Fashion Footwear for Men on the Take

I read a post on about.com a year ago--maybe two--that made me cringe. While I don't recall what brought the post to my attention, I remember feeling as if someone had just stood atop a mountain and prophesied that the safest way to drive is with your eyes closed. Okay, the topic was men's fashion, so the stakes were not quite that high.

The article was about "The Perfect Casual Look for Spring and Summer" from a guide specializing in men's fashion. There were five must-have items for that perfect look, and one of them was so ridiculous I had to write the "guide" and ask him for clarification if not beg him to retract. When the guide, we'll call him Assclown, failed to respond to my message, I filed away in my head that some day I would have a blog and I would proclaim to the world the disservice he'd done to well-meaning men everywhere with his terrible advice.

Among the list of must-haves were a couple of eyebrow-raising items. Polo shirts! Well there's something I'd never have imagined one would wear in the warmer months. "Premium denim": that's what the kids these days call designer jeans. Sunglasses--move over Men's Vogue 'cause this guy wearing the ridiculous-though-once-trendy hairstyle in his guide photo is a freakin' prodigy! But the one that really got me going:

My Top Picks in Men's Thongs / Flip Flops
I buy a pair of flip flops every spring and I get lots of use out of them. They look great with your favorite pair of jeans and can be worn into the evening on those warm summer nights. Plus, they just look cool and summery.

Flip-flops? As a fashion item? For men? Otherwheres than twixt the dorm room and the gang showers? Surely you jest, oh faux-hawked arbiter of sartorial skill.

Where do I begin to explain why this is terrible advice? Flip-flops on a man, when not paired with a towel or a swimsuit, are simply wrong unless you're carrying garbage to the curb or in the privacy of your own home. Even with all the metrosexual craze going on these days, most men do not have pretty feet. We should never have to see them. The nails are all gnarled and yellow and--well, you've seen it. I'd urge caution whenever wearing any sort of open footwear while in the possession of a Y-chromosome. I have nice feet (as I can see and have been told,) and I'm a sucker for comfort, so I do own sandals. If I had a nickel, though, for every time I've seen a pair of flip-flops on a man and thought, "Someone should tell him we can see his ugly feet," I wouldn't need to have ads on this blog. My sandals, though, are certified street-wear and provide more comfort, support, and coverage for my feet than shower slippers.

[Aside: I'm a man. I have nothing against whatever a woman chooses to put on her foot when she's not jamming it into something stacked and sexy. I feel those women from the Northwestern lacrosse team who showed up to the White House in flip-flop-type shoes might have crossed a line--even though they were going to see George W. Bush, who merits little in the way of panache. Aside from that, I'll leave it to the brilliant vixens over at Go Fug Yourself to weigh in on women's fashion. This is between me and my bros.]

While Assclown thinks they "can be worn into the evening on those warm summer nights" and "just look so cool and summery," I'm inclined to think they can be worn to the laundromat on those warm summer nights and just look so insubstantial and plastic-y. But the real trouble, ugly feet and questionable taste aside: most men can't wear them because they can't keep them on their feet. If I'm standing next to a woman who's wearing flip-flops, I can look down and see lovely, pedicured feet, relieved to be centered on a slim bed of plastic flatness. Replace that woman with a man in flip-flops, and I see a V-shaped collision of grungy plastic on one side, ugly foot heel-to-pavement on the other, with a gnarled mess of toe-jam, nail fungus, and corns in the middle. That is not fashion.

Of course, now that I have had some time to air this festering peeve, I feel a little bit better. I've noticed, for example, that each of the must-have items on the guru's list of five is practically smothered in links to purchase some of these fashion items. Which makes me suspect (though I dare not allege) that Mr. Sunglasses-Are-So-Summer might get a referral fee when his fave styles are purchased via said convenient links. And since these styles range in price from $35 to over $100, I think I can breathe a sigh of relief. It's just the same old spin that sells stuff and keeps those factories in China busy. So, please, men who aspire, don't take that flip-flop thing seriously--just feel smug that you had a hunch about those polo shirts being seasonally appropriate.