Some were bright colors like hot pink, tangerine and white. A trend setter in the jacket trend was Chanel, who introduced loose versions of the famous Chanel jacket slit vertically at the hem. The jacket remained the key to daytime dress. That meant that the wild shapes and colors of recent years needed to be toned down.
All a kid in Kansas had to do was turn on MTV for the latest east and west coast styles of the moment.įor significantly more detail about a certain year in 1990s fashion, click on the plus sign next to the year below.ġ990 Fashion: Vogue Magazine CoverIn 1990, recession-weary shoppers chose to spend money on clothes that would stay in style as long as possible. In the 1990s, musicians had a much greater influence on what young people wore than designers. Interestingly enough, late 90s clothing styles are not too drastically different than they are today. Name brand designers were back in a big way. The grungy styles of the early nineties were old hat. Camouflage pants were ironically worn by anti-war protesters.īy the late 90s, rave culture swept through and people were looking for clothes that were more glamorous again. People were finding any way to make a fashion accessory out of a piece of machinery. Starting in the mid-90s, industrial and military styles crept into mainstream fashion. And because of the growing popularity of hip hop music among the suburban community, urban styles were seen everywhere, not just in the big city.īy the late 1990s hip hop style was arguably the most popular among young people. Staff would get calls from people wanting off this “gay porn” list.Also in the early nineties fashions worn by hop hop artists were becoming increasingly mainstream. Just wait-put ’em back on.’ ”Īt the time, though-and even more so when Burkard and others left, after the catalog giant Hanover Direct purchased International Male, in 1988, and tried to make it mainstream in the ’90s-there was a tightrope walk when it came to trying to not “appear” gay.
“I mean, they were like, ‘Is this what you want to see?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, in a minute. Guys would walk in and just take their pants off immediately,” Dalton Wolfe adds with a laugh. “We’d do a casting, and 500 guys or more would show up. During the ’80s and early-’90s heyday of male modeling, the company would hire models fresh from Versace runways and cologne ads (though some models wouldn’t work with International Male, since it was looked at as a “gay” brand). They just took me in.” The gay guys around her didn’t have to hide in the closet at work, gossiping about their weekends and hitting up clubs and the clothing-optional Black’s Beach in La Jolla together. “Like, I met my people, and I was adopted by all those boys.
Maureen Dalton Wolfe worked at International Male from about 1985 to 1990, first designing window displays at the San Diego retail store and then serving as an art director for shoots. Courtesy of ALL MAN: The International Male Story, © Brawn, LLC.
But that didn’t stop the mainstream from dismissing it as a gay rag-skewered in a 1993 Seinfeld episode and the 2003 movie Zoolander-even as the catalog raked in $100 million at its height (mostly fueled by straight women buying for their men) and hit 3 million homes with quarterly mailers. Though it was shaped by a staff that largely consisted of gay men and straight women, International Male was never advertised as a gay publication. With an early tagline of “Freedom for the man,” the glossy catalog ran from 1976 to around 2007-thanks to mailing lists bought from magazines like GQ and Playboy-and invited men to order (and wear) whatever they wanted. And let’s get one thing straight: You wouldn’t be seeing Harry Styles or Kid Cudi in a dress if International Male hadn't first sent images of men in billowing pirate shirts to millions of homes in America. Starting in the late 1970s, the catalog treated men as objects of desire, kicked open the doors for decidedly sensual ad campaigns from Abercrombie and Calvin Klein, and prefigured the jacked physiques that dominate everything from the big screen to your Instagram feed.
Another version of that moment: the first time they opened an issue of International Male, a mail-order catalog packed with ripped male bodies and seriously bold fashion, from yellow high-waisted military pants to coral mesh tank tops. Lots of gay guys will tell you that the moment they knew they were gay was when they lingered in the underwear aisle of a department store as a kid, ogling the torsos on the packaging.