I stole the "Men’s Fashion Fall 2007" issue of "T", the Times Magazine’s fashion supplement, from my therapist’s office on Friday, and I’ve decided to treat it, over the next five days, as an important cultural text.
For instance, in the 58 pages of ad before we get to the Table of Contents, one can learn a few interesting things:
* Prada is marketing itself to the androgynous, metro/homosexual man. This is not, I realize, much of a surprise.
* Winston Churchill, who’s been conscripted into an ad for Breguet wristwatches, is an icon of a certain kind of craggy, full-bodied masculinity (again, not so much of a surprise).
* Hermes flirts with androgyny, but through the artful deployment of a bit of a scruff on one of the models (who also has a squarer jaw than his elfin counterpart on the opposing page), they let you know that they’re a touch more butch than Prada.
My favorite tableaux, however, is the Burberry one [if you follow the link, it’s images 6 and 7 in the slideshow], which shows a bunch of bright young things in clothes that are some combination of mod, tsarist Russian military chic, and bachelor party debaucheurie. Two of the men look like the Byron-meets-Bukowski platonic form from which Adrian Grenier, Vincent Gallo and Adrien Brody emanated. Another one looks likes at least three of the characters that Paul Bettany has played. Another one looks like Ben Lee, or Ben Kweller, or Shia Laboeuf, which is to say a vulnerable man-boy with eyes you could fall into. And the last one looks like the consumptive son of a 19th century Polish baron.
All of which is to say, I think, that it captures a certain kind of post-modern decadent androgyne masculinity that’s been dominant in the fashion industry, and the indie rock segments of the music industry, for quite a few years now.
As to what it signifies, I don’t quite know, though I’m pretty sure there’s nothing politically or culturally inspiring about it. It’s not really new, but rather a pastiche of old styles. It’s not emotionally warm, but rather quite cool (the whole point of it, of course, is cool, which has always been, I guess, the default mode of the fashion and music industries). And I don’t think it expresses anything interesting or even coherent, other than a certain ennui.
It is beautiful, though.
