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Male foray into female domain
Time was when women raided men's wardrobe and dressed themselves in jeans and trousers, even taking to smoking and drinking and sporting cropped hair. Little was known then that men would one day counter them, what with `metrosexuality' becoming the buzzword in fashion circles these days. Metrosexuality - a term coined by the British satirist, Mark Simpson, a decade ago for "the tribe of men, enormously confident of themselves and daring to explore woman-specific domains'' - is now the tag with which Vizag youth are beginning to go about. Conventionally, new styles, on sprouting in the West, break into India taking course through Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore before influencing smaller cities like Vizag. But in the case of what has come to be labelled as metrosexuality, the trend seems to have taken a shortcut to Vizag. Internationally, the football icon, David Beckham, may have kicked off the trend, but closer home, it was our own pin-up star, Nagarjuna, who set off the craze for wearing clothes fundamentally identified with women - lively, vibrant, flowery and gaudy in their design and colour. Thanks to the super-hit Telugu flick `Manmadhudu', which had Nagarjuna fully clad in flamboyant kurtas and glittering shirts, young men were at once hooked on to the fashion of being seen in clothes nearly impossible to tell apart from women's wear.
The metrosexual man is complete with a dash of bracelets, chains, rings and hydrogen peroxide streaked hair along with manicured and pedicured hands and feet and facial-fresh face! B. Ramesh, a hairstylist at Wow, the first men's salon in Vizag says, "Over the past few months, men are increasingly going in for facials, bleaching, hair straightening and dyeing. The demand for body massages, manicure and pedicure has boosted business. Students want their hair coloured, brown being the most popular. We even offer to streak hair in red, blue and yellow.'' Salons normally charge Rs.250 for dyeing and Rs.350 for hair colouring. While garment stores are quick to cash in on the obsession for wildly creative kurtas and undersized shirts, men's beauty salons and junk jewellery outlets add up to completing the demand for the making of the metrosexual man. Says Manish Jain of `Spirits', a popular casual wear outlet in Dabagardens, "Guys are really devoured by this trend of metrosexuality. The demand for kurtas and short shirts is on the upswing. It's just the beginning, and this trend has much more to unfold.'' Starting off as informal wear - youth are all over the popular hangouts like the RK Beach, pizza joints and movie halls in the new get-ups - kurtas are coming to be recognised as acceptable dress code even on formal occasions. While kurtas come in the price range of Rs.120 to Rs.300, shirts are tagged anywhere between Rs.200 to Rs.800. Kurtas made of any material - cut in cotton crepe cotton, polyester and even leather - appear to make a good pick for the youth who are fanatic about fashion. The Vizag guys have taken to this new trend very aggressively. The trend is in full bloom at any of the favourite haunts of the teenagers. Says 22-year-old Abbas Ali Iqbal of `Fashion Hut', a fashion store at Dwarakanagar: "The best thing about short shirts and the kurtas is that anyone can use them. The size and the physique of the person do not matter and everybody looks young and trendy.'' The youth are not cautious of experimenting with colours and textures. Thanks to this fad, a guy's wardrobe looks as vivid as that of a girl, if not richer. The climate is getting cold, and the thin and flashy clothes may go into hibernation, but once it starts getting warmer the fashions will reappear. It can't get too cold for these hot things to stay out of the fashion scene for a long time.
SHAZEEL M. BASHA
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