Post-Consumer Menswear
I'm so weary and fatigued of #menswear [as I write this in my vintage denim fatigues].
My name is Nico, and I have a shopping addiction. Call it the iron grip of capitalism, a lack of impulse control, or a mask for some deep-seated insecurity I’m still grappling with. I justify it by arguing that I’m still figuring out my personal style, developing an idea of my preferences for how I want to feel in my clothing and how I want to present myself to the world.
For nearly everyone who is unaware of or unperturbed by the concept of personal style, what they wear naturally represents their lifestyle and how invested they are in their values. I often think about how increased feelings of isolation and despair are usually tied to an increased awareness [or perhaps an intellectualizing] of the world around us—and I can’t help but draw a parallel to the circles of menswear hell and how tortured those of us are who still struggle to identify ourselves through our personal style. The hard and perhaps obvious truth is that this is all just a distraction for us from unavoidable feelings about our identities, the fate of the world, and our role in it. We all just want to feel better about our lives and how we show up for the people around us, and consumerism is the drug of choice because we’re bombarded by media telling us it will solve all our problems. The appeal we rationalize it with feels noble— it’s a pursuit of beauty, connection, and community. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” In life, we often find solace in the arts that evoke such sentimentality. Is it possible, without consumption, to find and hold onto the knowledge that these things will always exist in the midst of darkness? While I don’t know the answer, I’m challenging myself to be more aware of my consumption habits and reflect on the sources of inspiration and the reasoning behind purchases. To withhold from that next purchase and exercise that effort instead on reflection and perhaps reform. To stay excited by things that resonate with me without feeling like I need to own them.
“American advertising worked explicitly to transmute the dissatisfaction of the working class away from social reform, and toward consumerism. Gratification that used to come from meaningful work could now be purchased.” – Sofi Thanhouser (via Maybe, Baby)
As consumers, we want to know that the signals we communicate through our possession of a product reflect our own desires and somehow bring us closer to them. How we feel owning and wearing things and what they communicate to others is ultimately what style encompasses. The fact that so much inspiration these days across all spectrums comes from either workwear or quiet luxury suggests underlying political implications but also a desire for oneness, whether the wearers are conscious of this or not. This virtue signaling is often where any political action ends — memetic desire as Haley Nahman explains in her newsletter, although I believe the codification of dress can become a bridge between disparate peoples, a community within itself, where those who codify and those who “steal their valor” can recognize a oneness within each other, a desire to see and be seen. It’s a bit more divisive with workwear, but I experienced this firsthand when I entered the world of tailoring in 2011—wearing certain clothing symbolized implied values to those who recognized those symbols and thereby opened up doors that would otherwise be closed to me. There is a power in clothing and what it communicates, but how far do we need to seek that out? How does that inform our identity? And where does one draw the line between the two, if there is one?
To me, there’s a difference between personal style and wardrobe. One can have personal style on a shoestring budget (anyone remember Brother Sharp?). If your connection to people is driven by new clothing, is that really the most sustainable way to make friends? If you follow this thread, I think there’s something unsustainable about commonly accepted consumption habits in general. Perhaps there is a way to find a sense of fulfillment and connection without swiping a credit card every time we find ourselves lacking it.