The New Age Of Sexy Menswear

Since last summer, when a chintz conspiracy told us that women everywhere were wearing prairie dresses and other pleasantly frumpy frocks, modest dressing has been driving women’s fashion. The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan called Batsheva Hay’s calico, ruffle-neck cotton dresses “the most provocative thing in fashion right now,” and earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the “modest dressing” trend was becoming less childish, and more baroque, with “high necks, puffy sleeves and proudly dowdy florals.” The movement is widely seen as a rebuke to the male gaze—activism-through-clothing at a time when politics have complicated the idea of “sex appeal.” As Courtauld Institute fashion historian Rebecca Arnold told the Times, “In a repressive social climate, potentially anything that is refusing male generated-ideals and stereotypes is a political statement.” But on the men’s runways? Sex still sells. Read more at GQ.