Recapturing the Spirit of Mens’ Style

Kelly Schiff is a blogger who writes at therealitycloset.blogspot.com. We wanted to see what her take was on men’s fashion and see how the booming men’s fashion world comes across to her. She discusses metrosexuality, the image-conscious society we live in and much more! Read her article on why “style is a right that belongs to everyone”.

Recapturing the Spirit of Mens’ Style

It’s hard to deny that today’s fashion world is primarily a feminine one. From the runways to the magazines to the stores and to the streets, fashion for women dominates, receiving the majority of attention and promotion while men remain in the background. It’s a highly unequal situation that’s reflected in the disparate attitudes of men and women toward not just fashion, but personal style.

From an early age, women face pressure to be seen as ”beautiful” in the eyes of an image-conscious society, and having good ”fashion sense” is one of the ways in which they are judged. Women who don’t dress well or don’t seem to care about style are often stereotyped as lazy, unambitious, even irresponsible. But men face their own set of stereotypes regarding their relationship to style. Straight men who put more thought and effort than average into their appearance and personal style are often categorized derogatorily as effeminate or homosexual. Even the recent term to describe such men, ”metrosexual,” has its own negative connotations.

It wasn’t always this way. As recently as a half-century ago, style was a much more important consideration in the life of the average man. The clothing men wore was often an indication of their wealth, occupation, and position in society; style was something to take pride in. What has occurred since is a phenomenon that can only be termed a devolution of mens’ style. With the rise of casual fashion and changing definitions of masculinity, mens’ style gradually morphed into an ”anti-style” of messy and poor-fitting looks, bottoming out in the grunge era of the 1990s.

Today, not much has changed. The anti-style still predominates, to the point where some men even feel the need to conceal a love of fashion for fear of being seen as less masculine. There are, however, some glimmers of hope that we are starting to climb up from this low point in mens’ style. Within the last decade, certain groups of men (hipsters being a notable example) have begun to deliberately utilize style as a means to express personality. And the rise of fashion blogging has given a new voice to mens’ style, with blogs like the Attire Club showing that it’s not only acceptable for men to enjoy style, but that it can play an important role in professional and personal development. Let’s hope we’ll continue to rise from this dark age, encouraging a new generation of men to embrace and develop their personal style. After all, style is a right that belongs to everyone.