Chain-smoking and dusting off the shelves

It’s been awhile.

When we last checked in, #menswear was reaching some sort of plateau. Or as best as one would describe a plateau. Having thrown off the victorianism of heritage and the bacchanalism of tailor-made stuff (specifically canned Italian food equivalents), menswear was reaching and going… somewhere. It’s not entirely clear where.

One could say we were approaching supernova. More likely, one would say that the IKEA shelving in our closets was snapping, collapsing, crashing under weight of it all.

Regardless, there was never that much money in menswear to begin with. And growth is not persistent. And media is only as valuable as the sales.

It’s funny now, checking in with menswear writing as we now know it, to see some writers working media for a site that resells the spewing regurgitation and vomit from overconsumptive males -- men too quick to jump on PTO links of sales.

Others writers still sit at corporate offices writing about menswear while their cubicle mates mutter dayquil laden phrases into their coffees, “read my lips: no new taxes….. NO NEW TAXES….. NO GODDAMN FUCKING NEW TAXES….” Trump now being their man through no choice of their own.

“The people have spoken. The bastards.” exclaim the editors of those publications, through the eyes of ad sales telling modern man to be beholden to nothing other than modern man’s own corporation -- with, of course, corporate partnerships with Ford, Brooks Brothers, some local brewery, twitter.com, some liquor owned by a european subsidiary, and their own AmEx card. And we wonder at how we got here, eating taco bowls in some shitty Brioni. If you age gracefully, you’ll be boring. If you don’t, you’ll be wrestling Vince McMahon.

Some writers now work in marketing. Schilling was always their strong suite. Usually via camera lens.

Others work in retail. lol.

#menswear guy has been subsumed into the modern male, which was inevitable. Some have taken the progression well. Some have not. The subsumation was appropriate and necessary. You were, after all, going to be a modern male at some point. It was just a matter of becoming a majority. How are the kids doing, anyway?

Best,

JL