I AM ROBIN

I don’t know how accurately this comparison will fit, but if my partner Evan and I were superheroes, I’d be Robin to his Batman. 

 

When it comes to style, holy rockin’ it, Batman/Evan always looms larger. In the Batmobile, Robin/I always ride shotgun. Yes, I’m the sidekick.

 

This comes as no surprise. On our first date, Evan talked of his most recent date, before which he told the guy how to dress. “That won’t be me,” I said. “I dress as I dress.” And yet, holy inchworm, Evan’s style sense has gradually entered my closet. 

 

Even with his style influence, Batman will always shine over Robin/me. Just look at the characters in the old TV series. Batman dresses in classic black and silver, with a full hood and golden accessories. Robin, by contrast, is a bit of a mess. Is he an elf, clad in red and green? What’s with the clashing yellow cape and underwhelming goggles? Even Batman’s chest-centered bat logo has more flair than Robin’s unimaginative “R” on the left pec. 

 

If Batman is GQ, Robin is Highlights magazine for children. Batman is primetime; Robin is “Sesame Street,” with Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch as influences.

 

I’m acutely aware of our Batman/Robin roles when we travel. I pack decent clothes with comfort in mind. Evan packs to be a statement, practicality be damned. From his swoopy hair to his snakeskin cowboy boots, he has a complete look whereas I sometimes come off as promoting an adult line of Garanimals. I have lots of nice, pricey clothes but most everything would be characterized as understated.

 

We spent the long weekend in Taos, New Mexico, a town of characters, the men sporting slicked back hair pulled into a ponytail, modest t-shirts and faded denim jeans. Wherever we went, Evan’s cowboy chic garnered compliments. Holy shadow lurker, I didn’t even register.

 

Our looks suit our personalities. Evan is outgoing and, yes, likes attention. Compliments immediately lift his spirits. I’m an introvert who prefers not standing out. Let me go about whatever I’m going about without having to engage in chitchat. I am proud to stand by my man, but I’m relieved not to put so much thought and work into my look. In many ways, we’re an opposites-attract couple. And, holy Fashion Week, it seems to work.

FLIGHTS OF FICKLENESS

The problem with fashion is it’s a moving target. To remain fashionable, you have to regularly invest—the money, obviously, but also the time people-watching, browsing magazines, scanning store racks and checking out online trends. 

 

If you love it, the investment is worthwhile. Who doesn’t love a stranger stopping them in the street to say, “I love your look!”? Many crave social media recognition. Post that selfie showing off that prized vintage find or your haul from Mr. Turk and glory in the uptick in followers and “likes.” If you’re single, you may even be approached by the right kind of guy—confident, professional, indisputably sexy—in a café, gallery or pop-up seaweed tapas restaurant—these are places fashionable folks hang.

 

It you don’t love it so much, any effort can feel expensive, exhausting and exclusionary. That is, if you even bother to let any of it register beyond the spectacle of the Oscars red carpet and the Met Gala. Events like that are accessible to all because they are so over-the-top. Nobody is going to go on Etsy to track down a knockoff of the meat dress Lady Gaga wore at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards. Billy Porter’s black tux gown worn at the 2019 Oscars would accidentally(?) get stepped on umpteen times if you wore it while walking any sidewalk or hallway. (It looks like it would serve double duty as a sidewalk sweeper.) And, if you tried to buy online an approximation of Bjork’s swan dress from the 2001 Oscars, your computer would probably crash as a preventative measure.

 

Most men ascribe to a Clark Gable view of not following fashion: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (Update in 2024-speak: “Fuck that.”) A football sweatshirt has all-year versatility. (In a heat wave, it can be laundered as the beer tee is pulled from the dresser drawer or, more likely, the heap that takes over the other half of the sofa. This incarnation of Clark Gable doesn’t have a person with whom to share the sofa, go figure. 

 

At least, let the t-shirt promote Bud Light.

 

As a teen, I wanted to be fashionable. The desire arose from a need. I desperately wanted to be seen. Popular, if I dared to be so honest. I didn’t come close…to popularity, to exuding a fashion sense, to registering. Silver lining: invisibility spared me from bullying. (Seriously! I wasn’t a target because I was never in frame.)

 

When I began college at Texas Christian University, a decidedly conservative upper-middle class private institution in an even more conservative state, it was the height of the preppy era. I’d been gifted not one, but two copies of The Official Preppy Handbook for high school grad. It was easy to build a wardrobe, if not to stand out, then to fit in. With a full rainbow of Izods and Ralph Lauren polo shirts, a few pairs of khaki pants in varying shades of taupe and a growing collection of topsiders, I was like everybody else, which was a more reasonable aspiration for an introvert than standing out. 

 

I hit my groove not long after moving to L.A. Presumably, preppies, if they still existed in Southern California, kept to Orange County and enclaves near San Diego. I spent a lot of time as a finally out gay man in West Hollywood, but I didn’t conform to the gay looks of the time which all seemed inspired by the mantra, Less Shows More. No, I didn’t have “more” to show. I went with clean, somewhat baggy clothes—“in” at the time among non-gays, at least—solids instead of patterns. Lots of linen, band collars, dark colors (olive, navy) with an occasional go at something brighter. (Wish I hadn’t worn out my peach Girbaud shirt and matching socks.)

 

Fashion mattered. Neither popularity nor blending in was a factor anymore but, being gay, I absorbed the expectation that I was supposed to have style. Most fashion designers were gay. Every man working at Barney’s, Bloomingdale’s and Fred Segal was gay, right? 

 

Being fashionable was supposed to earn my GAY badge. And also my longtime companion. That was the term of the time for a relationship that evolved beyond “boyfriends.”

 

My efforts proved, uh, fruitless. No badge, no boyfriend. (In hindsight, “longtime companion” was far too lofty.)  But the takeaway was that I made the effort. The biggest letdown once becoming part of the gay community? It might be inflammatory, but I stand by it…Here comes the big reveal:

Gay men are not fashionable.

 

Yep. I just said that. 

 

I suspect the original notion arose out of a whisper campaign from straight men. “Yo, bro. Watcha doin’ wearing designer clothes? You gay?” 

 

Portraying the gays as fashionistas was the excuse men needed for not giving a damn. A pricey shirt would put a dent in beer money. Fuck that. Why let a new wardrobe get in the way of football tickets and a versatile jersey, allowing you to pretend you’re AIKMAN (a garage sale steal!), BRADY or MAHOMES as you shop for a bigger toolbox at Home Depot?

 

Deep fake from the dudes. The concept had nothing at all to do with gay men. It was a scheme to validate being a slob, based on an injection of homophobia. (Presumably, metrosexuals were early anti-vaxxers before that got taken over.) 

 

From four decades out of the closet, homo closets aren’t noticeably more stylin’ than straight men’s. Maybe the difference is we use hangers. For every stylish gay man, there are ten who aren’t. I’ve been to gay pubs. I’ve had umpteen coffee dates. I see the photos on Grindr…the ones with clothing. (Less Shows More has never gone out of vogue.)

 

I don’t know how to classify myself these days. Pushing sixty—that’s so hard to type, but I refuse to lie and acquiesce to the pressures of ageism—I don’t need to give a flip about fashion. What the hell would I do with a badge? What the hell would I do with a boyfriend? I’d only lose both.

 

The good thing about a good number of decades being in the rearview mirror is that no one expects me to set a style standard. To those of a certain age for whom fashion is still seemingly of vital importance, I am absolutely invisible. I say that with a mix of humph and hurrah. Finally, I can embrace a quote from Marlo Thomas—“Who?” Never mind. Go back to watching your fave TikTok style influencer. I can say to myself and my aging gay brethren, we’re “free to be you and me.” 

 

Happy dance! (I recommend you celebrate that declaration, shimmying to this song. (Maybe stretch first.))

 

A few days ago, CBC ran a “news” item entitled, “Apparently, ankle socks are the new sign that you’re old, and millennials are done.” (I assume articles like this are offered as easier consumption for readers who don’t care to grasp the reasons for a carbon tax and are bored with “that stuff in Ukraine.”) I clicked because, only two hours prior, I’d bought three new pairs of offending socks. What compelling reason was there for me to surrender my purchase to my nonagenarian neighbor?

 

Good grief, skinny jeans and the hair with a side part were passé as well.

 

Cancel culture has gone too far! 

 

But, yes, isn’t fashion constitute the forefather of cancel culture?

 

Penalty: Oblivion!

The most humbling takeaway—okay, I found it humorous—from the article was Gen Z wrath didn’t even apply to me. They were calling out “30- and 40-somethings.” Okay, then. I’m wearing a pair of my new ankle socks as I write this. #TeamClarkGable! (“Who? What? Um...you should not be hashtagging.”) 

 

Sometimes the fashionistas get it wrong. So glad I never felt the slightest pressure to wear cargo pants, Crocs or ripped jeans which then evolved to jeans with giant knee holes. 

 

The one constant is every fashion trend has an expiration date and an objective indicator for time of death is when the trend is embraced by forty-somethings or teens in Taos or Tulsa. (Oh, Taos. I will miss you for many reasons but not the hair, makeup or clothes.)

 

I still care about how I look. I don my glasses as I scoot closer to the bathroom mirror, ready to mow down ear hair and rogue eyebrow strands before they curl. 

I don’t ever pull out a favorite garment from the dirty clothes hamper. (Once you pass twenty-five, you should have a hamper, guys. Your stinky gym gear does not belong in a hump on the floor, the guest chair or strewn on your otherwise empty (gasp!) bookshelf.) I throw out socks with holes and undies with tears below the waistband. (No corresponding story to warrant saving them as a souvenir.) 

I like matchy clothes. (Alas, they don’t make Garanimals in adult sizes.) 

Trends for spring/summer '24
according to British GQ.
100% I can't carry off any of them.

I love color, even if it’s not this year’s designated palette. For Spring/Summer 2024, Vogue France is big on “futuristic silver” and “transparency” as in see-through—Aack! Sparkles, too. Not a color but a reason to be glad I’m not twenty-two. I can’t carry off any shirt transparency—retro shout-out to Less Shows More?—any better than I can adopt a French accent.

 

I care about what I like. What everyone else thinks? Not so much. 

 

Whew. It’s about damn time.

 

 

A MAN’S CLOSET AIN’T SO MANLY ANYMORE

I daresay, my hand is not on the pulse of current pop culture or fashion. (The use of “daresay” should be a dead giveaway, a nod to my high school days when my English teacher was on a bent, having us read all-things-Bronte. Apparently something like The Outsiders was too avant-garde. Alas, still haven’t read it.) Still, I can see how Harry Styles gracing the cover of the December issue of Vogue is a bit of a thing. First guy to appear solo. Not sure that it’s the kind of thing those men’s rights advocates living in tin roof sheds in particularly rural parts of red states will be wooting about. Frankly, it doesn’t mean all that much to me...except to the extent it does.

Harry’s got great hair and a decent body but, if I were to creepily swoon over someone half my age, Harry wouldn’t be it. The guy’s coughed up a couple of catchy songs. I don’t change the radio station on a road trip—sigh, remember those?—when his old boy band’s “Story of My Life” comes on. I’m partial to this year’s “Adore You” to the chart-topping followup, “Watermelon Sugar,” an ode to female oral sex that warrants but an eye roll compared to its contemporary, let’s-not-“sugar”-coat-anything, “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion. (Okay, I know a teensy bit of pop culture if only because I’ve always been a Billboard music chart nerd.) Harry Styles could exist or not exist and my life would be just fine.

What I do like about this Vogue moment is Harry’s attire. Us Magazine reacted to the cover shot and the other photos included in the Styles feature as, “Gender fluidity at its best!” On the cover, Harry wears a white lace Gucci gown under a black blazer. (At first glance, I couldn’t tell from the thumbnail shots on the Twitter feed on my iPhone that it was a dress. I thought it was a stretchy, oversized t-shirt (and a hideous one at that). The cover shot isn’t as daring as it could (and should) be because it’s cropped above the knee, hiding much of the flow of the dress and the telltale hemline. This is not a Billy Porter moment. But it’s the fact that the celebrity isn’t Porter (or even Sam Smith) that makes this its own moment. Styles, by all accounts decidedly straight, is upping the bar for what is metrosexual.

The photos inside are mixed. One shows him in a black kilt which seems rather ho-hum unless you want to ogle his bare chest. A shot of him standing in front of a bike wearing a longer plaid kilt—positively skirt-like—is more of a gender bender (blender?), especially with his feet accessorized by what appear to be punkish, lacy green stockings. In my mind, the most feminine look is in a photo of Harry wearing a black suit with pronounced shoulder pads and either a to-the-ground black skirt or very flowy pants. The look is completed with what looks like the framing for three hoop dresses, topped by a sheer white tutu, belted with a bright pink bow. (Sorry if my descriptions are wonky. I’ll never have the vocabulary or the insight to be a fashion writer.) To be sure, this is not Esquire magazine. If anything, it seems as though Harry Styles crashed a Tilda Swinton photo shoot.

Of course, what we see in high fashion rarely shows up on the subway or in the sandwich line at Subway. Male models have been wearing feminine garments on catwalks for years and I haven’t caught myself glimpsing some guy wearing an Alexander McQueen runway knockoff dress while walking the seawall or brunching on the Hungry Man’s Platter on Commercial Street. Still, I’ve been amazed at how quickly times are changing and how people barely raise an eyebrow.

Sometimes it’s a young guy’s ear that I eye. Long ago, I thought I was bold when I had a simple stud in one ear—which one, I don’t remember; the punctured lobe long ago covered up all evidence. That’s, of course, nothing now in a world where people seem intent to outdo one another in terms of ink and piercings. It’s not the number but the accessorizing choice that I notice. I’ll spot a guy grabbing an oat milk latte ahead of me with a large hoop earring or something vintage from grandma’s jewelry box. Okay, much bigger statement than my wee stud of yesteryear. Nobody takes a second glance at Latte Boy’s ear, except this old guy. I’m not judging; I’m in awe.

More often, though, I’m drawn to a man’s hands. Not out of some pervy idea that I can size up a guy’s crotch. (I’ll leave that to Trump’s fascination with Marco Rubio.) I’m looking at fingernails. Sometimes it’s just one nail painted in Neon orange or hot pink; other times it’s all the nails covered in one hue of polish or sporting a mix-and-match mosaic. As far as I can tell, these aren’t Goth or punk looks, intended to jar fuddy-duddy onlookers. Whether it’s one nail or ten, I’m empowered by their freedom of expression, I’m heartened by the fact that what once would have been so bold and so risky in terms of personal safety, is now so accepted. A guys painted nails elicit no more reaction than someone opting to wear brown shoes instead of black. We’re that much closer to letting people just be.

And to think there were days I thought my purple Converse were too much. As I laced them up, I played out the day ahead in my mind. Would I have to wander down some alley, risking being called “girly” or “faggot” just because my footwear drifted too far from It’s-a-boy blue toward It’s-a-girl pink?

I’ve seen men walk through Vancouver’s mutt-mix scene on Granville Street and stroll down trendy Robson Street in leather jackets and skirts or shapeless dresses reminiscent of my mom’s 70s muumuus. I’ve heard no whistles or taunts. If anything, I was the most inclined to stare—not to gawk but to take it in and maybe laugh at myself for once worrying that my disco era platform shoes in eighth grade looked too much like high heels. I have a floral patterned (birds of paradise?) Ted Baxter shirt that only needs to be dry cleaned because the shoulders have gathered dust in my closet.

Oh, we’ve come a long way. Just this morning, while researching a writing project, I watched a silent film from 1915, with a Laurel and Hardy-type duo hamming things up with now-dated slapstick—lots of pratfalls and kicking and bopping one another (Why waste a good brick?). To take the guffaws to another level, the larger man (naturally) pops in a used clothing store and comes out donning a dress and wig, a heavy veil drawn over his scruffy face. Anything for a laugh. Milton Berle, “Some Like It Hot,” Flip Wilson’s Geraldine and Tom Hanks’ “Bosom Buddies” followed in this comedy genre. Male femininity was a sight gag, not a fashion statement or matter of true self-expression.

Can guys really wear anything they want now? In 2007—not so long ago—a ninth grader in Nova Scotia got bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. Have we evolved that much?

I have no doubt that today’s younger men with nail polish and skirts have heard a few derisive laughs and putdowns. For every fashion-forward male, there’s a dude who thinks men peaked as Neanderthals. I’m embarrassed to admit that, while I applaud greater choices today, I can still get judgy or uncomfortable myself. When I was dating Daniel in the spring, he wouldn’t go anywhere without draping the strap of his small carrying bag over his head and one shoulder. Sure, it looked a little boxy, but I always had to swat away the thought that it looked like a purse. I believe they called it a murse (man + purse) on “Seinfeld”. (“Friends” had a thing about a “man bag,” too. It’s a rare occasion when the show feels dated.)

Repeatedly, I told myself that Daniel could wear whatever he wanted, but it’s the first word of this sentence that reflects so poorly on me.

One Sunday morning, as we set out for Daniel’s favorite cafe, a guy in a car full of guys—they always need an audience of their peers—rolled down his window and yelled, “Nice purse, faggot!” Daniel, who never seemed phased by anyone, to the point where I thought it might be part of some sort of clinical diagnosis, walked on with me, continuing his thought. Two blocks later, however, he muttered something minor about his “purse,” a sign he’d been rattled. (A week later, he bought a new carrying bag in manly gray with a hipster Herschel label; still rather murse-like.)

Maybe I can appreciate all this progress better from a little distance. It’s a sign of age that I’m seeing some changes, however wonderful, as for a younger generation. I had my time, my pierced ear drawing its share of knowing grins and frowns. Gosh, for a time I even wore purple jeans. I’m not yet ready to be put out to pasture in a Bermuda shirt, Dockers shorts, knee-high brown socks and sandals, but I won’t be making space in my closet for tutus. Over to you, guys. Please do carry on!