Today’s #ThrowbackThursday Post comes via the Wall Street Journal’s Magazine: Spring Men’s Wear Fashion edition. It will adequately demonstrate why Throwback Thursdays are more than a bow to nostalgia.
First, we take a look at what the world considered to be stylish men – both straight and gay – from the past century: l to r: James Dean, Gary Cooper, Paul Newman
Buddy Holly, Dean Martin and Miles Davis:
Compare the above to the WSJ’s Spring fashion shoot Drift Away to a Sultry Riverscape in the Season's Best Menswear: The clothes haven’t changed all that much but the skeletal frame on which they are displayed certainly has. The new male “model” appears anorexic, gay, and quite likely a heroin addict.
The young man with the hollow cheeks, hollow chest, strangely craggy face and just plain weird hair looks like the guy who would have had sand kicked on him at the beach in an earlier era.
Now he is…what? A model, to be emulated? An idol, to be adulated?
And that’s hardly the worst of it. The magazine also has a feature on Thom Browne, a clothing designer of both men’s and women’s wear. How Thom Browne Revolutionized the Suit:
This man has transcended the run of the mill misogynist and gone full-bore misanthrope.
But wait! We’re not done yet! In another article, Spring’s Hottest Trend for Men? Normal Fashion, we see what fashion editors deem to be “normal” these days: Carhartt bib overalls worn with thousand dollar designer shirts and multi-thousand dollar over-sized overcoats and sleeping bags doubling as jackets.
So you see #ThrowbackThursdays serve a very important purpose: it reminds us that those who forget history may indeed be destined to repeat it but they will get it all wrong.
Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!
Posts
