the art of boredom
Month
“The name, Yoox, is said to be composed of the male (Y) and female (X) chromosome letters linked by OO, the symbol of infinity or “the ‘zero’ from the binary code, the fundamental language of the digital age.”“
The Observer published this article on its view of #menswear:
The point at which the traditionally-unfashionable-overcompensating-men-obsessed-with-menswear trend seemingly reached fever pitch was in December, when GQ’s website published an “Oral History of Menswear Blogging.” The genre, seemingly a construct of a parody blog, is the furthest thing from it.
The article’s participants and their self-serious tones inspired their own parodies. How could they not? Fuck Yeah Menswear to A Continuous Lean to Selectism and Valet and back, what was once a niche sub-genre of editorial output usually relegated to the front-of-book features of lad mags is now its own full-on genre of reading and writing glorified shopping catalogs for men. And not just men, but Men Who Traditionally Have Not Openly Embraced Fashion.
And now, the numbers exist to prove it. Menswear is back. Straight menswear, that is.
Stephanie Clifford at the New York Times reports today that men’s clothing sales for the first three months of 2012 will hit a 20-year high.
In order to make this happen, euphemisms have been employed…
To get traditional women’s accessories to appeal to men, some designers are giving them manly names and styles. That’s not really a bracelet; it’s wristwear. And that’s not a purse, nor the dreaded murse, but a holdall.
And oh, there will be “wristwear.” Yes, there will:
“Bracelets are on fire right now,” said Tim Bess, who analyzes men’s fashions for the Doneger Group, a trend forecaster. “I’d say it’s the No. 1 look for the young man.” Tateossian, a London-based jewelry designer, says sales of its men’s bracelets rose 30 percent in 2011.
And yet, still, despite all of this, there seems to be something unspoken about the re-emergence of men’s fashion, which might be worth speaking:
The word “straight.”
As in, the quote-unquote “menswear” fashion trend is primarily a euphemism in and of itself for “straight men and the clothing they buy.”
After all, it would be obtuse to suggest that an entire men’s fashion sub-sect has remained under the radar and out of clothing stores for the recession that men supposedly weren’t shopping, let alone the last 20 years.
For example:
“It doesn’t look like you borrowed it from your girlfriend,” Nicolas Travis, 24, a business school student who runs the blog Style Flavors, said of the manned-up styles he prefers. “A little bit more bling, and you run the risk of it looking a bit more feminine.”
Who has problems appearing feminine and concerns about appearing as if they borrowed something from a girlfriend? Straight men. “Dudes.” “Guys.” Whatever you want to call them. But it’s time to face the fabric:
The entire “menswear” blogging trend is a very politically correct misnomer suggesting that all men are finally discovering fashion for the first time since the loin cloth, which simply isn’t true. An entire male population—that is, gay men—have been openly embracing fashion without any insecurity as to how feminine it makes them appear, who they borrowed it from, or what kind of heritage sourcing went into its construction.
It’s been well-documented that gay consumers and their spending habits are “recession-proof.”
A perfect corollary to this and the straight-menswear trend would be the “coming out” of the recession closet for straight men who want to buy clothing. Which exists:
The rebound in shopping may also reflect an improved jobs picture for men, who were hit disproportionately over the recession. The gap between men’s and women’s employment rates was about as high as it had ever been as the recovery started in June 2009. Only last month did the men’s and women’s unemployment rates reach the same level.
Time to call The “Menswear” Trend what it is: The Straight-Menswear Trend. To remove euphemisms from an entire art form and consumer market is a long overdue etymological evolution that, until corrected, makes the straight men who buy clothing, the people who make them, and the people who read about them appear as insecure and overcompensating in their masculinity as, well, before they apparently started buying clothing.
FEB. 9, 2012
By TYLER HALL
External imageLook, we all get it: other countries are super silly. Koreans consider live octopus a delicacy while Canadians are known to enjoy repurposed urine called “Molson.” Most men in Bali wear skirts and fittingly most women wear pants. No, just kidding, they wear skirts too. What do you think this is, anarchy? Even our closest blood relative, the British, call french fries “chips” and you don’t even wanna know what they call chips (“yumyumchompers”). And once you manage to order some fries the waiter will charge you for “catsup.” I know times are tough but come on, man, this isn’t even the real thing.
However, we have to be forgiving of our differences. Over the course of history, each country develops a culture unique to themselves through homogenization, societal drift, and whatever Urban Outfitters sells there. Any of these peculiarities should be taken in the context of a diverse global landscape. Even our own United States can probably seem a little funny at times. For example, we claim to be a bastion of freedom yet we have the largest prison population in the world. Also we park on driveways and drive on parkways!
Still, there is one country that truly stands out as the zaniest bunch of crazy birds on this bucket of carbon we call Earth. That country is Japan. We all know that Japan has some world class quirks like super crowded bullet trains, bizarre game shows, and a nearly 100% literacy rate. But beneath all of those eccentricities, there are real gems of elegant absurdity. The following are three completely true facts about the Land of the Rising Sun that will make you say, “Huh, well I don’t about all that but they sure make a heckuvah a sedan.”
1. Porn is illegal in Japan.
Some of us more prudish and SOPA-inclined might think that this is great news. But for anyone born with a boner after 1983 knows that this is the height of hypocrisy. The same country that gave the world:
External imagealso brings us:
External imageIn Japan it is illegal to create or release uncensored live action pornography because it has been deemed “injurious to public morals.” Until recently they even went as far as censoring pubic hair and genitals shown in dramatic films (re: all the good parts). However, this catch-all law doesn’t manage to include the seemingly endless amount of fantastically insane animated pornography produced and distributed in Japan every year. The cycling combinations of girl on guy on monster on tentacle on smoke deity on manbaby that is anime porn has received the clear to be produced and distributed. I’m not here to judge anyone who enjoys these sorts of online videos — that is what your IT guy at work is for. But it seems more than strange that regular pornos are deemed “injurious to public moral” while a pantheon of pairings that only Rick Santorum could imagine as reality are cranked out for crank outs.
2. The Japanese are obsessed with an invisible crime problem.
Anyone who has been to Japan knows that you can buy almost anything in a vending machine. Soda, beer, ties, umbrellas, lobsters, and even used school girls panties. As such, the streets in many cities are lit aglow with lines of these machines. Keep this in mind. Now another interesting fact about Japan is that it has one of the lowest crime rates in world. They have the second lowest homicide rate and other violent crimes are similarly rare. Nevertheless, Japanese women tend to be acutely or, arguably, irrationally afraid of crime. So much so in fact that they have developed a uniquely Japanese way of evading these hypothetical criminals.
External imageFor $800, you can purchase this beauty: a skirt cum soda machine. The idea being that as a woman is pursued on the streets by an invisible man she can easily slip around the corner, unfurl her skirt, and seamlessly blend into her surrounds thusly:
External imageIn the United States, many women carry pepper spray to protect themselves from attackers and/or Wall Street occupiers. However, in Japan this must have seemed overzealous, as they don’t have any real problems with crime and/or capitalism, so they went for a more elegant solution.
3. Japan has the highest adoption rate.
Japan and the United States have the highest rates of adoption in the world, but with one major difference. Only 2% of Japanese adoption is of children. The other 98% is of 25-30 year old male college graduates, a.k.a. the least disenfranchised people in the world. And therein lies the reason: franchises — or rather businesses. Japanese run businesses are some of the most successful in the world and some of the biggest — Toyota, Suzuki, and Kikkoman — have been family run for many generations. Their secret: perfect sons. But when a family doesn’t have a competent heir apparent, the family doesn’t just hand their company off to a corporate board. Instead, the CEO will basically crash an MBA graduation and legally adopt a graduate into their family to run their company.
Not only does this chosen carpetbagger completely disown his former family, he is often married off to one of the new family’s daughters in an omiai marriage, which I’m pretty sure is Japanese for “barely not incest.” There are a lot of winners in this formula; the family gets to keep their business and the adoptee gets to be in charge of a company/sisterwife. However, one of the hardest conversations any father has to have with his son is explaining that he is giving his inheritance to a stranger who he loves more and who will now be nailing his sister.
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In May of 1948, author Ayn Rand received a letter from a fan named Joanne Rondeau. In it, she asked Rand to explain a sentence in her bestselling 1943 novel, The Fountainhead, which reads:To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I’.
Rand responded with the following letter.
(Source: Little Big Book Of Life; Image: Ayn Rand, via.)May 22, 1948
Dear Ms. Rondeau:
You asked me to explain the meaning of my sentence in The Fountainhead: “To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.”
The meaning of that sentence is contained in the whole of The Fountainhead. And it is stated right in the speech on page 400 from which you took the sentence. The meaning of the “I” is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person.
A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.
The usual (and very vicious) nonsense preached on the subject of love claims that love is self-sacrifice. A man’s self is his spirit. If one sacrifices his spirit, who or what is left to feel the love? True love is profoundly selfish, in the noblest meaning of the word — it is an expression of one’s highest values. When a person is in love, he seeks his own happiness — and not his sacrifice to the loved one. And the loved one would be a monster if she wanted or expected such sacrifice.
Any person who wants to live for others — for one sweetheart or for the whole of mankind — is a selfless nonentity. An independent “I” is a person who exists for his own sake. Such a person does not make any vicious pretense of self-sacrifice and does not demand it from the person he loves. Which is the only way to be in love and the only form of a self-respecting relationship between two people.
Ayn Rand
One day, we will look back and say, “God, remember when music was just sort of everyone trying to out-weird each other?”
Kinda like how we look back at disco and boy bands.