Whoa, wait a minute Joe. I think there’s a lot more going on in the Dockers ad that marketers trying to bring back trouser creases.
I read this ad as a body blow to Baby-Boomer culture—casual Fridays, sloppily dressed professionals, sixty-year olds with sagging guts in blue jeans. And behind that there’s a not so subtle attack on decades of granola-eating, latte-sipping, male efforts to pose as sensitive and inclusive. Pull away from the salad bar, boys, and have a martini at the Four Seasons in a shark-skin suit. Or join the Marine Corps. After all, it was vets returning from WWII who popularized that quintessential military trouser—the khaki.
A couple of days ago, the New York Times had an interesting article on the generational revolt against the slovenliness of the Baby Boomer generation. Maybe we’ll see a parallel rejection of the moral slovenliness of the last forty years.
December 18th, 2009 | 11:26 am
[...] Previous |Home| When Bad Guys Wore [...]
December 18th, 2009 | 11:41 am
Mr Reno,
I appreciate the sentiment of your piece, but why the need to hate on granola? As much as I wish the social connotations to the food didn’t exist, I have yet to find a more satisfying, energizing way to start the day than granola and yogurt. Anything with eggs and you’re asleep by 10 am. Cereal can only hope to be granola (and increasingly tries).
I guess, though, in general, there is a deeper problem in your comment – a willingness to stereotype certain characteristics of modernity (choice in food, for instance) and call it characteristic of cultural decline. For instance, in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan makes some very solid arguments for eating organic and paying more to buy from local farmers that should appeal to anyone with a solid religious or conservative sensibility (the dignity of the individual farmer, the importance of community, and the fact that most overproduced foods are cheaper precisely because the government subsidizes corn and soy and because government regulations make it increasingly difficult for smaller, better outfits to work), yet I’m fairly confident you’d toss organic eating right in with granola and latte (for the record, there is nothing unmanly about preferring good tasting coffee, either).
December 18th, 2009 | 3:46 pm
Oh, y’all must not read style pieces over many years, but this NY Times piece is a hoary theme that gets recycled in various guises every few years when people forget how long it’s been since they last announced such a trend. Menswear makers and merchants would kill for this to be true, but I wouldn’t hold my breath too long waiting for a resumption of style outside the gay male communities.
December 18th, 2009 | 4:05 pm
Gee! Must be a New York phenomenon. Where I live (left coast) the young men in my office look like hoods and on the street they’re even scarier.
December 18th, 2009 | 6:05 pm
As a member of Gen Y (or the echo-boom? The powers that be refuse to give us an original name which I take as further evidence that there’s a conspiracy against us) I can say that there are aspects of truth to this but that it certainly isn’t universal. Fact is that a well to do young man today probably owns a bow tie. Likewise, tucking in an oxford shirt is not a sin or something thats geeky. And I can certainly say that the men of my parents generation are certainly the worst dressed people I will see in a given day. Most of them look like this http://www.magnificentbastard.com/images/pics/dad-jeans-2.jpg
Notice the little touches — the cell phone holster, the belt that matches nothing, the sleeves that aren’t so much rolled up as don’t fit, the ridiculous “work shirt” and of course the jeans. This is typical of the 40-60 crowd. Compare this to the latest JCrew mens catalogues to see what my generation has done for style. Finally. http://www.jcrew.com/AST/Navigation/Men.jsp
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact