Nowadays more and more men are experimenting with fashion and other things that stereotypically belonged exclusively in the ladies’ domain. And what are these men’s reasons for treading that thin gray line or even crossing it? They just want to look good.
Well, why not? It works!
One of the most recent fashion trends for men are the skinny jeans and shorts. We see men wearing skin-tight jeans, paired them with pointed shoes or cowboy boots. Now while the shorts version of this trend isn’t as snug fitting as the jeans, those shorts are still pretty tight. So are the sequin suits for men jeans and shorts and other men’s fashion trends getting too soft for “real men”? Should men’s fashions go back to looking “manlier”? Or is it even correct to brand these styles as feminine at all?
Time-line of ‘feminine’ male fashion
The fact is, men have been dressing like women for years, and nobody but parents ever seemed to be bothered by it.
The 1960s saw a revolution in fashion that tried to steer away from the conservative look of the 1950s. Brands such as Max Mara brought the Italian look to its heyday during this era, and most men wore narrow lapels, narrow trousers, and a skinny necktie. The sleek designs and tight fit of the clothes following this Italian fashion already held a hint of femininity even back then because, stereotypically, it is women’s clothes that follow sleek and sexy designs.
The 1970s saw young men sporting ultra-tight pants that suddenly opened up at the ankles-the bell bottoms, or flared trousers. Bell bottoms started to become a fad during the late 1960s and crossed over to the 1970s, when disco fever was such a hit. The problem with bell bottoms is that these pants were too tight to let one carry a wallet in one’s pocket.
So the fashion industry came up with men’s handbags. Men’s handbags were medium-sized leather pouches that sometimes resembled women’s purses, and these were what most men brought along with them so they could stash their wallets, keys, and anything else that used to lodge in the pockets of their looser pants. Most of us never thought that a time would come when men would buy a purse and carry it with him out in the open for the whole world to see, but that’s exactly what happened during the disco era of the 1970s.
In the 1980s, fashion did another turnaround, and men who have worn dark and cool colors for generations began putting on clothes with very vibrant hues. Neon was the fad during the 1980s, and most clothes had neon designs. A lot of men also wore blazers with padded shoulders, skinny ties, and different colors patched together in one crazy outfit.