The second season of the video blog “Put This On”@@http://putthison.com/@@ premiered yesterday, which is sort of a big deal within the small but crowded menswear and style-blogging ecosystem in which it belongs.
Hosted and produced by Jesse Thorn, “Put This On” @@http://putthison.com/@@bills itself as a “web series about dressing like a grownup.”
It seems these days a lot of men, mostly college-aged, are eager for this kind of advice, not just on what and how to dress but on how to live. It’s not like giving men lifestyle tips is new or anything: Esquire and GQ have been around since 1932 and 1957@@http://www.esquire.com/features/70th-anniv/ESQ1003-OCT_TIMELINE and http://sleevehead.blogspot.com/2008/06/apparel-artsgq-magazine-covers-1957-to.html@@, respectively. Both publications are still doing their thing. However, following the rise of blogging, the number of voices claiming some sort of authority on dressing and living well has exploded.
Like never before, the business of turning boys into men (or “guys,” as these sites tend to annoyingly phrase it) is an industry, and as with all forms and manner of industrialization, there’s a sense of flatness and uniformity in a field that needs diversity and color in order to survive. When the same set of blogs (A Continuous Lean, A Suitable Wardrobe, An Affordable Wardrobe, Dappered and Put This On, just to name a few)@@http://portfo.li/hangingwiththebrogues/5699562-just-some-old-thing-to-wear-around-the-house@@ are being read, and the same bits of advice are being followed, what might be the results? A generation of men who look and act the same, appropriately mimicking the homogeneity in American men’s fashion of the 1960s, the decade most revered by style bloggers. This might be because — thanks to “Mad Men” — we can see the ’60s so much more clearly and vividly than any other time period.
Men’s style blogging was around before 2007, when the show debuted@@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804503/@@, but after that bloggers finally had a reference point, a modern platonic ideal of male style: Don Draper@@http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men/cast/don-draper@@. What is it about him, anyway, that has made him the ideal and idol of style-minded men? His style is basically the same as every other male character on that show, except for maybe Harry Crane@@http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0186355/@@ and his bow-ties.
As a reader of style blogs and someone who watches “Mad Men” for research purposes, I must ask my brethren: Is this what we want? By all means, wear that Brooks Brothers jacket @@http://www.brooksbrothers.com/@@and that oxford shirt. Wear them with pride. But let us not forget that the first rule of style is to follow one’s own instincts, not those of a blogger or of a fictional character on a soap opera, a romanticized version of the 1960s. Let us not repeat the style mistakes of the past, lest we become a generation of impeccably tailored, perfectly identical empty suits.