How men's fashion gets rid of the cult of masculinity
Modern history knows not so many different images of "generally accepted fashionable men." Young Johnny Depp in his shirts unbuttoned. David Beckham and Daniel Craig in their tight-fitting jackets. It is possible to enumerate further, but the point is that mass culture has been broadcasting for a very long time: a well-dressed man is a man in a jacket and tie, less often without him. In rare cases - in jeans and a white T-shirt, like Marlon Brando or Brad Pitt in his youth. That is someone very manly, with stressed muscles, courageously elegant or courageously rebellious clothes. This hypertrophically masculine image was for men the standard of style, implicated not so much on the clothing itself, but on the symbolism of gender roles. And although these roles have already changed a hundred times, the exemplary men's wardrobe was not in a hurry to change.
The hypertrophically masculine image was for men the standard of style, implicated not so much on the clothing itself, but on the symbolism of gender roles
Look at any red carpet of the last twenty years - a visual marker of popular culture: behind Bjork in her dress-queen's backs, Princess Diana in a nightie, Whoopi Goldberg in a man's suit sway the rows and rows of men in black tuxedos. The girls had a certain freedom of choice and a variety of role models in terms of appearance, and now there are even more - even the unusual Amy Schumer, even the goddess from goddesses Tilda Swinton, even the same Kristen Stewart in couture dresses under sneakers. Meanwhile, men's clothing continued awkwardly to trample somewhere in the zone of a classic suit - adjusted to the millimeter and to the pain in the teeth of a boring one.
And then something began to happen that could not happen. Yes, fashion for men reacted to gender permutations with a delay, but nevertheless reacted, and the erosion of patriarchal role models gained a very real embodiment in the form of trousers, shirts and other things. Attempts to understand the different facets of male sexuality through clothing have already been: remember at least tight flared pants and tight knit sweaters of the seventies. But that was only a sign of the times - truly fundamental changes began to occur only in the last few years. In many ways, thank you for the cost of fem movements: they continue to release women from beautiful, but inconvenient clothes, make the wardrobe functional, and were the first to advocate the rejection of any gender symbolism. This meant that it was not at all necessary for men to remain loyal to a conservative wardrobe, at the visual level proving their masculinity. Here, as with Herve Leger dresses: no one forbids them to wear, but far from everyone considers them a model of "sexuality". With costumes, the story is about the same. Of course, the process of desacralization of machismo at all levels is not as obvious and not as loud as the process of women's emancipation, but also achieves surprising results. In particular, it turns men's clothing into a means of self-expression, which it has already become in women.
We have long observed a systematic increase in the degree of HYIP around the fashion industry in general. The shows have become large-scale, the models have got millions of followers, collections are releasing more and more. It is noteworthy that all this concerned only women's fashion. Men's weeks were quietly held twice a year, discussed in publications like GQ and Vogue Homme and forgotten, remaining only in the memory of a couple of professionals and the actual male buyers, who followed similar events and understood the difference between almost identical double-breasted jackets. But if you constantly increase your speed, one day you will inevitably crash into a pole - this is what happened with the female fashion. Nothing critical or particularly critical has happened, just in recent years, its transformations have ceased to be perceived as something out of the ordinary (and there is nothing wrong with that). But the transformation of the male - yes.
In many ways, this was facilitated by the street style phenomenon. Ten years ago, photos of perfectly dressed men in bright costumes from sartories began to appear on the Web, and suddenly the public liked them no less than the pictures of Uliana Sergeenko in couture. These were photos from Pitti Uomo - the largest exhibition of men's clothing, which collects around itself the most interesting stamps twice a year. And these guys in suits seriously influenced what we have in fashion for men today. From their street-style shots, the world has learned that boots can be worn on bare feet with blue / red / yellow pants that open the ankle. That forgotten parts like neckerchiefs and silk gloves are still beautiful. Specifically or not, the Pitti Uomo audience has expanded its ideas about what men can wear - true, yet courageous and in fixed suits. Not only big brands, but also mass-market brands began to copy their clothes. And if, before talking around Pitti, few would have decided on a conditional pink suit, after their appearance, the stereotypical idea of the correct men's clothing began to gradually loosen and disappear.
That's just the theme of the classic suit (even the most unusual and overloaded with details) - very exhaustive. And most importantly, this type of clothing still exists, as it were, in isolation from reality, where people wear comfortable functional things and do not want to stick out conventional masculinity. And no one believed street-style photos anymore - on the same Pitti Uomo "peacocks" began to appear, which were dressed specifically for photographers and had nothing to do with a lively and mobile modern fashion.
In the end, everything came together one to one: "mods" drew attention to the men's side at all, and the designers responded to the request of the consumer, who no longer wanted his wardrobe to look like the closet of the Inspector of the Gadget. It turned out so cool that even girls began to dress in the men's departments, which now offer beautiful and technological clothes that are very relevant in our age of gender ambivalence.
In the men's wardrobe now there is so much, everything is so unusual and unusual that you want to buy it regardless of gender
So what exactly happens in conservative men's cabinets? To begin with, they are no longer conservative. Alexander Fury, a trendy columnist for Vogue.com, correctly remarked: recent male fashion weeks have made it easy to explain that men can finally look like anything. Raf Simons invented an emphasized homoerotic collection, Prada models wear bright raincoats with sandals, Gosha Rubchinsky continues to develop the theme of subcultures and sports retro costumes, Hermès has colored tennis kits, and Thom Browne could observe experiments that several years ago seemed unthinkable.
Gucci, of course, led by Alessandro Michele, became the biggest breakthrough in the demolition of templates; This type is designed for self-expression. At the same time, there appeared a mass of young excellent brands, whose creators, it seems, never considered masculine men to be role models. Take at least the British brand Craig Green, even Tigran Avetisyan and his gender clothes, though the vigorous Off-White with things that do not require some kind of gender and men look just as cool as girls. In the context of this diversity, heroes like Ben Cobb are true children of their time. In the past weeks of men's fashion, Ben, an adult mustache editor with a Gypsy Baron's haircut, appeared in a thin silk shirt, through which her nipples shone through, and he looked really cool.
It's time to admit: in the men's wardrobe there is now so much, everything is so unusual and unusual that you want to buy it, regardless of gender. And people are ready to pay for clothes: according to statistics, the generation of millennials - the target audience of all today's brands - spends significantly more on clothes than the older generation (woman - by 36%, men - twice). Everyone likes to dress up, and not according to the principle of "sheath dress for girls, tuxedos for boys," but in accordance with their own ideas of beauty. Of course, you cannot demand instant changes. A couple of weeks ago, the Business of Fashion correspondent talked to Pitti Uomo with adherents of the style “for real men,” who still do not want to hear about different shades of gender and sternly answer: “Guys want to look like guys.” But in such materials a conflict is already indicated, there is already a dialogue, which means that different options have appeared.
It is believed that in the fashion of the XXI century there is nothing new, but it is not. The cardinal change that occurred in the men's clothing departments and in our heads is partly an achievement in the fashion industry too. American (female!) Vogue.com talks about trends in modern men's street styles, Business of Fashion talks about Raf Simons and Gosha Rubchinsky as subcultural leaders and writes analytics about the plus-size clothing for men, and Pitti Uomo has turned from an industrial event in the most fashionable area on which everyone wants to visit. In today's world, Jared Leto shows by his example how to wear a Tuxedo tuxedo with velvet loafers - and look appropriate, and in all Zara stores there are men's shirt suits with a belt that can be tied with a bow. Right now we are seeing a very humane and timely turn of fashion. And this moment, when a woman is not obliged to cosplay the princess, and the man is a superman, we waited, you see, for a very long time.
Photo: Warner Bros. (A Street Car Named Desire, 1947), Pitti Uomo, No. 21, Gucci, Sandro