Bad Fashion » Manolo for the Men


Brooks Brothers Black Fleece

Archive for the 'Bad Fashion' Category


Holy Mole

Friday, October 12th, 2007
By Izzy

Aligimiro Palencia head dress

Bow, mortal, to Nipplelopochtli, Aztec god of pectorals and, uh, acid-washed jeans.


Disco Inferno in the Groin

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
By Izzy

JC Penny 1975 catalogue

Behold this page from the 1975 J.C. Penny catalog, which deserves to be seen fully blown up to get the full effect.  While it’s easy to knock disco-pimp fashion, whether it’s the butch decolletage or the high-waisted polyester trousers with crotches cut too close to home, at least the clogs benefitted the shorter manimal (like the model on the right).  As bad as these outfits are, truly beyond the pale are those cuffed bell-bottoms, something Izzy had never seen even in his worst disco nightmare.  The only way this advertisement could have been any worse were if it had been scratch-and-sniff.


Self-Portrait in Tyvek(TM) Windbreaker

Thursday, September 6th, 2007
By Izzy

James Merrill

Pulitzer-prize-winning poet James Merrill was raised in a highly privileged setting (his father was a co-founder of Merrill Lynch), which should be kept in mind when reading his “Self-Portrait in Tyvek™ Windbreaker,” a meditation on the effects of dressing down. Here’s an excerpt, but Izzy encourages you to read the whole thing:

The windbreaker is white with a world map.
DuPont contributed the seeming-frail,
Unrippable stuff first used for Priority Mail.
Weightless as shoes reflected in deep water,
The countries are violet, orange, yellow, green;
Names of the principal towns and rivers, black.
A zipper’s hiss, and the Atlantic Ocean closes
Over my blood-red T-shirt from the Gap.

I found it in one of those vaguely imbecile
Emporia catering to the collective unconscious
Of our time and place. This one featured crystals,
Cassettes of whalesong and rain-forest whistles,
Barometers, herbal cosmetics, pillows like puffins,
Recycled notebooks, mechanized lucite coffins
For sapphire waves that creast, break, and recede,
As they presumably do in nature still.

Sweat-panted and Reeboked, I wear it to the gym.
My terry-cloth headband is green as laurel.
A yellow plastic Walkman at my hip
Sends shiny yellow tendrils to either ear.

[...]

Americans, blithe as the last straw,
Shrug off accountability by dressing
Younger than their kids—jeans, ski-pants, sneakers,
A baseball cap, a happy-face T-shirt . . .
Like first-graders we “love” our mother Earth,
Know she’s been sick, and mean to care for her
When we grown up. Seeing my windbreaker,
People hail me with nostalgic awe.

“Great jacket!” strangers on streetcorners impart.
The Albanian doorman pats it: “Where you buy?”
Over his ear-splitting drill a hunky guy
Yells, “Hey, you’ll always know where you are, right?”
“Ever the fashionable cosmopolite,”
Beams Ray. And “Voilà mon pays”—the carrot-haired
Girl in the bakery, touching with her finger
The little orange France above my heart.

Everyman, c’est moi, the whole world’s pal!
The pity is how soon such feelings sour.
As I leave the gym a smiling-as-if-I-should-know-her
Teenager—oh but I mean, she’s wearing “our”
Windbreaker, and assumes . . . Yet I return her wave
Like an accomplice. For while all humans aren’t
Countable as equals, we must behave
As if they were, or the spirit dies (Pascal).

[...]


Breeching the Peace

Friday, August 31st, 2007
By Izzy

low-hanging pants

Having deplored low-hanging pants before, Izzy was happy to see that communities are taking action to end the uncivil plague. Pushed to extreme measures, municipalities have criminalized the attire, which is all-too-appropriate given that the style originated in prison, where belts are prohibited. In attempt to get around free-expression Constitutional claims, the laws are aimed at prohibiting public indecency.

The New York Times’ story taught Izzy something new:

Not since the zoot suit has a style been greeted with such strong disapproval. The exaggerated boxy long coat and tight-cuffed pants, started in the 1930s, was the emblematic style of a subculture of young urban minorities. It was viewed as unpatriotic and flouted a fabric conservation order during World War II. The clothing was at the center of what were called Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles, racially motivated beatings of Hispanic youths by sailors. The youths were stripped of their garments, which were burned in the street.

Although Izzy would never encourage a riot, he would like to see a peaceful march that chants “Do not share / derriere / We can see your underwear!” And of course the placards would read “Up with pants!”


Siamese Umbrellas

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
By Izzy

umbrella for two

In theory, an umbrella for two sounds like a good idea.  In practice, it looks like a freak science experiment gone awry, like some mutant cells stuck permanently in mitosis.  Izzy is reaching for his scalpel…


Libyan Glam

Friday, August 3rd, 2007
By Izzy

Sarkozy and Kadhafi

Still fabulous after all these years, Muammar al-Gaddafi, the world leader/rock star with the most glamorous backup group/bodyguards in the business, zhuzzes up his white suit/black shirt/wrap-around shades combo with a sash and a giant brooch of Africa, which he apparently has in multiple colors.

Izzy knows what French President Nicolas Sarkozy (who has quite the narrow lapel, by the way) is thinking: Is that a botched perm?


Sobriety Check

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
By Izzy

Tom Cruise et al

In this panoply of celebs, only Tom Cruise looks like a normal guy.  Ironic, no?


Post-Communist and Classless

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
By Izzy

Gorbachev with Louis Vuitton bag

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former General Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, is now shilling for Louis Vuitton.  Some years ago, the one-time world leader took flak for appearing in an ad for Pizza Hut (though Domino’s would have made more Cold War sense), but at least that was an innocuous product for the People, unlike Louis Vuitton bags, which are ugly status symbols favored by the most emptily materialisitc of the elite.  And to see Gorbachev and satchel photographed by Annie Lebovitz near what looks like the Berlin Wall—well, it almost makes Izzy feel wistful for the bad old days.


Do I Make You Thorny?

Thursday, July 19th, 2007
By Izzy

porcupine headgear

The porcupine hat is all well and good—until you move in for a kiss.

 

 


Striking a Match

Thursday, July 12th, 2007
By Izzy

Daniel Radcliff in identical shirt and tie

In How to Lose Friends and Alienate People—the self-loathing memoir about a coke-snorting, alcoholic womanizer who gets a job at Vanity Fair magazine—we learn that one of the subtle insults at Conde Nast is to call someone’s attire “too match-y.”  But if ever there was a occasion of too much matchiness, it is this shirt and tie combination on Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe.  Perhaps it’s an attempt at suburban camouflage, but the movie Garden State demonstrated why that is always a bad idea.

Garden State wallpaper


Breathtaking Garment Bag

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
By Izzy

plastic bag by Roberto Piqueras

“Warning: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic bag away from babies and children. The plastic bag could block nose and mouth and prevent breathing. This bag is not a toy.”  Although this pullover is perfect for watching Gallagher from the front row, it may just kill you.  And there is no sadder place to commit suicide than at a prop comedian’s show.  


The Folly of Age

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
By Izzy

Izzy pities 72-year-old Giorgio Armani in his refusal to dress his age, which bespeaks a denial of his own mortality.

Francois Girbaud

Likewise, if the clothes make the man, then François Girbaud is an angry adolescent—excepting of course his camera, which he wears like a middle-aged tourist.







Disclaimer: Manolo the Shoeblogger is not Manolo Blahnik
Copyright © 2005; Manolo the Shoeblogger, All Rights Reserved




Brooks Brothers. Shop Now.

Charles Tyrwhitt

234x60 J&M Footwear, Apparel, Accessories



125x125 Paul Fredrick Monthly Free Shipping

Thomas Pink: Free Shipping


Prada Auctions









Subscribe!


Editor

Mr. Henry

Contributors

Isidore Gallant
The Materialist

Publisher

Manolo the Shoeblogger

Manolo Recommends


Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion by Alan Flusser








Categories