This is an audio transcript of the Life and Art from FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Why men’s fashion is skimpier and more queer’
Lilah Raptopoulos
Hi, Life and Art listeners, this is Lilah. Before we begin, I want to tell you we’re running a short survey because we’d love to hear a little more about you and what you like about the show. If you take part before August 29th, you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones. It also helps us make sure that we’re making the best show for you that we can. You can find a link to the survey and terms and conditions for the prize draw in our show notes, and thank you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos. Today we are talking about men’s fashion. It seems we have found ourselves in a season where boys just want to have fun. We’re seeing short shorts, bare midriffs, bright prints. Men are showing off their bodies and having a chaotic time, sartorially. Just recently, a photo emerged from Milan Fashion Week that really put a definitive point on this trend. It was the Irish heart-throb, actor Paul Mescal, wearing a dress shirt unbuttoned at the bottom with a pair of striped boxer shorts, tall white dress socks and black horsebit Gucci loafers. It was a little preppy, a little oops-I-forgot-my-pants. And it quickly made its rounds on the internet. The first person I texted when I saw that photo was my colleague Eric Platt. He writes about corporate finance for the FT but is also a fashion expert, so we have invited him on today to talk about it. Eric, welcome.
Eric Platt
Thank you so much. I’m also so happy that I was the . . . that you thought of me when you saw that picture. That’s beautiful.
Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s very important. I have also invited in the FT’s true renaissance man, Rob Armstrong. He writes financial commentary in the Unhedged newsletter and hosts its podcast. But he also writes a men’s fashion column for FT Weekend. Hi, Rob.
Robert Armstrong
I’m a little hurt. I wasn’t the first person you emailed, but that’s OK.
Lilah Raptopoulos
We’re not on personal . . .
Robert Armstrong
One day.
Lilah Raptopoulos
One day, one day at a time. After this, we’re all in a group chat. Thank you both for being here. So this is actually our first chat on the podcast specifically about men’s fashion. And my first question for you both is just what you think about this trend, big picture. Eric, what do you think?
Eric Platt
I am so happy to see this. Last year or earlier this year, when I was on the podcast, I said I wanted to see more crop tops. I wanted to see shorter shorts. You know, we’ve talked about this idea of like, we’re all working on ourselves constantly, and we want to be showing it off now. I also think there’s so much else going on in the world that, like, I don’t know, if you wanna be a little feral, you wanna be a little chaotic right now. And so that’s why it’s kind of fun to see this actually filtering into the mainstream.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. You did predict that this would happen.
Eric Platt
Yes. And I’m normally late to a trend, so this is really nice to see.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Rob, what about you?
Robert Armstrong
Well, on a personal level, I like the short shorts. I think 5 or 4in of inseam in your shorts is plenty. The reason for this, I’m gonna turn 53 this summer, and decrepitude has really arrived in my physical self. But one part of my body I can still look on with pleasure is my thigh and my calf. So let them be shown to the world. And I think more broadly, the big thing that’s going on here is that it feels like we are shifting from a world in which men dress in a very utilitarian way and men are becoming more interested in display, and I think that is good. I think it’s good to show off your physical self and take pleasure in your physical self, in your clothes. It has downsides, but I’m, I think this is a welcome change.
Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. So just to get into what we’re talking about here, this — may I call it “skimpy man trend”?
Robert Armstrong
Yes.
Lilah Raptopoulos
. . . is on the runway. There were a lot of man crop tops at the Paris Fashion Week in June for the houses’ Spring 2025 collections. But on the street we’re seeing it too. What are the outfits? Who’s wearing them? Where are these people going? Are they going to work? Are they going out at night?
Eric Platt
I’m mostly seeing it’s people kind of living their lives after work. Right? I haven’t really seen the crop top making it into the office yet . . .
Lilah Raptopoulos
Not quite.
Eric Platt
But I am seeing, right, like . . .
Robert Armstrong
Only a matter of time, Eric.
Eric Platt
Oh, we’re already pushing the short shorts in the office on Fridays. But, right now, when people, when you’re seeing men running on the West Side Highway, you’re seeing the crop top, right, you’re seeing they’re no longer in, like, a baggy tank top. They’re showing off their arms or showing off their abs. When you go to parties now, or if you’re out at a bar, very likely to see very skimpy shorts or, right, the crop top with kind of overexaggerated sized shorts, because I think men are playing with proportions now in a way that they weren’t 10 years ago.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Armstrong
Very true about proportions. Very interesting point that mixing of tight and baggy is a much bigger thing and can be really powerful, as women have long known, that can be a really powerful combination. And I think there’s a lot going on here. There is men borrowing from women, and there are straight men borrowing from gay men, which is, of course, a very long tradition. And then a third aspect I would mention, or, and a fourth, the influence of Instagram and social media generally. It’s like we’re trying to capture moments of visual excellence and freeze them and hold them. And I also wonder another internet thing is I wonder how much the shadow of pornography falls over all of this. We live in a bit of a pornographied culture and so the body has this new relevance, this new importance. Maybe in ways that we need to regret. But there it is.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Usually that’s . . . Or historically, that’s been mostly, fallen on to women.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah, but not any more. You know, I think men’s body images are probably affected by what they see in that area, too.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Alongside that, in mainstream culture, the brand director of Bonobos said the 5in inseam, which is the shortest short they offer, is just, the interest is growing year over year. That bro-y brand Chubbies . . .
Robert Armstrong
Yes.
Lilah Raptopoulos
They’ve got a real classic short at 4in inseam.
Robert Armstrong
I remember in the ‘90s, short shorts were like a straight up thing to be made fun of. I remember betting a friend of mine that one day short shorts would come back and he was like, no way. And this reminds me, I’ve gotta, I gotta track Dave down . . . because they’re back.
Lilah Raptopoulos
He owes you money.
Robert Armstrong
Right. There’s been incredible change in that department. Yeah.
Eric Platt
Well, I think of like, on college campuses, right. Like, the prototypical, like, frat boy would be in, like, these longer shorts below the knee, and now it’s really shifted to, like, it’s a shorter hemline and maybe it’s again to the proportion game. It’s like with a baggy, oversized sweater. And so you’re seeing some of the look. You’re seeing this like, I put work into myself. And I’m attractive but I’m also not trying too hard.
Robert Armstrong
There’s also a long, very long history here of casualisation of clothes that most people date back to the second world war. And it, you know, we ended up in a kind of jeans and t-shirts world even 20 or 30 years ago. And I wonder if we’re kind of bouncing back a little bit where they’re like there’s a trend towards, I don’t want to say formality, but clothing mattering again, in a new way. Did we kind of reach the end of casualisation history, got to where we’re all just dressed as, men just dressing like slobs, going, what are we gonna do now?
Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.
Robert Armstrong
(Laughter) You know.
Lilah Raptopoulos
They’re like, this seems bad, maybe we should do something.
Robert Armstrong
We have dressed down as much as we can dress down without actually being naked. And now we have to do something.
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Lilah Raptopoulos
Let’s talk a bit more about men getting more comfortable with clothes that are more queer. I was listening to these two sort of academics in men’s fashion history talk about how for a long time in recent history, dressing badly was a sign of masculinity in America because a lot of men had this offensive idea that dressing well was considered gay. And now people aren’t afraid of being gay. I mean, especially Gen Z, 30 per cent of Gen Z adults say they identify as LGBTQ, on that spectrum. So, Eric, you brought up before we came in this idea that short shorts and crop tops are sort of the queering of men’s fashion, right? Can you talk a little more about that?
Eric Platt
Yeah, I think, when I think back over the last five years, like crop tops were already very much in kind of queer culture, right? It was what you were wearing if you’re going out to a party in Brooklyn or if you were on Fire Island, and there’s so much more acceptance of that. Right? And so you’re starting to see that push from kind of the fringe much more into the mainstream. You are seeing people really comfortable, actually, like not being an ally, right? Like that’s not the word, but like kind of like leaning into or being a little bit more playful with how they’re dressing. And also to your point, like maybe they also identify as queer, bi or somewhere on that spectrum. And so these outfits that used to be, you know, if you were spotted wearing a crop top, if you weren’t like at a wrestling meet, right, like, you were gay, and that was problematic. Very much not the case any more. Right now it’s like, oh that person’s probably pretty cool and has something going on in their life.
Robert Armstrong
Didn’t this already happen? I should know the history of this more. But didn’t gay men make skinny jeans OK to wear 15 years ago?
Eric Platt
And then, and then they like reverted back to like oversized, baggy clothes . . .
Robert Armstrong
But it’s not like crop tops is the first example of this, of something that first became prevalent with gay men moving to straight men.
Eric Platt
Right.
Lilah Raptopoulos
So this has happened before, where queer culture has sort of like pushed us in a direction. It happened with skinny jeans, as you were saying. But I’m also seeing like, you know, men wearing just women’s clothes more. I have a very close friend who’s a straight man, kind of traditionally handsome, and he wears skirts anywhere, has like, big linen, loose things that are kind of dresses. I see a lot of men painting their nails.
Eric Platt
Yeah, I think of, you know, one artist who’s having a lot of influence right now, I think of Thom Browne. And he’s really made the kilt and the skirt a core part of the brand. And when I look at other collections, many people are bringing in, like, I think of what, like, Gucci was doing under Alessandro Michele. Like, it was a lot of more feminised looks. And so I think a lot of this has really just filtered out. Brands have become more comfortable showing it because men are wearing it. And because it looks cool and because you’re seeing kind of top men in Hollywood wearing short shorts or crop tops or dresses, suddenly you can too. You can be kind of pushing the edge a bit.
Robert Armstrong
I wonder the degree to which this is a New York, LA, Miami phenomenon that we’re talking about. And we are, you know we’re New Yorkers. We live in one of those worlds. I sort of stalk around clothing shops and look around what’s going on a lot. And there is still, you go into, whether it’s a cool shop downtown or a Sid Mashburn uptown or whatever, or you walk into one of these stores, and there are men in these stores that need help. You know what I mean? And they’re looking to their wife or their girlfriend for help. They’re looking to the salesperson for help. They’re terribly uncomfortable. They don’t know how to buy a suit. They don’t know what words to talk about buying suits and ties and shoes. Men sense that expectations have changed, at least at the margin. And they’re like, whoa, what happens now?
Lilah Raptopoulos
Right right right. Maybe I’ll just wear a little bit shorter of a short. But it’s still gonna be a chino . . .
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. Or maybe like a suit with peak lapels, or something?
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.
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OK, so we’ve all been circling around, this bigger question, which is men’s changing relationships with their bodies, it seems inextricably linked with men’s clothing. There was a GQ story that made the rounds called ‘Why Is Everyone on Steroids Now’ that argued that someone in your life is using performance enhancing drugs, if you ask? It’s abuse is flourishing in an age where basically you’re promised that you can have any body you want, you can use Ozempic you can get preventative Botox there online doctors prescribing whatever you want. You know, you’re seeing bodies that you want on the internet and you can almost buy them. What’s up with that? What are the parts to the puzzle?
Eric Platt
Yeah, I think men are staring at themselves so much more, staring at whether it’s colleagues or people at the gym or just people everyday people on the street, they’re seeing them more. And, because they’re seeing themselves more. They want to look attractive. To your point, they can take Ozempic to lose weight. Why can’t they take steroids if they want to bulk up? And that raises some real concerns because these drugs will impact you for the rest of your life. And so there’s a real question about kind of like what’s prompting people instead of going to therapy and working out why they want to have this unattainable body? But again, to your point, like they’re seeing with a few shots a day or whether it’s Ozempic or steroid that they can have the body that they dreamed of and they want to show that off and they want to show it off for other men, particularly now.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Eric, I’ve heard you use the term the male gaze in reference to this phenomenon, but you mean it for men. Can you talk a little bit what you mean by that?
Eric Platt
Yeah, completely. The amount of time we’re all spending on Instagram or TikTok and seeing each other’s bodies. Constantly looking at our own body constantly, whether that’s in photos or videos that are gonna get posted, we’re much more aware and attuned to how we look. And I think men, whether they’re straight or gay, they’re admiring each other’s bodies. They’re very keen to attain, you know, slightly bigger biceps or triceps. They want their quads to look great. They want abs, right. Who are they seeing it? They’re seeing it on other men. Right. They want to the respect of other men. They respect them. Not the right word. Right. They want to look big and healthy and like they care about themselves.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.
Robert Armstrong
I’m all in favour of vanity, but there’s clearly good vanity and bad vanity, and I don’t know how to make that distinction sharply, but, it has something to do with moderation and proportion. It is good to care about how you look.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.
Robert Armstrong
But why are we at a cultural moment when so many people are crossing the line. And I think it has to do with the internet. Along with this, I mentioned before the prevalence of pornography, and I wonder if having an extremely healthy looking body that has received a lot of obvious attention is not, success and wealth signifier. And so it’s a way of showing I am successful in the world. I have not only the will but the leisure time to devote to doing a lot of sit ups. And it’s like having a fancy car. And, and it’s really hard to say I’m, I’m older than Eric and, you know, my friends are dealing with middle aged issues. You know, you’re coming up against health, and, your kids are getting older and all the normal garbage that comes along with middle age, but Ozempic is part of the conversation. Who’s on it, who’s not on it, who should be on it, who shouldn’t be? Who has enough money to pay for it to to link it again to class issues. Depending on how lucky you are in your insurance, being able to take Ozempic means that you’re rich. And, that again, the body becomes a signifier of your position in society as well as your kind of sexual ranking. It’s like your economic ranking.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, it’s really interesting. You talk about the male gaze, and the male gaze was like a term that was always just used for women. Like, I never even thought about it in terms of men. It feels different for these questions to be asked of men than of women. Women have been asking themselves these questions for a long time. How do I stay a certain age? How do I look? A certain yes. How do I, you know, maintain youth?
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. These are great. Yeah. This is a really interesting point.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Do you. I mean, yeah. Do you think this is new? Do you feel that pressure
Eric Platt
To me it feels new. Yeah. I mean, when I think about the movies I love most, when I think about Something’s Got to Give or something like that, right? The protagonist, Jack Nicholson, is fine that he looks like he’s in the 60s. I mean, it’s OK that he looks that way. Now when I think of myself, when I’m in, when I get my 40s, 50s, 60s, I’m going to still want to have this, you know, spry, athletic body, whatever it is for me.
Robert Armstrong
I have some bad news for you guys on this side at 50.
Eric Platt
But I think, I think at least our generations, we’re looking at ourselves so much more. And so when you’re just seeing yourselves and that’s how you’re being judged constantly. By strangers in other rooms. Yeah. You’re putting an effort in that. Maybe you weren’t before.
Robert Armstrong
When you as a professional, when you get to my age, you are if you are a successful you’re reasonably well paid. You’ve, you know risen reasonably well in your profession but you realise that that is a double-edged sword, that there’s somebody out there who’s probably smarter than you and 20 years younger at half the salary. And then once that thought is in your mind, you look at yourself in the mirror and you look at your grey beard and the the question of your appearance becomes mixed up with your relevance. As a worker. Especially we work in the media business like am I relevant. You know there’s always this question like oh we need the voice of the young people. And you know there’s this little voice here. It’s like we need the voice of the old people too, you know. And so you know, so you’re the, the broad point I’m trying to make is that physical or even sexual vigour is associated with professional intellectual economic vigour in some deep way. And I think men always felt that pressure to be young and vigorous. But now it’s not just what you do, it’s how you look.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.
Robert Armstrong
It’s become a question of appearance as well as like are you big and do you have broad shoulders. And you can you command the room and do you have a loud voice? It’s also like do you have a flat belly. You know and so it’s it I definitely think the, the ante has been upped.
Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s so interesting that this has come for men. Yeah I really I mean you . . .
Robert Armstrong
Want to be sitting there thinking serves you smug bastards right. Well, your turn
Lilah Raptopoulos
Now. I’m almost thinking like it suddenly occurred, you know, like, to men that, like, this is a pressure. I mean, I’m thinking about, women’s trends right now, and I feel like I’m increasingly. I mean, I’m wearing a skirt today in solidarity with the boys, but I feel like I’m increasingly dressing like a little boy. Like I’m dressing kind of more androgynous. I feel like women are also trying to look strong, and almost more masculine in certain ways. It’s funny how they’ve flipped, how people are playing with it. Not that women are not also still worrying about how they look and how they’ll age.
Robert Armstrong
It is interesting to think about the fact that. Women over the past 50 years or more have asserted themselves in the professional domain, and men have had to deal with that fact. And now men are confronted with the fact that they’re going to be judged on their appearance in a way that only women were judged decades ago, and it’s like a double whammy. First you take my job and now I have to be pretty?
Lilah Raptopoulos
Have to worry about girl things.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. So I think for a lot of men that’s a lot. Not that I’m sympathising with this. You know it’s all just. But it’s big. Yeah it’s big. Been a big 50 years for us men.
Lilah Raptopoulos
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Eric, I want to give you the floor for the last thought. What did we miss?
Eric Platt
There’s something really interesting about being playful now, and there’s a playfulness in all of this and lightness. Especially when everything else in the world is so heavy. Wearing a crop top is just kind of fun. Yeah, it’s just like we’re like, I don’t have abs, but going on, it’s like.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.
Eric Platt
Life’s going to be OK today, right? Like there’s something about that. Like I’m putting on this shirt that’s clearly not serious. Even though I take myself to be a serious person. And I’m gonna put that on into the world and I think there’s a lot of that happening.
Robert Armstrong
Here, here. Eric, I’m so glad to hear you say that. The fact is we have more choices now than we did before. And that’s good.
Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s great.
Robert Armstrong
Choices are good. It is good when people are not putting a figurative or literal straitjacket on you.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.
Robert Armstrong
You know I don’t wear a skirt, but I approve of the world in which that’s fine. This is something we should all celebrate. It’s good to be alive in this moment.
Lilah Raptopoulos
It is. I feel that way. Especially when I see the casual or short shorts on men with the, work socks and the, and the loafers, like, it’s kind of like a relaxed. This sort of what it’s suggesting to you is like, take it easy. This is can be fun. Yeah.
Eric Platt
It’s like, I know this is in style, right? I know I’m wearing, like a high sock, which was inspired by Prada in the 20s. Right. Like with a chunky black shoe. But, yeah, it’s just not that serious.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.
Eric Platt
It’s just I’m having fun.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Lilah Raptopoulos
Thank you both.
Robert Armstrong
Really. This has been fun.
Lilah Raptopoulos
This has been really wonderful. Really fun. Thank you.
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’ve put some links to pieces about trends mentioned in the show notes. Any link that brings you to the FT gets you past the paywall. Also in the show notes is a link to the survey, which I asked you about at the top of the show and ways to stay in touch with me on email and on Instagram. I’m
Lilah Raptopoulos and here’s my talented team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer. We had help this week from Manuela Zaragoza. Thanks, Manuela. And our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a lovely week and we’ll find each other again on Friday.
