There’s no such thing as a designer of menswear—it’s only history. The suit around the world is based on the English suit, which began in about 1670.– Hardy Amies
No one cares WHO Sam Norris III is wearing, but more how he looks wearing it … in the water
The digital team at Vogue has been doing its damnedest to remind me that men’s fashion weeks are still going on. Here I am wanting to sort through pre-fall collections in preparation for the fall women’s ready-to-wear season, which begins February 11 in New York, and my email inbox is full of pictures of men in suits or jeans or suits with jeans trying to grab my attention. Sorry folks, it’s not working.
I don’t mean to disparage the men’s fashion industry. The sector has seen tremendous growth over the past three years and even men’s fragrances crossed the billion-dollar sales mark last year. Neither can one say that men don’t care about what they wear. Men can be every bit as meticulous about their clothing as are women. I know several who are absolutely, disturbingly, OCD about their wardrobe.
However, men’s fashion still is a long way from having the overwhelming impact of women’s ready-to-wear. Not only do men’s lines not have anywhere near the same sales numbers, they don’t hold men’s interest, and men are not the obsessive fans of specific designers in the same way as women. I’m even going to go out on a limb here and say that 98% of men not only don’t care who made the shirt they’re wearing right now, but they don’t have a clue. Interestingly enough, they’re more likely to know who made their pants (I’m wearing black Levis today) and their shoes than any other garments.
Why are men, generally speaking, not fashion horses like their female counterparts? Why doesn’t men’s fashion hold our interest? There are some distinct reasons and you should know them.
- Men are, traditionally, more practical in their wardrobe choices. Playing to traditional gender-oriented stereotypes, men still choose a significant portion of their wardrobe based upon what is appropriate for their occupation. These are the men for whom the term “blue collar” was coined. They need clothes that are sturdy, can stand up to rough conditions, daily washings, and severe stress on the fabric. Pre-torn jeans are of no interest to the man working outdoors in sub-freezing weather. They’d rather drop good money on a solid pair of coveralls that will last them several years than a suit with shiny shoes.
- Men don’t desire wide variety in their wardrobe. Have you met me? I wear black. That’s it. I have dress ensembles and casual ensembles, but everything in my closet is designed so that I don’t have to think too hard about what to wear each morning. I recently added a shawl collared cardigan to the collection and chose the design for one specific reason: it goes with everything. Pierre Cardin famously said: “I can go all over the world with just three outfits: a blue blazer and gray flannel pants, a gray flannel suit, and black tie.”
- More men are color blind. No, this isn’t a joke. Men really are more likely to be at least partially color blind than women, and the trait is genetic, passed on from father to son. As a result, men are not as likely to respond to colorful designs and patterns with the same enthusiasm as women. In the US, ten percent of men are totally colorblind, versus only 0.4 percent of women. Ethnicity also plays into this problem, with Caucasian men being far more likely to be color blind than Asian (five percent) or African (four percent) men. Eskimo men have the lowest rate, 0.01 percent, but they don’t tend to spend much on high fashion.
- Men don’t like to shop for clothes. We’ll spend all day looking at tools, cars, computers, or video games, but pull a man into a department store to look at clothes and expect a groan, at least internally. Even when we know we need new clothes, we would rather walk in, grab the first thing we see that fits, and leave. This plays into another interesting statistic that men are more likely to buy their clothes online. Depending upon which study one considers, men’s online wardrobe shopping outpaces women’s by 20-30 percent! And what do we buy most? Replacements for the things we already have.
- Men pay less attention to what’s “in style.” Remember the leisure suits and wide ties of the 70s? As horrible as that style was, it lasted well over half a decade because men, as a group, care less about current fashions. While women anxiously await the new season’s clothes hitting the stores, and are ultimately responsible for the fast-fashion trend that’s driving designers crazy, men are more content continuing to wear the same thing from season to season. Unless a garment is stained or torn or no longer fits, we’re still likely to wear it.
Please let me emphasize, again, that these are generalizations. We all know people who are exceptions and those people are absolutely wonderful. However, for fashion to be viable it has to appeal to masses, not individuals, and men’s fashion has yet to achieve that desirable goal. So, dear friends at Vogue, please stop filling my inbox with photos of today’s DSquared² runway. I’ll catch up with the brilliant Caten brothers in a month when they’re showing women’s wear.
Until then, I think I have some napping to do.
When The Fairy Tale Ends
Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.—Alexandre Dumas
Not every day is a good one, nor should we ever expect them to be.
One of my dear friends, Jane, whose birthday I missed yesterday and who writes a most wonderful blog, frequently reminds her students that the versions of fairy tales they see presented by Disney and the like are not true. When Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Little Mermaid, he justifiably kills his title character at the end; that’s right, the little mermaid dies. In the original telling of Cinderella, the evil stepsisters have their eyes plucked out. The tales penned by the brothers Grimm were bloody, vicious and violent. Why? Because such stories were meant to be cautionary tales, warnings against dangerous, self-centered, and inappropriate behavior. Life is not fair, the stories warn, and happily ever after is a myth.
This week has been a painful reminder of just how unhappy life can be. People we have admired, who have entertained us, who have sacrificed for us, who saved our lives, have passed on. Not just one or two people, as we are rather accustomed to hearing, but several people of some noteworthiness, have left us. Here’s a partial list, in case you weren’t paying attention:
All those people, gone in the span of seven days. There were more, of course. Many died whose names are not so familiar to us. On Friday, a terrorist attack on a Burkina Faso hotel left at least 28 dead, including an American missionary. All around the world, in every hospital in every city, families gathered as loved ones, some old and suffering, some never really having a chance at life, moved on.
So much for a fairy tale with happy endings. This week seems to have gone out of its way to show us that there is no “happily ever after.” Even the lives that seem the most wonderful and glamorous, those who appear to have everything in the world going their way, still die.
What, then, shall we do when the fairy tale is over? When we have run out of tears to cry and are weary from mourning, how do we face this incredibly cruel world? Any good reader should know the answer to that question. When one fairy tale ends, you start another. Tragedy is the platform upon which the foundation of comedy arises. The ending of one story, or one set of stories, prepares us for the beginning of the next.
Yes, it is true that even the next story likely ends with its main character’s demise, but every story is worth the telling. There are lessons to be learned even in the most heart-breaking situations. We do not stop here. We keep going.
I have been distantly following the continuing saga of Cory and Joey Feek, as have millions of others. I’m not going to sit here anre pretend that I was ever a fan. I’m not big into contemporary country music, and until their lives took a tragic turn I’d not even heard of them. Now, it appears that Joey’s story is nearing its end. When it does, headlines will focus on the love of a mother for her daughter, and a husband for his wife, and many will share in their grief. What’s important is that we realize that there is a story that goes onward. Their daughter, Indiana, is just beginning her story, even as her mother’s is ending.
While it is easy to become emeshed in the stories of others, however, we must remember that we are the ones writing our own stories. While our tales may be entertwined with those of others, we are ultimately the authors of our own fates. Even in circumstances where we might not have control of when or how our story ends, we still decide through the way we live and the decisions we make whether our fairy tale is tragic or happy.
2016 seems to be getting off to a very rough start, but perhaps this is this universe telling us that we need to focus more on the future, not the past; that we should focus less on the lives lost and more on those still living. Not that we don’t remember those who have died, but we realize that their passing is but the end of a chapter, not the whole book. The fairy tale is not over. There is so much more to be written and it is up to you to do the writing.
Share this:
Like this: