The Best Belts Stop Your Fits From Falling Apart
But the original remains the strongest. OL’s belt is a neat 2cm wide, with a metal pin, Western buckle closure, metal keeper, and metal hardware tips that all combine for a sort of punk, sort of rodeo vibe. Simply put, this belt takes any outfit in a number of complimentary directions—and don’t worry, it won’t bite.
Best Belt for GQ Cover Stars: Artemas Quibble BL 085 Belt
What do Steven Yeun, Sergio Pérez, and Paul Mescal all have in common? Well, aside from rocking the cover of GQ, they’ve also each been spotted wearing belts from Artemas Quibble. The masterminds behind the label are husband-and-wife duo Natasha Chekoudjian and Jason Ross, who have also designed belts for some of fashion’s biggest names: Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, and Rick Owens.
Each belt is handmade, and you, the buyer, get to choose the hardware and leather color. The belts feature materials like reclaimed leather, repurposed brass, and antique textiles, combining for a perfect blend of raw materials and avant-garde aesthetics. The belt itself is 1.25” wide, but the buckle? Unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Seriously, if “presence” had a dictionary image, this would be it. It’s the kind of belt that could easily work for A-listers today, cowboys of yesteryear, and maybe even a Spartan or two before that.
More Belts We Love
What to Look for in a Great Belt
What, exactly, differentiates a so-so belt from a truly superlative one? It’s more than just enough holes (though that’s a good place to start). Homing in on the materials at play is especially key. Are you looking for full-grain leather that’s durable and business-ready? Or maybe a braided suede for a relaxed, just swung-off-the-horse vibe?
Once you’ve got that figured out, it’s time to choose between widths (casual belts usually clock in at around 1.5 inches wide; formal belts 1.25 inches), and buckle types (clean and classic buckles skew formal; rugged, D-ring buckles skew casual).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly: figure out your proper waist size. Pros tend to go about 1 or 2 inches up for a fit that’s snug but not restrictive, which also leaves a little room for any winter weight anybody reading this definitely won’t gain.
How We Make These Picks
We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.
To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.
We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.
Across the majority of our buying guides, our team boasts firsthand experience with the bulk of our selects, but a handful are totally new to us. So after several months of intense debate, we tally the votes, collate the anecdotal evidence, and emerge with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best of the category right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable beaters to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs.
Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there’s bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ’s testing process here.)
How We Test and Review Products
Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.
Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.
