Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com
The men’s fashion shows have officially kicked off. Silvia Venturini Fendi showed her Spring 2024 Fendi menswear collection at the house’s shiny new factory in the Tuscan town of Bagno a Ripoli—a quick jaunt over from the Pitti Uomo fair in Florence. Aptly, her vision seems to have been informed by workwear, with sturdy materials like canvas, denim, and leather cut into utilitarian pieces like aprons and tool belts, complemented by rubber clogs and lace-up shoes with sturdy slip-proof soles that might as well have been OSHA-approved.
But if you looked closely, perhaps you noticed the one piece in the collection that was definitely a safety violation—and maybe even an HR one depending on where you work. Layered underneath a thickly knit Fendi logo tracksuit was a white tank top. Except it wasn’t a tank top at all, but a bodysuit, cut high to expose the model’s protruding hip bones above the waistband. Another model wore a ribbed polo tee tucked into low-slung trousers, but once again, it wasn’t a polo but a bodysuit, showing off a highly tantalizing swath of man skin that this writer hadn’t thought about since her college days (I can’t remember why I was obsessed with guys’ hips, I just was).
Venturini Fendi isn’t the only designer exploring this erogenous zone; earlier this week an Instagram ad featuring a pair of “Deconstructed Trunk” boxer-briefs by Calvin Klein made the rounds on people’s feeds, eliciting a joyous mix of responses.
Gen Z types are bringing back the exposed g-string trend of the aughts, and jockstraps turned up at the last rounds of menswear shows. As gender norms continue to be upended in fashion and beyond, it makes sense that this historically unseen anatomical region would be the new erogenous zone for “working men” (and the people who love looking at them, respectfully).
This article was originally published on Vogue.com
