Grey Is The New Black

GREY MATTERS – An interesting trend has emerged this season for the spring/summer menswear collections: the relatively prolific use of mature aged male models in lieu of the young, wan pretty boys that fashion designers and stylists typically inflict upon the public.

In particular, designers Anne Demeulemeester and Yohji Yamamoto eschewed nubile teenagers plucked from farms in Montana in favor of a bevy of fascinating looking men who look like they’ve actually lived lives and interesting ones at that.

Fashion at its best imparts or creates a narrative that resonates with us in ways that are both profound and provocative. In recent years, the model has become a blank canvas of sorts. A tall, thin, symmetrically featured mannequin upon which the designer projects his vision and story. Thus one cannot help but be captivated by the use of models that instead add to the narrative by their age and the sheer physical manifestation of their years of experience walking this earth. In doing so, Demeulemeester and Yamamoto remind us that aging truly is an art.