How UpscaleHype Became Menswear’s Most Important Instagram Account

Sitting at the bar of The Breslin, the restaurant tucked into New York’s Ace Hotel, is an old man wearing glasses, a turtleneck, and, improbably, a pair of fashionable Valentino sneakers, camouflage with neon-pink splotches. “Even this guy right here,” Allen Onyia, the co-founder of UpscaleHype, a website and Instagram account that catalogs what stylish celebrities wear, says. He gestures at the man at the bar. “When I see these guys on the street I’m like, ‘I wonder, was this a product of UpscaleHype in someway? Was it influenced by UpscaleHype? Is it someone from the tree of UpscaleHype?’” The subject in question looks like he probably wouldn’t be able to log into Instagram without the help of some very patient grandchildren, but Allen’s suspicion, if a bit overblown, isn’t entirely off-base. Thanks to an encyclopedic knowledge of men’s clothing, a spidey sense for what’s trending, and the fortune of operating at a moment when men are taking fashion cues from social media more than anywhere else, Allen might have created the single most influential Instagram account in menswear. Read more at GQ.