New Lad, the blokey 1990s stereotype, was many things, but rarely was he a standard bearer for international chic. His 21st-century successor, though, is sartorial in the extreme. We shall know him as Lad Nouveau.

Lad Nouveau is more a nascent fashion movement rather than any sort of cultural backlash. It's a masculine yet stealthily refined manner of dressing, exemplified by labels such as Daiki Suzuki's Engineered Garments; designers such as Keith Warren (now at Mulberry and Gap, previously of Louis Vuitton); and the Manchester-based boutique Oi Polloi.

Moreover, that all-time favourite label among robust young gentlemen, Stone Island, has a new design team and is once more pushing the boundaries of menswear. Another buck's favourite, Fred Perry, has a new diffusion line designed by the one-man fashion vanguard Raf Simons. Over at the quintessentially male British luxury goods house Dunhill, the new creative director Kim Jones, “the enfant terrible of UK menswear”, himself not averse to a bit of laddism, is talking about founding “a British Hermès”.

Even Ben Sherman, the ultimate New Lad label, has a new managing director, a new logo, and is collaborating with the classical sophisticates Baracuta and Bill Amberg.

Lad Nouveau doesn't really do the Tom Ford “so hetero it's homo” suits and Speedos, übersexual look. Although he admires the mass-market intellectualism of Prada, and shops both competitively and with flair, the most excited Lad Nouveau got about a major design house's clothes was when Ralph Lauren's hunting range became available in the UK. His idea of a must-have brand is more likely to be an outdoor outfitter such as Patagonia than a Beckham endorsee. His ideal garment is stealth-smart. They're in the finest fabrics, have ideally been made by the same lineage in the same artisan's workshop for decades, and will last him a lifetime.

Daiki Suzuki's Engineered Garments, for example, are casually inspired by those staple male muses outdoor and military gear. The clothes are made with a jazz buff's appreciation to detail, and the label's name was inspired by a pattern-cutter's remark that Suzuki's clothes “weren't designed but engineered”.

“You can have good fabric and not great construction and still get a really beautiful garment,” he recently told Men's Vogue. That the owner has to sew on a new button himself every now and then, basic training-style, he believes, is akin to the clothes becoming “a second skin”.

Keith Warren, the smart name to drop in menswear circles for some years now after his rich and inspiring collections for Louis Vuitton menswear, says that he appreciates “the way Suzuki deals with masculine pieces with intelligence”. He too “likes to work with classic pieces, but breathe new life into them”. It is not necessarily the pieces themselves that define Nouveau Laddism, it's the blokes buying it. “I do go for authenticity, which this customer loves,” Warren says. “They don't want throwaway fashion.”

Indeed, Nouveau Laddism is less a backlash against the feminised, “metrosexual” look and more of an age of man. Trainers, skinny jeans and a band T-shirt no longer feel entirely appropriate to the Lad Nouveau because he's been knocking about in that stuff since his early teens. Lad Nouveau is instantly suspicious himself of anyone wearing a Ramones T-shirt.

“Our customer is more design-led than label or trend-led. He probably doesn't like to admit it, though, or he'd look like a knobhead,” says Steve Sanderson, who runs Manchester's Oi Polloi.

Oi Polloi started life catering de facto for the “terrace casual” movement, whose name derives from the super-sharp football “firms” of the late 1970s and early 1980s. It's now used as a catch-all term for the much-underrated sartorial genius of the British provincial male, whose wardrobe was typified by combining sportswear and establishment garb (effortlessly co-ordinating, for instance, Adidas and Aquascutum). Terrace casuals also boasted technical wear - that is, clothes made with “revolutionary” synthetic fabrics with abilities ranging from iPod headphone sockets to gas masks.

Stone Island is the label many associate with technical wear. The label's forthcoming winter collection, overseen by the creative director Carlo Rivetti and designed by a fresh team, is ingenious in a whole new way. Silk is treated to look ultramodern (they've called it “liquid silk”), and camouflage patterns created using mud and hand-painting. Rivetti has also employed the talents of the next generation. Aitor Throup, a Bolton chap readily described as “the future of menswear”, used a fur-cutting machine to piece together the segments of his Puffa jacket. That Lad Nouveau garb will be devoured by what the fashion retail sector calls “mostly heterosexual” male shoppers is exemplified by Oi Polloi's meteoric growth online (www.oipolloi.com) and imminent opening of more premises. It may require a creative volte-face on the behalf of the fast fashion stores, who will be left wondering how to recreate the Arctic Monkeys' country casual look at this year's Brit awards.

Lad Nouveau is the polar opposite to Trinny and Susannah's masterplan to emasculate the male population via a nice brown jumper. This isn't “Want to be my girlfriend?” fashion, it's the return of “I bet you want to be in my gang” style.

That was then, this is now: New Lad v Lad Nouveau

Favourite...

NEW LAD
Drink: Stella
Snack: Frazzles
Author: Irvine Welsh
Sport: Football
Bonding activity: PlayStation
Stamping ground: North West
Magazine: Loaded
Performance: Oasis at Wembley
R&R: Shopping for clothes and records on a Saturday afternoon
Repeated talking point: Sex on drugs

LAD NOUVEAU
Drink: Single malt
Snack: Keene’s cheddar
Author: Francis Wheen
Sport: UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship)
Bonding activity: Taking the boy to Bannatyne’s
Stamping ground: North West
Magazine: The Economist (skips hard bits)
Performance: Alex James on Question Time
R&R: Hunting down stuff online
Repeated talking point: Impending divorce