In a few days, the Erdem collaboration with H&M is going to drop and while I’m not usually a huge Erdem fan myself, one look at the Brideshead Revisted copied and pasted advert had me salivating at all the options that were being presented for both men and women. Of course, finding a straight, Maltese man in Malta willing to wear a blazer covered in flowers and butterflies is not just improbable, it’s about as likely to happen as me waking up as Kate Moss tomorrow morning. That said, who can blame them?

A few weeks ago I attended a show with a few of the colourful people I have the privilege of calling my friends. Loud and proud, none of them have any compunction about wearing brooches, scarves and satins to fashion events; however, the minute we descended on the event we were not only welcomed with the odd, raised eyebrow, but people two or three rows back took it upon themselves to exclaim very loudly that men shouldn’t dress like that.

Wives and mothers constantly go out of their way to make men look standard, square and generic

Now, I’m all for being appropriate but to be quite honest, if you can’t even dress up creatively for a fashion event, where exactly are you meant to be able to express yourself? Fear of provincial public ridicule has contributed greatly to killing masculine sartorial creativity: it’s not the first time I’ve heard people associate clothes with masculinity which I find to be unbelievably limited and, well, ignorant. Shopping for my boyfriend is a nightmare: everywhere I go I find the same blue shirts, the same standard chinos, the same boring shoes and yet if I had to present him with something remotely decorative I know that he would take it and politely leave it at the back of his wardrobe till I forgot it existed.

The fact is that wives and mothers constantly go out of their way to make men look standard, square and generic and in turn, men feel no need to be creative with what they wear or dare think out of the box because they fear they won’t be taken seriously or worry they might appear to be less masculine than they are.

We kill male sartorial creativity from a young age and by the time they’re old enough to buy their own clothes, they stick to what’s safe and never question the fact that their wardrobe is populated with the same four colours and cuts. To any men reading this, please don’t be afraid to do something a little different; after all, a few flowers never hurt anyone.

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