Everybody underdresses for this week exactly once. Then they learn.

Pebble can sit at 55 degrees in fog you can practically taste while Laguna Seca is baking in the high 80s ten miles inland. Same afternoon, same person, if they drive between the two. So the real Car Week uniform isn’t a look, it’s a strategy. Layers you can peel off by noon and pull back on the second the marine layer rolls back in off the water. You can spot the first-timers by 9am, standing there freezing in a single shirt, doing the math on why the coast lied to them. Everybody who’s done this a few times is carrying a jacket they’re not wearing yet.

That’s the practical part. The part I actually pay attention to is how cars, kicks, and culture all end up in the same frame here, because that overlap is the entire reason I do what I do.

You get the vintage racing crowd in the team jackets that have actually been somewhere, faded the right way, with driving shoes that have felt a real pedal instead of a showroom floor. You get the hypercar owners who somehow always land the fit, head to toe, like they employ someone for it, and maybe they do. And then you get the enthusiasts on the Carmel side streets in worn-in sneakers and a hoodie, standing next to a car worth more than a house, quietly dressed better than half the paddock without trying.

That last group is the one I shoot the most. Because the best-dressed person at Car Week is almost never the one who’s dressed up. It’s the one who looks like they wandered over from their own garage, because they basically did. The watch is real and quiet. The jacket has a story. The shoes are good but beat, because good things are supposed to get used. None of it is shouting.

That’s the thread that ties the whole Pursuit thing together. Cars, kicks, culture, and the same instinct running under all three. The person who knows why a specific sneaker matters is usually the same person who knows why a specific car matters, and they carry themselves the same way about both. Understated. A little worn in. Right for the person wearing it and not for the camera.

I’ll be shooting it on the ground all week. Real people, real fits, no studio, no stylist, no staging. Just what people actually wear when they’ve been standing in the fog since 7am and expect to be standing in it until dark.

So dress in layers. Wear the shoes you don’t mind standing in for nine hours straight, because you will. And don’t dress for the photo. Dress for the day. The good shots come from people who did.