Beckham Bends Menswear Trends: Next time you’re having trouble deciding whether or not to buy a garment, ask yourself, ‘Would David Beckham wear this?’

August 22, 2003

Macho may have been hot in, like, 1978. But it’s 2003 now and overtly macho is so, well, totally lame. While gay men are turning down the fabulous in their wardrobes just a notch (bright colors are out this season, by the way) and turning up the dude (going from fashion plate to frat boy chic a la Abercrombie), their characteristically (and historically) less image-conscious straight counterparts are out there fabbing it up, wearing out the magnetic strips on their platinum cards for flashier (and expensive) designer duds that could have gotten them beaten up B.B. — that’s Before Beckham.

Have suddenly style-savvy straight men discovered what ladies and gay men have known for more than a century — that fashion is fun?

Welcome the newest strain of straight guys. The metrosexuals, so dubbed last year by Mark Simpson, a writer for Salon magazine. The metrosexual male isn’t gay, you just assumed he was because he’s so stylish; and until now, you thought a Prada mule was a Himalayan pack animal.

Metrosexual poster boys David Beckham and Tom Cruise — they’ve rocked the pageboy haircut, they get regular manis and pedis, they work out endlessly, they moisturize religiously, hell, they’ve even stepped out in a pair of clamdiggers and, in Beckham’s case, a sarong. But ya know what? Women want ’em and more and more straight guys want to be them.

Paul Nesbit, manager and buyer for hip San Francisco Castro District menswear boutiques Citizen and Body, says he’s definitely noticed an increase in the number of straight clientele coming in over the last year.

“Actually, I’ve been seeing a lot more girlfriends and wives coming in to buy things for their boyfriends and husbands,” he says. “I think straight men are still a little intimated about coming to the Castro.”

Nesbit says his straight male clientele are taking more risks fashion-wise than ever before and slowly catching up to the gay fashionistas, whom he says are typically about a year ahead of the fashion curve and the general population when it comes to trends.

Why are straight men now spending so much time worrying about what they wear? Nesbit says because straight men are starting to realize that how they look can mean the difference between clerk and manager, promotion and pink slip, got the job and gotta apply for an extension on my unemployment.

“You can’t show up for a job interview anymore in jeans and a Y-shirt,” jokes Nesbit. “Men have to really pay attention to how they present themselves if they want to remain competitive for a job, for a partner, for whatever. And they do that by giving themselves some kind of an edge.”

The clothes on a man’s back can be his edge, according to Nesbit. Walk into a recruiter’s office or a single’s bar wearing a colorful Custo combination — for the fashion deficient, that’s a popular designer out of Barcelona — when every other schmuck in the joint is rocking Gap, and guess who sticks out in a good way? That’s right, you!

But Nesbit warns straight men looking for that edge that there are still a few fashion rules to be observed.

Just remember, more isn’t always more.

A few helpful hints for the budding metrosexual:

Good

• Men’s handbags — stylish, functional.

• Subtly incorporating more color into your closet.

• Fitted clothing on a gym-toned bod.

Bad, very bad

• Fannypacks and, unless you’re a ’70s pimp, clutch purses … oy vay!

• The dubiously dubbed party shirt in some tacky print or shimmery, god-forsaken synthetic blend.

• Tight clothing on a not-so gym-toned bod.

Also in Features