Fashion Week IV -- The men

I'm just about through with this fashion kick. I realize that everybody already knows there is a huge disconnect between what one sees on a runway and what these fashion houses actually sell to the public. Still, it's fun to examine the mentality of the designers.

Here are a few styles from recent shows:

The late Alexander McQueen took a normal jacket and put piping on it, which makes it look vaguely like a bellhop uniform. Now there's no intrinsic reason that a suit with piping is any less visually appealing than a suit without. But why would anyone want to spend a lot of money just to look like a bellhop?

A lot of the McQueen outfits look vaguely like something that someone might have worn in another culture, in another era. Say, a Soviet satellite republic like Kazakhstan, circa 1962. But when you look closely, you see that every single element clashes with every other element: a gray jacket with gray plaid pants? Formal clothes with long johns showing? Sandals? A shirt buttoned all the way to the top with no necktie? Nah, not even Borat would be caught dead in that outfit.

This agnes b. (all small letters, like e.e. cummings) outfit is probably supposed to evoke a swaggering riverboat gambler. But I'm getting less of a "See you one and raise you two" vibe and more of a "See you in stall number two" vibe.

When Sean Connery made his first appearance as James Bond, he wore this tuxedo:

But what if he had worn this outfit by agnes b. instead?

Would the Bond movies have had a different tone? Would the ladies have found Bond as compelling? Would the bad guys have found him as formidable?

Do designers like Blaak Homme prefer it when we dye our hair to match their outfits?

Doesn't this Bottega Veneta outfit look like something one of the bad guys in a Batman comic book would wear? Like maybe The Joker? Or was this suit the designer's idea of a joke?

While I've always been partial to the suit jacket-and-short-pants-with-sandals look, I prefer to wear my tie outside my shirt.

Imagine yourself walking down the main street of your hometown in this outfit. Wouldn't you have to be a little bit more confident in your masculinity than you actually are in order to pull it off?

It's very important to me to know what's in and what's out each year. Thank goodness I have Gaspard Yurkievich to guide me, otherwise I might commit the cardinal sin of actually wearing a shirt under my suit.

Doesn't this guy from DSquared2 Menswear look a little as if he couldn't decide which one of the Village People he wanted to be?

The suit by Michel Bastian isn't bad, although it's too small for the model. But why overwhelm it with those ridiculous gloves AND the boutonniere AND the sunglasses AND the silly cap?

Bernhard Willhelm personifies how important it seems to be for these designers to see themselves as "creative." But creativity without logic or purpose isn't really creativity. It's just a pile of excrement arranged a different way.

(Some might think the outfit above too easy a target. My opinion: only a very skilled satirist -- such as myself -- can actually succeed in making it look silly.)

Why do so many designers feel the necessity to make clothes, like this John Galliano Jesus-in-a-dress outfit, which scream, "I'm gay"?

Perhaps the deeper question is, what is the relationship between being homosexual and wanting to wear these kinds of clothes? Why, exactly, does wanting to suck on another man's penis have to go hand in hand with preferring mauve and puce and flashy designs?

Or, conversely, why don't guys who like breasts and vaginas want to dress more colorfully (other than on a golf course or in their old age)? After all, male birds sport bright plumage in order to attract females. Maybe it's time for male humans to do likewise.

If wearing outfits like the one above were how guys proved their masculinity, would we see more of them?

My guess is yes.