Designing Men

by

Ginger Hanson

I can’t figure out why they have fashion shows. Is there anything new left in the design of human clothing? Hasn’t every possible style and combination of fabrics from tiger loincloth to silk skirt been worn repeatedly over the past millennia?

The fashion designers don’t seem to think so. Every year they parade another batch of models down the runways wearing clothes we’ve all seen, while telling us the fashions are new and improved. I guess what works for laundry detergent people works for fashion designers, too.

After one show, I heard a male designer say that some of his latest creations might require a woman to wear a girdle. According to the designer, the girdle would help the average woman (not, of course, his emaciated models) achieve that certain “look” he was trying to convey with his dresses.

Get real.

It was obvious to me this man had never worn a girdle. A few hours at Walmart with one of those truss supports cinched around his waist might wake him up.

First of all, it takes longer than a few hours to get into a girdle. Zipping up jeans two sizes too small is easier. And I don’t speak from experience. The closest I’ve come to a girdle is a bathing suit with a stretch panel in the front to help hold the tummy flat.

If I had trouble with a bathing suit with one “stretch” panel, I can’t image putting on a girdle composed of all stretch panels. And if I did decide to wear one, I couldn’t begin to believe a few short hours would suffice. After that struggle, I’d want to get some use out of the thing. I’d probably want to wear it for a week or two. Which leads us to the problem of pulling it down when you need to use the bathroom, which would occur at some point during that two week period.

I mean, it’s not like women don’t already take longer in the bathroom than men. Now this guy is suggesting we wear girdles which will increase our bathroom time. I know my significant other has better things to do than wait outside strange bathrooms while I struggle in and out of a girdle. And telling him that I’m wearing it for him -- to fit into an attractive dress he can admire -- why he’d laugh, wink and say something outrageous about what I should wear. Believe me, his idea of what I should wear would put the clothing industry out of business.

While we’re on the subject of fashion, what about shoes? If men had to wear the shoes they designed for women, would they still design those cute, miniature torture chambers? Take stiletto heels, for example. If you’ve seen any fashion models lately or looked in the shoe stores, you might have noticed that the 1950s pencil thin high heel is back.

According to Doctors Against Women Wearing Stilettos, these shoes reconfigure the body. In English that means if you wear these shoes, your breasts and butt are thrust outward. Add the short skirts of today, and you get a long leggy look with jutting body parts. Which is probably why men don’t wear stilettos, but like looking at the effect of women wearing them.

Of course, along with the jutting body parts, women get a rash of foot problems from the simple ankle sprain to lower back pain. Nor can any female successfully outrun a horrible frothing-at-the-mouth monster while wearing these shoes which is probably why so many heroines in horror movies wear stiletto heels. Does the hero? No way. He’s wearing sensible run-for-your-life-or-the-monster-will-eat-you shoes.

In fact, have you ever seen a man wear stylish but uncomfortable shoes? I’m not even sure men wear new shoes. They all seem to wear fifteen-year-old loafers or ten-year-old athletic shoes. I don’t know about your significant male other, but for my husband buying new shoes rates right up there with going to the dentist or unstopping a toilet.

When we moved last year, I made him throw away a dust encrusted pair of shoes I found buried at the back of the closet. He hadn’t wore them for ten years and they’d already seen years of service when he stopped wearing them. It took him three days to adjust to the idea of throwing away those shoes. Finally, I hid them in the garbage while he was at work. The next day, I told him not to worry, I’d found a good home for them.

Based on my husband’s disinterest in shopping, I’ve often wondered what will happen if I die first. I can see him twenty years after my funeral still wearing the slacks, shirts and shoes I bought him because “they are perfectly good and still have some wear left in them.”

I’m not sure all men feel this way about buying clothes and shoes, but I do know I usually see more women than men cavorting on the fashion runway. There are also way more women’s clothing racks in department stores than men’s, and way more women’s shoes displayed, too. I imagine fashion designers for men’s clothing probably never quit their day jobs.

The differences between male and female fashions slip over into the cleaning process, too. If you have no male significant other in your life, you might not have noticed that men’s clothes are easier to care for than women’s. Honest. Just meander through the women’s section of a department store. The number of dresses, skirts and blouses that require dry cleaning boggles the mind, but take a quick trip to the men’s department. Men’s shirts and slacks made of the same fabrics as found in women’s fashions can be machine washed, cold.

Why? Because clothing manufacturers know that men usually throw everything into the washing machine, punch the cold setting, toss in a handful of detergent and go watch a football game. They’re not going to hand wash, anymore than they are going teeter to work on stiletto heels or wear a girdle to get that certain look with their Docker slacks.

Which brings me back to that male fashion designer and his show. As I listened to his interview, I mentally dressed him as he had dressed his models. It was kinda fun to replace the baggy pair of slacks, loose fitting shirt (both machine washable) and eight-year-old loafers with what his models wore. I pictured him teetering down the runway in stiletto heels, his body draped in dressed in expensive fabrics that require dry cleaning. Oh, and with his body, no body shaper for him to get that “look.” Nope, he’d need a full girdle.

I couldn’t help but wonder how long his significant other would wait for him outside the men’s room?

© 1998 Ginger Hanson


A little note:

I can't believe I wrote this column ten years ago, but I did. Since it was written for a local newspaper, I thought I better add a little note. Ozark in a small Alabama town located about 25 miles away from where we live. Which made for a short distance elopement........