The DILFITS

On April 13th, the fashion supplement to The New York Times (called “T Beauty”) ran a piece of mine on the self-loathing fashion awards. (Click the image at left to see a legible version.) A few of these images benefit from still further enlargement, both visually and mentally, because of the playful way they violate human dignity. Since dignity is one of those things we must often abandon to survive (or even to charm those whose baser affections we seek), it’s worth a self-loather’s time to study these costumes further.

The men’s outfits were particularly delightful for self-loathers this spring because they so wittily elaborated upon what sort of things men might want to loathe themselves for. Specifically, for being either a pussy or a brute. In times of war, it’s tempting to go for one or the other, even if you aren’t a man.

According to numerous sloppy thinkers in government and the academy, when faced with a vague, power-seeking enemy who wants to turn tables on you, you must agree to do terrible things to these enemies in order to protect your friends. Shackles and hoods, orange jumpsuits and women’s panties, all kinds of fashion accoutrements have been deployed in assaults on the dignity of war captives in the hope that once they are dignity-free they will be willing to help us. Both our willing interrogation teams and those of us exposed to images and tales of their exploits, are also frequently dressed down by those who still cling feebly to decency.

The Thom Browne fashion plate is a man who refuses to let his manhood bloom, lest it take him into such murky waters. This outfit’s frilly gray roses—at once tender and dead looking—so beautifully express the terror of cowardice we all feel that I think we should all spend a day or two wearing them. Galliano’s gladiator, conversely, is a lord of flies and carnage, a man less likely to sip a martini than to guzzle a goblet of bull’s blood. He has renounced the civilizing principle, refusees community; he has abandoned any trust in refinement, in pencil skirts and purses and bouquets, and so thoroug is his fear of femininity that his mighty hose has turned on him and now pumps him full of his own toxic juices. Galliano sees this warrior as a figure of fun, a grotesque, an object lesson, but also a curious object of desire. That hose may be useless, but it is impressively large, and I imagine that it would be hard to get it out of your mind once it came strutting down the runway at you. But the point is, that these are the outfits we’re all metaphorically wearing these days, and it’s always a joy to see our general discomfort (malaise? revulsion? embarrassment?) so amusingly caricatured.