Young men in cargo pants and buffalo plaid trek boldly under a gray sky, their Red Wing boots tramping on the stony ground. They wear heavy watch caps on their heads, while over their shoulders axes are slung. There’s one problem with this: these young men are walking down our city sidewalks, not the gravel roads of some frontier town. The trend toward American workwear reached its zenith several years ago, but even so, it has expanded and grown. There’s a point at which this needs to stop, and we have clearly passed it.
It was a good exercise at first, this workwear trend. At its core, the focus on American workwear is a focus on the days when garments were made with quality, and were built to withstand the hardship of a working man’s life. It was an attempt to rediscover a distinctly American identity by young men who were just learning how to dress well. It was natural that, after years of t-shirts and jeans, they would gravitate toward the familiarly rugged trappings of chambray shirts, workwear boots, trucker jackets, and tin oil cloth. Brands like Filson and Red Wing and Gitman Brothers, true holdovers from the heyday of the American garment industry, welcomed these newcomers and created a new generation of products to meet their old-fashioned tastes.
Then things started to go overboard. Wearing a flannel shirt and hiking boots started to become expected apparel for the sidewalk, instead of just the mountainside. Men were showing up with bushy beards and watch caps to well-appointed restaurants and meetings. There were even companies that sold ‘fashion axes,’ and men bought them. Middle-class men who were in no proximity to any wood in need of chopping bought axes as a fashion statement.
We say to you, the budding FashionMR: please don’t dress like a lumberjack. Heritage clothing and workwear is fine in a casual setting, but it should be worn with the understanding that you are probably not a mill worker, a mechanic, or above all, a lumberjack. You work at Starbucks. You work at Bloomingdale’s. You work at Wells Fargo. You do not work in a steel mill and you do not work at a saw mill. Please dress appropriately. Of course, if you do happen to be a lumberjack, then by all means, buy that axe.
