Wow, my guy Hamilton Nolan does not like fashion. In fact, he thinks men's fashion is for clowns. HE EVEN COMES AT THE GOD JON CARAMANICA. First off, you can't invalidate your own opinion by having the third sentence in your op-ed say, "I usually do not write about Fashion Week, for the same reason that sports reporters do not write about the latest advances in nuclear technology." YOU JUST ETHERED YOUR WHOLE OPINION BY ADMITTING YOU AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WEIGH IN ON THE SUBJECT MATTER AT HAND. Furthermore, this is the same genius who posits that sport coats and jeans should never be worn together. Um, okay, bro.
But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, my palindromic name having guy. You are a human being who is capable of stringing words together to form sentences and paragraphs. So ostensibly you are allowed to have an opinion on men's fashion. But the problem is that your opinion is uninformed as fuck. Why is it that you have to insert the caveat that you are neither a woman, nor a fashionista as if that would have any bearing on whether or not men's fashion is for clowns? It's a not so subtle take on the "no homo" trope. I'm to believe that because you have a penis you aren't capable of having a cogent reaction to men's fashion? Or worse, you are somehow above it, better than nancies like us that fawn over garments. It's no different than saying you can't, and won't even, attempt to understand ballet because it seems girly. Or that rap music is for thugs because it's dominated by young, black men who speak about, amongst a myriad of other things, guns and drugs. By simply asserting at the onset of your argument (without any real evidence other than your admitted philistinism) that the entire genre must be dismissed because it's frivolous doesn't actually prove any point at all. The reviews you cite do not advocate the wearing of capes in public in any way shape or form. To deny that men's fashion and runway shows don't influence mass-market clothing retailers is to deny the reality of the business. No one in men's fashion is saying that real criticism can't occur and that some looks aren't, indeed, downright clownish. But to write the whole endeavor off as a pursuit better left to men who aren't really men because they care about clothing and style is such a simplistic conclusion that I can't even begin to wrap my head around your thought processes.
I am tempted to inject the whole Devil Wears Prada argument about why acting like you are above the frivolous world of fashion is ignorant of the trickle-down effect that informs even the clothes you, a self-admittedly "unpresentable" person, consume. However, that argument is overdone and, in some ways, overstated and not one you're willing to admit. Instead, my final response to your thesis that men's fashion is for clowns is the fact that I wore a shawl in public and absolutely loved it. And your opinion on my clownish gear? I'ONT GIVE NO FUCKS.
