which definitely influenced me. "I also noticed that these clubs often have pro shops filled with merchandise, so I designed the uniforms to feel like pieces you could actually buy there. The quality needed to be high enough that members would want to wear them."

The polo shirt - specifically the uniform polo shirt - holds a unique romance that brands like Sporty & Rich and Hotel Poros have been cashing in on for a minute now. There is something hot in looking like a pool boy, or a physical therapist, or someone who simply goes and collects the stray tennis balls. It's a manicured version of manual labour; macho without the mud, service without the military risk. And lest we forget the polo shirt's preppy credentials, which are magnified when it's brought into a space of extreme privilege, like a country club where Michael Phelps forces Oscar Isaac to Venmo him $5,000 (this actually happens in Beef, how I winced).

Because the show's power dynamics exist in a writhing mass of quicksand, the show's polo shirt can be underling and overlord all at once. In Beef, is the club's hot personal trainer an object of affection, or someone with the ability to break your home, your heart and your bank account? Channel that energy of the mysterious pool boy, and suddenly, the staff polo shirt becomes a lot more potent - ideal if you're single as we sizzle into summer. There's a reason Carey Mulligan's frustrated housewife stares longingly at the club's tennis coach, and it's not just because he has abs like giant bubble wrap. It's all rooted in menswear fantasy - and Beef, funnily enough, is so absurdist and technicolour that it feels almost otherworldly too.

Which left me with one ask of Mill: please tell me these will be made available to purchase. "That's an A24 question! We had the hats as a wrap gift. I wear mine all the time," she says. And on that note, I better get on eBay for any crew resales - line managers don't blackmail themselves, y'know.

Big style reads of the week

A Bathing Ape was "actually a big mistake" for Nigo

Obey these 11 barbershop etiquette rules, and you'll get a better haircut

The King dressed up for Congress, and American politicians should follow suit

"Oakleys: as good for a daytime rave on a precarious rooftop as they are for counting overs during a county cricket match."
Murray Clark, senior style editor

Office-sourced hits from GQ HQ

"Our US GQ comrades hold their Men of the Year at LA's Chateau Marmont, and I get it, because it's sick." (£66)
Murray Clark, senior style editor