Hey everybody. Today on the show I'm going to talk about wearing vibrant colors, which
is why I chose to wear this kind of like, like white person of British ancestry's camouflage.
That's another way of saying lace when you're super pale.
This week on Ask Cristen Rachel Rogers wants to know, 'Why is it that men can wear bright
colors while men can only wear muted colors? Men's pants are by and large navy, black,
brown, beige, greige,'-greige? I just made up a new word-,'Prints are still a no-no for
men. Why Cristen?' Lets hear what you all had to say. Christiane Williams gets a little
scientific with it. 'My best guess would be to get noticed more. In the animal kingdom
many birds who have bright feathers are male. They use their feathers to attract female
birds. In the human being sense it's the same but the gender roles are switched.' All-star
SMNTY fan Gail Lewis begs to differ. 'Have you been to the store lately?! Some of my
co-workers (guys) come in wearing the entire crayola box. Can I get a heck yeah for the
manly pink shirts? Woo hoo!' Nathan William Lewis says, 'I think one of the reasons why
men don't wear bright colors is because color and the use of color is associated with femininity.'
Josh Burroughs thinks he has it all figured out. 'Read up on Beau Brummell on Wikipedia
and everything everyone in this thread is speculating on will be answered.' Burroughs,
you do get a gold star for highlighting Beau Brummell as the person at the forefront of
something called the Great Masculine Renunciation, which is when men's fashion took a decisive
turn for the drab. You have a figure like Beau Brummell come along and say you know
what I'm still really interested in fashion and looking good but what I'm interested in
is the quality and fit of the garment. This style, though very intentional, was far more
masculine in the way that we would think of it today. And it was Brummell and his fashion
followers who then led the way into the so-called Great Masculine Renunciation of the late 18th
century. Fast-forward to the 1920s and 30s and the interwar period between World War
I and World War II. During this time you have this fringe male dress reform movement where
guys were all of the sudden wearing blouses, there were very much into wearing shirts and
sandals and they said, hey, we should be able to have fun with fashion as well. But then
of course World War II came along and then masculine gender norms were re-entrenched
and guys were wearing suits again. Color also went out the door as well, color became associated
with acceptable femininity. To quote this handy paper that I was reading earlier today
in the journal 'Gender, Sexuality and the Interior Decorator', 'An American decoration
manual of the 1930s insisted that color was directly related to women's good health. It
made the remarkable claim that the doctors in many big department stores actually urged
sales girls to carry bright colored handkerchiefs and wear cheerful shades in their underclothes.
The female craving for emotional color continues unabated and if ignored will result in the
demise of femininity.' Tl;dr in about 150 years color became gender-coded as feminine.
By extension in the 20th century the use of vibrant color whether in clothing or interior
design became coded as well for men as being either effeminate or gay. Considering how
colors have been used to gender us, it makes sense that we're only just now breaking out
of those kinds of rules, case and point the popularity of the pink men's shirt. Still
as Rachel pointed out in her comment, prints in particular are also really hard for men
to pull off. Unless he's gay in which case we're like oh well we expected that anyway
because like, you just dress like uh Nathan Lane in 'The Birdcage'. We're also putting
them in boxes too. It's also been really interesting to see the evolution of women's office wear.
When we first enter the workforce en masse, we emulated men's suits, we were wearing those
massive shoulder pads in order to be taken seriously we weren't going to wear vibrant
colors. As we've been gaining more of an equal foothold, there's a lot more leeway to what
is acceptable to wear to work but that perhaps is an Ask Cristen for another time. I want
to know from you, guys do you feel constrained by the masculine color wheel? Does sexual
orientation play into the amount of color you do or don't wear? And also patterns. Thanks
to everybody who commented on last week's Ask Cristen video 'Should Couples sleep in
separate beds?' A lot of people who said, yeah honestly I really prefer to sleep alone
and I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one because I felt like a freak. Kenya Lewis says,
'I think that people should sleep apart. I personally will not sleep in the same bed
as my significant other just as a preference choice. No matter if he doesn't snore I want
space.' Meanwhile Isabelle is nervous about sleeping alone. 'My partner and I live together
and sleep in the same bed. We're going to be long distance after this year as I'm moving
to pursue my next degree and I'm honestly pretty nervous about sleeping alone again.
I think it's whatever works for you and your partner. We really shouldn't be in the business
of judging the way other people function in their relationships as long as it's not harmful.'
I second that sentiment Isabelle. Don't forget if you've got a question I've got some answers.
And a lot of information about the history of interior design apparently.