Barneys creative director/fashion guru Simon Doonan is “seething with frustration.” Why, you may ask? Because he wants to see more American men wearing smaller swimsuits, and he wants to see them NOW.
He discusses the various reasons behind the national swimtrunk crisis on Slate, including:
- Safety: “Dudes are getting waterlogged, and dudes are sinking.”
- Freudian analysis: “If only Freud could have lived long enough to dissect the semiotics of Speedos. What would he have made of the U.S. male’s horror of being caught in a tiny swimsuit?”
- Class anxiety: “WASPs don’t do Speedos—old money has no need to resort to gratuitous flesh exposure to achieve social currency. Butt cracks are banned at the country club.”
- Puritanical influence: ” here they go again, spoiling all our European fun with their exaggerated notions of modesty.”
- Gender equality:
American women have never presented themselves with more over-the-top va-va-voom than they do now, especially on the beach. Bikinis have never been smaller. Hoochies have never been hotter. Tramp stamps have never been trampier. It’s obviously time for men to correct this inequity, join the partaay, and start channeling their inner Magic Mike … or inner Borat.
Are you convinced?
[Slate]
Image of Marc Jacobs and bf via Splash.
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