Ray Petri’s Buffalo Boys Return

Stylist Olivier Rizzo evokes Buffalo Style for Arena Homme +

The vision of stylist Ray Petri has proved itself as one of the most potent and influential aesthetics in men’s fashion. And in 2009, his mid 80’s-early 90’s defining Buffalo look is on the cusps of a comeback…

The juxtaposition between masculine and feminine, high and low, and especially hard and soft are the basics of Ray Petri’s Buffalo style. The look defined the youth energy of the 80’s and early 90’s as Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance” (above) and magazines like The Face and I-D brought it into pop culture. Buffalo style redefined symbolism in men’s dress, erasing away their historical meaning and leaving the most cherished sartorial traditions fair game to subversion.

From a 1980's The Face

From a 1980's The Face

Often attributed to the Buffalo Soldiers, an all black American cavalry Regiment that played a key role in the Indian Wars, the name partly derives from Caribbean slang — a term used to describe a rude boy or machismo attitude. Indeed, Petri’s look relies heavily on archetypes of masculinity, particularly pulling from military/cowboy iconography and London’s mélange of British tradition and ethnic immigrants. Yet, Petri lends these identities a subtext of sexual and gender transgression, racial politics, and a denouncement of bourgeois luxury. Certainly weighty ideas, but nonetheless they address the look’s uncanny relevance for now.

Image board of Petri's work, printed in Arena Homme +

The men’s collections for Fall 2009 evoked Buffalo’s masculine/feminine dynamic, a more expressive alternative to these difficult and hard times. Looks of black, leather, and volume flirt with notions of masculinity, queer subculture, and androgyny — Buffalo through and through. If Hedi Slimane’s slim look, revolutionizing men’s fashion at the beginning of the decade, represented the zenith of menswear’s submission to fashion then Buffalo is its complete removal.

Buffalo parallels on the Fall-Winter 2009/2010 catwalks

Adding to the energy in the air, Arena Homme +’ Fall/Winter 2009 issue was dedicated to Ray Petri and exists as a contemporary reference guide for all things Buffalo.

Kudos to the NYTimes’s Armand Limander who wrote about the look and foresaw its revival back in 2007.

—JL

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