For Deep

It was a slow process to finally admit this after a lifetime worth of denial, but I've only recently come to terms with the fact that I am an aesthete. This, I know, is a troubling realization, which is why it took me so long. What I do know is that I care deeply about visual harmony and really appreciate this quality in others.

Some guy once told me that for him (and probably almost all straight men) a girl’s dress doesn’t matter until he finds her attractive. It doesn’t have to be a particularly sexy outfit, he said. It could just be a T-shirt and jeans. What she wears is just an added bonus or something that just accentuates her appeal.

For me, though, it’s quite the opposite: I judge a man first before considering any other part of him, personality included. I only wish I could tell you this was an exaggeration, and unfortunately for me my aesthete ways have sent me either falling for total posers, or barking up the wrong tree. I have a sore spot for men who dress impeccably well. If he appropriates old trends in new contexts seamlessly, carefully combines neutral and/or earth tones with the sporadic accent of color, juxtaposes textiles in interesting ways, and cleverly plays with proportion – I can't help but swoon (hard, if it's all done simultaneously).

In my defense, this is probably symptomatic of being raised by a man who has an exceptionally keen eye for aesthetics, and this is perhaps why I am so attracted to men with style. It's because this quality seems common and familiar to me and beyond that - even likely to suggest a mind like my father's. By reference, a deep understanding of style seems suggestive of a man who is at once pragmatic and focused, yet secretly whimsical and boyish.

It is incidentally these four qualities which I most admire in men's clothing - and further, why menswear on women is so interesting. Worn by women, the pragmatism and the focused aspects of definitively masculine clothing seems on one level basic and classic and on another dramatic and minimal, yet the whimsy and boyishness on a woman conveys as coquettish and childlike, perhaps even Lolita-esque (Remember her in slacks?). Re-contextualized on a woman's figure, masculine styles reconsider the feminine form, unbinding it and accenting aspects otherwise overlooked or over-emphasized by womenswear. The boyish charm on girls seems to construct more than just a subversive play on gender role, but could perhaps be provocative of feelings of envy.

On that note, along with a few collected images of stylish men, I have included a picture of my father not without an awareness of a profound Freudian relationship I have to well-dressed men.

In order from the top: Andrew Sia (謝安如); Stephen Malkmus; Toshiro Mifune (三船 敏郎); Frank Sinatra; anecdote from GQ on Frank Sinatra's sartorial dedication (and explanation of mugshot). And here, here and here for posts related to penis envy, androgyny and boyish clothing on women.

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