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12 International Herald Tribune

Thursday, June 30, 2005 MEN’S FASHION

David Aguilera/Splash; Eagle/INFGoff.com; Riccardo S. Savi/WireImage.com; Splash

From left: A bearded Ben Aff leck; Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow on stroll with their child, Apple; Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson; Britney Spears and Kevin Federline; Paris Latsis, fiancé of Paris Hilton.

Slobs in Hollywood: What do actresses see in their scruffy men?

By Jessica Michault watch didn’t give them away. ing like he is wearing clothes he slept in ity is a backlash to the metrosexual with singer, actress and fashion design- make over the men into something the
The obvious example of this frog to a red carpet Hollywood premiere. phenomenon. er Jennifer Lopez. Whatever ones opin- women wouldn’t reject outright because
PARIS mentality is Mr. Britney Spears, Kevin Although no one is asking for the re- ‘‘Men want to take care of them- ion about the multi-hyphenated Lopez, of appearance. The television show is
ollywood loves nothing more Federline, whose arrival in the city of turn of the golden age of Hollywood, selves but they don’t want to look like one thing is sure: Ben Affleck never produced by the once grubby Ashton

H than a good old-fashioned

fairy tale. Recently a number
of up-and-coming actresses
have taken this notion to heart by try-
ing to bring to life an age-old fable. Us-
ing ‘‘The Princess and the Frog’’ as a
guide, some of the most beautiful and
stylish women in Hollywood have
taken to kissing frogs and hoping that
they will turn into princes.
No luck so far.
Call it invasion of the slobs. The once
glamorous Hollywood of Cary Grant
and Steve McQueen has been taken over
by greasy-haired, scruffy-bearded,
baggy-pants-wearing men who could be
mistaken for vagrants if their $30,000
angels set the stage for this latest Holly-
wood trend. Granted, Spears was never
a leading lady in film or fashion. But
even classic beauties with fashion
know-how like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jen-
nifer Garner, and Kate Hudson are all
being squired about town by men (Chris
Martin, Ben Affleck, and Chris Robin-
son respectively) who wouldn’t make
the dress code if they showed up alone.
With the availability of round-the-
clock stylists and unlimited incomes,
there would seem to be no excuse for
such slovenly behavior. But a billion-dol-
lar inheritance doesn’t keep Paris Latsis,
Greek shipping heir and fiancé to mil-
lionaire heiress Paris Hilton, from look-
there is something to be said for look-
ing the part. Image is everything in
Hollywood and the illusion of glamour
and class of celebrities is always part of
the attraction when a fan forks over
hard-earned cash for a movie ticket or
CD. Casual dressing does not preclude
looking good (think Jake Gyllenhall,
Usher). And in the age of the metro-
sexual male, there is no longer a need
for men to look rough and unkempt as a
way of proclaiming to the world their
masculi n ity.
For Sarah Lopez, top aesthetician at
the hot Beverly Hills salon Kalologie,
who counts Jack Black as one of her
celebrity clients, the new slob mental-
they have had anything done,’’ Lopez
says. ‘‘Hollywood is a small world that
is all about how you look and these
men are not wanting to look affected
and in need of that Hollywood approv-
al of ‘he looks good.’ ’’
But when our favorite leading ladies
allow themselves to be seen with
disheveled boyfriends or husbands,
they tarnish their own image to a cer-
tain extent in the eyes of the public. ‘‘No
self-respecting woman would be seen
out with a guy looking like that’’ has no
doubt crossed the minds of many a fan.
Case in point— Jennifer Garner and
Ben Affleck. Before this latest version
of Bennifer, Affleck famously went out
looked better.
The one celebrity exception to this
fashion rule has been the rocker/model
combination. In those cases it has only
worked to the advantage of the rocker’s
image that, even with their scruffy ap-
pearance, they were able to snag the su-
permodel (think Jack White and Karen
Elson or even better Kate Moss and
Pete Doherty). And there is no harm
done to the supermodels image be-
cause their jobs don’t hinge on a public
persona and no one is asking them to
be more that just a pretty face.
Even the latest reality show ‘‘Beauty
and the Geek’’ teams up ugly guys and
beautiful ingénues in an attempt to
Kutcher — before Demi Moore got her
hands on him — could be taking some
of the shows inspiration from the Holly-
wood slob trend.
But maybe this disheveled look hides
some deeper issues. ‘‘After looking per-
fect for a movie role, I am sure that for
some it is a way of connecting back
with normalcy,’’ notes Sarah Lopez.
And if the old adage ‘‘true love is blind’’
is correct, then maybe by embracing
their man’s inner slob, Hollywood’s
leading ladies are making there own
statement to the world — I am in love.
Jessica Michault is on the staff of the
International Herald Tribune.

Sport plays well in Milan

Shawn Collins; Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas

Sportswear features are cropping up in a range of offerings. Above, Shawn Collins. Below, clockwise: DSquared, John Galliano, Junya Watanabe and Roberto Menichetti.

A new generation takes to skateboard chic

By Karl Treacy shearling boots.
In Milan, Roberto Menichetti opened
PARIS his fall show with a model on a skate-
y collection is about real- board. That and the skateboards that ap-

MEN ICHETTI ETRO

Continued from Page 11
Menichetti had a complex theory
about his various different lines, us-
ing a pyramid to explain that from
the basics at the wide lower end to
the apex of high fashion there are
many crosscurrents and connec-
tions. In his display of models on a
scaffolding grid, the message that
came across most strongly was of
sportswear, from a seersucker shirt
worn with leather pants through a
striped blazer, unlined and super-
light. Active sports effects included
windsurfer shorts with a tailored
cotton shirt and a torso-hugging top
in a Teflon/cotton surfing fabric,
shown with wide and easy pants.
The poetic film called ‘‘The First
Sun’’ that Silvia Venturini Fendi com-
missioned from director Luca
Guadagnino, a video award winner
at the Venice Biennale, gets to the
heart of the problem of how best to
show menswear.
‘‘We shot it where I learned to
swim as a child,’’ said Venturini
Fendi of the seaside resort where the
youthful band hung out, wearing the
rope-patterned swim shorts and can-
vas wave-patterned shoes, as well as
the narrow summer suits that were
part of the sailing and ocean theme
of the collection. Its star is Massimo
Mezzavilla, who was in last season’s
movie inspired by the artist Caravag-
gio.
The designer said that she ‘‘wanted
to communicate fashion through
emotions’’ and the movie had a per-
fume of Roman holidays, of ‘‘La
Dolce Vita,’’ of 1960s youth and teen-
age melancholy. But where were the
leather goods that have made Fendi’s
reputation?
Backstage, Venturini Fendi
showed a leather coat edged with
rope and leather bags waterproofed
for life on the ocean wave, as well as
canvas jackets tailored like naval
uniforms and all sorts of details from
anchor buttons to chain prints. A
A LESSANDRO
DELL’ACQUA
Photos by Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
runway show would probably not
have shown most of these carefully
thought-out details — and it cer-
tainly could not have expressed a
moody adolescent moment.
But between the splashes of show-
manship and the catwalk shows that
are not much more than a bunch of
guys in polo shirts and pants walk-
ing up and down, the Milan
menswear fashion season (which
ends on Thursday) needs to find a
way of bringing energy to the run-
way and the intricacies of fabric and
construction to the professional
audience.
Suzy Menkes is the fashion editor of
the International Herald Tribune.
‘M ity, and so elements of
sportswear are indis-
pensable.’’
For designer Kris Van Assche, it
made perfect sense for his debut collec-
tion in Paris last January to show tail-
oring with sportswear proportions and
detailing. With its mix of scalpel-cut
jackets and baggy pants in fine fabrics,
multi-pocketed vests and hoodies in-
spired by overalls, and jaunty fedoras
setting off chunky white sneakers be-
low, Van Assche’s collection adapted
grown-up clothes to the needs of a gen-
eration taking its style tips from Jay-Z
rather than Gatsby.
‘‘Conceiving a new collection, it is
impossible for me to totally ignore
what men are already wearing,’’ he
said. ‘‘Men do not want to feel
repressed in their clothes. I believe this
explains the success of sportswear.
What I try to do is combine both — tra-
dition and comfort."
Though men’s fashion for autumn
has trumpeted the return of tailoring
and its dandified codes, a more cred-
ible trend has been the injection of
sportswear into the frame. As men are
increasingly likely to buy an expensive
jacket and wear it with a T-shirt, jeans
and sneakers, instead of buying an en-
tire suit, many designers have come to
reflect this reality of modern dressing
in their work.
For some, like Junya Watanabe, this
ethos has become a signature. For au-
tumn the Japanese designer brought the
ski slopes to the city with his clever re-
working of Alpine sports gear in pin-
stripes and the sexing up of Fair Isle
knits and anoraks. Similarly,
Watanabe’s mentor Rei Kawakubo at
Comme des Garçons cut suits in sport
techno fabrics, lining pants with Airtex.
Dolce & Gabbana alluded to the
spare time of their dark-suited lothari-
os with a preceding passage of sexy
kick-boxing outfits, Michael Kors
slipped padded silver jackets over slick
city wear, Dries Van Noten paired his
clashing checks with motocross pants,
and Raf Simons’s voluminous, sharp-
pleat pants were topped off with mold-
ing ski sweaters. Even on his madcap
gallop through Napoleonic history,
John Galliano acknowledged the
grungy influence of Kurt Cobain, al-
beit with a snowboarding bent, in over-
sized pants and open-tongued
peared throughout the show strapped
around narrow suits are part of a collab-
oration with Forever Skate, a fledgling
company set up by five American
youngsters whom Menichetti, an avid
skateboarder, became friendly with.
Menichetti’s other passions, surfing
and motorcycle racing, were high-
lighted in baggy pants with contrasting
seams, slim jackets with two-way zip-
pers and racing stripes.
‘‘I really try to understand what’s
new, what the new generation wants,’’
the designer said. ‘‘In design, you never
go back. And this is how people dress,
between formal and casual. It’s the free-
dom to choose. The future of men’s fash-
ion will be a perfect mix of these two.’’
Important in this future will be the
fabric technology that can already cre-
ate imperceptibly waterproofed noble
fabrics as well as synthetic mixes that
allow the end results to ‘‘keep their aes-
thetic look,’’ Menichetti says. Interest-
ingly, Van Assche says, ‘‘I don’t like the
feel of sportswear fabrics.’’
In New York, Bergdorf Goodman’s
men’s store has over the past four years
placed an increasing emphasis on this
fusion fashion, the melding of tradi-
tionally separate retail sectors with
mixed-merchandise showcase areas.
For Robert Burke, Bergdorf Good-
man’s fashion director, it’s a no-brain-
er. ‘‘We believe in it because I believe
that’s how men are buying and dress-
ing today,’’ he said, citing names like
DSquared2 and Etro as early pioneers
of the trend, with the store enjoying
‘‘incredible success at a luxury level’’
with the chic Italian cashmere and
sportswear of Brunello Cuccinelli.
‘‘American men are starting to break
out of their traditional uniform — a
suit during the week, pleat-front khakis dressed place in the world,’’ he says. fasteners and a more grown-up cut, and
and button-down shirt at the week- But its spirit is what has driven his first simple sweaters in cashmere are en-
end,’’ Burke says, and the result is a full own-name collection. hanced with graphic appliqués.
‘‘real emphasis on personal style’’ as the Currently drawing attention with the It is a reverse distillation of the trend
average man learns more about fash- film ‘‘Lords of Dogtown,’’ the West- simmering in fashion right now. But to
ion. Coast surf-and-skater scene is a big in- Collins it was that old chestnut of cre-
But over in Los Angeles, Shawn fluence in Collins’s work. But instead ating these clothes because he could
Collins is not entirely in agreement. of simply rehashing baggy boardwalk not find anything he wanted to wear
‘‘Every guy could just dress a bit bet- shapes, Collins has taken the essence that struck the right balance between
ter,’’ suggests the 35-year-old designer and reworked casual pieces in Scottish elegant and easy.
who returned to Los Angeles from Par- wools and cashmeres. ‘‘You can dress it up, you can dress it
is almost two years ago after over eight Wool jackets in speckled blue or dark down,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t think clothes
years spent cutting his fashion teeth green are lined in Airtex, the same mesh should be too precious.’’
working for names like Galliano and that is used as the side-stripe on tuxedo
Stella McCartney. trousers. Board shorts are lengthened Karl Treacy is a freelance journalist
‘‘I swear to God, LA is the worst- into pants with Velcro and leather tong based in Paris.