With new branding and design concepts for men strutting into stores, even Eugene males are starting to notice their buttons.
Jonathan Faulkner, buyer of 11 years at Eugene’s Boardsports Inc. on 13th Avenue sells what guys want: T-shirts and jeans with a spin, Faulkner said.
The men’s fashion industry is still fairly mainstream. But differences can still be achieved when people create their stylish mix. There is no specific type of person and everyone has their own way, Faulkner said.
As a retail industry professional for more than 20 years, Faulkner has decided the most important piece to take away, for men and women, is having the ability to sift through the brands and find one’s own style.
“Fashion is about finding what looks good on you that makes you feel good,” Faulkner said.
Men use fashion more as a vehicle to express ideas about art, music, culture and less about following specific trends, Faulkner said.
The hip-hop-themed LRG brand, which Faulkner considers fairly underground, is popular among University men and sells out quickly at Boardsports Inc. Every shipment of the skate, DJ and hip hop-inspired LRG clothes has a list of 30 to 40 people, Faulkner said. Part of the brand’s popularity stems from music artists who promote the brand, including Kanye West, DJ Shadow and beatmaker Hi-Tek.
Upper Playground is an artistic men’s brand of mixed-media pieces, such as photography, sculpture and video. Brands such as LRG and Upper Playground use men’s fashion as an avenue for creativity. University junior Paul Swanson prefers to dress in clothes he will not spot on another student, but he does own LRG clothes, which his sister bought for him.
The Seattle native seeks underrepresented brands to keep his closet interesting and competitive.
“I am really into the way things look and the design of things, like cars, bikes, and computers. I am attracted to unique stuff,” Swanson, a Spanish major, said. His interest in design extends to the contents of his closet. Swanson, who won Best Dressed his senior year of high school, stocks up on classic brands Polo and Nike and embellishes his wardrobe with brands Crooks and Castles, Reason and Upper Playground.
From a local student and designer’s standpoint, men’s fashion in Eugene has not taken off. Jonny Baggs, a University Digital Design and Multimedia major who used to work at the Emerald, sketches clothing designs but recognizes the dismal market for men’s fashion. He attended the recent Eugene fashion show and believes connections among local women’s fashion designers are positive.
“Fashion is not important for guys,” Baggs said.
The lack of demand for men’s fashion and designers’ preferences contribute to the shortage of creativity in men’s fashion, Baggs said. Even Baggs doesn’t consider men’s shapes and styles when he designs.
“I got the ladies to take care of,” he said.
With no pressure on campus to dress nicely and students with limited finances, male students don’t worry as much about fashion, Baggs said.
The need for men to present themselves fashionably alters when they begin to work in big cities when it becomes more important to present their financial status, Baggs said.
But for now, Baggs and the other stylishly inclined Eugene men
will follow the women’s lead and selectively buy and thrift while in town. Eugene males can take comfort in the fact that however the men’s market lacks in diversity, it will make up for in creativity and intensity.