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Written by Ashim
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Saturday, 08 December 2007 |
So I was talking to my publisher here at The Fresh earlier this week, and he happened to mention something that shook me to my very core. He said that while flipping through one of the very many men’s magazines he caught an advertisement for men’s makeup. Let that sink in a bit. Makeup… For men. Can you imagine Ne-yo or Tyler Perry doing a Revlon commercial?? Well… actually… Maybe that’s a bad example. But men don’t wear makeup! We’re men, for God’s sake. We do man stuff… like war, and sports. Applying foundation? Not so much.
At first, I laughed it off. The more I thought about it however, it almost made sense. You pretty boy niccas are outta hand. Let’s be real: Ever since Cam’ron and Kanye convinced us it was cool to wear pink, we’ve seen trends in urban fashion that are just plain lady-like. There are men today that have more pairs of the same shoe in different colors than most of my college girlfriends. We had thugs in the club late last year in floral print hoodies. Floral prints yo. Neck tattoos don’t match with floral prints! And what about all the fashion accessories we own: a New Era baseball cap in every conceivable color and pattern, a small collection of the world’s ugliest belt buckles, wallet chains, a few watches, dog tags & necklaces, bracelets, god awful ‘stunner’ shades, diamond earrings, and (possibly worst of all) the all purpose knapsack, which might as well be a man-purse. What happened? Why are there crystals and rhinestones on men’s t-shirts, and why in the hell are you wearing skinny jeans?
I’d say I’m about as fashion forward as you reasonably can ask any straight man to be. Working for the thefreshmovement.net, it’s basically a job requirement to have some measure of personal style and a good eye for trends. I mean, I own a fedora-- what more can I say? I understand the importance of being fly. I get that once you get a pair of all white AF1 lows smudged, they’re basically worthless. I get paying $10 for a fresh line-up every three or four days. But somewhere between Diddy and Proactive, men having their eyebrows shaped, and getting mannys and peddys, some of us became just as obsessed with fashion and personal beauty as the ladies we tell ourselves we’re trying to impress. We stopped doing man stuff. The shoestrings in your limited edition kicks shouldn’t have to match the stitching in your baseball cap, which shouldn’t match the embroidery on the back pockets of your $200 jeans. (Sidebar: Over-matching is not fly. In fact it’s pretty tacky and kinda makes you look like a jackass.) What ever happened to throwing on a pair of J’s, sweats and a white tee and going about your damned day? When did we start taking more time to get dressed than our women?
For the record, I don’t honestly care if you all start to wear weaves and stilettos—you aren’t here to impress me. I’m sure you’d like to say its all for the bitches (and I don’t call ‘em bitches as a matter of disrespect, I just don’t know all their names individually). But I would feel irresponsible if I didn’t point out that the $300 D&G shades you happen to be rocking indoors is the same pair I bought my sister for Christmas. If I didn’t point out the fact that lavender is a color never meant to be worn by anyone who stands up to urinate, who else would? If I didn’t ask what would make a man over 25 years of age rock a orange and pink hoodie with a fur-lined hood and gold foil accents, then what kind of friend am I? And I’d like to think of us as friends. If I could, I would probably invite you all over to my place to barbeque, run a couple games of Madden, shoot hoops and basically do man-stuff. Okay, no I wouldn’t. Not at all. But I would definitely give you a friendly nod if I saw you on the street. So as a friend, I think it’s only right that I ask you to please, please, pull your damn skirt back down.
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