Fashion: Man!

“We’re in a new era of dandyism,” proclaims British Designer Hardy Amies. Certainly the clothes shown by Amies and five other leading menswear designers last week at a fashion think tank in Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel were anything but ordinary. Amies himself, for example, experimented with a boldly checked, double-breasted gangster suit and ruffled shirt—a combination too much even for him. “Rather awful,” he blurted. “I hope it does not look idiotic.” Paris Designer Pierre Cardin’s vision of future male fashion included black leather pants with a matching leather shirt, laced up the front. Roman Tailor Angelo Litrico, who has made suits for John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Dr. Christiaan Barnard, claimed inspiration from the astronauts; he showed, reading from top to bottom, a visored crash helmet, zippered jacket and wide-striped trousers tucked inside vinyl knee boots. John Glenn will hardly recognize himself.

Diamond Studs. American designers were not to be outdone at the Esquire-sponsored show. Bill Blass demonstrated his fondness for the military look with a heavy, maxi-length overcoat. For evening, John Weitz, a onetime race-car driver, showed a Levi-styled dinner jacket worn over a collarless shirt with a red bandanna knotted around the throat. Francis Toscani, who designs Botany-brand suits for a Philadelphia clothing manufacturer, aimed for versatility: the pocket panels of his fitted lounging coat were attached by Velcro strips and could be removed to convert the coat into a short Eisenhower jacket, presumably enabling the wearer to rush from boudoir to battlefield.

Such extreme styles may never attract more than a very special audience. Ever since the demise of the grey flannel suit in the early 1950s, a revolution in menswear has been forecast as regularly as the lifetime light bulb or a new Nixon. Until lately, men’s fashion changes have added up to little more than slimmer trousers, side vents, a return of the shaped, double-breasted suit, and frilled shirts—worn mainly by actors. Lately, however, there have been signs of a real change in attitude.

To suit the venturesome male mood, mod boutiques are proliferating in department stores, from Manhattan’s Bonwit Teller and Chicago’s Marshall Field to Sakowitz in Houston and Bullock’s in Los Angeles. Current symbol of the freer male attitude is the turtleneck pullover now being worn by just about everybody from Lyndon Johnson, who fancies the comfort of turtlenecks for travel aboard Air Force One, to the Duke of Windsor, who slips into one for small, informal dinner parties. To gowith tuxedos for evening, turtlenecks are becoming fancier, now come in silk or piqué, with French cuffs. Another evening alternative is the Russian-style, high-collared rubashka (cossack shirt), which buttons up the side and is much favored by Colonel Serge Obolensky, the White Russian public relations man from Manhattan. Italian Jet Setter Count Rodolfo Crespi dresses up his rubashka with diamond studs. Frank Sinatraadds a gold medallion, suspended from a chain around his neck.

Zippered & Belled. Those who feel that tuxedos are old-fashioned are trying out the long, mandarin-collared Mao or Nehru coats. In Los Angeles last week, TV’s Tonight Show Host Johnny Carson marched on-camera sporting American Designer Oleg Cassini’s version of the Mao in dark blue whipcord. At a recent party given for Manhattan Pop Artist James Rosenquist, Metropolitan Museum Director Thomas Hoving arrived wearing one by Cardin in black velvet—and looked positively clerical alongside Hostess Ethel Scull’s daisy-topped maxiskirt. Still, when Bonwit’s advertised Cardin’s new $150 Nehru blazer, the Fifth Avenue store sold out its entire stock of 100 jackets the very first day.

Mainly responsible for launching men into high fashion is Paris’ Cardin, who set the styles for subtly belled trousers, zippered “cosmocorps” suits, Nehru coats and velvet dinner jackets. For Cardin, it has paid off handsomely: today his menswear outsells his women’s clothes by 10 to 1, and his line is carried worldwide by stores from Tokyo to Moscow.

Fading Fear. In Cardin’s wake, other couturiers have made the big decision to venture into men’s fashions. Yves St. Laurent announced last week that he will shortly open a men’s boutique in Paris; André Courrèges is alsoplanning a line of men’s clothes. To go with wives’ “Lilly” summer shifts, Palm Beach Designer Lilly Pulitzer is offering a new collection of “Men’s Stuff” that includes flamboyantly printed “P.J.s” (Pulitzer Jeans) and Cuban-style quayaberashirts, worn with the squared-off tails outside. Valentino, who is Jackie Kennedy’sfavorite Rome designer, last month moved into men’s clothing. Milan’s expatriate American designer, Ken Scott, is showing lounging pajamas and tunictops for men in clinging jersey. “For my clothes,” Scott admits, “a man needs a lot of guts and no gut.”

It is lack of guts, thinks Jack Hanson, owner of the celebrated California-based Jax women’s sportswear boutiques, that has held men back until now. Says he: “The problem is that so many male homosexuals have always dressed far-out that other men are afraid of being identified as one.” Evidently Hanson believes that the old fear is fading, for he has just opened a Jax for Men boutique in Beverly Hills.