[Images: 18th and 19th Century illustrations, google; Modern Menswear, see Sources /Artwork: designslinger]

We've been publishing for a few weeks now and haven't had a post that was just about fashion.
The world of design encompasses many disciplines and fashion is one of the most publicly apparent. Most of the world's population is clothed in some manner, and the impact of American street wear has permeated the globe. That was evident in all the Olympic coverage of China, there was nary a Mao suit in the crowd, but there were plenty of tee-shirt, short and athletic shoe clad Chinese to be seen.

I'm not sure if you've heard of a recent development in menswear - the "mirdle." The name is a
combination of "men" and "girdle" because the male undergarment industry has come up with a line of "support" clothing for the slightly out-of-shape man. There was a flurry of press last spring about the introduction of a new line of men's underwear designed to hold in that extra fat around the mid-section. As reported in the Guardian:

                                     "The biggest thing in men's underwear this season is
                                       body shaping briefs'. New York's Saks Fifth Avenue
                                       now sells spandex undergarments with a 'trimming effect'.
                                       LA label Go Softwear is launching a "waist eliminator" with
                                       a waistband that extends mid-torso to hold the tummy in."

Is this simply another manifestation of the metrosexualization of the male population? The
metrosexual appeared on the fashion scene as the result of an article published in 1994, when author Mark Simpson coined the term, "Metrosexual Man." Straight men, confident in their sexuality, were paying as much attention to their bodies and looks as gay men had been for decades. It was getting harder an harder to tell the homo boys from the hetero boys.

Well, we're ten years on and those thirty-somethings are creeping closer to middle age and the
body doesn't conform the way it used to. Ten, maybe fifteen years of gym workouts and dieting simply can't compete with Mother Nature, so why not turn to alternative, and much easier methods of waistline trimming, by packing that rubber tire into a "body shaping" piece of underwear.

[Images: Various illustrations, google; New fashion, see Sources/ Artwork: designslinger]

We've been through this before. Men's girdles are nothing new, they've been around for forever
in some shape or form. Even as recently as the 19th century, the garment trade produced corsets for men. And, the term metrosexual could easily be the 18th and 19th centuries dandy. But, dandy has too many negative connotations, here's the dictionary definition:

                                   "a man who affects extreme elegance in clothes and manners; a fop."

Egads, being called a fop is almost as bad as being labeled a fag, metrosexual is much more
palatable. The metro dude isn't grooming himself for elegant dress, but we don't live in a fashion world that stresses elegance in dress. Maybe the new dandy is, "a man who affects extreme interest and care in clothes and body image and manners." I came across a website called, newdandyism.com, this ain't your old silk tie, ascot, custom tailored suit crowd. It's the new millennium's dandy - hip, urban, street sensible clothing for the man who pays as much attention what baseball cap goes with what tee-shirt and with how many large pieces of jewelry.

It's nice to know that for all those guys out there worrying about that bulge coming out from under
their fitted long sleeve, open collared shirt, that there is an option to the lace-up corset, or body-numbing rubber girdle.