The 3 Decades That Shaped Modern Men’s Fashion

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GQ Men of the Year turns 30, so let’s revisit three decades of evolution in men’s fashion—from the birth of modern fashion to the style becoming culture, GQ has been there every step of the way.

Transcript

00:01For the 30th anniversary of GQ Men of the Year,

00:03we're looking back at three decades of change in men's fashion.

00:06Today, style is the cultural currency of our time.

00:09From the runway to the street, online and off,

00:11menswear is now a powerful tool of self-expression,

00:13influence, and identity.

00:15So how did we get here?

00:21The 1990s, the birth of modern fashion.

00:24In the early 90s, menswear was teetering on the edge of revolution.

00:28Minimalism is the order of the day,

00:30but mainstream style was being challenged by waves of subversion.

00:33Teenagers worshipped king of grunge Kurt Cobain,

00:36while Wu-Tang Clan was spreading the gospel with boisterous streetwear.

00:39Come on, baby, pump it up!

00:41Skateboarding was one of the fastest-growing sports in the country,

00:44dictating how millions of kids dressed.

00:46Meanwhile, fashion advertising grew louder and more influential.

00:49Calvin Klein's underwear ads, featuring a crotch-grabbing marky mark,

00:52caused a gullible sensation,

00:54and Ralph Lauren minted Tyson Beckford

00:56as the world's first black supermodel.

00:58Into the fray stepped a young American designer named Tom Ford,

01:01whose fall 1995 runway show for Gucci

01:03was the big bang that marked the dawn of a new era in men's fashion.

01:06Ford's opulent velvet tuxedos and sexy silk shirts had a 70s look,

01:10but they embodied the rebellious, in-your-face attitude

01:12sweeping the culture at that very moment.

01:14The menswear rulebook had officially been thrown out the window.

01:17The odds, the rise of menswear tribes.

01:22As the millennium dawned, the radical fashion subcultures were now mainstream,

01:26with blogging and online forums stoking a new wave of style.

01:29Menswear began splintering into tribes,

01:31where you were Carhartt-wearing urban lumberjack,

01:33a supreme-obsessed hypebeast,

01:35a skinny jeans-clad indie sinister,

01:37or an Italian tailoring connoisseur.

01:39Whichever you were, there was a corner of the internet where you could nerd out.

01:43Fashion designers no longer sold clothes,

01:45they sold a lifestyle,

01:47and everyone wanted to end on the action.

01:49Pharrell Williams launched his own label, Billionaire Boys Club,

01:52and Marc Jacobs invited pop artist Takashi Murakami

01:54to collaborate on a line for Louis Vuitton.

01:56Against this backdrop,

01:58upstart men's fashion designers like Tom Brown

02:00were determined to further blow the lines between fashion and art.

02:02When Brown launched his shrunken suit in the early aughts,

02:05people scoffed.

02:06But by the end of the decade,

02:07Brown's theatrical runway shows were the hottest ticket in town,

02:10and high-water pants ruled the streets.

02:12Fashion had become personal, performative,

02:14and captivating to anyone with a point of view.

02:18The 2010s, style becomes culture.

02:21Instagram launched in 2010,

02:22setting the table for a decade

02:24when fashion fully merged with pop culture.

02:26Street style became just as important

02:28as what was happening on the runways.

02:30Influencers became celebrities,

02:31and celebrities became influencers.

02:33And thanks to visionary designers like Alessandro Michele,

02:36men's wear started to look lighter and more feminine,

02:38no longer defined by a rigid concept of masculinity.

02:41In fact, in this new anything-goes era,

02:43anyone with a big idea and access to a screen printer

02:46could become a fashion designer.

02:47Enter Virgil Abloh,

02:48a sneaker-obsessed outsider

02:49who rose to the highest ranks of luxury fashion

02:51by turning the industry on its head.

02:53In Abloh's world,

02:54community was cooler than elitism,

02:56connections as important as classical training,

02:58and luxury was about creativity

03:00rather than just craftsmanship.

03:01All of this new energy transformed Paris Fashion Week

03:03from an insiders-only showcase

03:05into a star-studded Coachella of clothing.

03:07A new generation of fans began following fashion

03:09as they would professional sports.

03:11And at the same time,

03:12men's wear-obsessed hoopers turned the NBA tunnels

03:14into their own runway shows,

03:16which became just as influential as the real thing.

03:18And when Abloh dropped his watershed Off-White and Nike collaboration,

03:22the ensuing global phenomenon proved that fashion

03:24had become core to modern identity.

03:26To stay on top of what's next, subscribe to GQ.

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