D&G jeans ad sinks to new lowBY RIVKA BUKOWSKY
New York Daily News
Men's fashion has hit a new low - and it's really, really low.
An ad for the Dolce & Gabbana fall men's line featuring extremely low-riding jeans - nicknamed "pubic pants" by the fashion press - is an attention grabber, even in New York.
"That's the top of the palm tree!" upper West Side actor Josh Lamon, 24, gasped yesterday when he saw the much-too-revealing photo in the September issue of Esquire.
Krista Olofsson, a Fashion Institute of Technology student sporting multiple piercings, thought the ad went too far below the belt.
"That's a little gross," said Olofsson, 18. "I don't want to see someone's private hair falling out of their pants."
Olofsson thought men's low-riders might briefly catch on in New York, but "then people will say, 'Let's pull our pants up and move on to the next thing.'"
Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are famous for their aggressively sexy style - popularizing the underwear-as-outerwear look and dressing Madonna for her Girlie Show tour.
Veteran adman Jerry Della Femina said the photograph made sense for the envelope-pushing design house.
"People are going to find it disgusting, but they're probably not the Dolce crowd," Della Femina said. "This is a campaign that only people who are sort of edgy and want to buy their clothing will see and appreciate."
After Calvin Klein rocketed to fame with ads featuring a teenage Brooke Shields and a "heroin chic" Kate Moss, designers learned that sex and shock value were good selling strategies.
"Everybody's going to try to out-Calvin Calvin," Della Femina said. "Someone's gonna say, why are we stopping with pubic hair? Let's go all the way!"
But New Yorkers questioned Dolce & Gabbana's fuzzy logic.
Teacher Nikhil Bilwakesh, 28, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, hated the jeans on sight.
"That looks uncomfortably low," the skeptical shopper said. "I think certain people could swing it, just not me."
Mike DuPoux, 33, of Canarsie also didn't like the look. "It's not appealing," he said.
But the clothing store manager thought the style would show up on some New York streets: "I'll probably see it a lot in Chelsea."
Dolce and Gabbana could not be reached for comment.
What? No pic of the ad?
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the ad...and I don't want to.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction is "OH, HELL NO!" I'm not a fan of low-cut jeans for women...and I certainly don't want to see men wearing them. This trend is not "sexy" as far as I'm concerned.
Anita: Okay, I posted it on the blog entry. It's disgusting and I'm deleting it off my hard drive as we speak. The only nappy hair on a dude I want to see is my own.
ReplyDeleteMitch: Not a fan of the low-rise either. It was okay on girls at first, but the pants kept going lower and lower.
On guys, it's just plain nasty. And uncomfortable. I bought a pair of Premium Levis jeans at Saks 'Off Fifth' Outlet one day without trying them on, and they turned out to be low rise and bootcut when I got home.
I could wear them but they were entirely too low. I felt like they were about to fall off the whole time; I kept trying to pull them up, but there was nothing to pull. I looked like a nerdy Lenny Kravitz.
Needless to say, those pants went back to the store...and quick.
Hahahaha!!! Imagine seeing a guy walking down the street wearng those and a short tight t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteThat'll create a lot of double takes!
They'll all be saying "Gee, I thought Bob was straight, but look at that!"
ReplyDeleteThe low-rider that I mentioned on your 'shorts are for the office, guys' entry as being responsible for engendering 'crack' on women is now, for the purpose of an androgenistic fashion statement, being introduced to men. The sagster has always been with us, its saving grace being the decorative boxers sparing us the inevitable fallout.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, women are expected to shave and wax to accomodate increasingly ridicous definitions of 'coverage'. Is a thong (what I still refer to those rubber shoes you wear to the beach that are fastened by one piece of plastic connected to the sole between the big toe and....) supposed to be a usable, everyday undergarment?
So, to progress the argument to its necessary end, men (obviously not sporting any skivvies here--watch that zipper!!) need to start shaving, waxing and sporting g-strings to accomodate the whims of fashion -- or this is just some major statement the designer is making to a bored public (pubic?) a la Dennis Rodman.......???
I'm sticking with the sagster.
ReplyDeleteIt's bad enough every other pair of 'premium denim' jeans has a rise made for a six-year-old, now comes ulta-low and the dodging of the pubes every morning. No thanks. I like wearing drawers, and I and (I suspect) most of America's male population, am not really great at shaving "down there".
Here comes the rant...
I think what the problem is that designers have run short on ideas in this fashion cycle and rather than advocate boring ol' responsible dressing and saying no to crack, they're trying to demolish what's left of modesty in denim, to squeeze that last red cent out of a dying trend.
It's unfair what they do to women crazy enough to follow these trends. I've been looking at the September issues of all the major fashion magazines and there's hardly a stitch shown a woman over 110 lbs. or 22 years old can pull off without a corset or some sort of mumification.
Then they wonder why high-fashion sells slowly. Here's a clue: EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO CAN AFFORD THIS SHIT CAN'T FIT INTO IT!
End of rant.