the POLO SHIRT, reconsidered :

as a child growing up in houston, texas during the eighties,
the advent of the polo shirt was something like the recent coming of obama.

people never thought it would stick,
initially found it a little working class to be a winner,
and doubted the south would adopt it.

and look where we are now.

in a world where discount stores "stack em high and watch em fly",
every joe on ever corner wears one and considers himself "dressed".

au contraire, mon frere.

the polo is the male equivalent of the capri pant.
it tends to dumb down even the chicest of people,
to drive to the lowest common denominator,
and no amount of re-invention or designer collaborations can fully remove the stigma.

trust me on this,
i am not even immune.

i own polos from dior.
ok, one.

i own "re-issued" polos from lacoste.

(important note.  i do NOT own a polo by ralph lauren.  it has become, for me, too much of the "look what i found at the factory outlet, bob" item.  it reeks of the sub-urban.  not the suburban.  the sub-urban.)

have we firmly established that i have a distaste for the polo?

so, help me here.

why is miuccia prada such a bitch?

she puts out a spring line that re-interprets american "classics",
but if seen through some twisted, malcolm gladwellian, post-blink drug haze.

and suddenly,
i am fourteen again, sitting on the quad,
waiting for booker to get out of debate so we can go make out in his car.


it is just hot enough, that i may have to subvert my own distaste.

THAT, lovies, is fashion.

i love a man in a uniform -

who doesn't?

but i've recently been pondering the possibility of a "uniform" for day to day.
not having to go into an office,
where the "jeans and a blazer / pants and a tee" attitude made getting dressed pretty easy
(there is no uniform for creatives in my field, but there was always a desire on my part to dress it up a bit, not treat the position with any disrespect.)
has made my day to day
a bit of a dilemma.

my upstairs neighbor is a writer,
and laments the "sweatpant" issue
which i gradually began to understand.

when the days bleed a bit, it's far too easy for a guy to slide into sweats, a tee, anything that makes it easy.

but i found that made me depressed.

i LOVE clothes.

so,
i have started mandating a dress up moment
every day.

and hence, the uniform idea.

i've spent the last few years limiting the palette i buy to colors that work for me,
that make me feel powerful.
it's a very navy and stone colored world.

now i've narrowed to shapes, pieces, labels even
that fit, marry, and make me feel
powerful, comfortable, adult.

does this constitute a uniform?  and if so, do other guys find themselves
not in a rut,
but in a refined form of presentation?

bravo, david colman. courage is a good thing.

the new york times men's style columnist
took a hearty swing at the bleak fall fashion landscape in a recent article,
pointing out what every guy who loves clothes knows all too well by now:
this recession, this economy, and the resulting buys at stores
have left us all
really cold.

it's blandsville out there,
a sea of conservative silhouettes
(and i'm not talking madmen, here)
and tonal colors.

i think the biggest surprise
was the lack of surprise.

and, interestingly, the retail sector is sucking wind right now,
no one is buying.

mr. colman posits that there is still a little bit of fascinating fashion out there,
and that the men who can afford it
are still reveling in it.

the accompanying examples of forward fashion are really well edited.  

but bravo to the columnist for championing not just the foreward fore-wearers,
but the need for them,
even in hard times.

click here for the STORY

and pics for those of you too lazy to read . . .

take me all the way home, baby.
rick owens fur headpiece,
thom browne jacket,
and ALL.

Straight-acting and appearing -

a little rant here . . .

i studied cultural anthropology in college, and had an amazing professor, mrs. kaske.
she was the professor who had lived with the tribes,
studied the cultures in the fields,
and loved teaching us, her students,
about how our own perceptions were warped by our culture,
and what we could do to filter culture,
and reach our own decisions.

in some ways, her courses taught me more about how to approach life
than all the other courses combined,
because they essentially forced me to question first
"why does it have to be that way?

without getting too in-depth here about gender roles in american culture,
let's say kaske was clear that the only reason men wear the pants
is because they aren't smart enough to wear skirts when it's hot out.

essentially, she believed that while there are biological truths,
there is no screening out the cultural effect.
american culture has had such tight restrictions on what it means to be a "man",
that the tension playing out in male culture in america for the past decade
has been a fascinating one.

from the rise of the "metrosexual" (i know, i hate it as much as you do.  worn out term.)
to the fact that menswear is actually the largest growing category in apparel,
outpacing women's to the point that dolce and gabbana's sales
are 51% menswear,
there is no denying that men are starting to explore fashion in droves.

perhaps they are exploring themselves.

i also see a distinct generational shift going on.
a younger demographic more comfortable with pushing their own limits,
playing with identity,
and not caring if they appear more self-involved than their peers.
and an older demographic
more comfortable with lines of "acceptable" behavior.

i bring this up on a fashion blog because the pursuit of fashion has so often been viewed as the domain of gay men, and is becoming increasingly less so.

whether watching a trend trickle through the gay community and then out to the straight brethren,
a process that you could almost laughingly track in full year cycles in the nineties,
becoming a blurred timeline with the advent of "hipsters" and the reluctance of a younger gay community to stick to their ghettoes,
men are increasingly, and more rapidly than in the past,
exploring their appearance, their roles, their presentation,
through fashion.

though true fashion is often for the experimental,
and therefore often more relevant in subcultures,
as the gay world becomes more mainstream
("gaybies" anyone?)
and the straight world becomes more liberated
(the culture of the body for the straight male is now more obsessive than in the gay world . . .)
there is a blur between body culture/fashion/masculinity/self-expression/sexuality . . .
it's inspiring.

so let's start small,
and let's try two simple things:

stop calling things "too gay"
and stop aiming to be "straight acting and appearing"

the two phrases are used by opposite sides of the aisle, so to speak,
and ironically,
push and pull to the same ideal.

one that is sorely outdated.

there must be a more modern way,
to be male.

(ok, i'm done.  back to the fashion . . . )