Let it drape: Good riddance to skinny menswear

It’s a Venn diagram where the circles don’t touch. The clothes that I read about in reports of menswear shows and the ones that I see men wearing on the streets of New York City are inhabitants of two planets, light years apart, with only the faintest radio waves reaching one from the other.

Of course, one might see a pair of otherworldly Rick Owens boots stomp past on Mercer Street, or catch sight of a thousand-dollar faux-nostalgic Bode cardigan at a gallery show. But the youngish owners of these items are, almost certainly, fashion industry, or fashion industry-adjacent, people. They don’t count. They have to wear this stuff, in the way priests are stuck with clerical collars, or generals with epaulettes.

I’m talking about sartorial civilians, who get dressed to sell software, teach school, visit their mothers or write columns. Even those of us who care about clothes will not be wearing anything like, say, the thigh-length black leather boots that featured in the Saint Laurent men’s autumn/winter collection. This is not in the least a criticism of haute menswear — just an observation about its relationship to the culture at large.

All that said, after reading recent reports by the FT’s men’s critic Alexander Fury from Milan and Paris, I am hoping that communications between planet fashion and planet Earth might improve, at least temporarily. Because in the haute universe, clothes’ proportions, at least, seem to be heading in the right direction.

In Italy, Fury reports seeing “great coats, with swirling full hems, slope-shouldered and generously lapelled. These are investment pieces, hefty in price and weight . . . big shoulders, wide trousers, roomy macho shapes that nodded to the decidedly Trumpian 1980s.” The pictures from both cities show trousers with ample room in the leg and big cuffs, jackets with some slouch to them, heavy cloth with loads of texture, overcoats with sloping shoulders, that reach to mid-calf, chunky shoes, big collars worn buttoned or open.

And hurrah for all that. For a big, sweaty, middle-aged galoot such as myself, it’s a lot more comfortable. And as a man on a journalist’s salary, more substantive garments make economic sense. Heavy materials last longer, as do seams that are not forced into a running conflict with the body. And we are all looking, at this point in history, for clothes that look attractive and adult without being too formal. A little extra space and drape helps with this.

A couple of points of caution, however. There is a big difference between roomy and baggy. When that line is crossed on a catwalk, it may look interesting. In the everyday world it looks dumb. Whatever their proportions, clothes have to fit. A man’s jacket still has to create a waist. That’s the point of it. Trouser bottoms that sweep the floor look great on Colman Domingo as he walks into the Oscars. On you, a full break is plenty — you can’t afford the cleaning bills after you step in your own cuff.

(Mr Domingo looks so good in clothes that he creates a hazard for other men: With his looks, poise, taste and budget, he creates a standing temptation for other men to try things they can’t pull off. He is, in this respect, this generation’s Robert Redford.)

Shoulders, with respect to Giorgio Armani, can also be taken too far. Strong shoulders on a jacket or coat can look great but they have to be perfectly calibrated. Exaggerated shoulders looked terrible even in their heyday in the 1980s. It is one of the amusing ironies of that era that Michael Douglas’s character in Wall Street was written as a villain and was received, idiotically, as a hero. An analogous thing happened with the character’s clothes. The brilliant costume designer Ellen Mirojnick must have intended him to look puffed up or even absurd, but a generation of New York jackasses missed that subtlety. For how an Armani shoulder is really meant to look, Richard Gere in American Gigolo is the source, but lesser men must tread with caution.

Another issue: The few necktie holdouts such as myself who shift towards roomier clothes will need neckties to match. Nothing looks funnier than generous clothes and skinny ties — remember the old rule that the tie and the lapel should be about the same width. And patterned silk ties, the core of a business wardrobe, look out of place with textured fabrics. A knit or printed wool tie is better.

The world is constricting enough. If the skinny clothes era is behind us, good riddance.

Robert Armstrong © 2025 The Financial Times.

This article originally appeared in The Financial Times.