Gucci has inserted itself into the culture war by releasing a weirdly dowdy dress for men at the low, low price of $2600 a pop. The dress, more a publicity stunt for the brand than an actual product anyone will ever buy, is said to be a challenge to “toxic masculinity.”
And it sort of is, in that its drawn an assortment of toxic men out from the shadows to indignantly protest against this alleged insult to their brand of masculinity. I found a few of these guys (and a couple of sympathetic women) posting about the dress on Twitter:
The reactions were more intense over on my second-favorite hive of toxic masculinity, the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit. (On my first-favorite hive, Incels.co, the regulars seem not to have noticed the new dress yet.)
Some suggested that any man wearing the dress would deserve a beating.
“Anyone wearing this is pretty much asking to get beat up,” suggested melkiorr.
“The only thing that will be fluid would be the nose of anyone dumb enough to wear this in public,” joked ppkoto7.
My_name_jeff2 pulled out the t-word.
Now, you can be a tr*nny without being mentally ill! For only £1699.99
Some lashed out at the model himself in homophobic ways.
“That n***a look like a bitch!” wrote HaywoodJabBitch.
“Behold the eternal virgin!” wrote EnvironmentalRest4. “Getting boned by guys doesn’t count, not in this case.”
Throwawayham1971 mocked any man who would go out and buy the dress.
There is a totally gay dude at Gucci laughing his ass off knowing damn well some fucking loser will buy this to try and get laid.
Rocko20002 tried to retroactively claim Kurt Cobain as an ally in bigotry.
Kurt Cobain might have been a feminist simp, but I’m convinced that if he saw this “grunge inspired” monstrosity sold for I’m guessing the equivalent of US $2000, he would blow his brains out again.
Cobain might have been offended by the price tag but he definitely had no problem with men wearing dresses, which he occasionally sported himself as a challenge to precisely that same toxic masculinity that Gucci is supposedly critiquing.
Luciano700 wrote that
If a man wants to cross dress. Fine that’s his problem not mine
But to shove this down our throats when it is clearly not at the preference of most? That’s going a little too far
It’s not clear how a designer selling a dress that no one is obligated to buy counts as shoving anything down anyone’s throat.
Other commenters saw the dress as a legitimate threat to their kind of masculinity.
“They want you neutered and then they’ll laugh at you” wrote ThrowawayGhostGuy1.
Vijaya_Narayana agreed:
They just want to pander to all of the people and organisations that seek to demonise and ostracize REAL masculinity, the world is changing, not for our benefit.
Monkonajourney challenged the very notion of “tocix masculinity” even as his colleagues in the MGTOW subreddit exhibited it all around him.
Fuck these bullshit societal brainwashing propaganda advertisements. Being a man is not toxic. Wearing masculine clothes is not toxic. Getting angry in the right situations is not toxic. Fighting for yourself and your loved ones is not toxic. Competition is not toxic. Standing up for yourself is not toxic. Not taking shit from anyone is not toxic. Growing a beard, building your physique is not toxic. If it intimidates certain snowflakes, that is their fucking problem. Stop trying to feminize men.
Well, if you make your definition of “toxic masculinity” a series of straw men, you’re only going to succeed in pissing yourself off. No, toxic masculinity isn’t any of those things, from wearing “masculine clothes” to growing a beard. Masculinity in itself is not toxic. Toxic masculinity involves a rigid adherence to an exaggerated version of masculinity that’s socially maladaptive and at times dangerous to people of all genders.
Truly righteous anger is not the problem; a man using anger and implied or real violence to control his wife is an example of masculinity gone toxic. Similarly, suggesting that gender-nonconforming men — say, men in dresses — should be beaten up is toxic masculinity.
Say what you will about Gucci’s ugly man-dress, but it certainly brought out the toxic men in droves, exposing their toxic masculinity in their own words.
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It’s hilarious when straight men accuse LGBTQ+ people of “shoving it down their throat.”
I have to admit I hate this kind of stunt too, but I try not to let pointless stuff like this rile me up. These guys are too foolish and not self aware enough to realize that overblown reactions reactions are exactly what Gucci wants.
Gucci is getting exactly what they wanted.
Idk mate $2600 for a dress like that, seems highly overpriced.
Countdown until TERFs melt down over the “trans agenda.”
Wow, at that price it truly is a garment for the everyman.
What exactly was stopping men from buying women’s dresses anyway? I’m all for degendering clothing articles, but making a separate dress line for men does the opposite.
Once again, cis people don’t know the difference between gender fluidity and gender non-conformity.
One would think a “Men’s Rights Activist” would not want men to be beaten…
Gentlemen, if you choose to wear a dress, can you at least choose one that isn’t this overpriced and find a better design? I can suggest some better choices.
My biggest issue with most dresses is the lack of pockets. Some garments that are stylish and functional at the same time would be nice.
I’m not an expert in fashion, but I stand by my proposal to bring back hoop skirts. Especially now, they could help with social distancing.
@Calmdown
My problem is that it’s performative. It’s like that thing last October where Pharell Williams wore a thing that looked halfway between a dress and a comforter. It’s a performative display of pushing gender roles that doesn’t actually change the landscape of fashion or masculinity, while also shifting the feminist conversation away from women and to men.
Conservatives: We must not lift a finger to help the poor! Raising the minimum wage and regulating polluters is an affront to the FREE MARKET!!1! Viva la giant corporations!
Also conservatives: Help! By offering them for sale to anyone who wants them, this giant corporation is trying to shove man-dresses down our throats! It can’t be allowed!!one
I like Eddie Izzard’s take on this sort of thing, when he was asked about wearing women’s dresses “No, they’re men’s dresses. I’m a man, and I bought them.”
I don’t like that dress, but just because it’s ugly and orange. And overpriced. Okay, three things.
Fuck manospherian bullshit brainwashing propaganda. Being a woman is not about catering to men. Wearing clothes that manospherians don’t admire is not a slap in their faces. Getting angry in the right situations is not problematic in the least. Fighting for yourself and your loved ones is not spiteful. Competition is not the opening salvo of a battle. Standing up for yourself is not venomous. Not taking shit from anyone is not warfare. Keeping healthy while ignoring beauty standards is not poisonous. If it intimidates certain manospherians, that is their fucking problem. Stop harassing women. Stop stalking women. Stop doxxing women. Stop killing women.
“selling something for a very high price” = “shoving it down people’s throats”
When will Kanye West stop shoving all these sneakers down my throat?
I like frumpish clothes but that dress did not cost very much to make. It looks like an old home ec class project. Which is an esthetic I appreciate but only at thrift store prices. Fashion right now is split between cheap fast fashion that falls apart and ends up in landfills after a season and designer stuff so ludicrously overpriced that people that actually buy it should be mercilessly roasted. (Oh, and any of it that’s left unsold gets burned because heaven forbid the brand is degraded by showing up in discount stores).
@Naglfar
In theory (in theory) there could be a benefit to buying a dress tailored specifically for male (or AMAB) bodies, in the same way there can be a benefit in the other direction – usually I can’t just go into the men’s side of the shop and buy some trousers with actual good pockets, or button-up shirts that aren’t oddly flimsy, because those are built for bodies with different hips and waists and with room for a penis downstairs but none for breasts upstairs. So people with less curvy, non-breasted, bepenised bodies might be interested in having a dress cater to these aspects.
But then, this does not seem to be the case with this Gucci thing, which David had characterised very well as “weirdly dowdy”. It might have a bodice more tailored to a flat chest? Maybe there’s that. Hard to tell because it all looks so loose and unflattering. Still not worth the price tag (might as well buy a dress you actually like and have it modified) but that’s high fashion for ya.
[On a side note, don’t you just (unsarcastically) love it when very expensive things are also very ugly? “I can’t afford this, but oof, why would I want to?” – so much better than seeing something you actually really like but then finding out it’s too expensive o afford! Keep making ugly things, haut couture houses!]
And something else: Gucci aren’t even innovating here. There have been countless examples of men’s skirts and dresses on runways, for years now – possibly for decades. It’s a pretty common way of making high fashion edgy and pushing the envelope and all that jazz. The only new thing they’ve done here is use a feminist buzzword to drum up publicity. I mean, hey, it worked for Gilette.
That is one fugly dress.
At my former uni, male students often wore skirts. They’re called utilikilts and they’re practical and attractive.
Everybody should be able to wear what they want without others going batcrap crazy over it.
Meanwhile, straight women don’t seem to usually complain about having it “rubbed in their face”.
Ever seen the price of a kilt?
Also look at Greek or Albanian ethnic dress.
@Penny Psmith:
Indeed. Here’s an example from 1970 that I’ve posted before:
That is one butt-ugly schmatte. The color doesn’t do a thing for him, either.
That dress is truly unflattering, it’s badly tailored in a terrible colour and the fabric looks cheap. Certainly not worth £1700! What’s worse, it’s not just a cheap dress but a cheap stunt, performative action by a company trying to either take advantage of gender non-conforming or non-binary people, or taking the piss out of us. I’m slightly leaning towards Gucci are taking the piss.
Clothes tailored to people with breasts often don’t fit people with no breasts, but then they don’t really fit people with big ones either. Personally I enjoy the freedom of buying shirts from ‘big men’ shops. If I go two sizes up I get a comfortable, roomy shirt that I can move in and that doesn’t drive my sensory sensitivities mad. And also last for years rather than ripping quickly – why are clothes for women so badly made? I have got a couple of pairs of cargo trousers tailored to penis-owners, The shorts fit okay but the trousers don’t have enough belly fat space. I still wear them regularly because all the pocketses! It’s possible, if you learn some basic tailoring to change and adapt off the shelf clothes to fit your particular body.
@Penny Psmith
Fair enough. For me, I’m just used to clothes not fitting well because despite being AMAB, I’ve never really been shaped like the average cis man so men’s clothing is generally too loose at the waist and way too tight at the hips and thighs. Even before I realized I was trans, women’s clothes tended to fit me better. I guess for someone with a more typically masculine figure the inverse might be true.
I think I heard somewhere that these kinds of things are mostly just an opportunity for designers to mess around how they want. A happy designer will be more productive in other regards.
@personalpest
And I’d say David Bowie’s outfit is a lot better looking too.
@North Sea Sparkly Dragon
At the very least they’re not doing trans and GNC folk any favors by drumming up hate against them.
That is one UGLY dress. Didn’t we have enough of Laura Ashley tablecloths being made into dresses in the 80’s? Not a style as needs to come back.
It is very much in keeping with the rest of Gucci’c winter collection. They seem to be going for that retro-70s vibe that keeps having a resurgence. That rummaging around charity shops look. Like with Smiths fans in the 80s and mid 90’s Pulp.
I must confess I don’t totally hate it. It’s a bit underwhelming; but give a fashion student a razor blade and a sewing kit and they might be able to jazz it up a bit.
This image of Eric Idle as a peasant was the first thing that came to mind. Seems a bit like a short robe or something. I don’t hate it, i strongly dislike the color though.
I wish more men wore dresses actually.
You HAD to remind me, didn’t you. 😛