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.
Whenever I need a shot of styling inspiration, I make a pit stop at Hamilton’s feed. The F1 champ refuses to play by traditional gender binaries in clothing, despite being the most recognisable face of a grossly male-dominated sport. My current favourite? His pairing of a cotton-candy-soft Dior top in a diaphanous blue with white Bvlgari sunglasses and enough jewellery to make the late Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala seem like a staunch minimalist. Fuelled by stylist Eric McNeal, his choices swing wildly from a custom black sequinned Rick Owens jumpsuit to a forest green velvet parka with Takashi Murakami’s psychedelic flowers creeping up the arms.
Back on home turf, this cocktail of playfulness and rebellion is mirrored in the wardrobes of Dominant Men Varma and Dosanjh, explaining why they retain top billing on most best-dressed lists. At a recent Dior event, Varma rocked up in a sheer ruffled blouse worn under a taupe cropped jacket and matching pants. Completing the look? A CD brooch festooned with pearls that would have looked just as natural on Jackie Kennedy’s lapel as it did on him.
This penchant for pearls, arguably one of the most feminine-coded gemstones, is shared by Dosanjh, an emblem of Punjabi masculinity. While his peers stick to the safety of oversized athleisure, the performer cements his history-making status in sheer Marine Serre tops, Bode crochet shirts and Chanel cropped jackets with that ubiquitous string of pearls encircling his neck like a talisman.
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It’s no coincidence that these men whose wardrobes we want to plunder have a reputation for treating women well. Dosanjh’s alpha male status isn’t threatened by his vocal defence of his female fans, whether they’re farmers sitting in protest or girls weeping at concerts. I can personally attest that Varma practises old-school chivalry of the door-opening, ladies-first kind. And Pascal, apart from being an absolute delight to work with, uses his voice to champion reproduction rights and trans rights, most recently playing red-carpet stylist to his sister Lux, who came out as trans in 2021. Naturally, a man so unthreatened by female energy can rock a cropped Margiela vest or a buttery Gucci silk shirt with micro-pleated detailing. Both pieces were designed by their respective brands to be worn by the male of our species, but I’d be happy to borrow them should Pascal ever be interested in a clothes swap.
“We’re really crossing boundaries because the silhouettes, colours and cuts have become gender-fluid, nothing is very specific to ‘men’ or ‘women’,” explains stylist Shaleena Nathani, the brains behind the wardrobes for both Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan. Incidentally, her current pick for best-dressed man internationally is Brad Pitt, who benefitted from a recent style renaissance that The Standard dubbed ‘Bohemian Brad’, starring linen suits in juicy colours like tangerine and cantaloupe, and that skirt moment in Germany.
If I were forced to play reductionist, I’d wager that this diverse male sample size is underpinned by emotional intelligence and a sense of security that permeates their work and wardrobe. Saving us from death by homogeneity, the Dominant Men of today seem completely at ease wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Especially if those sleeves are made by Loewe.
Also read:
Does androgynous fashion for men sell, or is it only for the optics?
Moving beyond basic grooming, the male beauty industry is (finally) on the rise
These Indian menswear labels are creating a niche for themselves
