Wardrobe Malfunction
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Wardrobe Malfunction
Why marketing fashion to men will never work.
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 10:35am
You can practically taste the delusion as you thumb through certain fashion spreads showcasing fall's "must-have" items for men. According to the style oracles, these range from priest-inspired clothing and dust rufflelike skirtlets (on offer at Prada) to high-water pants, see-through plastic rain capes, and pointy elf hats resembling felt condoms (courtesy of Thom Browne).
"These things are not for Everyman," instructs New York Times style writer David Colman, describing a spread that includes a $700 pair of "kilt pants" and sacrament-inspired Prada dickie. "But that is no small part of their appeal."
Appeal-to whom? For the average man, such apparel is the stuff of nightmares, not Christmas lists. If this were the world of women's fashion-where even the most preposterous trends have ripple effects and hordes of disciples-there might be a prayer of translatability and mass appeal. But this is American menswear, where trends skulk under the porch to die.
To be fair, the items listed above are from conceptual collections and were never intended for mass consumption. But even the Everyman-oriented side of the menswear industry has long suffered from an inability to capture the hearts and minds of the American man, despite decades of desperate effort from designers, editors, and retailers.
Of course, the market is attractive; there are 140 million men in America, and they do get passionate about some things. "There is a vast opportunity that is not being properly addressed," says Mark-Evan Blackman, chairman of the menswear design department at Fashion Institute of Technology. "If you were to ask any guy about sports, he has a team, knows the stats, who's getting paid what. Manufacturers have never been able to plug into his passions and transmute that into a fashion equivalent."
Yet marketers have tried and tried to create a more seasonally wired, trend-responsive male consumer. Failed efforts range from über-skinny jeans to casual-Friday-specific wardrobes; even lapel-width fluctuations meet with resistance. The multibillion-dollar question:
Why?
Thom Browne, fall '08 collection
Comments
Men and fashion
With all due respect, this article is really a barrage of cliches based on silly marketing research. American men care very much about the way they look - take the power suit, ties, cufflinks and such.
I've been living in Paris, where any man worth his salt has an extensive wardrobe. The real problem is that there is very little clothing of interest in this country. I live in New York and I hit Daffy's twice a week for their dirt-cheap Italian imports, because the rest of the offerings (Rag+Bone, Varvatos and company) are so bland - dark colours and unflattering cuts. Guys should get to show off their bodies too!
In Paris my male coworkers wore pants so tight that you could count the change in their pockets - and the ladies loved it (as did some of the guys). I dress this way at my relaxed-but-conservative midtown office and I get only positive feedback, even when I break out the deep V-neck tshirt and print scarf for casual day.
The only US designer who gives me what I want is Marc Jacobs - a Parisian resident, of course. H&M and Gap do European lines with sleek cuts, brighter colours and less extra fabric, but their US clothes are as sexy as burlap sacks. Men don't intrinsically want to hide their bodies; it is this nouveau-Victorian values crowd that has trickled down to the men's fashion world. In the 80s everything was tight, sexy, flashy and hot. I wore pants so tight I got lectured on testicular health!
My answer: retire the chino permanently, tighten the cut around the crotch, give us more tapered dress shirts and killer pointy Spanish-style boots and COLOR!