Male Models, Where’s The Beef?
Simon Doonan’s hilarious rant in the Observer; Where Have You Gone, Tyson Beckford? New Male Model Is Pale, Frail. Simon dishes the castrated fashion ideal and asks, “Why, when faced with such grim global uncertainty, are fashion designers vaunting an ideal that looks so frail, lost and screechingly incompetent?”
“In the World of La Mode, hunks are persona non grata: Pasty is the new handsome; scrawny is the new buff; limp is the new erect; and asexual is the new humpy…If you don’t believe me, then clearly you did not attend any of the recent men’s shows at New York Fashion Week. My dears, you simply cannot imagine what passes for a male model these days! To my eyes, the new crop of runway lads are shockingly genderless. Many resemble Cate Blanchett. Some even look like Tilda Swinton. In lieu of the dashing, square-jawed Mark Vanderloos and Tyson Beckfords of yore, we saw a group of “men” so androgynous that they could easily be mistaken for a troupe of F-to-M transsexuals. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) It is hard to imagine, based on their languid, hairless, anorexic appearance, that these lads possess “equipment” of any sort.”
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Cate Blanchet and Tilda Swinton, so true!
This trend for extreme androgyny and extremely waif like men began in Japan a couple of years ago with straight couples dressing/looking the same. At the same time Hedi Slimane at Dior was promoting a similar kind of sexless menswear which really only fitted girls properly as it was sized so small. The look was quickly transplanted to Williamsburg and the US version of painfully thin boys looking like girls with hipster beards, truly a frightening sight! Hopefully it’s a trend which will not last too long……
duh! should have read the article first where he credits Hedi Slimane……..
Just as female fashion models are notoriously skinny–if not outright underweight–I don’t think it’s surprising that male models are, too. Designers want nothing more than a human skeleton on which to hang their clothes. And for men, that amounts to abs, cheekbones, and blowjob lips.
What I find interesting about the androgyny angle is whether that ideal is foisted on women or whether women really like men who look like this. Orlando Bloom, Robert Pattinson, John Mayer…they all seem so boyish and thin to me. And especially when I see similarly built male models in fashion magazines like Cosmo and Glamour, I think, “This is what straight women really find attractive?” It’s just as paradoxical for straight men: female (fashion) models are tall, bony, and rather flat-chested, but then FHM and Maxim run pics of women who are 5′ 6″ with astonishingly ample boobage and butts.
Tyson is the *only* reason to watch that godawful reality show. I think it is akin to the similar trend after Titanic when suddenty the lean adrogyne was in. I figured we’d have a much longer trend of ‘macho/manly/hairy/thick’ with the resurgence of war in the culture. Too many magazine art directors working out their gender issues.
And this whole trend of men’s fitness magazine covers with models with shirts on is really starting to piss me off.
I think all the opposition to the war is helping the thin-is-in thing. If this were a war that everyone was behind, buff soldiers would be glorified, but the war’s not cool and therefore everything tied to it is tossed out as well.
One show that I loved this season for men who look like men was Alexander McQueen. Most of the models aren’t huge and buff but at least they look like men and there’s an obvious “FU” to androgyny behind it all: http://men.style.com/fashion/collections/F2009MEN/complete/thumb/AMCMEN