Wood Caitlin FM114
Men's Fashion is often an over looked art. Celebrities and fashionistas usually flock to runway shows to see the women's lines. I am guilty of this same thing until this project. To me, men's fashion did not seem to change that much and I saw this as boring. Now I view men's fashion as classic. As you have stated many times in class, changes to menswear are slow and sometimes go unnoticed. I am determined now to take notice. Men's shoes; it is a subject that many women ignore or simply forget exists, often too obsessed with their own footwear. For this assignment I took a trip back to Saks Fifth Avenue, and to my revelation, actually enjoyed browsing in the menswear side of shoes. Although there is not as much diversity, there is still exceptional design among men's shoes. Now if only I could get my boyfriend to wear them. For the basic men's lace up shoe, I only have two words: patent leather. Every single lace up shoe that I observed was either completely patent leather or had detailing of this design, with not a one single exception. In fact, I have never seen such uniformity in fashion! Mostly I saw the fundamental colors of brown and black, with a few shades of green and navy blue. However there were several pairs of risky shoes for the fashion connoisseur. Colors like metallic
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silver1 and gold or bright reds and purples jumped off the tables to me. The basic styling was consistent throughout. Heaven forbid men's shoes stray too far from the norms! Another men's basic is loafers. I found the loafers to be tedious and rather uneventful. They are the same old leather look with a silver or gold buckle or chain drooping across the front. Occasionally the buckle or chain is missing with a simple fold or pleat in its place. To me this was rather monotonous and boring. Below are three examples of loafers from three separate designers. They remarkably share the same obvious design.
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My experience with browsing for loafers was like looking at the same shoe repeatedly until I finally moved on to another basic.
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D&G Dolce & Gabbana Mirrored Leather Wingtip Oxfords $495.00 2 Dolce & Gabbana Old English Leather Loafers $750.00 3 Salvatore Ferragamo Ragusa Loafers $550.00 4 Prada Logo Plate Slip-On Loafers $540.00
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A much more interesting and visually appealing basic is the lace up sneaker. Finally I got to look at some color in men's shoes! Many had basic palettes of black, brown or white. These Gucci sneakers show a good example of a simple basic design. 5 Also, most of the sneakers were either suede of suede or leather material. However many also combined bright leathers and laces to create an excessive appearing sneaker. I have many examples of these, but my favorite is definitely the Suede Logo Sneakers by DSquared^2. They retail for about three hundred and ninety-five dollars. 6 Other bold sneakers that struck me were the patent leather Dolce and Gabbana high-tops, which retail for approximately five dollars. hundred Also the Converse by John Varvatos were quite unique with their American theme of red stripes and a blue star. They are an affordable one hundred and ten dollars. This leads me to my cheapest shoe, the Puma Barrel Roll Sneakers, which sell for seventy dollars. As you can see from the picture, they would have to be cheap to sell any!
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Gucci Sneaker $425.00
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Boots for men this year are quite the same as every other year it seems, with perhaps a few modifications. Patent leather is as evident as ever, and patent leather detailing is nearly everywhere. The height of boots seems to be the calf at the highest, with the lowest being an ankle bootie imitation. Functional zipper or buckle clasping are not widely evident this year, with only several designs modeling these functions. The heels of the boots that I examined are a half inch at most but never really flat like women's boots can be occasionally. I was very amazed at the wide range in price among the boots at Saks; this was the product category where I discovered most expensive shoe, these brown Calf Boots by Dolce & Gabbana.7 The least expensive boot are brown suede Ugg Boots, coming in at a mere one hundred and thirty. 8 My display idea after browsing these tables is to organize men's shoes by type rather than by designer. Do men really care as much about who they are wearing? They come in for a need more often than not. If they are looking for a loafer, why not give them a table of loafers instead of forcing them to wander around display after display. I understand the marketing idea to have them meander so they see
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Dolce & Gabbana Logo Buckle Boots $1,025.00
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more and possibly purchase more. However I think men are more likely to wander and become frustrated and abscond rather than wander and buy more. Overall I thought the dominant vendor was definitely Dolce & Gabbana. They were everywhere, the prevailing contributor in each product category that I have written about. They were also the designer with the highest pricing, appropriate for such a store like Sak's Fifth Avenue. In conclusion, menswear is a classic fashion, with slight subtle changes over several years. I know and understand this. However I grew quite sick of looking at the same shoe over and over again. Where is the variety? In women's shoes I found the same basic ideas, but a broad range of creative designs. Men's Fashion needs to liven up a bit! Besides a rare metallic hue or a colorful sneaker, the men's shoe department was rather monotonous. Come on men of every profession; show some attention to your appearance! Throw away that fear of looking ridiculous or over done, before those metallic Dolce & Gabbana lace-ups go to waste. I believe if you have the money to spend on your appearance, it is not a waste but an investment. I look forward to browsing the men's shoe department next year. Hopefully it will be far more fascinating to even a young girl such as myself.
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