Bad boys are in vogue

It’s time to shed the gentleman image as designers turn baddies.

After years of presenting the dandy look season after season, the fashion gurus seem to bring the macho back in menswear fashion. At least that’s what it appears from the just concluded Milan and Paris Menswear Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2010.

The ‘Bad Boy’ of fashion — Jean Paul Gaultier’s collection showed the boxer, with his gloves and hoodies and sweat towels; the biker, with head-to-toe leathers; and the Gothic with a dark secret. Sporting fake cuts, bloodied bruises, and 48-hour stubble, muscle-bound models punched away at the bags.

The ‘bloody’ walk

The DSquared twins, Dean and Dan Caten, drew inspiration from ice hockey brawls for their show in Milan. They painted black eyes and blood on the noses of bad-boy models wearing ‘blood-spattered’ jerseys or a leather jacket over a bare torso daubed with a skull and crossbones.

With it’s slender cuts, slicked back hair and infusion of leather, Zegna Fall/Winter 2010 collection strikes you as almost sadist inspired. It’s as if American Psycho had made it to the catwalk.

Rugged by nature

Designer Rajesh Pratap Singh said, “Most designers at the Milan and Paris Menswear Fashion Week have gone for a rugged look. I feel the Indians would be more at ease with the current ‘Bad Boy’ look, as dandy look wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea.”

Rajvi Mohan, a talented menswear designer says, “Yeah, those dandy boys were too feminine and in a country like India, which is essentially a patriarchal society, the macho look would do well. The blood marks at DSquared show was essentially theatrics but it conveyed the point.”

Sunil Sethi, president of FDCI gave a slightly different viewpoint, “The designers were making clothes for young Wall Street movers and shakers who easily fitted into those stick skinny pants and jackets. Now the Hedge Fund boys are gone so it’s a smart move on part of many designers to make clothes for real men.”