Random fashion thoughts

Originally Posted by Oxnard

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I am jealous of women's fashion, as it seems that women's fashion is constantly expanding and evolving, with new silhouettes and all kinds of crazy ****. With men's fashion, you can only reinvent pants, shoes, shirts, knits, and jackets so many times. Sure you can throw in some new materials, interesting cuts, even some drapey black ****, but its just kind of all the same. I dunno, its difficult to make menswear fresh season after season, and even the best runway shows are rarely translated into actual outfits that people wear everday. There is just so much boring **** out there, I imagine these thoughts befall everyone here at some point; it just all seems so boring sometimes.

I think it has to do with the fact that menswear is not to do with trends and moreso to do with timeless design. Men also don't buy clothes anywhere near as often as women, they aren't much on the shopping ritual either and try to see clothes logically rather than emotionally (women love to be emotional with clothes, whereas men think about how much they will wear something and whether it will last). Women love to try new things and are always quick to realise the next flavour of the month (it helps that women love gossip), lastly and most obviously, they are as a whole far more interested in fashion than men.

Then there's the stereotype of the man who is into fashion (particularly of the avant garde/unconventional) being homosexual and feminen, which many men are afraid of and not willing to run the risk of being labelled as and see as a direct threat to their masculinity.

Still, there is one possibility to gain from this - wearing women's clothes. I wear plenty of them, they fit better and as is the premise of this topic, are for the most part more inventive than mens clothes. Yes, there are many clothes which are designed for the female body which won't work on a guy, but just as well there are many unofficial unisex pieces out there, you just need to you know what to look for, and pieces which aren't unisex can still be worn if you are happy with the notion that you will look feminen wearing them. Ultimately, material doesn't have gender.

xeno, you should check out japanese casual brands

I try, but it's hard to know the quality from pictures and they tend to like wearing things like blazers oversized/boxy which I'm not a fan of/doesn't look good on me. Also I don't know almost any japanese brands to look for aside from the super popular. I'm thinking a japanese brands index thread of some sort would be awesome, if anyone with the knowledge is willing to share.

Originally Posted by jet

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I think I'll start a few designer threads even though they won't get much play.

Please do, at this point I just have to surf on over to sufu for designer collections, in my opinion that is the thing that Styleforum is missing the most of. Since SF is just streetwear and denim and Mens Clothing, and not split into many different categories (ala sz and sufu) the few designer threads that we do have get lost in a sea of "Help with Jawnz plz" and "Where 2 kop W+H?" threads.

^It is difficult to keep trying to push **** on people, I was trying to regularly make threads about different labels I thought were interesting a few months ago and I was thinking about trying to start that up again, maybe with bigger name brands but it get's a bit tiring with some of the forums disposition and all, and now that I'm at school I'm doing **** instead of sitting on SF chats and all that so...yeah...if Jet and whoever else makes a Jil or MMM or Dries thread I will certainly participate. Maybe I'll start one or two.

Originally Posted by AndrewRyanWallace

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^It is difficult to keep trying to push **** on people, I was trying to regularly make threads about different labels I thought were interesting a few months ago and I was thinking about trying to start that up again, maybe with bigger name brands but it get's a bit tiring with some of the forums disposition and all, and now that I'm at school I'm doing **** instead of sitting on SF chats and all that so...yeah...if Jet and whoever else makes a Jil or MMM or Dries thread I will certainly participate. Maybe I'll start one or two.
I know I was just thinking, well everytime someone does try to bring something a lot more outside in, theres always at least a few people who **** on it with "WTF this is SF no one wants to wear Julius bla bla bla", half the time it ends up turning into an argument about SF approval. Definitely going to be putting up a Robert Geller thread later when I get the time.

Am very happy to see ^

Deffinitly an area I want more time spent in from my perspective.

Originally Posted by XenoX101

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I try, but it's hard to know the quality from pictures and they tend to like wearing things like blazers oversized/boxy which I'm not a fan of/doesn't look good on me. Also I don't know almost any japanese brands to look for aside from the super popular. I'm thinking a japanese brands index thread of some sort would be awesome, if anyone with the knowledge is willing to share.

http://voi.0101.co.jp/voi/menstop/index.jsp

Originally Posted by jet

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I dunno that girl looks fantastic in her jeans you might want to ask her I believe she likes some of the nudie cuts. I think I'll start a few designer threads even though they won't get much play.
I tried but fashion inept guys like why usually wreck it or it turns into "why is this so expensive? quit ripping people off! rabble rabble rabble!" http://www.styleforum.net/showthread.php?t=104013 http://www.styleforum.net/showthread.php?t=103976 http://www.styleforum.net/showthread.php?t=103979 lol at why liking marc and moschino. forgot about that I think it is important that people realize there is more out there and that boring stuff like w&h and BoO (not a knock. still own, like, and covet both brands) aren't the height of the clothing world and also that you don't need to spend $5000 on expensive designer threads to enjoy the runway shows, the pieces, the looks, and the general "feel" to the collections, take something from them (even if just the attitude) and work it into your own clothing life. The reason Margiela, Dries, Junya, and other high end designers (not including ervell which is like mid-high) threads don't take off like jcrew, w&h, apc, eg, wwm and boo threads is a few reasons. One, most SFers don't have the money to buy many items with the exception of maybe 1-2 basics on supersale/ebay/2nd hand per year (despite all the nyc BIG law). Two, the pieces aren't readily available. Hell, most barneys don't even carry them. Only like LA and NYC. Third, the designs usually are a representation of some kind of theme, mood, feeling, aesthetic, something. And not just a collection of clothes that are created with average consumer in mind (like jcrew) and sometimes they can look "out there" or people don't want to implement pieces into their own look. Last, it's somewhat intimidating because of the "high fashion" negative stigma. Most people don't want to take a few feelings, moods, thoughts from a designer, show, look and use it to make their own outfits and overall style better.

^Damn I forgot how good Ervell FW'09 looked. I hope a lot of that **** makes it to the rack. Anyone know of any stockists who have received their first shipment?

I hardly recognize any of that fall MMM, stuff on the racks at Barney's was a lot of standard fare, very nice and simple. I liked dot/diamond printed shirts, suede/leather jackets and a denim jacket quite a lot.

in the designer threads, there is hardly any talk of discussion of certain pieces... it is more like:
"kopping that"
"great construction"
"great fit"
"omgz great design"
"jet i love you"
"can't wait till sale season"

not enough discussion about the items themselves, who is carrying what, people showing pictures of the items in their everyday fit... they are often uninviting whereas to the point if you aren't familiar, all you see is a few runway pics and everyone drooling...

Originally Posted by constant struggle

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in the designer threads, there is hardly any talk of discussion of certain pieces... it is more like:
"kopping that"
"great construction"
"great fit"
"omgz great design"
"jet i love you"
"can't wait till sale season"

not enough discussion about the items themselves, who is carrying what, people showing pictures of the items in their everyday fit... they are often uninviting whereas to the point if you aren't familiar, all you see is a few runway pics and everyone drooling...

Again, i think it's difficult in the US and for most people. It's a style that is not as easy to replicate by going to jcrew, gap, milsurp, thrifting (which you can do with BoO, eg, wwm, w&h, and others). You can do stuff with select uniqlo and h&m threads actually but still more difficult. Like i said, there are very very few stores that carry the stuff in the US outside of NYC and LA. Most of the people posting in those threads are people who have already been big fans of the designer and are not looking at anything new. There has been interesting discussion in some of the various high fashion threads including the all encompassing season runway review threads.

im just saying that is why those threads don't stay alive, it is the 5 fan boys having a quick discussion, then what else is there to discuss

Originally Posted by constant struggle

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im just saying that is why those threads don't stay alive, it is the 5 fan boys having a quick discussion, then what else is there to discuss

Isn't the J.Crew thread the same thing? Or does the ubiquity of J.Crew prolong the discussion?

Personally, I fail to see the appeal of most "designer" threads. Some pics from the cat walk, 5 people say "wow, looks great but too expensive", while some others **** talk. Whats there to discuss? We need more surplus threads, more "philosophical" threads and more trad threads. And somewhere to discuss cotton duck pants.