Monday, August 11, 2008

The Forbidden B's of Menswear


A male friend of mine came back from an extended trip to LA recently and told me about the bad luck he had shopping there. It was a little hard to believe at first...nothing to buy in LA? But then he went on to explain how everything in the stores were all bedazzled, bejeweled & bestudded. Everything from button down shirts to jeans were either encrusted with huge skulls and cross bones on the sleeves, or embellished with rhinestones on the back pockets. To top it all off, (literally), boys were walking around sporting fedora hats.

I had to laugh at first, but then when I started to really think about it, I couldn't help but to give an involuntary shudder. Seriously?

Now men's fashion is an arena I profess no talent or interest in, except when I perform the perfunctory role of dutiful spouse and shop for my husband, who happens to have no interest whatsoever in fashion. And of course, living in New York, where just about everyone dresses in black, men's fashion, for me, has been defined by the vest and dark rinse jeans, skinny ones for the hipsters.

Bejeweled, bestudded and behatted are where I draw the line. Lou Doillon, Kate Moss, even Diane Kruger can pull off a cute fedora any time. But if your chromosomes read like a chronological sequence in the alphabet, fedoras should be off limits to you. Unless of course you happen to be Johnny Depp, the only man on the face of the earth who's cool enough to pull off just about any look.

3 comments:

Blogger said...

A girl friend of mine (way back when) thought men with earrings were the coolest but she insisted not on every man.

I pointed out, "Yes, good looking men look good with an earring."

She pretty much had to agree this was the criteria.

Unknown said...

lol I have been wearing a fedora since I saw jourdan on the vogue italia cover...not that I know for sure if that was a fedora.

Anonymous said...

I think its limiting for men to just concentrate on black and white. You end up looking like everyone else.