Menswear is a word we hear a lot these days, thanks in large part to the growth of the menswear market.
According to figures released in the summer by market researchers Mintel, it's up 18 per cent over the last five years and 5 per cent in the last year. The value of the UK menswear sector is now just a pair of Church's brogues and a silk cravat off £13 billion and expected to nudge £16.5bn by 2018.
Unsurprisingly, the fashion world has taken note. So where once menswear barely registered in the round of big catwalk shows, it now has its own slot in the fashion diary. The UK version was launched in 2012 and is called London Collections: Men. There are also menswear-only fashion weeks in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
But what does menswear mean now? For most of us it still means what it did in the 1970s, as laid out in the lyrics to the Are You Being Served? theme tune: "First floor telephones, gents' ready-made suits/Shirts, suits, ties, hats, underwear and shoes. Going up …"
However, for the authors of an upcoming book - German designer Steven Vogel, New York fashion blogger Nicholas Schonberger and Glasgow writer and creative consultant Calum Gordon - it means something above and beyond simply the clothes we wear. It's a new subculture which, as Vogel writes, "transcends into more than fashion and illustrates a change in lifestyle and attitude … Menswear is a romantic movement apparently needed in a time of brutal 'realpolitik'." Blimey. Who knew?
Elsewhere in Contemporary Menswear, Vogel says, menswear is particularly concerned with craftsmanship and ideas of sustainability. These make it political because the locally sourced and locally made is always to be preferred over the alternative. As it is with kumquats, so it is with clothes now it seems: air miles count.
Vogel also talks about the role of websites such as The Sartorialist, a fashion blog and visual archive of Facehunter-style street looks, and he highlights the contribution of a new player on the scene: "Scandinavian modernism", as he calls it, an aesthetic which joins Americana in the grab bag of menswear influences.
It's a neat idea and Vogel and his co-authors make some thought-provoking observations. But the bulk of the book is taken up with 50 or so beautifully-photographed profiles of some of the best independent men's fashion labels - and this is where you're going to need a fat wallet to get subcultured up. I've only heard of a handful of the brands (shoemaker Grenson is one, Folk another) and I'm still not sure if Be Positive is a chapter heading or a label. But, rifling through my wardrobe - or "archive" - I'm delighted to see that I have two jackets by one of the included labels, Universal Works. God bless the Urban Outfitters' sale rack, I say. And God bless menswear, whatever it means to you.
Contemporary Menswear is published on October 20 by Thames & Hudson, priced £19.95.
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