I don’t really care about clothes, but it’s about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks. —Julian Casablancas
MANILA, Philippines - Back when I was in seventh grade, the cool ones ate up trend, from customizing khaki elephant pants to trading school shoes for Birkenstock sandals as soon as classes were dismissed. Despite the tacky khaki, the point is guys had already taken an interest in fashion a long time ago. It’s just that no one was there to blog about their fashion quirks. No one was there to Twitpic nor Lookbook their getup either.
High school, hormones included, was a notch vainer. Boys started storing various colors of leather shoes in their lockers — from off-white pointed slip-ons to black brogues — along with textbooks for CLE and Araling Panlipunan. Undershirts were replaced with the nipple-visible sando, or nothing underneath their white uniforms. You also weren’t cool if you didn’t have anything of the puka-shell kind on your neck — plus an Adidas cap on your head. And guys, such as myself, started bringing combs — and okay, Eskinol.
I guess it was everyone’s way of priming their subconscious for that future soiree — for that time your cool clothes had to translate to confidence in the company of random cute girls — or else, supot ka. Again, blogs weren’t around to keep track of all these fashion quirks. There wasn’t a platform for guys to share their fashion feelings, nor the culture to encourage male-driven fashion blogging. Or if ever there was, it was a little impossible for a straight guy to do fashion and not have your masculinity threatened by labels such as “metrosexual,” “fashowwn,” or “bakla” — hence the collective hesitation for an average bro to get into bro fashion.
Eventually, though, appearances became important for reasons outside impressing this and that chick. Guys started to dress more reasonably for one’s own, meaning jeans and slippers can’t be a good combo if Pag-asa just called the Rain Signal No. 3 outside, or ever — if tackiness was to be accounted for.
“You can tell that men are starting to care about fashion,” observes 19-year-old Fifth Code owner Lorenz Namalata. “High school guys contact me for custom-made suits already. It’s a telltale sign that they are becoming more style-conscious as they grow older. Menswear is going to be a viable career path and it’s a whole industry in its own.”
Namalata maintained a personal blog back in ’06 before gravitating towards fashion, upon bagging a scholarship in fashion design and merchandising in De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. With the female voice still quite dominant in the fashion blogosphere, getting into fashion as a guy still had its issues — nothing Namalata couldn’t handle. “Surely there were concerns about being branded as gay but why should that stop me?” asks Namalata. “I know myself better than anyone does and I have a healthy respect for the sexual preferences of other people. I just think respect begets respect.”
In this day and age, people can turn a judgmental eye on male fashion bloggers, especially in terms of metrosexuality — to which Namalata asks, “What is wrong about being a metrosexual?”
“I mean, if it is all about putting a premium on your looks and taking care of yourself, I see nothing wrong with it for as long as you can afford it,” says Namalata. “Different strokes for different folks. Like them or hate them, they will continue to exist anyway. I guess one thing we should learn is to be tolerant of differences. It makes life more exciting.”
Fashion blogger David Guison is pretty much on the same page when it comes to any doubts surrounding the metrosexuality movement. “There’s nothing wrong with making yourself look presentable,” says the Morrissey-haired 21-year-old. “I just happen to document it.”
But he isn’t entirely defensive about it either. As to what constitutes real vanity for him, Guison readily answers, “Uh, me. ‘Cause I take photos of myself for my blog.” A self-described awkward poser, David has always hated the imperfections of posing for the camera. “If you check my blog, almost all my poses there are the same ‘look-down-never-smile’ ‘cause I am so awkward,” says a laughing Guison. “That’s the reason I always look down in photos.”
Self-labeled vanity aside, Guison used to hesitate when it came to hitting the publish button on his blog, assuming people would misunderstand his entries. “I’m happy to say that I reached that point in my life wherein I am comfortable in my own skin and I know who I am,” he says. “So I really don’t care what people think. Blogging has turned into a career for me, it is now my main source of income and I’m glad I’m able to help my family. If I hadn’t gone into blogging I would still be stuck in my little world.”
There really is no stopping dude-run fashion blogs these days. At the end of the day, everyone’s got an inner metrosexual — at varying clothes-craving levels. Who doesn’t want to look good? Who doesn’t want to be an APC-wearing Kanye for a night? Good fashion is good fashion, regardless of the espouser’s sexual orientation, and that should be sufficient for both the fashion insider and outsider.
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See more of Lorenz Namalata at http://lorenznamalata.com and http://fifth-code.com, and David Guison at http://davidguison.com.