Gay men in fashion
Straight Copying: How Gay Fashion Goes Mainstream
When J. Crew debuted their Liquor Store ten years ago, they transformed an after-hours watering hole into a menswear-only boutique laden with s-era references to traditional masculinity. Dimly lit rooms were covered in plush leather chairs, oriental rugs, and wood paneling. In the corner of one area, a bookshelf was stacked with Strand-issued classics &#; Kerouac, Hemingway, and Cheever among them. Thick cashmere cardigans were draped over Globetrotter suitcases; striped rep ties rolled into lowball glasses. In another area, J. Crew showcased their collection of Red Wing heritage work boots. Once made for loggers, carpenters, and longshoreman, the preppy clothier has since helped mainstream these blue-collar styles into white-collar offices.
A scant years ago, I had the chance to interview Frank Muytjens, then the head of menswear design at J. Crew. We talked about his design process, his love for vintage, and how he chooses which third-party brands get included in J. Crew&#;s much-revered &#;In Good Company&#; section, which is
Gay Menswear Fashion Designers
Fashion design has always had a large contingency of gay men who are prominent in the profession. This is perhaps not surprising given the extent to which the industry relies on leading-edge and extravagant design, a particular skill of many in the LGBTQ community.
Often notable for designing haute couture and ready-to-wear for women, there is a smaller group of gay men who also design menswear. Most of them are highly visible and operate global brands either under their own labels, or associated with household-name design firms.
Successful menswear style comes down to three important components: cut, fit and material (including colour, design and texture). There can be various degrees of success with each of these components, but the top designers manage to excel with all three in combination. Like design success in any field (including architecture, housewares, and others), financial success often relies on a standardized signature design manufactured with mass production and accompanied by global distribution. The first fashion design
The Caftan Chronicles
Hi Caftaners. Ugh, it’s a cold and rainy day in NYC! (I wrote this on Saturday…it’s actually MLK Day now.) And I include to go out in this mess later to see Pam Anderson in The Last Showgirl (postscript: I wasn’t crazy about it…didn’t think it was a great script although Pam and Jamie Lee Curtis were great) and then to have a little twirl with friends at the dance party Harder. I’m glad I slept in this morning! As for the inauguration, I am taking my cue from Michelle Obama and squinching my eyes tightly closed, sticking my fingers in my ears and going “La la la la la!” (postscript: I spent exactly 10 minutes reading The New York Times coverage of the inauguration…and moved on.)
Recently, having wanted to do a Caftan fashion post for a while, I started wondering if there were any experts or historians of gay men’s fashion, and a little Googling brought me to Shaun Cole, 58, an associate professor of fashion at the Winchester School of Art in the UK. He actually published in a book called (and how could it not be called this?) Don We Now Our Gay App When he was studying at Central Saint Martins, London, in the late 00s, Craig Green wrote his dissertation on the adoption of gay style subcultures by straight men. In the preceding decades, perfumed dandies, dilly boys, mods, skins, clones, new romantics, scallies, fierce vogueing divas and muscle Marys had all been sieved out of their instinctive habitat on to the steep street for brief moments of mass consumption. But by the time Green – currently reigning menswear designer of the year at the British fashion awards – was weighing up his thesis, things had changed. The bears – hirsute, gay men – crowded on the dancefloor of London’s XXL nightclub were barely distinguishable from bearded Bon Iver fans. A reciprocal shared wardrobe, common across menswear emerged. “When I was younger,” says Lush, who was born in , “what I thought of as a very gay look was really a metrosexual thing, a bit Italian, clothes a tiny bit too tight, skinny jeans, tanned, tight T-shirt, worked out. Most of the men who dressed like that were straight.
30 years of gay style: from disco chic to hipster bears