Man/Boy

One of my favorite menswear blogs, An Affordable Wardrobe (http://anaffordablewardrobe.blogspot.com/) has this mission statement:

"Searching for a cure to the current epidemic of "Eternal Teen-Ager Syndrome" which has striken the vast majority of American males. Enough with the flip flops and short pants. Let's start dressing like grown men."

While that concept may sound chastising, consider the context. Unlike previous generations, many of today's young men have been afforded luxuries that our parents and grandparents could only have dreamed of. Never before was there a period of time when education and credit (the two ARE linked--those of you about to graduate and pay off student loans know this all too well) have been so readily available. It seems since the free love of the hippie generation, through generation X's flannel-clad slacker culture, to today's millennials who are dealing with an unemployment rate tottering on 10%, young men have been able to live at home at the same rate, while still living (out of want or necessity) on their parents' means.

At a time where young males can transition seamlessly from living with their parents while in high school, to living on borrowed money during college (and more college), to potentially living back home after graduation, a sense of entitlement and passivity has taken form. Although previous generations have, out of necessity, housed multiple generations under a single roof, in no time like the present has there been so little that defines men from boys.

Giseuppi, the owner of An Affordable Wardrobe, is one of the pioneers of the "new mascuilinty" movement, which you can see the effects of in popular culture. TV's Mad Men reflects on a generation (perhaps the last one) when this gap seemed more firmly established--mostly defined by mid-20th century wars (WWII, Korea, and--eventually--Vietnam). While other aspects of this lifestyle are widely unappealing to our generation (sexism, racism, et. al.), the show remains popular and has helped to usher in a new (retro) era of men's style--an era where men were separate from the boys, just as men were separate from the women. The "new masculinity" attempts to push aside the frat-boy style of life and adopt a more sustainable one, without sexism, without racism, yet still evoke pride out of a positive masculinity.