While I remain passionate about questions of men’s personal style and fashion, my more potent and consistent passion is to write about film, as in criticism.
I imagine that my occasional and inconsistent writing has frustrated those who came here, anyway.
I’ll be at Wrighting About Film.
A brief Canadian documentary, by Elizabeth St. Philip, is the latest video to remind North Americans of the bias, ignorance, and prejudice that stymies the careers and progress of brown, black, and beige models in the U.S. fashion and advertizing industries. This is a part of the National Film Board of Canada’s series for “Work for All,” which are “against racism in the workplace.” “Colour” shows the latest act in the story of a 24-year-old Black model, Renee Thompson, who’s a 10-year veteran. The bottom-line question: “what isn’t beauty in the United States?”
Veteran Black, but not yet "top" model Renee Thompson
This 17-minute documentary produced by, Elizabeth St. Philip, and released by the National Film Board of Canada, tells the story of a 24-year-old model, Renee Thompson, who’s a 10-year veteran, globetrotting professional. This as she strives to “make it” before “aging out,” she has moved to New York City.
But, as the title declares, hers isn’t a frolicking story of the “glamour” of a professional pretty body and face. Instead, it’s a candid and somewhat in-depth examination of what the United States’ majority sees as the opposite of our standard of beauty – The money-losers of the glamour and beauty industry. Generally, those who have typically African, or obviously “other,” features.
They want “white girls dipped in chocolate. They really look like white girls who’re painted black; that’s beauty – to the industry.” said Justin Peery, Ms. Thompson’s New York agent.
“Colour” stands out for its candor, for including sources of many different shades, and for its high technical quality. Ms. Thompson is a compelling character with a compelling story. Of course, if your worldview or comfort level with this topic is superficial or timid, you won’t stay “tuned.”
The duration of 17-minutes is awkward. It won’t be marketed or promoted in a conventional way. That may just be Ms. St. Philip’s intention. Because she could have filled out a full 30-minutes by either including another brown or black model, even a man, to juxtapose two different careers, attitudes, and results, or by including more indelible and evocative details on Ms. Thompsons’ career, or why she’s only now doing the last sprint toward “top” status.
“The Colour of Beauty” (link, couldn’t figure out the Embed)
After having reported stories on these chronic and persistent cultural questions, one knows that it’s complex and contradictory in some ways. And some peoples’ points of view or rationales often just be out-right confusing. But then the nuances and subtleties of the big questions in adult life are rarely resolved as Hollywood, and we, want them to be.
For models with archetypical African features…
Well, it’s not bad news. It’s old. It’s not new. As with many Anglo (white) cultural institutions, it’s two-faced; representatives insist that more black, brown, and beige models need to be booked and bandied, but we still see the same – or seem to. Clearly, incremental change seems to feel slow as dial-up web surfing.
Given the meager progress or improvement, powerful people see more to gain from maintaining the status quo then from rocking the boat, their careers, and incomes and being blunt and vocal about this entrenched and generational crisis. it’s more nuanced and confusing than that, but it’s hard to reconcile some individual’s zeal to improve and upset the profession and the mainstream media messages with what seems to be that same industry’s stubborn stagnancy on the topic.
Just click below at how “The New York Times,” reported on the situation in 2009. It’s called “Fashion: Of Color | Diversity Beyond the Runway.”
“Runway is fun, but campaigns is what pays your bills!,” Chanel Iman said in this video.
As the narrator says, “There’s limited room at the top of runway fashion;” so, there’s even less room for brown, black, or beige models. And the air in the realm of ad campaigns is even more rare. (It’s morose how rare it is for even a few people to talk about the discomfort so many of them have with archetypically “black,” or “ethnic” features.)
Or click at how “The Wall Street Journal” reported on the situation in 2008. It’s called “Showcasing Diversity on the Runway.”
The communities of color face a dilemma: does any one of them either keep relying on the scraps of acknowledgement from the mainstream and majority media, and latch on to some bit of satisfaction, or do they strive to shun those ever present, broadcast and broadband messages in favor of struggling on the media landscape’s margins? Neither is an easy or simple choice.
Parents and friend usually remind us to look within when you want to remember how great or beautiful you are. Must I invoke Stuart Smalley’s elementary credo – with an earnest face? “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me.”
Seriously.
But the ethnically ambiguous models, the “exotics,” or more palatable choices, probably do get more work.
Model Chanel Iman
But the ethnically ambiguous models, the “exotics,” or more palatable choices, probably do get more work.
For multiethnic models of color…
Maybe it’s continued “good” news. While the “good” may be debatable, at least ethnically vague or ambiguous looks are booked. Those models who couldn’t be placed or “understood” in the conventional or typical ways have been a great novelty before; many people figured that that might translate into more opportunities for models with broad noses, lips, and butts.
Even though that’s a meager opening into the business.
The bottom-line: most people ask “what is beauty?” But the operative question, the one where the answer will give your something, what is Not beauty, in the majority’s eyes..? That’s the point of this Canadian documentary.
This is old news, but it reminds people of color to rely on themselves and their communities to support and affirm what they already know is beautiful.
When you put on your clothes, how often do you think about the colors? Aside from fit, proportion, and posture, color is a crucial pillar in saying who you are with your clothes. Men, your color choices provide hints about just how cool, smart, self-confident you are.
Sure, this seems petty and trivial. But whether you want to deal with it nor not, this part of your style, your public identity. Never mind if you’re dispassionate about your image or – bluntly – how other people perceive you, strangers and future bosses do it regardless of this.
Your clothes and physique are a canvass on which you convey your identity and your personal brand. The colors that you choose to wear in part, tell the implicit and subliminal story: this is me.
Which color palette tells us whom you are or whom you want to finally be?
So consider your skin tone, eye and hair color, your build, and your comfort level with style risks. Here’s an elementary, but key question: among your various colors, which ones really stand-out as your best?
If your skin is darker, wear warm, non-monochromatic colors. If your skin is lighter or fairer, wear cool, more conservative colors.
You need to know or discover which colors make you look the best, and then decide, from among those, tell your story.
A color chart can be your friend: It may seem passé, but you look at it. Notice which colors make your own color glow, and then look at the choice opposite from those. They will pop well with your own color.
How much of a risk do you want to take with your image?
Try choosing calm, but reliable-looking colors that compliment your skin and eye colors. They say the eyes offer a view into your soul.
If you’re brown or black, try pairing lavendar or violet with milk chocolate and a copper accent. Maybe a bracelet and belt buckle – either men or women can rock that.
Craig Stokes offers advice on your personal palette at “Style Minute.”
If you’re fair-skinned or Anglo (white), try playing with pairing grey and cobalt or periwinkle blue and an egg-shell accent.
Try taking risks with more vibrant, edgy colors, and go beyond form fit and look for panache that still don’t pin you as a clown or Derrick Zoolander.
If you’re looking for a suit for a job interview, to impress an important date, or just to make the right impression, you might have must less money than you want to invest in a suit. (Yes, the higher the suit’s quality, the more it costs, but it’ll also last longer. That becomes an investment – but it’s not scary.)
So, while you’ve seen stylish choices at the major or high-end retailers, Macy’s, Saks, Bloomies, etc, you haven’t yet won the lottery or gotten an inheritance. So you’ll have to satisfy that interviewer or that great date with a fundamental suit.
There’s one great reality about that suit: it’s the fit and your physique that matter – the suit must fit you; not the other way around. Former fashion teacher, Tim Gunn, continually presses a fundamental and simple lesson.
I won’t be technical here.
Now you’ll know how to choose fundamental items that fit most of your body. (This will make visits with a tailor simple and more affordable.)
When you accept the easy task of visiting a tailor – a very talented one – they will make sure that the suit makes you look as great as you can. A frustrating, vital secret: tailors are not automatically costly! They’ll make your suit accentuate the best of your body, (even if you say you don’t care, or you scratch your head about what that is).
I’ll mention posture; The posture part is on you. Walk with your shoulders back.
If you don’t walk like you deserve and are supposed to look good, you’ll look like crap.
The tailor visit isn’t an extra expense or an extravagance. Making sure that that entry-level suit you buy fits your body perfectly is what will make you stand out to that interviewer or that woman. It’s very subtle, but so is much of the meat of communication.
After buying, if not investing in, a suit, there is a decisive step – choose and then work with a tailor who has artistic gusto and expertise. A professional tailor. In my experience, there’s a difference between the in-house and the independent tailors. The major retailers provide in-house tailors, but you don’t know them, and they don’t know you. They do not care about making you look great.
The independent tailor will make you stand out in that suit. He or she will make it special because it will distinguish you and your physique, and that vital part of your personal brand. Your style sense.
Go to the Men’s Warehouse…or where ever then, and buy that suit. And then find a local tailor who has good “bed side” manner. You’ll be walking around with the correct fit and proportions that flaunt your best assets.
Men want to look good, even great, as long as no one mentions the vile “F-word” – fashion. The standard is usually a matter of who your lady notices. Guys rarely think about it, but you probably notice who your lady keeps swooning over. But he may or may not be, or even make sense as, your role model for style.
Jamie Foxx
When you see actors, artists, or entrepreneurs, or others who command women’s attention – where you just know that “that guy’s got ‘it’” – take their cues. It could be something as simple as noticing their attitude or swagger; ah, but their clothes surely and deftly have a role in that. Half of this can be a matter of shoulders-back posture and of wearing clothes that fit your physique, as they should.
You’re not consciously watching these men; you just notice them, like you do a house’s trim or a car’s lines. When you see something, a jacket, trousers, or something that clicks with your idea of you, then that’s a piece that you want to consider putting into your closet.
One vital, surprise hint: off-the-rack clothes rarely fit your body as they need to, or as your lady will tell you that she wishes they did.
I mean really, if you doubt that women care about how good you look, about how well you’re dressed, just ask. Does a woman cut your hair; does she scan your groceries; does she give you the towels at the gym? Ask her! She may wonder if you’re serious. From her experience, few men care about this.
George Clooney
Who’s your role model: Jamie Foxx, George Clooney, Will Smith, Jeffrey Donovan, or Sam Jackson? (Yes; there are examples outside of acting – too many – I just can’t name them.) Do you want to look cool and contemporary, distinct, and non-corporate? Taking heed of how these men walk around town or on-screen will only help.
Maybe a movie or TV character is cool; I’m “addicted” to watching “Burn Notice;” Michael Weston, the central character, portrayed by Jeffrey Donovan, is just cool. He kills people, often coldly and with extreme prejudice, but he and his clients are sympathetic, like those of “The Equalizer,” the 1980s CBS series. Mr. Weston is like Jason Bourne come to TV, but with style sense.
If your role model is Curtis “50-Cent” Jackson, or Jay-Z, or Jack Black this journal is not for you. I advocate for styles that work in “polite company,” …whatever that is!
Since warmer weather is teasing some of us, this is a great time to start thinking about or reconsider the question of how good you want to look for your lady, or for yourself, or to consider which man’s clothing cues seem right just for you. You might even take this hint from “The Wall Street Journal” about “power jeans.”
Women repeatedly tell me how important it is that their men consider their own clothes; many of them have just stopped bringing i up out of blunt disgust. They’ve also gotten sick of being ignored, as though they’re crazy. Men are anxious about being connected with “F- words,” like fashion, or another one that’s ugly enough for you to guess; if you chuckled, I think you’ve missed the point.
As men our main and most obvious flexibility in fashion lays in which accessories we wear and how we use them.
The history of men’s style is fascinating and ironic. 21st-century men ignore or are in the dark about just how concerned men of means were in prior generations about how they presented themselves. The least we can consider are the small details that say a lot. And these days you don’t need much money to look dapper – only motivation.
I find the silk necktie ubiquitous, too ubiquitous. The bolo tie works in the South, I suppose. But maybe you’re contemporary and urban, and you like to dress well. You want to please yourself as much as to make a statement or impress peers. Maybe you’re bored stiff with a…stiff necktie.
How about taking a risk with a neckerchief – at least on days when you don’t take meetings. Just test it out. And I’m not referring to the cowboy look, unless you like that, and can make it rock for you.
I think that a risk pops up if you use a hankerchief as this video shows; because the look that it creates resembles an ascot – you’ll look like a snot, pretentious. Like here:
At my French conversation group, an Eritrean woman gave me a full-length scarf that her friend had brought back from their country. (I had noticed another one a month prior and had greatly admired it.) I thought to myself, “Ties are so tried, so boring. How ’bout trying a scarf?”
When I returned home, I basically placed the scarf around my neck, wrapped one end around the other once, and pulled that end up to and through the loop, and then pulled it back out the front. I was already wearing my shirt. Then, with a couple my shirt’s top buttons open, I stuffed the bottom part of the scarf down into my shirt and leave the top one or two button’s open.
So my neck is wrapped by the scarf and that is in-turn wrapped by my shirt collar. I am no expert on how to tie a neckerchief, but I also don’t think there are many rules to break. One thing I’m sure of – I’m not picturing the cowboy version. I’m not talking about an ascot.
Fonzworth Bentley wearing...not really a neckerchief
When I saw Fonzworth Bentley (AKA Derrick Watkins) wear one on his MTV show “From G’s to Gents,” I knew I was on the right track. I had worn one just a couple of days prior. I felt cool with it and comfortable, but I also knew that I went against the overwhelmingly conservative dogma and the grain.
As with a pocket square, I don’t think it matters much how you do it as much as it does that you be open to adding or changing the flair with which you wear your accessories. There are still plenty of mental and attitudinal obstacles to men dressing well and choosing a refined personal style.
Another video example: This is almost what I recommend, but without the snotty accent and without it looking so much like a tie.
When CNN recently asked an InStyle magazine editor, Isabel Gonzalez Whitaker, to analyze Michelle Obama’s impact on North American style, she suggested there wasn’t simply a contrast between glamour and chicness, and the very important comfort, but a clash. Michelle Obama doesn’t demonstrate this, but the American attitude does. It raises questions for men’s style and men’s own mindsets toward it.
She said that “American designers also speak to a more modern, almost sportswear-inspired sensibility…” “It’s about being chic, but also being comfortable.” Her opinion, however educated and well informed, was off the mark. That could dissuade the audience. It’s bad for women who are hungry for some flair and panache. But there are also style-conscious men who need encouragement, who need to see green lights instead of red ones in the face of their own routine and narrow, alpha male judgments. Many men probably want to dress to look cool, crisp, and even urbane, but few quarters of our culture support or encourage this.
Why is style and chicness uncomfortable for men? How is it inherently or naturally more comfortable for us to dress in grubby, banal, and bland ways? “The New York Time’s” fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham, said in a recent audio slide show that “men are really stubborn. They have their imagery and that’s it; and don’t tamper with it, and don’t call it fashion!”
North America already pursues style inspiration from Europe, in the guises of Italy and France; this is in-part because of how our culture is used to a glut of cheap, but barely inspired or innovative, ready-to-wear options. Though this might be noticed mostly in a certain sector of men’s wear.
Mr. Cunningham is right. So Ms. Gonzalez Whitaker’s comments, while they represent a mass and massive misunderstanding, still hinder men who need encouragement and license to do as Mr. Cunningham hinted that men would like to feel free to do. There’s no discomfort in dressing well. While there isn’t and needn’t be any physical discomfort in dressing well, men may find stress in trying to change their attitude toward it.
Ms. Gonzalez Whitaker encourages neither ambitious and vain men, nor women, who are eager to stand out from the common folks. At least Mr. Cunningham also admitted, in the same slide show, that men are “giving a kick to the classics.”
Men are reticent about questions of clothing and personal style. I used to sympathize with that. I used to be one of them. They are convinced that choosing items and the colors that flatter their physiques takes work that simply donning sweats, tennis shoes, and last night’s t-shirt doesn’t. That’s simple to them; second nature.
Jack Black, just out shopping
It doesn’t help when men have been convinced that personal style is complicated and involves rules that guys just don’t get.
And yet I’m sure that the women in their lives, if they are typical and call themselves feminine, routinely press these men to dress well, at least for themselves, if not to snag woman’s attention. My barber, my tailor, and the woman who does my brows tell me how often they witness this – how often and how much the typical man disappoints them.
In the last week or so, some women reminded me of a lesson from Clinton Kelly, a stylist and co-host of The Learning Channel’s “What Not to Wear show” That’s the power of a strong, but compelling neutral color to set the tone for an ensemble. I know this on one side of my head, but it only clicked in the rest of my head when I saw a woman wearing either white or black trousers or suit jackets – they weren’t formal or corporate in tone.
Tip one: If men would go and brush of that pair of black trousers, don a nice “responsibly” colorful shirt, and an urbane leather jacket or a sports jacket, they would look crisp, cool – the opposite of a slob.
If he would wear a neutral and then two other colors – one of his favorites and, the other that women often compliment – he should be good to go.
Tip two: As an alternative for the man who loves his jeans, take a cue from “The Wall Street Journal,” I’m routinely amazed that (1) they can boast a fashion section and that (2) it’s very good. They published a piece about “The Rise of Power Jeans” in November that engaged and intrigued me. Read it and take heed. Skip the torn, or graffiti-ridden, or ratty pair. Dressing well isn’t dressing stuffy or snotty.
Tip three: – the payoff. When men do either of these, they’ll earn compliment.
I would hope that that would establish some momentum for personal style; that it might lead to refining or redefining their personal sense of image.
I am a style-conscious man and deliberate in what I wear. In this New York Times article by Eric Wilson, Patrick Li describes how he synthesizes the essence of a brand and communicates those we use to brand ourselves. This piece might interest those men who are particularly drawn to the question of how brands…are branded.
Names matter. Brands matter. And often people like to say that quality matters to them.
When I think about how I dress myself, I ignore brands in the traditional or banal sense. But I pay attention when it’s an issue of quality.
