Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

It's Raining Menswear - The New Yorker (SZ gets a shout out)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    It's Raining Menswear - The New Yorker (SZ gets a shout out)

    Interesting article, though I disagree with some points and we can certainly restart the authenticity debate now . But it's nice that StyleZeitgeist's influence on menswear is finally acknowledged in a mainstream media source.

    Cultural Comment
    CULTURAL COMMENT

    NOVEMBER 12, 2015
    It’s Raining Menswear
    BY JOSHUA ROTHMAN

    "Earlier this fall, Antonio Banderas, a.k.a. Zorro, began taking classes in menswear design at Central Saint Martins, the renowned London fashion school. In an interview with the school’s student newspaper, Banderas explained that he wanted to start his own menswear line; his particular ambition was to bring back the cape. Capes for men, he said, have “incredible possibilities”:

    There are all these varieties of capes. For example, in the time of Charles the Third in Spain, capes were an instrument to kill—and to cover yourself. People used to do this [makes Zorro move] and nobody would know who you were. So they used to cut the capes and do these short capes, because it was forbidden by the law to wear long capes at night.… In Spain there are still places where there are clubs of people who love to wear capes. The shape has almost the same shape as the capote for bullfighting, in beautiful pink silk, with yellow or blue in the back.

    “For me, it’s actually easier than a coat,” he concluded. “You walk into a place and you just BOOM! throw it off.”

    How plausible is it that, a few years from now, men on the streets of New York will be wearing capes designed by Antonio Banderas? The answer is “very”; it’s easy to name the combination of factors—heritage marketing, “Game of Thrones,” Kanye—that could make it happen. It takes only a little imagination to propose that, during the Great Cape Revival of 2019, capotes will be worn with sneakers and tights as a way of giving the fading “athleisure” trend (hoodies, T-shirts, sweatpants) a little seventeenth-century swagger. This won’t seem strange; instead, it will be an evolutionary development from the Great Poncho Revival of 2016.

    These days, although ordinary men still dress in ordinary ways, “menswear”—the Internet-centric, metropolitan, yuppie style—keeps getting riskier. Hardcore menswear enthusiasts have found themselves dressing in costume-like clothes; although they look great in their tweedy sport coats and pocket squares, asymmetrical hoodies and slim-cut jogging pants, and military jackets layered over other, lighter military jackets, they also look like they’re in town for a menswear-themed Comic-Con. Faced with these examples, I’ve found myself taking stock of the movement that has, for the past decade, more or less covertly reshaped the way men dress. Have we reached peak menswear?

    If one had to pick the date on or about which men’s clothing changed, October, 2010, could be a sensible choice. That’s when The Hairpin published an article, by Mary H. K. Choi, called “All Dudes Learned How to Dress and It Sucks.” “There must have been some clandestine colloquium workshop situation where all the dudes in all the land shucked to skivvies and got sized for their perfect pair of Uniqlo jeans and nobody said ‘no homo,’ not even one time,” Choi wrote. The upside of this change was that, all of a sudden, men on the subway looked “SO GODDAMN GOOD”; the downside was that it was now impossible to guess anything about a man from his clothes. “I have ZERO idea what dude is who right now,” Choi concluded.

    There wasn’t, unfortunately, a clandestine colloquium, but there was “menswear,” a conversation that began online, in the early aughts, largely on Internet forums devoted to men’s fashion. Each forum catered to a slightly different kind of man. On Ask Andy About Clothes, old prepsters—“trads”—talked about sack suits; on Superfuture, kids who wanted to look like Tetsuo, from “Akira,” compared the fades on their Japanese denim. Users on Styleforum obsessed over heritage and craft, discussing labels like Incotex, Brioni, Filson, and Schott, while StyleZeitgeist was more avant-garde, with an emphasis on Rick Owens.

    CONTINUE


    Taking stock of the Internet-centric movement that has, for the past decade, more or less covertly reshaped the way men dress.
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • Sombre
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 1291

    #2
    Really interesting article. Thanks for posting this, Faust. Ultimately it sounds like the author thinks everyone who engages with any part of internet fashion is "dressed by the internet". By saying the different flavors of men's fashion all feel like costumes, he's essentially saying that authenticity doesn't exist. I disagree. I think he might feel inauthentic in any of those "uniforms" head to toe, but like it's been said here before, it's not just putting on the latest greatest in the "goth ninja" world, but rather a wider approach to design in general. If you like the kind of lifestyle characterized by weekends in Cape Cod on a friend's boat, then the grotesque aesthetic of CCP will seem out of place ("grotesque" is meant as a compliment here). But if you take the aesthetic here with the topics people talk about in the Music, Furniture, Book, and Film threads it's all very congruous to me.

    Nevertheless it's great to see someone recognizing the internet as a source of inspiration and authority on men's fashion. It marks an important shift from the ad-money driven days when GQ told everyone what they wanted and had to have in their closet.
    An artist is not paid for his labor, but for his vision. - James Whistler

    Originally posted by BBSCCP
    I order 1 in every size, please, for every occasion

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      #3
      I was just coming here to comment on lack of response to this article - I thought we had a community here whose members would be proud to be acknowledged, but whatever - go back to kopping geobaskets. So, thank you Sombre for this thoughtful response.

      I also disagree, obviously, with the author, but he could be forgiven, because through the very influence of SZ and other fora, it has become merely stylistic play for a lot of people. Yet, the author claims to know that at the outset the debates here were passionate, surely a sign of authenticity, and that, as you point out, the aesthetic is genuine for many members here, that there is something behind it, an outlook on life.

      Anyway, it's nice to be acknowledged in a major news source, especially a high quality one like the New Yorker.
      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      • timm3h
        Senior Member
        • Mar 2011
        • 115

        #4
        I actually really enjoyed this article, more than I thought I would. I feel it's rare that an outsider is capable of discussing our niche hobby accurately, and more importantly, without bemusement or condescension. Barring some issues as Faust mentioned, but to me those are quite minor.

        Specifically, I'm impressed that the author capably presented so many different approaches to fashion in a balanced manner. I'd say he did a good job with his due diligence.
        Clothing deconstruction & review

        Comment

        • SafetyKat
          Senior Member
          • Aug 2014
          • 169

          #5
          Very well written article. I'm surprised how in-depth the article goes, especially the bit comparing "The Great Renunciation" to the perceived modern male "uniform" we see today. Although I imagine for most older American men it might be more of an indifferent "Ill wear whatever's on clearance, or what the wife gets me" kind of thing, rather than an active response to the social atmosphere.

          Also agree with you Timm3h; That whole section caught my attention because it really addresses the increasing fragmentation of mens fashion, and all of its deeper implications in a genuinely thoughtful tone. It really hits home the idea that clothes, fashion can have greater significance than mere superficiality. He also writes from a few different perspectives, I can appreciate that.


          Even the “goth ninja” look has achieved some currency, thanks to Kanye, who has made it his own.
          ... Interesting way to put it...

          Comment

          • gawkrodger
            Senior Member
            • Jun 2013
            • 334

            #6
            On a (vaguely) related note there's a lad currently at a Canadian university (McGill? UniBC?) writing a sociology PhD thesis on mens fashion fora which I was interviewed for about a year back

            Comment

            • SafetyKat
              Senior Member
              • Aug 2014
              • 169

              #7
              If one is writing a phd thesis, does it have to be published in some sort of way? I would love to read that whenever he decides that hes finished.

              Comment

              • byhand
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2011
                • 273

                #8
                Banderas wanting to make the cape popular for men is cute. When we rode on horses and in carriages in colder climates the cape made a lot of sense. Now, it only makes sense to the style-conscious guy who wants to get noticed, and Dior already gives us a cape pretty much every year. What's more is that those capes are always on sale by the time snow sticks to the ground, so Banderas has his work cut out for him if he plans to focus his business on capes. I wish him luck. I'd love for my plumber to arrive at my door wearing a cape.
                [/IMG]

                Comment

                • SuE
                  Senior Member
                  • Jan 2013
                  • 173

                  #9
                  Originally posted by byhand View Post
                  When we rode on horses and in carriages in colder climates the cape made a lot of sense. Now, it only makes sense to the style-conscious guy who wants to get noticed...
                  'capes' have a heritage in other cultures too e.g. kimonos, ponchos
                  One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art ― Oscar Wilde

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X
                  😀
                  🥰
                  🤢
                  😎
                  😡
                  👍
                  👎