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Dismay or delight, some of the most powerful marketing entities in fashion are investing heavily in the male waif's scrawny form. The heaviest transaction for that particular image bank is with, most obviously, Calvin Klein, a designer whose eight figure advertising budget has put him in the position of being a primary cultural influence. What Klein likes, the public must contend with, because his aesthetic choices becomes an instantaneous and ubiquitous part of street culture in a matter of days. In tandem with its visual commander-in-chief Fabien Baron, the Klein machine has developed a propensity for importing wholesale the flavor of the minute straight from the pages of English publications like The Face and ID, the most notorious example being the 1992 purchase of the New Realist fashion clique led by Kate Moss and rounded out by hairsytlist, Guido, make-up artist Dick Page and photographers David Sims and Mario Sorrenti. |
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The figure of the thin androgynous youth as a symbol of youthful rebellion and nihilistic glamour is deeply entrenched in English culture and the decidedly English contingent of New Realists carried over the Atlantic the world's choicest examples of male waifs. From the delightfully louche Keith Martin to the touchingly frail George, these unlikely stars were soon nestling in the fashion heaven of Request, Dolce Y Gabbana and Iceberg ad campaigns, as well as the pages of Vogue and the covers of "W" magazine. True to form the Americanisation of this trend began to evidence itself most spectacularly at agencies like DNA whose shrewd and timely investment in the look had won them a slew of "L'Uomo Vogue" and 'The Face" covers. For supporters of this new ideal much talk of "natural bodies", and, "organic" and "steroid-free" crops up around these young men in the same way their sisters were to have been an antidote to liposuction, collagended and plastic surgery derived glamour. After all, the argument goes, the human body comes in countless variations. |
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| The dandy, one of menswear long enduring
ideals cannot be depicted by linebackers. Besides, who decided that the criteria of a real
man was the sum total of his bulging muscles anyway? Why is the just developing body of a
teenager less valid than a Conan ideal? Women don't demand that there be only one standard
of beauty when it comes to men. Over the years they have chosen to adopt such wiry icons
as Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Sid Viscious, Prince and Snoop Doggy Dog as
suitable objects of their sexual affections. Now the male waif presents another variation
on that ideal to a new generation of young women .
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