Workwear's roots may have started on railroads and nstctn s, but s boom populary more recent history ow much to the gay mun
Contents:
- ENJOY THE SWEET EMBRACE OF A QUALY GAY LEATHER JACKET
- HOW THE GAY COMMUNY HELPED POPULARIZE WORKWEAR
ENJOY THE SWEET EMBRACE OF A QUALY GAY LEATHER JACKET
Our gay leather jackets are so versatile ’s challengg to match wh jt one thg! What you might not realize is that much of the fashn that has seeped to popular menswear today has been propagated and popularized by the gay muny. But as the fight for gay rights progrsed, gay people found novel ways of drsg to signal their affiliatn to others -the-know.
The Village People, the chart-toppg mil group which ma mic for the predomantly gay dis scene, was famo not only for s tchy dance mic, but s st of mascule characters.
Though the band chews the gay mil group label and even ni the alleged subtexts and double entendr of s lyrics, the group and s mic ught on the gay scene where songs like ‘Y. Around the same time as the dis craze (but lastg much longer), there were the so-lled “Castro Clon, ” a group that was first mentned the 1970s on the “Red Queen Broadsi” posters wheatpasted around San Francis by gay activist Arthur Evans. In an article by wrten by Pl Flynn for The Guardian, Le Howard of the queer DJ llective Horse Meat Dis talks about some of the thought behd drsg typil work cloth: “Boys that grow up to bee gay men have often personally experienced or at least wnsed anti-gay bullyg, which perhaps then be eher externalized — I’ll be as flamboyant as I want my attire and to hell wh you all — or ternalized: I’ll be more mascule-lookg than the most heterosexual men.
HOW THE GAY COMMUNY HELPED POPULARIZE WORKWEAR
The clone style eventually evolved to another subculture of the gay muny known as ‘bear’ which also plac an emphasis on tight cloth, buff physiqu ane gged masculy, but wh ls of a workwear foc and specific emphasis on thick beards — still a faiar sight among gged style enthiasts today.
Before long, both lbian women and gay men took the style and ran wh . When Joseph Hanck asked signer Vivienne Wtwood about straight men adoptg gay styl his book Brand/Story: Cas and Exploratn Fashn Brandg, Wtwood not that ’s always been a thg. “The male gaze at the male body — the homoerotic gaze — both fascat and terrifi straight men.
When gay men flnted a more effemate style, was easy for straight men to reject gay fashn. The days, the gay of ‘straight actg’ has overshadowed the more flamboyant fun of earlier queer styl to the pot that straight men feel fortable wh gay fashn.