Guy Fashion

John Varvatos Fall 2011 -- I love the skinny tie, the slender tailoring, and the loose rock-and-roll workman's boots

So there would be people arguing if Guy Fashion even exists in LA.  There are ubiquitous guys wandering around on the streets, right now, unsupervised, wearing shorts +flip flops.  The shorts change, some years there are cargo shorts with lots of superfluous baggy pockets, some years there are surfer shorts, some years there are madras shorts, but basically, they are baggy shorts just past the knee, paired with sun-bleached flip flops.   I’m sorry, a guy in shorts just does not look sophisticated and alluring to me.  He looks like at any moment, without warning, he might start mowing a lawn or skimming a pool for dead leaves or auditioning for the drunk-buddy role in a Seth Rogen movie.  When you move to LA you think there are going to be these gorgeous guys everywhere, but it isn’t true.  There are gorgeous girls, everywhere, all the time, and then there are short guys with Actor Hair (a lot of product that makes it stick up in the front) everywhere who think they look like Tom Cruise.   

The David-Beckham Hair Thing in the UK = Actor Hair in the US

Anyway, when I say guys in LA are short, I mean reaaallllly short.  I never thought I cared much about height in guys, but paired with the flip flops and the baggy shorts, they kind of resemble those surfer-gnome figurines people put out in front of their mobile homes.  And all that makes me wonder, with a few notable stylish exceptions,  if fashion for guys is dead in LA.

The inevitable fashion groove of guys in LA?  California Seashell Company Resin Gnome $19.99

If fashion for guys in LA is dead, I think it is due for a revival.  It’s true a lot of those very tailored, oh-so-flattering pieces for guys, traditional stuff, London stuff, can’t be worn here because it’s just too hot.  There is a suit for every guy, just like there is a red lipstick for every woman, and a guy in a really good suit is a truly delicious sight to behold.  I don’t mean those neutral baggy 80s Armani-style power suits that took over and make everyone look like a middle-manager from “The Office.”  I mean tailored, sexy, man-of-the-world, James Bond suits.  What if I could make it colder just for one day, long enough for all the guys to come out and look spectacular?

Gucci Fall 2011

So some people might object to the velvet coat thing as an undesirable legacy of the 60s or 70s, but as I was pontificating yesterday, VELVET is on my mind right now, in a good way.  Plus I love the combination of pale blue sweater with this caramel-y, chocolate-y brown coat jacket.  It just looks so huggable and luscious.  He's carrying a big bag, which suggests he's strong and doesn't mind carrying bags, so he would be happy carrying my bags while I'm shopping or walking anywhere when my handbag starts to feel really heavy which happens all time. 

Cavalli Fall 2011

Another velvet suit.  I'm really feeling the ladykiller-louche, 60s/70s velvet suit vibe right now.  It's cuddly and a little aristocratic and indolent at the same time.  This one has a great indeterminate color that looks rich and luxurious without being "ironic" about it being a velvet suit.  Because I hate "irony" in fashion especially in relationship to the 70s -- like do you remember the frantic popularity of trucker hats?

Sorry Ashton: friends don't let friends wear trucker hats.

  Moving on.............. 

John Varvatos Fall 2011

Great suit with great layering details.  I need to get cast in episodic TV or a beer commercial RIGHT NOW so I can buy this suit for my darling man.  And then, waving my magic-weather-wand around, making the temperature a perfect 50 degrees, maybe, I imagine the streets of Los Angeles flooded with guys wearing stuff like this...looking intelligent, capable, rakish, sophisticated, rock-and-roll elegant...

Gaultier Fall 2011

There's a delicious outrageousness to this suit I love.  The skinny-tight pants paired with the oversized jacket splattered with gold -- it's a little 80s, a little decadent, very sexy.  Wouldn't it be great if guys wore things like this to premieres and parties instead of those ghastly-identical tux-suit-thingies?  Who can remember what even very dashing male actors wear to anything?  Bond should wear this in his next film.  Speaking of which....

Gaultier Fall 2011

Gaultier certainly has Bond as one inspiration for his delightful gender-bending fall collection, and look at this.  It makes me laugh, and it almost makes me a little hot-under-the-collar.  It's androgynous and funny and deeply masculine at the same time.  Someone like Boy George should be legally required to wear this, with a nice splash of red lipstick.

Gucci Fall 2011

I'm going to end on a more conservative note.  There is something deeply compelling about a grey suit, an elegant and tailored grey suit.  Not the baggy mall kind.  One of the key requirements of a good grey suit is a delicious sheen, subtle and lustrous, pelt-like.  It's so flattering to the skin.  And in a genius move in this Gucci suit it's been paired with a softly salmon-pink shirt, and I love pink and grey together, and salmon-pink is good next to the face.  

 

Delpaneaux Wills wearing his own Calvin Klein

Here is actor/model Delpaneaux Wills wearing a Calvin Klein suit...I took these photos for a shoot we did a few months ago.  The suit is between grey and black, and the fabric has a richness in the light, which takes the suit from corporate-drone to secret-agent-man-cool.

In this pose Delpaneaux reminds us of one of the greatest things about a suit -- it's layered.  Men do this slow-sexy striptease after-work thing with a suit.  Sorry guys, NO, you just can't do it in surfer shorts and flip flops.  It's just not the same.

The after-work suit strip thing is like this: first men loosen the tie, revealing a little mouthwatering sexy throat, and shake their head a little, loosening their hair.  Then they unbutton the vest precisely and take it off.  Finally they throw the jacket insouciantly over their shoulders and roll up their sleeves, showing some scrumptious tanned workman's forearms.  It's an achingly slow civilized striptease that's just as beguiling as any post-modern tattooed burlesque taking place right now in a dive bar in Silverlake.

I'm going to work on converting Global Warming into Global Freezing so I can outfit some guys in LA with these gorgeous fall suits...the world really would be a better place.