So, The Guardian's Hadley Freeman, in her "Ask Hadley" column, answered a query asking why men's fashion coverage is so paltry compared to womenswear. And Freeman's answer is, well, kind of insulting. Her main point is that menswear is either "weird or boring," while "…womenswear can be fabulous, gorgeous, weird, ridiculous, breathtaking, game-changing, enviable, exciting, desirable, wonderful." This is just patently false. The argument that menswear is simply not beautiful or breathtaking or even game-changing is belied by the fact that a great deal of womenswear has been inspired by menswear to begin with.
J. Crew's own Jenna Lyons is proof positive that women can be and, in fact, are inspired by the beauty inherent in menswear. While I understand Freeman's underlying point that men tend to dress more conservatively than women and this leads to a dearth of innovation and risk-taking in what major stores buy and offer their customers, even this old standby explanation is starting to crumble in 2014. More and more men are spending more and more of their dollars on luxury goods, a market that is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Just look at how much Capsule has grown in the past five years.
I find it hard to comprehend that anyone who actually takes a moment to look at the current offerings of contemporary menswear would think that men only have two options when deciding what to wear. The fact that women simply spend more than men on clothing is clearly the main reason why the balance of coverage is so skewed in favor of womenswear. But by insisting that menswear can only exist in a binary of the boring or the outlandishly unwearable, Freeman is only perpetuating a tired stereotype that gives too little credit to men and their taste level.
