Transgressing Aging, Thrift, Flannel (Part 1)

trans·gress (trns-grs, trnz-)

1. To go beyond or over (a limit or boundary); exceed or overstep: “to make sure that her characters didn’t transgress the parameters of ordinariness” (Ron Rosenbaum).

2. To act in violation of (the law, for example).

By “transgressing men’s fashion” we mean to identify and celebrate many elements heretofore often invisible to both ourselves and mainstream. These are the images of women who don’t fit many stereotypes. (America currently knows and loves them in the persons of Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Maddow and Jackie Warner but has no idea that behind these iconic beacons, we prosper in communities everywhere.) Images of those of us who are not only “out of alignment” by cultural mores but finding outside the alignment the creativity that fuels not only fashion but a world in which we might collectively revel living. A few transgressions to consider:

Transgressing the Feminine – Greta Garbo, Amelia Earhart, Lauren Hutton, Diane Keaton. In our minds they stand out because they make elements of the masculine their own. So, too, the dapperQ…

Transgressing the Aging Principle — Designers like Ellen Tracy may admit that their is no ledge upon which women past 30 must hurl themselves, but few others do. dapperQ’s, on the other hand, embrace what many men intuitively know — that becoming more desirable as we age is a choice.

Transgressing the Thrift Principle – While dapperQ’s are often disproportionately successful in our careers, we rarely earn as much as men do. Buy a $2,000 suit, even before the Crash, we think not. We’ve been gleaning our looks from vintage stores forever, not only because designers have found no market for for dapperQ’s, but because we’ve got things to spend our money than credit card interest (kinda, sorta.) dapperQ’s spend money on important pieces (Fiorentini and Baker boots keep strolling in to our shoots), but we also make the most of Uniqlo.

Continued manana…