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I found this article interesting not only for its subject matter but for how it relates to StyleZeitgeist.
We've all heard the laments for the good old days and fashion stagnating and members leaving and whatnot.
But maybe part of the problem is that the new generation by and large is a mere consumer of information, and a consumer of images first and foremost. Maybe that's why there is less discussion and more of just looking at pictures. Someone told me the other day that the new generation doesn't know how to communicate anymore, doesn't know how to talk, doesn't have the comment of language, the communication done by photos and emojis. I hope it's not so.
Men's fashion magazines are crumbling because you never read them
By Jian DeLeon
What is going on in men’s lifestyle media?
One need only look at the recent shuttering of Details, a string of layoffs at GQ (disclosure: I used to work there) and the recent launch of Sweet, a Snapchat-only lifestyle publication from Hearst, to get a sense of the current state of affairs.
Like the struggles Gap, J.Crew and Urban Outfitters are experiencing in the retail sector, menswear-focused sites find themselves caught in the middle between easily digestible platforms with more quantifiable ROIs for sponsors (sup, Instagram?) and an old media guard that is finally becoming hip to a long-underserved market.
The New York Times now has a monthly section dedicated to men’s style; the Wall Street Journal is covering niche men’s trends like the current obsession with ‘90s skate style. New media platforms like Mashable, Business of Fashion and Quartz are seeing the advantages of covering men's style as well, with recent stories ranging from why square-toed shoes should be a federal offense to Helmut Lang’s lasting influence on men’s fashion.
But with so many outlets now covering menswear, has it become a saturated market? The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman thinks so, even positing whether menswear has reached its peak.
Brian Trunzo, cofounder of SoHo men’s shop Carson Street, agrees. For one, he says the market’s become inundated. “We feel the need to cover all of it, when in my mind, there’s only so much worth covering," he tells Mashable.
Just three years ago the idea of straight men talking about clothes on the Internet was almost unthinkable. It was novel enough that The New York Times featured five men’s style bloggers as examples of a “new breed.”
The “#menswear” subculture emerged around this time and took its name from the Tumblr hashtag, once curated by guys like Lawrence Schlossman, whose How to Talk to Girls at Parties Tumblr eclipsed the popularity of his service-oriented menswear blog, Sartorially Inclined. Having a select group of guys dictate what would populate on the hashtag resulted in the formation of a unique groupthink.
#Menswear defined itself by its convergence of classic tailored clothing, a healthy love of rap music, and a unique lingua franca in which double monk strap shoes would often be referenced in the same sentence as a Drake lyric about feeling overdosed on confidence. Industry figures like Nick Wooster, a retail veteran with stints at Neiman Marcus, JC Penney and GILT; Eugene Tong, stylist and former style director at Details; and Josh Peskowitz, former fashion director at Bloomingdale’s, became street style celebrities to a very specific set of dudes who couldn’t stop aggregating their photos — partly from outfit-envy, and partly because they just looked damn cool.
[CONTINUE ON MASHABLE]
We've all heard the laments for the good old days and fashion stagnating and members leaving and whatnot.
But maybe part of the problem is that the new generation by and large is a mere consumer of information, and a consumer of images first and foremost. Maybe that's why there is less discussion and more of just looking at pictures. Someone told me the other day that the new generation doesn't know how to communicate anymore, doesn't know how to talk, doesn't have the comment of language, the communication done by photos and emojis. I hope it's not so.
Men's fashion magazines are crumbling because you never read them
By Jian DeLeon
What is going on in men’s lifestyle media?
One need only look at the recent shuttering of Details, a string of layoffs at GQ (disclosure: I used to work there) and the recent launch of Sweet, a Snapchat-only lifestyle publication from Hearst, to get a sense of the current state of affairs.
Like the struggles Gap, J.Crew and Urban Outfitters are experiencing in the retail sector, menswear-focused sites find themselves caught in the middle between easily digestible platforms with more quantifiable ROIs for sponsors (sup, Instagram?) and an old media guard that is finally becoming hip to a long-underserved market.
The New York Times now has a monthly section dedicated to men’s style; the Wall Street Journal is covering niche men’s trends like the current obsession with ‘90s skate style. New media platforms like Mashable, Business of Fashion and Quartz are seeing the advantages of covering men's style as well, with recent stories ranging from why square-toed shoes should be a federal offense to Helmut Lang’s lasting influence on men’s fashion.
But with so many outlets now covering menswear, has it become a saturated market? The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman thinks so, even positing whether menswear has reached its peak.
Brian Trunzo, cofounder of SoHo men’s shop Carson Street, agrees. For one, he says the market’s become inundated. “We feel the need to cover all of it, when in my mind, there’s only so much worth covering," he tells Mashable.
Just three years ago the idea of straight men talking about clothes on the Internet was almost unthinkable. It was novel enough that The New York Times featured five men’s style bloggers as examples of a “new breed.”
The “#menswear” subculture emerged around this time and took its name from the Tumblr hashtag, once curated by guys like Lawrence Schlossman, whose How to Talk to Girls at Parties Tumblr eclipsed the popularity of his service-oriented menswear blog, Sartorially Inclined. Having a select group of guys dictate what would populate on the hashtag resulted in the formation of a unique groupthink.
#Menswear defined itself by its convergence of classic tailored clothing, a healthy love of rap music, and a unique lingua franca in which double monk strap shoes would often be referenced in the same sentence as a Drake lyric about feeling overdosed on confidence. Industry figures like Nick Wooster, a retail veteran with stints at Neiman Marcus, JC Penney and GILT; Eugene Tong, stylist and former style director at Details; and Josh Peskowitz, former fashion director at Bloomingdale’s, became street style celebrities to a very specific set of dudes who couldn’t stop aggregating their photos — partly from outfit-envy, and partly because they just looked damn cool.
[CONTINUE ON MASHABLE]
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