A Fashionable Alternative to Feminization
In a video released on 1 April 2023, YouTuber Frugal Aesthetic argues that men with an interest in fashion are adopting many feminine ideas into their aesthetic philosophy. Indicated by the use of terms such as "pieces" and "tops" and overt interest in vibrant jewelry, pastel color pallets, high-heeled boots, and traditionally feminine cuts like crop tops and flared pants.
In the essay, he expresses his appreciation for the way in which these online fashion trends have undermined gender norms and opened the closet to increasing fashion experimentation among some young men. He praises bright, plastic jewelry and Kid Cudi's crop tops while sarcastically, yet affectionately, calling his viewers housewives. He ends the video with an uncharacteristically low-key, personal outro, describing how he hopes these trends and his videos will help men to become more confident in themselves.
I like this video, and I consistently enjoy Frugal Aesthetic's content. His jarring jump cuts, sardonic descriptions, and his extemporaneous wit combined with his casual delivery really elevate his content beyond that of mere fashion YouTuber. He is more insightful, entertaining, and approachable than practically any other male fashion content creator today, and I partly credit him with convincing me that it's worthwhile to care about fashion as an art form and a mode of personal expression.
However, I often find myself disagreeing with his arguments, and there is one argument in this video in particular that I find disingenuous, that being his dismissal of masculinity in fashion. Prior to his descriptions of the virtues of femininity in men's fashion, he starts with an argument against masculinity in men's fashion, shifting into a mock infomercial advertising camouflage-flannel shirts, wife-beaters, and construction helmets under the label of "misogyny core" with a phone number at the bottom reading "1-800-MAKE-ME-A-SANDWICH".
While I find the whole bit funny, I think that his blanket dismissal of masculinity in fashion is unfortunate. For as much as the incorporation of traditionally feminine fashion cues into men's wardrobes should be praised, I think that a critical re-evalution of men's fashion may also reveal various ways in which men can make their wardrobe more interesting in a way they find more approachable. An analysis of men's fashion may lead us to think about the various ways in which clothes not only dress us for others, but serve a purpose for ourselves. It may lead us to reflect on our clothes for more than what they say about us as consumers, and it may lead us to put greater emphasis on comfort and utility, traditional virtues that have been stunted in men's and women's fashion alike.
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For the past year, I've worked at the Home Depot, attended the University of Oklahoma, and become more interested in various aspects of fashion. Accordingly, I've become very attuned to the differences between the way that a student at my university dresses and how a customer at the Home Depot dresses. At a public, state university, clean, possibly OU-themed hoodies drape over short gym shorts, and white sneakers. New jeans, fast fashion T-shirts, Vans, and Nikes. Neutral colors-- whites, blacks, grays, and browns-- dominate. Crimson red adorns many an article. For frat boys, backwards baseball caps with some sort of non-sports logo, whether it's Adidas or the Bass Pro Shop are a typical article of clothing.
Clothes are comfortable, yet impractical and sloppy. These men, by and large, will never be inspired by the avant-garde fashion trends that Frugal Aesthetic describes. They are conservative both in their fashion sense and their disposition. As much as it may be reasonable to dress oneself lazily on any given day, to do so habitually must constitute some slobbishness. An uninspired fashion sense is a missed opportunity. It is the social equivalent of making one's bed in the morning. Just as performing that chore indicates an interest in the bare minimum of cleanliness, putting on inspired clothing indicates the bare minimum in engaging with others socially.
In my eyes, given that these conservative, masculine men will not irrigate their fashion desert with a woman's well, I believe that it may be a worthwhile exercise to promote the existing virtues of men's fashion. If it wants men to pay attention, the avant-garde should take a real interest in masculinity in fashion and a greater discussion of the traditional virtues of clothing which can still be found in the outfit choices of the male working class.
The average contractor or construction worker who shops at the Home Depot dresses far differently from a student at the University of Oklahoma. Shopping amidst a busy workday, greasy and sweaty in paint stained clothing and scuffed-up, athletic sneakers, they have their own kind of coolness. Some wear camouflage with holey jeans and multicolored Fila, HOKA, or ASICS. Others sport scraggly red beards, with decades old work boots, overalls, and Milwaukee gloves. They can run and maneuver comfortably without fear of damaging their shoes or tearing their clothing because, if they get torn, it will merely add to that aesthetic: an embrace of the practical and the rugged, the torn and the stained. Their outfits are often wild, dynamic, practical, and unique in a way that their boring, oversocialized collegiate counterparts' fits are not.
What would happen if the great minds of avant-garde fashion took it upon themselves to elevate this style of rugged, masculine wear, which emphasizes freedom of movement and freedom from the fear of wear and tear? They could appropriate the fashion sense of the apathetic, unfashionable man in his middle aged glory and bring it to its platonic ideal with their intricate knowledge of cuts, crops, and measures. It would be about elevating the style of the rugged, masculine masses of the working class, rejecting the sanitized whites of malls and fast fashion sites, and getting over an irrational fear of dirt.
The masculinization of fashion might be possible-- and desirable. An embrace of the practical and the rugged at the expense of aesthetic can be an aesthetic in of itself. It is an aesthetic that, if correctly executed, could properly appeal to the masses of apathetically dressed young men of our generation. However, this project is not mine to execute. As much as I would like to practice an alternative to the feminization of men's fashion, I have a collection of Adidas tracksuits, and I'm content to remain comfortable in the confines of my metrosexuality.