To kick off my annual rereading of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, I flip to a random page and come face-to-face with Louis XIV and Barack Obama. The Sun King, with his towering bouffant, velvet cape bedecked with gold fleur-de-lis and high-heeled court shoes, looks like a tasty French pastry a stark contrast to Obama's...well, navy blue suit. In the caption, Harari the historian delivers a devastating coup de grâce: "Dominant men have never looked as dull and dreary as they do today."
Thankfully, that was written in 2011. More than a decade later, menswear and its target audience have liberated themselves from the tyranny of navy blue suits and tan dress shoes. (Before you accuse me of sensationalism, remember that in 2018, Obama generated much international debate because he wore ecru to a press briefing.) From Lewis Hamilton to Vijay Varma, Diljit Dosanjh to Pedro Pascal and Jeff Goldblum, some of the most exciting figures on our mood boards and saved posts today are male.
"The only woman I work with is Athiya Shetty and she only wants to wear menswear," reveals celebrity stylist Rahul Vijay, agreeing that more women "are looking to menswear for inspiration—YSL's show went viral for a reason—but the big difference between '80s power dressing and now is that women want to look and feel sexy for themselves, they have nothing to prove to anyone else". Vijay attributes a part of this wider appeal to the influx of designers like Kanika Goyal (Kanika Goyal Label), Chitose Abe (Sacai) and Emily Bode Aujla (Bode) applying the female gaze to traditional menswear.
This story is from the March - April 2025 edition of VOGUE India.
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This story is from the March - April 2025 edition of VOGUE India.
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