You hear fashion week, you think women on runways, designers anxiously awaiting approval from scrutinizing fashion editors. And you probably think the main target is women. Usually, you’d be right.
Well, for the most part, it still is. But they’re not the sole gender being targeted by designers like Marc Jacobs. That’s right: men are now getting thrown into the fashion line as Jacobs works with Sephora on his male-oriented grooming line.
NYC Fashion Week kicked off on the 5th and goes through tomorrow.
Marc Jacobs has naturally tested all these products on himself. As a design of women’s fashion and ‘trousse de toilette’ for years, he’s come to think that there are definitely profitable unisex products to be sold in today’s market. Jacobs’ Big 3 essentials in his male line are:
- Remedy Concealer, which is basically an all-in-one pen (or really more like an eraser) that remedies the appearance of aging, dehydration, and fatigue for under your eyes. It’s his personal favorite.
- Brow Tamer, which I find to be the most applicable, even for men who care little for their facial appearance.
- Lip Lock, which has a minty fresh taste to it for moist lips. Male or female, moisture is important. Nobody wants chapped lips.
For us males out there, this is what a Remedy Concealer looks like. Whether or not we’ll buy them is another question.
The venture isn’t some wacky, bold leap into the dark. Male grooming has been becoming lucrative, so why continue to automatically cut your customers by 50%? Indeed, in Britain, department stores like Debenhams, have seen a 24 % rise in male grooming products being sold.
Designer Tom Ford is following Jacobs’s lead. John Demsey, group president of Estee Lauder, agrees with this overall trend in men’s fashion. He attributes it to the very reasonable goal of ‘enabling men to present their best self’. If you’re intelligent and doing well economically, why not create the best incarnation of who you can be by putting a little focus on grooming?
It may seem odd at first; men getting into their appearance this much. But the usual rugged look hasn’t always been the trend. We take for granted the un-groomed grungy man (maybe still left over from the 90s) as being the norm.
The yuppies of the 80s were particularly self-absorbed when it came to appearance. This was the decade when people started buying home tanning beds.
Like many patterns and trends, much of the time they’re cyclical or at least return in a familiar form. In the 1980s we saw yuppie males with narcissistic attention to their fashion and appearance (think American Psycho). Before that think of the finely maintained and cut men’s beards and mustaches at the turn of the 19th century. And it may be pushing it too far, but recall the powdered wigs and perfumes of the 18th century male of substance.
In the 18th century, aristocratic males had whole teams of servants apply powder, perfume, and makeup to achieve this look.
Men do at times in history turn greater attention to a neatly tailored appearance (you know, beyond shaving and bathing). This recent trend seen in the fashion world is just another resurgence of that tendency. A more interesting question is why this resurgence is taking place…
