Thom Browne, a Man of the Hour, Deconstructs Masculinity

Well, this isn't about fiction, but it is very topical.

Traditional masculinity, often characterized as "toxic masculinity," is under assault as never before, in large part as a result of the Me Too Movement. One reads piece after piece these days about how men, and society as a whole, needs to re-examine and re-work just what it means to be a male.

Enter American fashion designer Thom Browne with his latest menswear runway show in Paris. (Click on that link to get a look).

Basically what Browne did this time around was quite literally deconstruct tradition menswear and sew various pieces back together to create new looks.  While some commentators described these as "dresses" or "gowns," they look to me more like "un-bifurcated garments."  But the point seems obvious: men need to take themselves apart and put themselves back together in a different form in order to successfully adapt to social change.

But what about Browne himself? He seems stuck in the mold of wearing mostly very traditional, precisely tailored men's suits and related garments.

So the message remains at best a mixed one.

You Are What You Wear as Well as What You Read and Eat

 

Who are we? Or, if one is an author, who exactly is that character I am trying to create?

It's no secret that the attire people wear tends to define them. Think about what royalties and aristocracies wore in comparison to the typical attire of ordinary subjects or peasants -- and how a king could often easily disguise himself simply by exchanging his royal vestments for clothing worn by a commoner.

"Dress for success," used to be a slogan of the American apparel industry, aimed at urging consumers to think that their chances of getting a good job, or perhaps a promotion, depended as much on how they visually presented themselves as on anything else. There was, of course, some truth to it: we are all influenced by what we see and the values we associate with images.

Above left one sees a "new" Michele Obama, making her entrance at Brooklyn's large arena known as the Barclay Center. This was part of her on-going book tour -- a landslide success, by all accounts.

As explained by Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan, Ms Obama appeared, quite out of character it seemed, in a "shimmery yellow shirt dress with a pair of gold, holographic thigh-high boots." The boots, as per the middle photo, were from Balenciaga's 2018 runway show while the dress was shown by the fashion house for 2019.

What's the message here?  According to Givhan, Michele's outfit says the role of First Lady was but a chapter in her life.

"Obama's book tour is the equivalent of a rock concert, so she dressed like a rock star," the Washington Post critic said. "Whether the ensemble is flattering is beside the point."

When Michelle was in the White House, the public wanted "a picture of understandable elegance -- aspirational, but not beyond the average person's wildest dreams." In contrast, the ensemble shown above suggests wants to move on to something else -- "a celebrity, which carries greater value in the broader culture."

You are what you wear.  That's one way to build character. And, after all, Michelle Obama's book is entitled "Becoming."

Fiction and What Woment Wear

Some readers of my novella "Manhattan Morning" have wondered why my protagonist, Dan, spends so much of his time thinking about attire -- mostly female but not entirely -- as he walks around midtown.

His excuse in the book, if he needs one, is that his former wife worked in the fashion industry and that as a result, clothes were a constant topic of consideration and conversation. He has been conditioned to be observant.

Another Answer to the Reader of "Manhattan Morning"

In a recent post on Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, I mentioned American artist Marilyn Minter and now I am going to quote her again.

"Fashion is one of the engines of culture. You see who your tribe is by the way they present themselves -- and even if you're someone who doesn't care what you look like or don't put yourself together, that's a tribe!"

So she said in a recent New York Times interview.

I mention that because a reader of my novella, "Manhattan Morning," expressed surprise over what she said was a focus in my book on women's clothing styles.