my post to this article on gmp
http://goodmenproject.com/noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz/my-yoko-ono-appreciation-life/
[b]“Men were always wanting us to look good and take off everything, and we were never able to enjoy men’s sexuality in that way.”[/b]
I question this by Ono, for example when european men wore hosiery (stocking n suspenders, tights, stockings) and leggings, it was a demonstration of a man's virility. Ive read of an account of a Lady being upset to find out that her servant's calves were not real.Men wore false/ downy calves to achieve the look, right up to the 1830s.
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The method of making false or downy calves in stockings is by working raw or unspun wool or jersey or any other raw or unspun materials into the calves of stockings in the way already described
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<b>... treat men’s bodies as art the same way that the female body (whether nude or clothed) has been treated as art for thousands of years. ...</b>
If mens bodies were treated in such a manner I feel it would be just a resumption of what was seen in Western Art(probably the same in other art traditions) before the early 1800s.
Before the castration of men by the VictoEdwardian masculine ideals from around 1830ce, in the Western tradition I think it was more the man's body that was the focus, and was venerated
eg. 1516 Swiss Guard standard bearer
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk50/Dstaberg/Utrustning%20aka%20Equipment/Katzbalger%20suspension/Fhnrichunddirne1516Ursgraf.jpg
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk50/Dstaberg/Utrustning%20aka%20Equipment/Katzbalger%20suspension/Fhnrichunddirne1516Ursgraf.jpg
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk50/Dstaberg/Utrustning%20aka%20Equipment/Katzbalger%20suspension/Fhnrichunddirne1516Ursgraf.jpg
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As to whether the majority of men would wear such inspired clothing, probably unlike. Now such clothing is coded as 'feminine', inorder for general adoption outside of subcultures. I think not only would it require not just opinionshaping men deciding to wear the particular style of clothing, and other men then emulating them. But also a metasocial event, as seen with deodourant. What caused a change in perceptions, the resetting of the social meaning is the confluence of a metasocial event and opinionshaping men leading the way.
With deodourant: The great depression and male job insecurity being the metasocial event. The advertisers as opinionshaping men (in this case darkly whispering).
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Initially copy writers for Odorno, Mum and other products “began adding snarky comments at the end of advertisements targeted to women saying, ‘Women, it’s time to stop letting your men be smelly. When you buy, buy two,’” Casteel says.
A 1928 survey of JWT’s male employees is revealing about that era’s opinions of deodorants and antiperspirants.“I consider a body deodorant for masculine use to be sissified,” notes one responder. “I like to rub my body in pure grain alcohol after a bath but do not do so regularly,” asserts another.[...]“If someone like Mennen’s got out a deodorant, men would buy it. Present preparations have a feminine association most men only shy at.”According to Casteels research, the first deodorant for men was launched in 1935, put in black bottle and called Top-Flite, like the modern, but unrelated golf ball brand.
As with the products for women, advertisers preyed on men’s insecurities: In the Great Depression of the 1930s men were worried about losing their job. Advertisements focused on the embarrassment of being stinky in the office, and how unprofessional grooming could foil your career, she says. “The Depression shifted the roles of men,” Casteel says. “Men who had been farmers or laborers had lost their masculinity by losing their jobs. Top Flite offered a way to become masculine instantly—or so the advertisement said.” To do so, the products had to distance themselves from their origins as a female toiletry.
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I look at shortshorts, that is groinlength shorts and the struggle to make them unisex again. I almost fell off my chair when I learnt that they were not outoffashion as i had assumed for young men, but instead were now viewed as feminine wear. My generation, the rave/house generation contemporaneous with your USA gen-X, was the first to stop wearing short shorts in the late80s/early90s. It was simply a fashion change, nothing to do with being female wear or effeminate, as it had always been masculine wear.
To show your legs was no different than showing the biceps of your arms. They were simply a visceral demonstration of masculine power. Like today, where whoever has the largest biceps is subconsciously considered the hardest, the toughest, and the most masculine. In the 80s whoever had the largest thighs was considered the hardest, the toughest, and the most masculine. Football [soccer] shows and fans would often associate and identify the hardest, the toughest, the most masculine football player with those who had 'thunder thighs or 'thighs like tree trunks'. Men would shorten the leglength to reveal more thigh.
It took just 10 yrs for men to stop wearing short shorts which men created for their bodies, and women to continue wearing them for men and women to see particularly nonsporting short shorts as 'female wear'[ young women midnineties in the UK wore hot pants channelling seventies fashion. I also remember a grunge female friend wearing groinlength shorts and black n purple horizontal stripped tights] . If men continue not wearing shortshorts, in another twenty years they will be viewed as 'seriously feminine' like many of these swimsuits are viewed today,
(it was mens onepiece swimsuits that first started to expose more skin. Also, note the photos with men wearing skirts )
and we men who wore nonsporting short shorts to be viewed by our descendents as dressed in a 'female' manner - my jaw dropped when on a transvestite forum someone wrote the men of the european renaissance were actually dressed in a 'feminine' manner, lolol
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As Hugh wrote other designers in the 80s n 90s like Jean-Paul Gaultier tried unsuccessfully to revive mens clothing, so history suggests this designer is unlikely to succeed outside of a metasocial event cultural change for some reason. However we who are more receptive to such ideas should keep on trying to reexpand men's clothing (particularly you young turks, dont allow my oldman weariness to dissuade you). I see that the shawlneck top has become unisex in the last cpl of yrs.
It has always stuck with me what Mike(folks please use unique id's/handles, like mike pl or mike gt) called todays mens clothing in a comment of the day - 'animal skins', aint that the truth
