By Patrick F. Cannon
One of the reasons I subscribe to the New York Times online is it’s the only daily newspaper that still covers the fashion world. In its heyday, the Chicago Tribune also had a reporter on hand for the runway shows in Paris, Milan, and New York. Alas, they now struggle to even cover the political shenanigans in Chicago and Illinois.
It’s always a pleasure to see the pouty fashion models suffering malnutrition for their art. While the female models were always of the bony sort, male models tended once to be more the buff, athletic (tennis not football) types. Like the women, these days they also seem to be sourced from Siberian orphanages. In the real world, meaning Chicago, one rarely sees anyone dressed in the latest couture fashions. Or walking with that strange gait that models use to get down and back on the runways.
As for me, I was more or less fashion forward in the 1960s. It was the era when one’s business costume consisted of a natural-shoulder suit, button-down collar dress shirt, striped or foulard tie and winged-tip dress shoes. Brooks Brothers would be the ideal supplier. “Preppy” or “Ivy League” were used to describe the look. For some of us, the 1960s are still here.
I once owned many suits since business decorum demanded it. Now, I own one, but it looks just like the ones I wore for some 35 years. I had it made to measure in 2023, and I was amazed at how much more it cost than the last one I bought in 2000. I’ve worn it three times, most recently in August 2023 for a family wedding. Oh, and I also own a navy blazer, and on New Years Eve, I wore it and a tie. I just checked my tie supply – all seven are either striped or foulards!
Those of you who see me occasionally will know that I’m a large fellow. Given the preference for gaunt male models, the only way I would be on fashion show runway would be with a broom. And apparently this taste for the skinny also applies to the silver screen.
The ideal male for many years was virile and rugged. Think Gary Cooper. Think Burt Lancaster. Think Clark Gable. Think the recently deceased Gene Hackman. Of course, none of these fellows could have played Bob Dylan, which Timothee Chalamet did with distinction. But his type, lean and dreamy looking, seems to be in the ascendent.
Chalamet is also one of the young actors who wear the designer clothes you think no real person wears. That’s him there on the red carpet. He appears to be real. I wonder how I would really look dressed the same, but in a larger size? I should seek out the designer and ask if they have it in XXXL.
Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon
cannonnadedotcom 
In my working days, some of my clothes bore the labels of Joseph Abboud, Hickey Freeman and Brooks Brothers. My current attire comes largely from that purveyor of fine fashion, Costco.
It’s not that I’m assigned to the lifestyle of pensioners on fixed incomes and carefully weighed expenditures. I am. But if I wore a tailored suit, silk tie and Italian leather shoes in public today, I would be regarded as if I were a fugitive from some Bauhaus exhibition.
Like the NYT, the Wall Street Journal has a fashion section, but unlike the NYT’s, it covers mostly what wealthy business people should wear to look wealthy and business-like. It seems that yak wool is menswear’s new luxe material. “Is it softer than cashmere?” they ask for the discerning male. Well-heeled women in cold-weather cities, in contrast, are choosing outfits with utilitarian comfort and functionality, says the Journal, as sensible, well-heeled businesswomen should.
The Daily Mail’s fashion gurus endorse wearing as little as what gossipers deem permissible. That covers, or uncovers, a lot of ground.
European and American high fashion designers cater to individuals who seek to make powerful statements of wealth and creative taste in their special public appearances. These are typically actors and their partners at prestigious awards events, VIPs at benefit galas, and Melania Trump. (Melania is European and can be forgiven.)
Mostly the clients of these designers are women. Men are a challenge to dress fashionably, even with yak wool. It takes special efforts with men, as demonstrated by this gentleman in Milano:
Maybe only the Italians can manage to make what ordinarily might be unsightly and gauche appear original and somehow interesting. In any case, the Milanese guy somehow pulls it off. He’s got everything working there, down to the cuffed pants of his plaid double-breasted suit. He’s cool.
We’d all like to forget the outfits that Michael Jordan used to sport around Chicago. The current crop of ultra-rich athletes are no better in their attire. Is it just that the aesthetic sensibilities of jocks, er, people in professional sports, aren’t finely tuned? It’s hard to say, but I wince every time I see those commentators, usually former athletes, on pre- and post-game shows who awkwardly stand around in sneakers and mis-matched suits. Their model is Ozzie Guillen.
As for the sexually ambiguous Timothee Chalamet, it takes courage to dress like him. But then he is French, and as we know, the French can be precious and quirky.
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Were I courageous, I would opt for the Italian style. I just need a beard.
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I bet he drives a Ferrari 330 GT Shooting Brake “Vignale,”:
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For the man who has everything.
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