Coco Chanel would’ve “screamed her head off.”
It’s true, dear reader. The hottest thing a man can wear right now is Chanel, and men are going Coco-crazy for it!
Thirst Trap
A sexy photograph or flirty message posted on social media for the intent of causing others to publicly profess their attraction. – Urban Dictionary
“Men act,” art critic John Berger famously snarked, “and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
But thirst traps – ranging from the simple sweat-drenched vanity of a post-workout selfie, to the artfully calculated “candid” that employs a strategic selection of filters, right angles, and good lighting – have historically been the province of gentlemen. An express statement of intent from the most predatory of nature’s primates to trap their prey, preferably in a fit of lust.
Now, however, the definition of a thirst trap has evolved.
Today, a thirst trap consists not of a flexed bare bicep, but often a fully clothed arm cradling a carryall in luscious lambskin. Attached to said arms are not bare torsos with bulging pectorals, but bouclé-clad bodies in cropped tweed blazers. Gone are the cruel, cold bites of the iron barbell straining against a sinewy neck; in their stead are delicate strands of freshwater pearls.
And those same forearms that once bore the bruises and blisters of frantic fitness regimes? Now they bear the proudly ticking timer of a ceramic wristwatch. And the wristwatch, blazer, and handbag in question? Why, all emblazoned with those tell-tale interlocking C’s, of course!
It’s true, dear reader. The hottest thing a man can wear right now is Chanel, and men are going Coco-crazy for it!
“Balls are to Men What Purses are to Women”
Or so proclaimed our problematic queen, Carrie Bradshaw. And I couldn’t help but wonder, are men with bags without…?
Now, it’s true that the last time around, when men were carrying handbags higgledy-piggledy, was roughly 300 years ago, right around the time pants were becoming tighter, stitched-on pockets had come into existence, and skinny bottoms reigned in the Victorian menswear scene.
But after two centuries of cultural corrosion, “handbag” itself has become a loaded word, fraught with feminine implications so deeply entrenched that when a man deigns to carry one, it’s no longer a handbag, but a ‘manbag’ – a word, might I add, I rarely use despite owning multiples myself.
In Working Girl (1988), Harrison Ford presents secretary Melanie Griffith with a hulking, ugly, brown briefcase – to change into heels and stow away her subway flats – while he himself continues to move about the world unencumbered. In her essay Men Know It’s Better to Carry Nothing, Lisa Miller writes: “Men are walking around empty-handed, uncompelled to be useful,” while women are lumbered with “tool kits of servitude.”
Boys Just Wanna Have Chanel
On the other end of the SS26 spectrum, however, was Demna’s debut collection for Gucci, where American football player Gavin Weiss walked the runway in fitted leather pants and a skintight polo, bulging biceps buckling under restrictive sleeves. The biceps managed to break free through the sleeveless tailoring at Calvin Klein, while controversial streamer Clavicular walked for Elena Velez in similarly restrictive clothing.
Not to mention, Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford evoked, by way of clear plastic raincoats over banker-style suiting, Patrick Bateman of American Psycho, the very blueprint of “the kind of controlled, optimized bodies you see circulating in tech, venture capital, and longevity culture,” notes Professor Andrew Groves, director of the menswear archive at the University of Westminster.
