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| Illustration by Me, Desmond Kinlaw |
Look inspired by:
Rayban Wayfarer Sunglasses
Givenchy Leather Quilted Kilt
It’s funny that in the year 2014 with its infinite amount of
theories, ideas, and concepts, it’s still encouraged to have hard, black-and-white
opinions on things. As if there’s no room for growth and adjustment. Allow me
to issue you a challenge: for the next 6 minutes (or however long it takes you
to read this) find it in your hearts to float objectively in the middle with
me.
I’ll start by
listing off some of the major sub-genres that menswear has split into in the
last few years: hipster, preppy, minimalist, normcore, lumberjack, hypebeast,
peacock—ok, I’m stumped. I mentioned all that to say that the height of men’s
style is no longer the guy in the well cut, three-piece suit. It is not the
super chill guy in Japanese selvedge denims, bespoke oxford shirt and English
made wingtips, either. The height of men’s style is looking like the best
version of you. This may sound contradictory coming from a style blogger who
spends his time giving you tips on trends and essentially ‘telling you’ what
you should be wearing. But I only consider myself a resource who simply does a
little legwork and presents the findings. I would hope that my readers know to cherry-pick
what’s for them, and respect what isn’t. But therein lies the problem. I don’t
think there’s enough respect. There’s not enough respect to recognize that
something isn’t for you, and just leave it as that. I’m of the mindset that
every creation is beautiful in its own way. It just depends on your
perspective. Somewhere along the line, we were told what is and isn’t
beautiful. What is and isn’t acceptable. And my favorite, what is and isn’t
menswear.
#Menswear came about as a revolt to the notion that men
didn’t give a rip about fashion and the only ones that did also happened to
enjoy the romantic company of other men. In the early 2000’s, southern rap had
taken over the nation. Insert baggy clothing, flashy jewelry, and duffel bags
from French and Italian fashion houses nearly older than Abe Lincoln. What
seemed like all of a sudden, the pendulum swung all the way to the other side.
Men were now able to wear suits for no special occasion at all without a second
look. Now there’s bow ties, tight trousers, and skinny jeans. Justin Timberlake
and Jay-Z do a song titled “Suit and Tie” where Jay-Z announces “It’s time to
wear tuxedos for no reason.” Everyone jumped on this #menswear bandwagon- me
included. But everything was new to me and I didn’t understand. Now, the
pendulum is slowly starting to settle in the middle. Men’s style icons are
beginning to appear less buttoned up and more relaxed. For Christ’s sake,
sweatpants are a legit thing now. Sweatpants?! It is my hope that soon the menswear
pendulum will fade away into obscurity altogether. It will sway to neither the
right nor the left. It simply won’t exist.
I consider fashion to be an art. An expression of a mood,
feel or idea. No one should be allowed to criticize that. Just appreciate it
for what it is, and move on with your life. There is no longer such thing as
being outside the box because the box went away with the pendulum. I understand
that for product marketing purposes there must be a women’s category and a men’s
category. But what if a man wants to wear clothing that is marketed to women?
(Side note: there is a fine line between men wearing women’s clothing and a man
“trying” to look like a woman. I’m only referring to the former as the latter
is another topic all together.) But I pose the question: what’s the difference
between a woman wearing trousers (which was deemed downright offensive from about
4000BC up until around the 1920’s) and a man wearing a skirt? Ask those living
inside the imaginary box and you will hear that that man is queer. But I say
that maybe the guy really liked the skirt, he has the figure and styling
know-how to pull it off, good for him. If you look back through fashion history
(as I’m fresh off that course in my college studies) you will notice that in
more than a few periods men of power wore skirts, kilts and tunics. They wore
leggings and hose. And when it was time for battle they would slit your throat
without a moment’s notice, so why is it now an assumption of femininity? What
changed? Honestly, who cares? Right now, with all our many differences, why is
it so hard to just live and let live? Or better yet, wear and let wear. That’s
the message in all of this. We’ve come too far as a species to be so closed
minded about things. What gives you the right to toss your negative unsolicited
opinion in someone’s direction? Life is too short to get caught up on things
that don’t affect you. WEAR AND LET WEAR!
Edited by Felicity Rhode
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