TOM OF FINLAND: FALL 2000: "MEN SHOWING AND LOOKING..."
Love that Tom of Finland menswear-- "guy clothes, not just gay clothes," according to Gary Robinson, who co-designs the hyper-hyper masculine line with David Johnson. But why the wimpy models? On the runway this year, wearing another hot collection of leather, denim, and camouflage duds for the porn-star lifestyle, were a bunch of pretty boys, each of whom looked like he had about one-eighth the testosterone necessary to pull off something like a silver nylon jumpsuit (worn totally unzipped, pecs and abs a-flexing, with a little bikini brief). The eye make-up didn't help.
What's interesting is how all-American Tom on Finland looks: motorcycle jackets, trenchcoats, leather pants, muscle shirts, all worn with boots. First seen widely in '50s gay muscle mags, in erotic drawings of super-endowed leather men by a Finnish World War II vet named Touko Laaksonen, the look may started as a kind of worship for the Allied forces heroes who'd just saved the free world. But Tom's popularity among the Warhols and the Mapplethorpes of the world had as much to do with men showing and looking as with what is being shown and looked at-- and nowadays Tom of Finland-style posturing and display seems no more outre than what you see in any club on the planet, straight or gay.
Has popular culture arrived at a point that validates Laaksonen's drawings as visionary? Absolut Vodka thinks so. They presented the show and even sponsored the creation of "exclusive Absolut fashions" that were worked into the collection-- like the black "barvest" with front panels shaped like Absolut bottles (worn without shirt, of course).
What's interesting is how all-American Tom on Finland looks: motorcycle jackets, trenchcoats, leather pants, muscle shirts, all worn with boots. First seen widely in '50s gay muscle mags, in erotic drawings of super-endowed leather men by a Finnish World War II vet named Touko Laaksonen, the look may started as a kind of worship for the Allied forces heroes who'd just saved the free world. But Tom's popularity among the Warhols and the Mapplethorpes of the world had as much to do with men showing and looking as with what is being shown and looked at-- and nowadays Tom of Finland-style posturing and display seems no more outre than what you see in any club on the planet, straight or gay.
Has popular culture arrived at a point that validates Laaksonen's drawings as visionary? Absolut Vodka thinks so. They presented the show and even sponsored the creation of "exclusive Absolut fashions" that were worked into the collection-- like the black "barvest" with front panels shaped like Absolut bottles (worn without shirt, of course).
posted by Lucia Toledo at 9:21 AM
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