This summer has been absurdly muggy. The vapors have wafted through some peoples clothes, up into their brains, and made them loopy. Men are wearing outfits that exclaim to be juxtapositions, and they are all looking the same in doing so! I am referring to the outfits which are made up of little Adidas or other gym/athletic shorts with loafers and an oxford shirt. I am new to New York City and I am excited to be able to have these sorts of opinions. I used to only ever see these kinds of outfits on pinterest or instagram, but now I get to see them in real life, every day, and I am thankful to have physical depictions that reinforce my judgments! I really don’t like this juxtaposition-y trend. It is incoherent on purpose, and that is incredibly annoying. Is this a new type of peacocking? Where did this kind of outfit come from??? It makes me think of the infamous Lebron shorts-suite outfit, but as if he took off his jacket and vest and swapped his charcoal grey “dress shorts” with his basketball shorts. Or, as if someone got dressed to go to the office or dinner party or wherever they would like to go in a nice ironed button down, then were told that they would have to run a significant distance at the event but could only change one item of clothing, and thus they removed their nicely matching pants and donned their best running shorts. The boxey hats men wear with this type of outfit also make me feel crazy. Are all of these men bald? I am all for wearing loafers with shorts. I have loafer-ish shoes that I like wearing with shorts, or even with both shorts and a loose button down shirt. However, I am confused by this particular new combination of cool-toned, wrinkle-free oxford shirts, blue, white, or grey, with white socks, black loafers, and gym shorts.
Why does my friend talk about the rule of thirds?
I feel strangely conservative writing this opinion, but I do feel as if the tops and bottoms of these outfits are begging for an appropriate middle, and that the contrast of the shorts betrays the rest of the outfit. The materials don’t make sense to each other. Menswear enthusiasts seem to be obsessed with the “rule of thirds,” which encourages splitting the body and outfit into three distinct sections, two of which are to be taken up by the bottoms, and the top third by the top. The emphasis is on a distinct cross-sectional line at the two-thirds mark, ideally where the change in form happens (i.e. baggy below and fitted on top, dark below and light on top, etc.). I appreciate that the emergency-gym-shorts type outfits discard the cross-sectional nature of the rule of thirds. I think the rule of thirds makes men look short and very silly. The flow of the shirt and the inability of one to tuck it into the waistband of the gym shorts make for a nice silhouette. However, these kinds of outfits are indeed the rule of thirds in disguise. The rule of thirds has evolved because the old version which involved super baggy pants and short crop tops was around for too long and fell out of fashion. Online menswear influencers have redefined the rule of thirds subliminally!! Now, the top and bottom thirds must match, and the cross-section line is replaced by the entire middle-third! The contrast comes in the expectation of the types of clothing that would match each of the other thirds. The top and bottom match, but the middle, which must be passed to get to either matching end, does not.
The rule of thirds in art or photography, where it originated, suggests that a well composed image has interesting or important elements on the imaginary lines that would segment the image into thirds. So, proper composition muddies the lines of separation by placing something important over them. Important things that should be noticed are placed at the intersections, not within the boxes, so that they exist in two thirds at once. Emergency-gym-short outfits represent a partial embrace of this kind of rule-of thirds, where the important and different thing is exactly in the middle of the middle third, which makes it uninteresting (see David Lynch’s final on-screen cameo), but the boundaries between the thirds are sort of muddied, which is interesting. The shirt changing shape into its front tails, made for proper tucking, but left untucked and covering some of the shorts is interesting and cool and proper artistic composition! The surprise of that much bare leg at the lower transition line, not just that they are wearing shorts, but that the shorts are very short, is also interesting!! I do enjoy that these outfits are worn almost exclusively with long-sleeved dress shirts, usually left cuffed.
Are people’s clothes sending messages to my clothes?
As I wrote this all out, an appreciation for this kind of outfit grew inside of me. I do believe that the appreciation will dissipate as soon as I see this kind of outfit out in the street or on my pinterest homepage. I subscribe to the idea that wearing one interesting component in an otherwise ordinary outfit communicates something interesting without screaming it. Maybe these people are simply not trying to communicate to me, but I think instead that the interesting component, the shorts, is actually not interesting, and that all of the parts are pretty normal and ordinary, and that nothing cool is achieved by inputting the shorts. I can notice the shorts from across the road, and I think that means they are doing too much. The absurdity is too obvious! This outfit wants you to see it from across the road and ask yourself “is that their genuine fashion sense or are they rage baiting?” If this outfit was worn for purely utilitarian reasons like staying cool in the summer, I would appreciate it more, but I don’t think that is the case.
Writing in a sardonic way about other people’s outfits is fun and only makes me feel a slight tinge of guilt, but the more I think about this sort of thing, the more I don’t want to wear anything at all. I have discovered the mathification of men’s outfits, and now, in an attempt to be different, I am subconsciously trying to figure out where my thirds or fourths are. I have always thought that my body’s proportions are off, which makes the thirds thing land strangely on me, and I am thankful for that! I sometimes think it’s immoral for men to wear shorts in public, but my roommate does it really well so that opinion has softened. They wear appropriate shirts with appropriate shirts and they’re super cool.
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