Is it just me, or are fashion ads for men the funniest thing ever?
So lately I ended up with a few subscriptions to mens lifestyle magazines that I got for free, and one thing that I just can’t get over are the fashion ads for men.
Why, you ask?
Lets face it, there are many different ways to “be a man”. Some men are sporty, some men are artsy, some men have blue collar jobs and some men have white collar jobs. Over our lifetimes we develop our own sense of what manhood means to us, and how we express it, and although similar, no two definitions are exactly the same. Now, there often are disagreements: Blue collar men might not think white collar men are real men, and white collar men might not think blue collar men are proper gentlemen. If fashion was marketed to individual demographics I would almost understand without being offended. People are entitled to their opinions, and demographics are what they are.
But instead, what the big fashion houses (YSL, Chanel, LV) do, per my observation, is take every definition of manhood and mix them together with a large wooden spoon until they feel they’re homogeneously mixed, and slap it on a poster with their name and a slogan. So instead of an ad with a cowboy on a western plain riding a horse, you get a guy with a pompadour haircut in a tux, wearing a welding jacket over the tux, while stick welding without gloves or a helmet, with text that says something like:
“For the gentleman that
isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty”
~~Yves Saint Laurent~~
I suppose nothing quite says “Bad Boy” like multiple OSHA violations, and hey, maybe that’s how his hands stay so perfectly hairless. Who am I to judge?
