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Men's Short Hairstyles
Men's Mid-length Hairstyles
Men's Long Hairstyles
Men's Curly Hairstyles
Men's Black & Afro Hairstyles
Celebrity Hairstyles
Introduction
Generally, people may think that fashion is cyclical being that its concepts and trends are nothing but successful recreations of something that has already been idealised. However, in my opinion it’s not always this way and fashion is just not about ephemeral trends appearing as seasonal repetitions. Since the beginning of the decade, fashion has been changing along the path with the society it walks. It is the belief that these changes are here to stay to leads me to write this transcending trend article.
The notion is one certainly easy to refuse. The unknown and consistently mutable future in fashion nods us to this cynicism. However, I believe this is born a new era for fashion. This time it is based on something consistent and already within the society.
This concept is not of my own but it is notably recent and is one that appears to have gained strength each year and every season. Fashion trends are becoming increasingly more transcending amongst both genders. This has consequences on colour, materials, prints, and shapes but mostly on the way we conceive fashion.
AW Trends
In an attempt to reference the past with the comparable beginning in the late 70′s: Bell-bottom pants, glitter shirts and ankle shoes slightly preceded the day that Jean-Paul Gaultier introduced male-skirts in mid-80’s. They’re nothing but isolated examples; both based on female concepts.
The Editor-in-Chief of FashionBeans – Ben Herbert – has covered the camel trend for both genders over the past few months. In both, the idea that camel is to become the key neutral colour pushed throughout AW10 is evident. It goes without saying that both ends of the gender spectrum can learn from education themselves around their gender counterpart.
Recently menswear fashion has been gaining pace. The whole industry is growing, stimulated by a changing society. Changes are evident in men’s priorities. Moreover, in these past years we’ve seen an exponential growth of men’s fashion blogs and websites following the leads of FashionBeans and the like. The man is no longer a pure classical, he is increasingly becoming a follower of trends and in an aspiring sense, a setter.
The pictures below illustrate men being given the same relevance as women in fashion.
Driving this occurrence and so many winter trends is the Scandinavian culture with their open-minded thinking and sense of fashion. This is a subject that tends to grow quickly in more developed countries where this equality has a greater acceptance among population. Swedes are design and trend conscious and have high disposable incomes. This is coupled with the fact that Sweden has a strong and globally competitive fashion and design trade sector of its own. Brands such as ACNE, WESC, BRUNS BAZAAR, COS and HOPE are relatively recent brands but have been noticing great growing results are the leading examples of this change.
AW Transcending pieces:
- Sweat Pants as Casual Pants and the inclusion of meggings – Spotted in the brand new collections of Zara, H&M, Rick Owens and Emporio Armani)
- Skinny fits and streamlined silhouettes
- Deep neck drops on tee’s and sweaters
- Causal and mini blazers
- Shearling Jackets & Duffle Coats for AW
- Military boots
AW Transcending accessories:
- Deerstalker & Peruvian hats
- Woven belts
- Animal jewellery
- Trilby hats and beanies
- Canvas bags/ rucksacks
- Knitted/ cobwebbed snoods
AW Transcending colours/patterns:
- Chunky and cable knits
- Quilting
- Neutral colour palettes (camel)
- Transparencies & sheer
- Fair isle design
- Denim/sheerling
Product picks:
The below take nod from the above. Building a wardrobe that your girlfriend can dive into is not a called for approach. However, being fashion forward on all fronts never hurt anybody (especially the Swedish).
Debate:
It is great that the fields are beginning to level out. This evolution will provide a wider freedom of choice in fashion and allow everyone to set a more specific style, to be more idiosyncratic in his or her fashion choices. This is full frontal proof that men’ fashion is gaining more and more attention, it is now changing at the same rate as the trends, styles and coverage is for women. I believe most of you guys today have a richer wardrobe today and more inspired by the latest trends comparing with what your parents did. Nowadays a whole new market is focused on men, providing specific services for them from suits to accessories, from hairstyles to different types of shoes.
- What do you think of this emerging occurrence?
- What does it mean for you?
- Is it as good or bad as it first appears?
Leave comments and discuss below!
Marcos Fonseca x
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Great article!!
I think this kind of mixing is good, it will push fashion even further forward and release a whole lot more wardrobe possibilities. Although I think girls can hold on to some things. leggings just don’t work.
Since men’s fashion is getting trendier every single year and could defintely catch up with women, it could be both a good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing about these trends is that it provide more options and imagination with a man’s wardrobe. Trends could be fun to play with and provide a little “spice” if you get tired with your wardrobe.
Another good thing is that generic superstores that usually offer cheap prices on clothing such as Walmart and Target in the U.S. has step up their fashion game. Before, these stores usually offer more practical clothing, than fashionable ones. Now that men’s fashion is much stronger than ever, the effect of trends has trickle down to these generic superstores. Thus, offering cheap goods for the public.
But here is a few bad things about men’s fashion being more trendy:
1. My personal pet peeve. When I go ahead and buy things that are trendy for that season, it usually get outdated in the next. Meaning, trends are practically fleeting. The last trend I see so far is the skinny jeans. It is honestly still quite around for a couple of years already.
2. The money wasted on these trends. If things get “old” so quickly, you are pretty much throwing away your money just for a piece of clothing that only last for a season or so. This means that your wardrobe changes every season… Quite annoying isn’t it? I would hate being a woman since trends are much more prevalent and I would honestly hate having to go out and buy new clothes every season in order to “freshen up” my wardrobe.
3. Trends spawn redundancy. For example, you like combat boots when they first came out. And then for a while, you see everyone the streets sporting them. Next, after a month or so, the boots became so prevalent that is just so conforming and just plain annoying.
Just take a look at Lookbook.nu. I honestly don’t think there are truly fashionable people there. Just a bunch of trendy individuals trying so hard to be unique. When you just look at all of the looks there, everyone just look all the same. Like during this past summer, almost everyone is sporting the nautical trend. Wearing them boat shoes, striped navy/white t-shirt, and even a captain’s hat like some sort of uniform. Some even try so hard that they practically look like they owned a yatch and pretend they live near an ocean. It pretty much looks more costumy in a realistic standpoint.
Trends = Love at first sight, but just plain redundant after a month.
I apologize for this long post everybody.
I love the way menswear is developing and the direction it is going! Although I am not a personal fan of the meggings and feminine attire on men etc. I do welcome the experimental side of the fashion. I think that in order for menswear to become something natural and praised again (back in the 19th Century men’s appearance and apparel was everything let’s not forget!), we first have to take it to the absolute extreme and break all boundaries with a few individuals in order for the majority to start again on a blank canvas. At the moment the connotations surrounding a “fashionable male” are too restricting and the modern man is often too scared to indulge in nice clothing in order to protect his “manliness”.
Let’s not forget that once upon a time a man’s indulgence in his attire and possessions was considered the definition of “manliness”! Hopefully the way menswear is going at the moment, and the development of the industry as a whole will break today’s current restrictions and bring fashionable menswear to the masses!
I agree with Narong. I don’t think trends are worth paying attention to. The best dressed people are always the ones who dress according to their own taste. I see nothing fashionable in declaring “hey, camel’s pretty cool, we should all wear it.” I’m just going to keep buying what I like.
TOTALY AGREED WITH OMAR
I don’t think Marcos was concentrating on specifically trends transcending gender, I think the fact that they do err on both sides of gender just illustrated his points.
You can tell the world and his sister that your style is that of your polished originality but somewhere along the brogued line you will have dabbled in a trend or two.
Creating your own persona (stylistically speaking) is unspeakably important but it should be created around the need the necessitate your style in the other direction from everyone else.
If I need to get somewhere, I won’t catch a bus in the opposite direction just because everyone else is getting on the one I need. In fact, scratch that, I can’t trust buses not to smell like…
Luke x
@Tom Bloomfield and @Luke
Great points!
Hey Luke,
Of course, I have. Really, when you have a chino trend preceding a corduroy trend, while at the same time raw denim is all the rage, you can’t avoid all of them–nor should you try, lest you start strolling around without any legwear on. The problem I see with trends is that we start getting into must-haves and key pieces, which to me just sounds like a manual to dressing like someone else. I’d rather read style blogs and decide for myself whether I like an outfit or not than be told what looks good this autumn. It is necessary to keep in mind that if something’s not trendy, it’s not necessarily ugly either, and vice versa.
Thanks for your explanation Luke, in fact that was what I wanted to point out.
What I’ve written was about a trend that I believe goes beyond the trends we watch every season that is the growing importance on male’s fashion that tends to be equal as ladieswear.
Obviously that any of us guys shouldn’t follow a trend just by the fact of being trendy wear that kind of clothes. I dont think it is smart neither a creative way of setting our own style.That’s why I can agree with Narong when he writes about these guys pretending to be fashionable and trying so hard to be unique ending up all looking the same.
Best,
Marcos Fonseca (looksanstips.blogspot.com)
Observing that contemporary menswear and women’s wear share similar style trends doesn’t work to shatter the idea that fashion isn’t cyclical. Rather, it suggests that the concerns of the fashion customer, whether they be male or female, are now similar.
Contemporary designers and creative teams saturating their creations with unisex looks, androgynous themes, and dandy-like appeals (as featured in the ad campaigns and look books aforementioned within the piece) reveals that the present zeitgeist of the targeted markets are no longer the black and white pictures they were in the mid-90s and early 2000s, but rather the gender-neutral gray landscape we live in today. With respect to this apparently new occurrence of men’s clothing and styles reflecting women’s, this is the result of the greater society directing such a happening; men are finally ALLOWED to be interested in fashion. As such, it would only make sense that they would follow some of the same trends as women.
The fact that one can now purchase a men’s Givenchy bondage top and matching leather leggings, and that these pieces mirrored the theme in the women’s collection shouldn’t be construed for an evolution in fashion. Instead it simply demonstrates fashion’s–and the greater society’s–cyclical nature. Look to the 70s, examine the 80s; men were peacocks in their manner of dress. Glittery shoes, scuba-tight bellbottoms, oversized Armani trousers, safety pin-encrusted leather coats and studded combat boots. These looks were just as trendy for men as they were for the women of their respective eras. However, at the end of the “greed is good” 80s, people became disenchanted with the glitz, and thus turned toward the grunge/casual mentality of the 90s. As orchestrated by the society, it was no longer trendy for men to be interested in fashion and style.
This same mentality can be seen during the early wars of the last century. Both WWI and WWII required many people to ration materials and fabrics, so that the dress of each time period for men and women was austere. Upon the ending of both wars, extremes were undertaken to combate the starvation of luxury some believed they had endured. Christian Dior’s use of yards and yards of unneeded fabric in his dresses and skirts after the fashion-stiffled years of WWII is both what made him a breath of fresh air in the circles of people that could afford him, and scandolous to those people that maintained the “use sparingly” mindset.
What all of this means, within the context of contemporary menswear, is that creative forces and customers alike in the new decade are afforded the opportunity to take the chances they had been restricted from over the past decade.
-Designers can now highlight ideas which had, within the past few decades, been exclusive to women’s wear.
-Male customer’s may now purchase and wear clothing which appears less “traditionally male” and more “progressive” within the context of what the new percieved male role in society is.
Once again, none of these occurrences is an evolution in men’s fashion; men have been dressing up or down, as dictated by societal acceptance for ages. It’s just another spin in the wheel of fashion, and will continue along this route until it falls out of fashion. It would be impossible to conclude whether this trend is good or bad, instead one should be questioning WHY this trend is happening at this point in time, and what that says about our present society’s concerns?
Most of the items mentioned here, are MEN’S items, military, nautical etc, always created for men, but then adapted for women and therefore being such masculine items, their masculinity is mistaken for feminity as women wear them, however the cuts used are obv fem, like cropped jeckets and stuff. God fashion is good. Ignorant people need to be educated. It’s not only for women and homosexuals. I am straight, and clothes are one of the focal points of my life.
verry nice LOOK