Men and fashion

maya · Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Posts: 234

Plush, silk, lace, all these elements are usually immanent in high woman fashion. What about men? Do men wear laces?
Fashion exhibition in Museum of Fashion and Textiles at the Louvre, Paris, lasting till 30th April, proves men wore plush, silk, lace and other luxurious fabric long before women did.
Exhibition is for the first time dedicated men’s fashion, from seventieth century till today. It is consisted from 300 wardrobe pieces and other toilet details, as well as graphic documents and albums of textile templates.
Wardrobe is chronologically allocated from times of Luis XIV until today.
Samples prove the variability of man’s fashion at the beginning of Luis XIV. Specific are luxurious made vests, ‘French wardrobe’, uniforms and liveries. ‘French suit’, which was fashionable in govern of Luis XIV, is composed of three parts: coat, jacket and knee-length trousers. In that period one document dates, fashion was primary for men and their horses.
In same period wigs were the main fashion accession for men, which was long before women tried them on.
Under influence of English fashion, French men’s fashion underwent radical changes: men wardrobe lost its luxury and become simpler. In time of French revolution ‘French suit became very common and this was the time jacket, tail coat, coat and tuxedo were tailored. Sounds familiar?
Designers in sixties decided to stop monotonic classic fashion and start the tradition of greater luxury among men. Wealthy ornaments were given their place in Pierre Cardin’s and Andre Courreges’s fashion creations, so the new generation, Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Walter Van Beirendonck , Giano Versace and others would keep the same glamour for men’s fashion.