What's good, what's good. Yeah, ya boy's back - I swear this blog isn't dead (surprise surprise), I have a bunch of reasons why I haven't updated.
For a long while we were in a lull for runway shows - but with Paris, Milan and London men's fashion weeks coming up, I've got some content lined up.
I had planned on writing about past shows I liked, but we can save that for a rainy day.
Also, I did have a post drafted about Virgil Abloh's move to Louis Vuitton earlier this year, but I just couldn't write an entire article on Abloh without getting a headache. That Louis Vuitton show just reinforced the meme anyways, way to make a banger of a show with BADBADNOTGOOD playing ye, Kanye and co. in the front rows, and Kid Cudi as a model (lul), and still have a boring uninspired collection. Yikes.
Now back to the actual blog post. I've always been an advocate for blurring the line between men and women's fashion, buying women's jeans when men's skinny jeans weren't a thing yet, and baggy women's sweaters for the / / D R A P E / /. In the past years, that line has never been less clear. Plenty of designers are taking to genderless clothing, as well as exaggerated "masculine" or "feminine" silhouettes. Cropped jackets, skinny pants and heeled shoes have been en vogue in recent years for menswear, and while it's starting to cycle out, I can't see it completely exiting the youth fashion culture ever. At least I hope it doesn't, Hedi will never die. Or at least if he does, Amiri will carry on robbing his grave.
In 2016, Jaden Smith was the figurehead of Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2016 collection. The womenswear collection. Appearing in skirts, women's blouses and plenty of leather, Jaden made waves for the culture by completely rocking the looks. Although it kinda helps he has the legs for it, boy is built like a house on stilts.
Jaden then took the inevitable backlash from the public to heart, and fucking came back for the Fall/Winter 2017 collection, lul.
This shit isn't new either - in an interview with GQ in 2015, the Atlanta rapper Young Thug said his wardrobe was essentially all womenswear pieces. Which I think is fucking wild. Although, Young Thug is a fucking alien, so YMMV.
But clothes weren't always this accessible between genders. So I thought it would be cool to go through some iconic pieces that set the game for gendered garmz and ting to happen today.
The first stop in our tour would have to be style icon Coco Chanel. It seems pretty normal to see everyone wearing pants nowadays, trousers are a key part of any woman's wardrobe. But prior to Coco, no high-class woman would be caught dead in anything but skirts and dresses. Coco came at an opportune time, with post-war women having worn their husbands' pants to do factory work, and realising that pants are actually hot shit. Coco capitalised on this, creating womens trousers based on pants she borrowed from her boyfriend at the time, changing the course of women's fashion for decades to come.
Coco wasn't done with just the pants, though. She took the entire men's suit and flipped it, creating one of the most iconic silhouettes and pieces in fashion, ever, worn by famous fashionable women such as Aubrey Hepburn.
Talk about a fuckin' legacy - the little black dress, the Chanel shoulder bag, the tweed suit, the pearls, Chanel No. 5, the entire movement of women's pants - Coco Chanel did it all.
But enough about Coco Chanel - she wasn't the only one to touch a suit. It's time to talk about one of my favorite houses again, the house of Yves Saint Laurent. One of the most iconic original YSL pieces, the Le Smoking tuxedo, was designed as a "fuck you" to the unestablished rules of black tie, rejecting the dress for something that looked both masculine and feminine. Style icon Nan Kempner was even rejected from a high-class restaurant while wearing a Le Smoking tuxedo. She responded by ditching the pants, and walked right in wearing just the tuxedo blazer as a dress. Fuckin' power move, dude.
You can still see the Le Smoking re-iterated in later seasons, too. It's a classic silhouette for the history books, and it's also my desktop wallpaper, so of course it bangs.
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| Of course it bangs, it's my damn wallpaper. |
But enough about menswear transitioning to womenswear, what about womenswear transitioning into menswear? Fear not, I've got some shit just for you boyyy.
Probably not surprisingly, there's been less movements in incorporating womenswear into men's fashion than in the reverse. However, we are at a turning point in time, where some women's silhouettes are being adopted into menswear pieces. I mean, just looking at this year, take a look at the Ann Demeulemeester show from a few days ago. What a great collection, featuring heavy use of lace, cropped jackets, long flowy shirts and pastel shades, Sebastien Meunier always rocks the house with these very traditionally feminine themes.
One piece that actually inspired me writing this article, again comes from the house of Saint Laurent. Featuring heavily in the Fall/Winter 2015 show, which is incidentally where I first came across them, the Saint Laurent French 85 boot is one of the wildest boots I've seen. The "85" part of the boot comes from the 85mm heel, like damn that's an actual heel and a half. It's a refreshing silhouette to see, and one I can only become more mainstream as time goes on.
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| @lukasabbat wearing his French 85 boots with a Haider Ackermann shirt |
Another major style icon adopting women's pieces is of course, the enigmatic Kanye West. I remember watching his video with Jay-Z for "Niggas in Paris" in 1080p HD when I was but a young lad in 2012, and absolutely going fucking nuts at how hype the entire video was. The kaleidoscope effects and color blocking was mental to see, but that wasn't the only crazy part of the show. West showed up in a black oversized Givenchy rottweiler tee, and a leather pleated skirt, and actually killed it. Sure it's a strange silhouette, and not really one I would wear, but it looked damn cool. Damn where'd you learn how to wear skirts? Yeezy teach you?
The final stop in this little tour is from a show from last year. Specifically, Thom Browne's Spring/Summer 2018 runway show. The theme of it was to recreate that "genderless" clothing that we used to wear as infants and children, before we had these clothing cultures and patinas enforced on us. You can really see that theme come alive in the collection. In between the Thom Browne Special, the suit with shorts, you see men walking down the runway, wearing skirts and dresses, perfectly tailored, with perfect pleats and that clean detailing that Browne loves to show.
At first glance it's quite strange - they look normal, but somehow a little off.
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| Look 2 from the collection. |
Like this second look from the show. It's a cohesive silhouette, and looks great, and it isn't until the second glance (at least for me it wasn't) that you notice the skirt.
I guess I'm done rambling now. From one of the first mavericks to introduce gender swapped clothing, Coco Chanel, to modern "hot takes" on what constituted gendered clothing, it's going to be interesting what trends and social barriers fashion will look at next. All in all, guys clothes and womens clothes are made from the same shit anyway, as long as you're having fun in what you're wearing who gives a fuck. If it looks fly then that's just a bonus right?
no thats wrong i need clothes that make me look like a manly man, where's that flat tire i needa change