Sunday, July 19, 2009

Times of India: "Latest Fashion Fads For Men"

The Times of India published this article in their Style Section on July 18th. It describes the following clothing fads: Push-Up Pants, Bikini Jeans, Mantyhose, Bamboo Underwear (!?), and Shape Enhancing Undies. An excerpt of the Mantyhose section is included below, and I'll leave it to you to read the article for the other items...


MANTYHOSE : Men have invaded ladies' fashion domain a little further, for after 'man-bras' and 'manscara' the latest must have for men is "Mantyhose." Courtesy e-mancipate.net, a large number of men are wearing hosiery under their clothes, for reasons ranging from comfort to health. While tights have been quite popular throughout Europe for years, but now the trend seems to have touched other parts of the world as well. When Deborrah Ashley, managing director of Luxelegwear.com, launched her site in 2005, she used to sell just one line of hosiery for men, and now she has around 13 lines for male undergarments. Although sales have been rising for a long time, Ashley said that the site received a boost in orders following the Batman craze fuelled by "The Dark Knight" mid-July. "Before the movie it was repeat bulk orders ... it was almost like a secret society, and now it’s brand new customers,"The New York Daily News quoted Ashley, as saying. She revealed that her customers like their mantyhose for warmth, support for athletics, and circulation. The site, e-MANcipate.net is devoted to "accelerating the acceptance of male pantyhose as a regular clothing item," and features a how-to guide for wearing mantyhose properly. The site also assures men: "Wearing pantyhose is pretty easy. Just don’t believe anything you head about it from women."
A few comments: I find it rather silly that anyone is reporting that the men's pantyhose trend is in any way related to the success of last year's blockbuster movie, "The Dark Knight". I loved the movie, and also enjoy wearing legwear--but I can't see any way that it would motivate guys to go out and start buying tights and sheer hosiery. This is a 'factoid' that was originally reported last August (2008) in an Atlanta Journal Constitution article, and has been repeated steadily ever since. The real truth is, that men having been trying and buying sheer and opaque legwear in growing numbers for more than 10 years now and it has nothing to do with super-hero worship.

Men wear legwear for leg support, improved circulation, easing on-the-job discomfort, added warmth-without-bulk, muscle compression for athletic activities, and many particular reasons that tend to be variations on the foregoing themes. I hope our publicity activities continue to bear fruit so we can get the real reasons for the growing legwear trend reported more often.

Now, as for a couple of those other fads mentioned, I'm pretty puzzled about 'bamboo underwear'. I guess there must be something about it that I would just have to see to understand, but I can't help but conjure up some pretty uncomfortable images and connotations when I think of bamboo underwear. Oh well... we'll see.

I also had a tough time understanding just how the bikini jeans work. Another one I'd have to actually see to understand how it works.

Nice thing about 'mantyhose', they're not too hard to understand... you just put 'em on one leg at a time.

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