Hungry, Freaky Male Models

New York Fashion Week, held each February and September, is where agent provocateurs flock to push fashion envelopes. But few expected them to push male models to such anorexic-looking, androgynous extremes this year. And few foresaw tiny clothing tailored specifically to exclude larger, healthier looking men.

Beefcakes need not apply.

One does not create gender equality by pretending there is no inherent difference between the sexes.

Sunken chests and cheeks have apparently become fashionable, as have less classically rugged faces. Gone are the days of chiseled good looks and muscular, broad shoulders.

“For high fashion, that’s definitely what they want. Very thin, edgy-looking guys,” Tricia Romani, head of the Canadian branch of Wilhelmina international talent and modeling agency, told Yahoo News.

The evolution of male models has been somewhat gradual, as many transformations are, but designer Hedi Slimane, formerly of Dior and Saint Laurent (he nixed “Yves”), is praised — if that’s the appropriate word — for having paved the way to making emaciation so popular this year. Iconic brands such Versace, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Givenchy are also showcasing an androgynous and sickly appearance as something to envy.

The look was not met well at first, however.

In 2013, fashion writer and editor Isaac Lock tweeted a photo of a painfully thin male model, commenting, “This is aspirational, right?”

Soon after he tweeted, “Hedi’s Home for Hungry Boys. Fashion, you’re pretty [expletive] up sometimes.” His comments were retweeted thousands of times in agreement.

Yet the skinny, androgynous male model trend has caught on and continues full force.

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This month’s New York show touted gender fluidity like never before with clothing that could be worn by either sex. Dutch design house Maison the Faux (literally “false house” in French), one of the most avant-garde houses, actually produced a show featuring men wearing bras and girdles.

“Society always puts people in boxes and I think that doesn’t make the world a better place,” Maison the Faux co-designer Tess de Boer told Yahoo.

Twenty-six-year-old gender-fluid Wilhelmina model “Lex” seems to agree. He (she?) told Agence France-Presse during Fashion Week, “Being so androgynous, to me, is a blessing … If men and women are equal, then what does all that matter?”

Men and women are equal, undoubtedly — but they are still different.

In an age when the obvious, scientifically proven biological, emotional, and physical differences between men and women are brushed under the rug or even militantly denied, one wonders whether it all actually does matter — and whether using a few more of Maison the Faux’s dreaded societal boxes isn’t much healthier than New York’s take on things.

As Trevin Wax wrote for The Gospel Coalition, “We should not seek to be ‘gender-blind,’ just as we shouldn’t seek to be ‘colorblind.’ One does not end racism by painting everyone the same color so that we no longer see any racial or ethnic distinctiveness. Neither does one create gender equality by pretending there is no inherent difference between the sexes.”

Wax goes on to say: “We don’t flourish when we suppress or ignore gender distinctives. Such an existence creates a flatter, duller society … The differences between men and women aren’t obstacles to overcome; they’re glorious and beautiful.”

It’s easy to think that fashion is a passing fad. Thankfully, there’s truth to this on some level, considering how painful it is to look at leisure suits and 1980s eyeglasses today.

But fashion is also a candid look into cultural beliefs. As fashion historian Valerie Steele once said, “Fashion is a part of the world and part of history. It’s not a meaningless swirl of meaningless clothes. They [clothes] reflect the times.”

If this is true, then Hedi Slimane’s legacy of hungry, androgynous males is likely our cultural future until the pendulum swings into a more socially responsible fashion — and here’s hoping it does.