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In the world of menswear, it has become the norm to say one is interested not in fashion but in style.Canada Goose Montebello It can be seen in journalism both venerable (GQ's monthly column of clothes tips and advice is by the Style Guy, not the Fashion Guy) and modern (the influential magazine Fantastic Man describes itself as “the gentleman's style journal”). It happens in retail,buy moncler jackets too – while women's online store Net-A-Porter is tagged as a “fashion destination”, its two-year-old brother site Mr Porter is flagged as a “destination for men's style”. Ask most men if they favour “fashion” or “style”, and a sizeable majority would steer sharply to the latter. It's almost as if men wished fashion would just go away. 

And yet menswear carries on regardless. From Monday, the next round of men's fashion shows takes place, first in London, then in Florence, Milan and Paris, accompanied by announcements that the men's luxury market is booming, often outperforming women's; according to the consultancy Bain & Co, menswear sales worldwide are expected to have increased 10 per cent in 2012 from the year before, to 26bn. Men's fashion shows, however, still sit at something of a remove, with men outside the industry unaware or uncaring of what's happening on a catwalk in some European city. If ever there is any discussion of men's fashion shows, it usually comes as ridicule: “Would real guys really wear that?” (the answer is, usually, no). What interests men is style, and that's it. 

To understand this dichotomy between fashion and style, it helps to look far from the catwalk. Which is what the photographer Sophie Elgort does each week, as she photographs New Yorkers for Suits and the City, a tailoring blog on the FT's Luxury 360 channel. To find her subjects, Elgort often heads to Park Avenue in Midtown. “There are good offices there,” she says, “and also certain restaurants which serve really well-dressed people: the Four Seasons, Michael's.Canada Goose Solaris Parka” 

It was on Park Avenue that Sophie found Jacob Arabo, owner of watch brand Jacob & Company, in his Tom Ford three-piece suit, pushed back at the wrist by the size of his own-brand watch. Another time her eye was caught by Timothy Pope, in a custom-made casual jacket and no tie, still dressed up while dressed down because that day he was not seeing clients. One man on Park Avenue was in such a rush he only had time to pose and shout that his neat monochrome suit was “Armani”. 

The men Sophie finds in Midtown frequently reveal their status through clothing. “A lot of people lower on the totem pole feel they would look silly if they were wearing a pocket square, or something out of the ordinary,” says Sophie; “that a boss might think they should be in the office, rather than spending time getting ready. I always ask people's jobs, and about 70 per cent of the time, they're pretty high up in companies. They've earned the right to express their unique style.” 

Men like Leonard Lauren, former vice-president of Ralph Lauren, photographed by Elgort contrasting a pinstripe double-breasted suit with a polka dot pocket-square blossoming from his breast pocket. Sometimes the men of stature come from other fields, like the Vogue editor Hamish Bowles, one of Elgort's favourite subjects, whom she photographed wearing a blue double-breasted suit with a lilac mac resting in the crook of his arm. His shirt is gingham, and he leans on a bamboo-handled umbrella. Bowles told Elgort he buys his suits at auction. 

And yet “fashion” is still widely believed to be terrifying for “ordinary” men, who can only cope by denying its significance. It's one of the reasons why menswear is riddled with tension, about what can be worn, about what rules to follow. This paranoia can make short-term big business for some: a few seasons ago, bow ties were essential but that accessories fad has now faded, morphing into a trend for pocket squares.moncler down coats Elgort recently shot Di Mondo, a tech entrepreneur who matched his wide-lapelled but slim-fitted double-breasted suit with a neat pocket square, its flamboyancy purposefully constrained. 

But hang on: if bow ties are passé and pocket squares are the thing, isn't that a change of fashion? These changes in suit styling work in the same way that all fashion works, with men waxing and waning from one look to another just as women go from heels to flats, from embellished to plain. Men may say they hate it, but fashion is always there. 

For the men of style that Elgort captures, suits stand for pride and certainty. One arrives at a certain style. Fashion denotes change, with connotations of flippancy and shallowness. Fashion stands for uncertainty. For men, it means they are not in control. 

And maybe they are right to be scared.Canada Goose Resolute Parka Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg demonstrate the billions that can be made in jeans and T-shirts. If the suits of Midtown have a wider significance, it's the suits of Madison Avenue, not Park, and only the suits from an imagined world 50 years ago: the craze for the Mad Men look. The sharp suited silhouette is an easy style to access, a trend consolidated by the US preppiness adopted by Japanese designers then filtered back to its home turf, and by the nostalgic design language of 21st-century Williamsburg seeping into Manhattan and becoming the norm. It's the sort of suit Elgort found on Ryan Finley, who works at auctioneers Phillips de Pury: thin-lapelled, single-breasted, skinny-fit, sleek and precise. 

The industry is responding: last year, J Crew opened a Suit Shop in Tribeca specialising in this sharp neat new grey flannel suit shape. It may be stylish but it's ’uite clearly a fashion. Try wearing a genuine suit from the 1980s today. Or even one from the 1990s. Its volume, length, cut would all seem old. New York has a particular relationship with tailoring, of which the commercial and critical success of J Crew can be taken as symbol.