Dicks on butts

From the Detroit Free Press:

Flint Police Chief David Dicks pats down a man who was stopped Monday in Flint for his sagging pants. The unidentified man was warned and released. Dicks said his officers would start arresting people wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms. "Some people call it a fad," Dicks told the Free Press this week while patrolling the streets of Flint. "But I believe it's a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years."

Terrible fashion and so deservedly a crime, but seeing a cop padding down a shirtless twink in the street is totally hot.

Drop your pants, Dan

What is it with these journalists wanting sports people to pontificate about things they are barely qualified for?
It's rugby player Dan Carter's turn again to blabber on about fashion in the Herald.
Being a fully paid up model for an underpants company should automaticallty disqualify him from commenting since his opinions are bought.

He should stick to looking pretty, a rare talent indeed.

No person wears pink

Reaction to a news item on police forcing taggers to wear pink vests with the word "tagger" emblazoned on it when they are cleaning up their graffiti:

The Wellington community police constable who is making taggers wear pink vests as punishment has prompted alarm from the youth group OUT THERE.
“Wearing pink tagger vests draws on homophobic fears of wearing pink, and the whole concept of embarrassing young people rather than strengthening them is appalling.” said Nathan Brown, National Coordinator of OUT THERE, a youth development organisation for non-heterosexual and transgender youth.
“The homophobic part is what is said about the jackets by both taggers and the Police rather than the jackets themselves. They need to be careful presenting them in schools so that they are not playing on fears of not being seen as a real man.”

The reaction is as predictable as it is misguided. Wearing pink should not be done by anyone over the age of 3 as it is such a fashion faux pas. Yves Saint Laurent isn't even buried yet but he will be spinning! Why anyone would confuse wearing pink with being gay is really beyond me. Have you ever seen, met, spoken to, slept with a homosexual who wears pink? Where they get this correlation from is a mystery.
But back to the punishment issue. The regime that should be adopted is of course to have those guys scrub off their tags in the buff. If we're going to indulge in public humiliation it might as well have some return for my tax dollars by saving on penalty clothing.

Queer eye for the subcultural guy

It's Winter so it's time for snug clothing after a truly spectacular Summer this year. Now the Youth Week 2008 campaign has launched a day to wear hoodies (hooded sweatshirts) to show you care about contemporary youth, whatever that means. Seen by conservatives as the latest fashion scare to build a moral panic around, I hadn't really noticed how a practical winter garment it really is, even though it's hardly sexy fashion.
Last night I saw a fan on the boat wearing a patterned hoodie trimmed with fur, Corey Delaney-style minus the yellow sunglasses (left). It looked as if the chilly Winter evening was kept well at bay, unless you looked further down and noticed he was wearing board shorts and jandals too. Obviously he could not really say goodbye to Summer yet.

Cops to police moral panic spreading in New Zealand

There may be an unfortunate spate of murders since the New Year in New Zealand, but our boys in blue have far bigger moral fish to fry. A crackdown (no less, according to the Sun newspaper in Britain) on a popular dress code among fans of rugby 7s, the mankini, inspired by Borat, because the rugby 7s is supposed to be a "family" event.
Never mind that your average youth will hit you in the head or laugh at you out loud when you are wearing a mankini, the one thing he won't be is scared or offended by it.
And don't the cops know that a rugby 7s event is for adults only, to get boisterously drunk and to dress outrageously up?
in this Summer weather we're having it's a delight to see that men dress appropriately and daringly. Viewing and attendance figures can only improve - we all know rugby can do with that after last year's debacle. The policemen should offer to apply sunscreen on the mankini boys instead of booking them (unless as models)

A man and his underpants

My mate Duncan, originally from South Africa, featured in an interview on Gaynz.com.
He designs underwear for men that keep your tackle snug and make you feel quite comfortable in wearing them as beach or party wear.
Designs, model pictures and shop here, because gaynz.com forgot to link it.

Lift and separate

Men want to look bigger everywhere including what's in their trousers. aussieBum has created the 'Wonderjock' for men, suitably named 'Patriot'. It helps keep everything positioned forward and proudly on display to the world in a larger than normal manner.

A few Kiwi blokes put them to the test here. Looks like an updated budgie smuggler to me.

What I probably won't be wearing this summer

From the promotional blurb:

"With black Cotton Lycra, The Micro Sport Pouch was designed for me! The Micro SP is designed for heavy duty action. I tried many styles of underwear and jockstraps looking for something to wear that would keep me from chafing when I bike and run. I could not find anything that worked well so I decided to create my own. The Micro SP stays in place with the use of two internal Lycra straps that are pulled tight then pulled out the metal hole on the top of the pouch. The straps then wrap around the outside base of the pouch and tie on top. The Micro SP is a second skin that prevents chafing during sport activities. I take long bike rides at the beach and use the Micro SP under my cycling shorts. After a long ride it’s great to slip off my shorts and tan in the world’s smallest suit."

A snip for US$21 at KoalaSwim. If only Tom had worn it before he fell off his bike!
It does look good for use under rugby shorts and it would definitely make an improvement on those ugly cycle-short type undergarments rugby players wear under their shorts (and unsightly stick out from under them) lest their thighs chafe. Daniel Carter said he goes commando on the field, apart from said shorts, but I think it would increase his appeal if he wore the Micro Sport Pouch instead. There was a nice pic in the local paper on the weekend with him showing off his undies (though the other boys looked a tad sheepish):

Milan men's fashion

The BBC reports:

"The tattooed six-pack bloke is back in fashion, as designers apparently have decided to end a fling with femininity, fashion gurus say."

Surely said bloke has never been out of fashion! Not in my world at any rate.

2005 Autumn collection

Catwalk by Dolce & Gabanna.

Thanks, BoysOwn.
It sure is good to be a guy.

The pope's last stance

"A clothes company that presented a group of well-dressed women in a Last Supper style pose to promote their latest range has drawn a legal ban in the city of Milan.
The poster, by French fashion house Marithé and François Girbaud, is a version of Leonardo da Vinci's work with an almost all-female cast. The poster has appeared on billboards and in magazines in New York and Paris for weeks, but in Milan, where Leonardo da Vinci’s original fresco and religious sensitivities carry more political weight, it was banned. The city’s advertising watchdog ruled in January that the image "with a high concentration of theological symbols, cannot be recreated and parodied for commercial ends without offending the religious sensitivities of at least part of the population."

From: The Index on Censorship

A Pierre & Gilles or a Jean-Paul Gaultier version of the poster would naturally star altar boys only, some under the table perhaps, dressed in lacy and sequined loincloths. So much more representational of a church thriving on male bonding. When are they going to get over this irrational fear of women?

Belgian fashion

World famous, and rightly so.

The latest sports fashions by Dirk Bikkembergs. I must polish my pair of Bikkembergs boots I bought 20 years ago. They still look absolutely fantastic.

Some men, and their products, just smell good naturally

From the endless pursuit of happiness, also called capitalist consumerism, comes the new fragrance named Cumming.
If you thought spraying their product (called Cum?) all over yourself was not enough, there are future products in the pipeline (Cumming Soon, as it were), such as Cumming Clean, Cumming All Over and Cumming Off Buff, but I dread to think what Cumming Of Age is. (Oh, I know: it's a.k.a. Old Spice!)
Surely this is a spoof or a cock up in the PR department, because wearing Cum - on the body part of your choice - is best reserved for parties of the wilder variety, in my opinion.
Thank you, Sideswipe for usefully alerting us to its existence. How did we ever manage to get a life without cum?
More from the ad department:

"A scent that is all about Sex, Scotch, Cigars and Scotland."

Good grief. Have these people ever sniffed a real Scotsman's cum? (I have, and I know that's too much information for a lot of you already, sorry 'bout that)

Big Day Out

Today the assorted hordes of subcultural babes and cool dudes have their annual jamboree in the sunshine. You spot them a mile off and they were packing the boat this morning to town. Girls with far too much flesh showing that is good for them in these ozone-depleted days, and the boys in oversized black Ts and trousers. Why can't the boys show a little bit of form and flesh? The 3rd millennium's male fashion trends are terrible so far. Even Vivienne Westwood's new men's collection wasn't that awe inspiring as is usual. Although some of her designs did it for me:
The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

The eccentric style of British designer Vivienne Westwood has always been an expression of her particular fashion view.
Kilts for men outside the realm of Celtic lore, a return to the high heels fashionable at the French court, or sequined long-johns are certainly not for the unimaginative customer.
But as the designer has said on more than one occasion, "One leads a much more interesting life if one wears impressive clothes".
For next summer, she introduces hand-painted silk kilts, worn with a cotton T-shirt. The collection, also presented yesterday, includes sequined baseball shirts, running pants with a strap that binds the two legs together, Oliver Twist caps, oversized bow ties, and her trademark handmade suit, which represents the best in Savile Row tailoring.