I've been thinking recently about the place of techwear in the industry of fashion, especially within the context of the growing male market/male interest, and the expansion of the internet subculture. It seems to me that whereas the trendsetters of the previous decades kept a pretty clear line between the high and low classes of fashion, we now live within an episteme that hosts a middle ground for the fashion enthusiast: the internet denizen with an interest for the form of the runway and the wearability/accessibility of the street.
This emergence of a middle class, if you’ll allow the introduction of a loaded phrase, has a lot of implications that the techwear movement should embrace. Techwear serves as an umbrella term to encompass a wide variety of pieces: Outlier’s modern take on the traditional oxford shirt and chino pants, Acronym’s military spec Gore-tex shells ripped straight from the pages of a Gibson novel, to the runways of Christopher Raeburn’s most recent shows. Let’s take techwear then, and define it as an aesthetic, an aesthetic which can best be surmised as “you know it when you see it”. Flashbacks to Supreme Justice Potter Stewart aside, I think you know what I mean: the clean, sleek, minimal look of hardshell fabrics over softshell base layers, slim neutral fits that often direct themselves downwards and inwards, towards the focal point shoes and jackets. That “ghost in the shell” look, if you will.
So what does this have to do with the industry? It was recently announced that men will get a fashion week all their own in the coming seasons. Casual style, pushing into fashion as a hobby, takes a well-worn path for the male. It seeks masculinity, an acceptance of gender and an appraisal of identity which explains the fascination with the flannel, denim, and wool based outfits that dominated the – for lack of a better word – hipsteresque fashion scene for several years. The Pacific Northwest lumberjack uniform offered a representation of American masculinity that could be processed and refined, drawing men into a world where they cared about their appearance in an artistic way but without any cultural understanding of expression. The guy behind me in Starbucks isn’t going to cut down a tree tomorrow afternoon. Techwear gives us a gender neutral bridge between the fashion lines.
The usability of the fabrics, the process of creation and the lifestyle these slick looks suggest play to the male persona: it could certainly be argued that the movement grows out of our fascination with sport and sportswear, and that the techwear industry gains its appeal by focusing on the active life. Biking, climbing, running, primal drives that men can connect with without falling into the trap of femininity in fashion. And yet it is this very absurd dichotomy, which posits women as inactive and men as uninterested in appearance, which the fashion of techwear will destroy. It does not accentuate the curves of a woman’s body for crass exploitation or sexualized purposes; instead it looks to create pieces of clothing that work in the real world. The silhouettes and fits of Acronym, Stone Island, and Raeburn are what we need to break apart the aesthetic differences in the world of fashion. They suggest a subversion of the norm, a radical equality in utility, calling both sexes to wear as needed. Either gender can make the pieces work for themselves, or it’s a progression the industry needs to take note of now. The pricing and the problematic relationships it shares with class, will have to be addressed later.
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