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"Every trend in men's clothing started with gays"

In honor of Pride Month, we went back in time to highlight some of the clear trends that have emerged in the community, and to understand how local industry people see the impact on the fashion world: "Gays have always dared to do things much differently than straights."

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• A proud community

• Pride Month

• Birch oak

• Trends

Roy in Harir Pearl

Friday, 18 June 2021, 00:01 Updated: 00:02

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The fact that the signer up belongs, in his iniquities, to the infamous and boring gender on earth (the hetero-normative man) is, in itself, very 2021. Writing about fashion and lifestyle is undoubtedly an area of ​​interest and occupation that according to the stigma belongs to women and gays, but here, fact, it happens . Although I do not know another fashion and lifestyle journalist - my main occupation in the last decade - from my "group", it seems that something is still changing: the edges are meeting, the genders are gathering, the differences are blurring.

Several of my straight friends are actually gay in the closet, but in the non-symbolic sense, regardless of their sexual preference.

Their closet is simply cluttered with items that were once considered "proud" and are now in the public domain.

In fact, the "new" men and women are almost asexual when it comes to style, and in general, appearance.

This is because of the rise of individual liberties in the current era, which promotes, among other things, the pluralism of sexual orientations and fashionable ways of expression.

If in the past "normative" people were afraid to dress and behave as they really want in the face of the judicial environment, then today the definition of the term "normative" is much broader and therefore they are also allowed, so to speak, to "go crazy".

Pluralism of fashion expressions - Billy Porter (Photo: GettyImages)

It is important to clarify: gender diffusion is not a new phenomenon born in the 1920s. If anything, it is a retro to the promiscuous and wonderful sexual openness of the 1920s. Man, for all his passions and desires, has always squinted in different directions, exploring boundaries and exploring his sexuality. A clear example of this is the male-female rock bands from the seventies and eighties, including Keys and the New York Dolls, who dressed and put on make-up like women. Their fans at the time thought it was sexy and even threw bras at them because what to do, a handsome man who does what he wants - unlike just a handsome man - is an attractive man.

There is no shortage of examples of reverse cases, where gays have adopted 'straight' looks.

The "porn mustache," for example, was adopted by members of the disco band "Village People" - the home band of the proud community in the 1970s - in an attempt to equate themselves with a look of deliberately exaggerated masculine masculinity.

In the early '80s, the very non-gay actor Tom Selk adopted the look in the classic action film "Magnum, Private Detective" and then the mustache was once again adopted by the community as a kind of marker - only to be stolen by hipsters in the early 2000s, along with a beard well maintained.

The British sports brand "Fred Perry", which has been embraced in recent years and especially liked by heterosexual men (such as Eyal Golan) who value quality, was also adopted by the community in the 1970s after being identified throughout most of the 1960s with the marginal culture of the Modes.

The members of the disco band "The Villagers" - the house band of the proud community in the 70's (Photo: GettyImages)

Today, as mentioned, everyone - men and women of all genders - is allowed to do what they want. The stigmas regarding the correlation between fashion and sexuality have dissipated in many areas of the Western world almost completely. The status of the proud community as a pioneer and as setting a fashionable agenda is still solid, but the diffusion of trends into the world around it is faster and sweeping than ever, so it is often difficult to determine who actually started the trend.

In many ways, we went back something like 50 years, to the colorful 70s that preceded the orderly separation between genders and tendencies. Even then, as today, straight men would deliberately wear small T-shirts, make sure they were properly tanned, wore Saint-Tropez pants or tight jeans, and go to the gym at least four times a week. All of these and more were considered distinctive masculinity signs, designed to attract women. In fact, it was the community that eroded the look during the 1980s and 1990s. Then, as mentioned, with the outbreak of the metrosexual revolution, the straights returned to it.

One of the community's gifted dressers - Tom Baum (Photo: Nir Pekin)

Yes, it's a ping-pong that lasts for generations: both sides are constantly influenced by each other and in many cases, especially recently, both adopt the exact same style, only with a slightly different subtext: the straight hipster, for example, flips in completely different directions from the gay hipster. Born in his wake. "In recent years, there has been a very big change among straights," agrees stylist, fashion editor and lecturer

Nadav Eliyahu

. "You could say that today they are investing even more than the gays in their looks: hair removal, proper nutrition, a private fitness trainer - everything has now passed to them. The beauticians today are bombarded with straight men. It never was. The stores where they buy clothes today are not Castro and Renoir. "They go for brands. Besides, as is well known, the Israeli metro discovered the skinny a few years ago and he has been hot on it ever since, because he understands that it highlights what women like."

And gays, in turn, have embraced the hipster trend.

"True, but I do not think in this case it is a trend. I, in general, do not believe that fashion passes trends. The jeans, for example, are with us from nineteen hundred and throw me. The hipster look is seemingly very straight, but in fact it is gay. It is very gay. "Meticulous. I mean, he looks neglected and is very meticulous. It's pretty clear why the gays were so quick to adopt him."

Not just in the community.

Justin Thoreau has not given up on skinny jeans for years (Photo: Bakrid, Bakrid)

Most designers and stylists from the community believe that the hipster case does not really represent. "Every trend in men's clothing started with gays," says fashion designer

Alon Livne

. "Gays have always dared to do things much differently than straights, who did the same things after them. Even the most trivial thing about cutting the sleeves in a t-shirt started in the gay club culture. Once there is openness in the head try things and dare, and that's how a trend is created. Back and slowly it is breaking into the mainstream. "

Birch believes that the situation is similar in the women's sector. "All the biggest stars today - from Cardi B, through Ariana Grande to Lady Gaga - quote transsexual women and their drag block: exaggerated nails, excessive hair, blunt accessories, high platform shoes - things that totally started in the community's nightlife. Take Vogue for example. Madonna's: It comes from the Weging culture (sharp and fragmented dance, rabbi)F) of the gays. "

Things that started in the community's nightlife.

Lady Gaga with hair, accessories, platform (Photo: GettyImages)

Also the fact that most designers in the fashion industry are men has a direct impact on the process of transitioning trends from the community to the mainstream.

"When a man designs a garment for a woman, he often reinforces it in a very exaggerated and theatrical way," says Livneh.

"From the proud designer's creative head it eventually rolls into the gay nightlife and from there to everyone."

The fact that proud trends are adopted today on a particularly large scale by the so-called "general public" is also reflected, according to Livneh, in the offerings of fast fashion chains, including Zara and H&M.

"Straight men, for the most part, still let their spouses buy them clothes or go into the zara and close interest with black jeans, but the very fact that you go in there and don't just see laconic and boring clothes is a pretty significant change."

Alon Livne to Beyoncé: "From the head of the proud designer, it eventually rolls into the gay nightlife and from there to everyone" (Photo: PR)

Many in the community strongly oppose the very distinction between gays and straights when it comes to fashion - and in a sense they are right.

The proud community is indeed an integral part of the general community and a person’s identity cannot be defined according to his or her sexual orientation.

This article, for that matter, is not intended, God forbid, to challenge this but only to express the fashionable expression of inter-gender harmony.

"The gay and lesbian community is neither a subculture nor an ethnic tribe," explains Palestinian fashion designer

Hanna Hammam

.

"There is no trend that is identified with the community. There are more feminine and masculine trends. You know, in the sixties all the flower children wore tunics and had long hair, as part of what was then called a gender blender. Men hired then went with heels - and it has nothing to do with straight or Gay. It's just underground trends that start from the bottom and become mainstream. Now, because the percentage of the gay community is lower than that of the straight community, it's more underground.

I do not think a tank top, for example, is meant for gays because it is more exposed.

Women also like to see a man's body. "

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Design by Hanna Hammam

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The trend of jerseys with large openings on the sides started in the community.

"Obviously. The homegrown community is more involved in the fashion industry so it probably dictates more, but still, no trend has been specifically dictated for gays and lesbians.

They just adopt straight things and vice versa.

"" The community is all of us, "concludes veteran fashion designer

Doreen Frankfurt

." Every community has the majority who dress completely mainstream and there are opinion leaders who dare in every aspect.

"Because many in the proud community have a high awareness of aesthetics and appearance, many designers come from it and naturally some of them become opinion leaders - both of the proud community and of the entire public."

Tight and skinny jerseys - Freddie Mercury on stage (Photo: GettyImages, Dave Hogan)

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