Male Vanity

Yes Sir I can boogie and I don’t mind admitting that I am London’s number one dedicated follower of fashion. If it’s in, it’s on-me. You name it Helmet Lang, Dirk Bickenberg, Prada, Gaultier, are just a few of the labels that grace my vast collection. London fashion week pah! Spend a week walking through my wardrobe. You can marvel at row after row of the finest designer garments for every occasion, expertly sectioned into yesterdays, todays and tomorrows styles. I also pride myself in keeping with the latest hairstyles and visit my personal and very famous hair stylist every week. Being a trendsetter, as you can imagine, is a full time job and I don’t usually have enough time what with clubbing, modelling and social events to write to magazines. However I feel it is my duty to warn the fashion industry about the disaster that I unfortunately suffered. As I am being driven around town, visiting shops, clubs and partying, I’m constantly looking for the latest fashion influences, so as per usual I can be in first with the latest trend and the rest of the world can follow. Well last week whilst shopping down Great Molton Street, a favourite haunt of mine, I noticed an increasing vogue in women’s fashion: BINDI’S. For you style philistines a Bindi is a small dot, dash, or diamond-encrusted piece of polystyrene plastic, jewellery worn just above but in between the eyebrows. Used in the Indian culture, this I believe, represents the third eye of spirituality. However, recently it is catching on with the more spiritual among us. As per usual, being miles ahead, I have been spiritually minded for the last five years, but up until now been unable to express my spirituality through the medium of fashion. Then before my usual Friday night of debauchery and hob knobbing with the stars I visited my hairdresser for a manicure, facial and trim. With my locks wrapped in a towel, suddenly it came to me, a TURBAN! Quicker than you could say “Chicken Tika Massala”, I was walking the walk, talking the talk Indian stylee, with one eye scouting the horizon for a beautiful Bindi babe. I was ready for a night of spirituality and Sag Wala Chicken in those famous Balti houses of Brick Lane. However things didn’t go quite to plan. It wasn’t my bed I awoke in, or a beautiful babes but the intensive care unit of Fitzroy Nuffield Hospital, private B.U.P.A. member mind you. It seems a gang of youths did not take kindly to my trend setting vision. I would strongly advise readers not to infringe on other races symbols of religion, just to appear `a la mode. I’ve learnt the hard way, they don’t appreciate it. But remember, if this style graces the front cover of any fashion mag, like Neil Armstrong, I was there first. See you on the Catwalk darlings, Ofar Quarson.

I don't worry about looking 'good'. I just like to look 'aaahrd'. Is that vanity?

I don't give a sh*t what I look like, and that's exactly what I look like!

Well in that case i prefer style over fashion. People can be stylish and still rebel against our conformist society, guess i just have style. HHmmmm maybe not but i do talk a lot of crap and that's some consolation.

Well in that case i prefer style over fashion. People can be stylish and still rebel against our conformist society, guess i just have style. HHmmmm maybe not but i do talk a lot of crap and that's some consolation.

It kills me to spend a lot of money on clothes, but for my best mates wedding recently, my boyfriend bought me a DKNY pin striped suit. It is soooo lush! At the wedding everyone said how nice I looked...at four O'clock the following morning after crawling round pissed out of my head, the suit stayed in tact (apart from fag butts and a few red wine stains) Now, a could suit from New Look have stood up to the test? Bearing in mind that most of my pathetic wardrobe is from New Look, the answer has to be no. I hate fashion, I think its coz I can't afford any of it... I am retro-student-jumble sale-look and I like it!!

Personally, I prefer 'content' to either 'style' or 'fashion'

very noble john ... very noble ... given the choice i would opt for content AND style ... and given the choice i would choose to be given a choice ... yes a choice WOULD be nice ...

i went out with a superbly vain man for about a year ... he was shockingly handsome and a very nice accoutrement for social occasions ... he always wore stylish clobber (invariably black of course) and had many more shoes than me ... sadly the final straw was when he dyed his normally dyed blond hair PINK ... someone described him as an Ageing Flamingo (he was 43) ... he had to go ...

That would be 'noble' as in 'noble savage' I hope fish? Anyway I was lying - what I really like is 'attitude.' As in 'bad attitude.'

How can vanity be superb? I thought it was a deadly sin! Pink-haired arm candy?

i find the hardest thing about fashion is the fear that i might accidentally buy something trendy, and end up looking like one of those sad thirtysomethings who listen to eminem [and for all i know this may have happened; i’m sure i remember dave randall sniggering behind my back...] i’ve noticed that people who work in local government solve this problem by buying their clothes from the littlewoods catalogue, 1981...it's odd how different groups of people often have a certain look...black polo neck, anyone?

he made vanity into an art form missi ... yes ... pink haired arm candy ... serves me right i suppose ...

oh robert! ... so there is a philosophy behind your "style" .... *fascinated*

"style"? fish, does this mean you don't rate my chances in the Best Dressed Man In Baddesley vote? [forgot fish to work in local govt...]

"fish to work in local govt" ... hope this is not a prediction robert ...

oops...stylishly missed a word out...

Richard E Grant nicely summed up vanity for me (this was before he appeared in the spice girls film and ruined any further career chances he may have had) when he said that no matter how happy he was when walking along a street, whenever he looked into a shop window some miserable git with tombstone features always stared back at him. Last week I forced myself to smile to reflect my inner state of happiness and took a sneaky glance in a shop window that only about 50 people would have noticed I suppose. That miserable git was still there though. I like black.

So do I. Stormy.

Did the Ageing Flamingo have a habit of standing on one leg?

I don't care what kind of car he drives Andrea!

we 'ave reasons to believe that the suspect 'enoch' is well red guvna. 'e also like s wright ing in the first person.

I am a vain person i am paranoid about the way i look fortunately it helps a lot to remeber the old saying 'remember the compliments forget the insults'. I am the sort of person who has to check in case i have made a massive fashion mistake....unfortunately my idea of checking tends to be just to see if people comment. People think i rebel against fashion i just have bad taste....

Your little saying is worth remembering Mere, it's gonna fit in really well with my fast approaching Alzheimers disease! I'll have nothing to remember and nothing to remember it with! Vanity can destroy the character and personality, stay away from it!

Okay - this is a story about me. I wear glasses and I hate wearing glasses - nobody ever looks beyond them at your face, they just go, "oh, he wears glasses". I hate the way I look, and much more so when I was younger. I didn't wear my glasses to Tae Kwon Do, so everyone just took me for who I was, which I loved. I ended up going out with a girl from Tae Kwon Do and took her to the cinema. Obviously I didn't want her to know I wore glasses until I knew for sure that she fancied me, so I went without them. The film ? Single White Female, in which halfway through the two female leads wear the same clothes and have the same hairstyle. Boy, was that ever a complex film. Anyway, point is, I told this story to some women at work and they told me I was vain. Now, I think you are only vain if you think you are lovely, whereas I look at the ground if I catch my reflection in a shop window. The women at work say - no vanity is thinking that your appearance is all that matters. |Anyone got a view on that ? I like to wear nice clothes, but this is mainly to compensate for my face. Am I vain ??

But if you percieve that you have succeeded in conquering your vanity do you not then become vain (or at least proud - a similar type of 'sin', I feel) of your victory? This is a more important and difficult problem than it might at first appear. Sorry to get slightly heavy.

Andrew, I'm with you all the way. I too, hate catching my reflection in shops or elsewhere - the person looking back is not 'me' anymore. I don't think it is vain to make the most of limited resources. I try and look decent when I go out and also try to keep in good physical shape to make up for the many other shortfalls. Anyhow - what is the alternative to being 'vain ?' Is it the 'slob'society we are now surrounded with. To go out in a shell suit smelling of BO, with several days whiskers. If that is the alternative - give me vanity. But I think the silliest form of vanity that we see today belongs to all the 'label groupies.' Those sad fashion victims who must have the latest 'name' handbag; shoes; frock etc. All the Posh & Tamara wannabies etc. Sad. Women - Tut ! One last thing Andrew. What's wrong with glasses ? I find women wearing glasses extremely sexy. And I once went out with a girl who had a bad squint in one eye... boy did she 'light my fire'. But I'm going off course here - time for a cold shower.

*shoves specs on face with unseemly haste*

Don't take this personal wolfie but a woman is just the right gender to write about vanity, after all they are the experts! I read somewhere that 92% of make-up is bought by women, I cant believe it's so they can make themselves look less attractive to men, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd hate to think your article is going to be yet another 'men are @!#$' thing!

I think my being `slightly , or `very`heavy, is the main cause of my fashion problems. I wear a lot of black because it makes you look slimmer apparently, but it doesn't hide the chins. I used to think I had the opposite of anorexia, I always thought I was slimmer than I was. It's not just eating too many pies, It's even looking at the bloody things seem to put weight on me. Comfort eating, another biggey, mind, two young boys 7 and 5, probably drive me to that, and they've got more fashion sense. Thinks.... gosh what started you off!

What's the kick against bald men, Wolfgirl? Do you think they are more vain than, say, yourself? If a man had started this thread with a jibe about a 'fat bird' (term used purely for the sake of illustration) looking in a mirror, all hell would break loose.

I used to be proud of the fact I was so not interested in `fashion`. Now I know it's because I wouldn't know what looked fashionable if it tripped me up and kicked me in the cheese grater. Now it's only my wife who stops me in my natural bent of a kind of Rab C Nesbitt type of slobbyness. It's all to do with comfort dressing, I hate anything too tight, clotheswise.

I never had any vanity to conquer, I was always too busy developing an Olympic class inferiority complex. Even there I didn't make it through the qualifying rounds!

I don't like being too tight, either...

justyn ... he looked nice however many legs he was standing on ... best of all of course when he wasn' standing at all ... but it makes me wonder if ageing is more difficult for people who have been used to being beautiful ... and what about that old saying that men get better looking as they get older (sean connery always cited as evidence) ... ?

I have absolutely nothing against bald men; Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek - I'm a sad trekkie) is one of the sexiest man alive. However, the subject of male vanity obviously raises a few hackles. No Missi, My article will not be the cliched men are ****s; hopefully it will be a truthful one about the reality that we live in a society where beauty is prized above a lot of more substantial qualities. Men are feeling the pressure too. Also, I have nothing against men in glasses. I want to know if men feel the need to look good as acutely as women... Interesting (as Mr Freud have said). Very interesting.

hic, meaow, hic, meaow!

Shut up, you fool!

interesting thread Wolfie.....we are probably all vain in some way....my hair started to go grey at 16 and is now greying in a distinguished type way which I like...is it vain to let it go grey as I like the look or should I reach for artificial colour ? which is more vain ? I also come out in a cold sweat when buying clothes, It's not that I mind spending money...the whole process of buying clothes does that to me, I don't feel the same in a book shop, record store, computer shop, food shop, but put me in a clothes shop...is this me being anti vain ? ..but then leaving a clothes shop, I will then catch a sight of me in a shop window and pause briefly to see how I am looking..... I don't know whether I'm vain or not.....

Never understood that Fish, if Connery had been your postman or the local traffic warden everbody would have thought he was an ageing, overweight, balding and singularly unattractive nationalist bastard.

Oh, but Missus, he's got such charisma! He could never have been a traffic warden (who have no charisma whatsover, as a rule). Even postie can have charisma you know... Although not mine, unfortunately Me, I get my clothes from cheapo markets. At least those that I haven't salvaged from the 70s, that is. Fashion doesn't interest me in the slightest..

When I lived in Poland, the people (all Poles) in the office asked me why the older American women did not dye their hair instead of leaving it grey. I told them that for an older woman to dye her hair brown, black, red, whatever, would be seen as vain and "unnatural" and an attempt to be something other than what she is. It took some time for the laughter to die down, at which point they told me that "of course, the whole point is to look the best you can, not to pretend that the real color is not grey!" They thought the idea of an older woman leaving her hair grey ONLY to avoid a charge of vanity was stupid. Their attitude about men was similar, though not so much with the hair color. The idea is to look your best, not to pretend that you're something you are not. I am relieved, however, to learn that I am not the only guy who thinks he is less than attractive. I was, inadvertantly perhaps, brought up to believe that I am ugly beyond description. This has caused a few problems over the years.

Fashion just doesn't fit with my personality. I don't live up to the fashion world because it's too expensive and time consuming. Yet, sometimes I always feel that I should buy the expensive clothing and spend time to fix my hair "properly" because the only girl I went out with, I never iked! (Long story). Therefore, I conclude that, yes, people spend countless hours and money on fashion tools to make you look good to the general public, but it's mostly done for your subconcious desire for sex. And it's for that reason also that people, like me, have these sporatic depressed moments wishing that our appearances would change. We are all obsessed with sex! Those darned horomones are to blame! Grrrr....

"iked" should be "liked" --(Just so you goofballs don't try making up definitions for "iked" even though that would be quite interesting!)

Guilty as charged!!! I admit to vanity.....I like to wear good clothes that fit properly.......I like to be admired. I have numerous mirrors around my home (often commented upon by visitors). I spend a long time getting ready to go out for social occasions because looking the best I can makes me feel more confident and therefore I am more confident. I have very smart designer glasses but also admit to contact lenses on occasion. I have also never grown out of the seeing myself mime and dance to my favourite music of the moment thing which is also one of my earliest memories. My favourite room is now my conservatory extension where I can see two full length reflections of myself when doing this, usually with a fully charged wine glass close to hand prior to a long night out. I only wear expensive aftershaves because I loathe the way cheap scents smell. Having said all that, there is certainly not a lot of male vanity noticeable here in Skegness apart from the wearing of extra large clothes in feeble attempt to hide grossly overweight stature and the much admired combing of lank strands across balding pate referred to at the beginning of this thread.

On the subject of miming to music in front of mirrors Dave...tell 'em about the coffee table...... *runs off and hides*

No

oh what the hell!!!!! Prior to full length view in conservatory I used to mime and dance on coffee table in lounge to observe myself in lounge mirror. This particular evening after night out, very much the worse for alcohol the table collapsed sending me careering into the fireplace hitting my forehead on the mantlepiece and knocking myself out. Next morning I was called in to work to see the director who had happened to drop in, severe hangover, red wine breath and huge gash on forehead!!! Pride comes before a fall as they say :-))

Re: Bald Hair (hang on - I think I've just written an oxymoron - eat your heart out Shakespeare) - I pass on the infinitely wise words of Tommy Docherty which were: So my hair's thinning. Who wants fat hair? Personally, I just go with the grade one thing and turn baldness into a kind of Phil Mitchell fashion statement. Except the idea of me making a statement on fashion is a bit like the idea of bin Laden dashing out a pamphlet entitled 'How to achieve world Peace through Tolerance, Love and Understanding.' Anyway, for some reason I'm still trying to figure a grade one me doesn't look quite the same as it does on Becks. Could it be because his costs £300 a time at some fancy-dan barbers in Chelsea whereas Steve does mine with a pair of rusty old clippers, usually while he's stoned? Re comb-overs. Who do you think is/was the smartest bloke nevertheless still stupid enough to imagine he could cover the entirety of his baldness with three strands of hair? I nominate Anthony Burgess. By the way Wolfie your dead right - peacocks are male for a reason. And the reason is if they were female they'd be called peahens. Don't necessarily run away with the idea that if an actor spends an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom he's attending to his personal ablutions. Think more along the 'lines' of white powder - and I'm not talking anthrax here.

fashion is different from style ...