Summer Fridays rehash: An EV Grieve editorial (aka, this week's sign of the Apocalypse)

Hey, we're STILL digging into the EVG archives for these next few summer Fridays... We first posted this hard-hitting editorial on July 31, 2008 ...

--------------


According to the Times today, shorts are no longer "an office don't. These days, they are downright respectable" at the office.

EV Grieve responds:

"Shorts are no longer an office don't" — OH YES THEY ARE.

"These days, they are downright respectable" at the office — NO! NEVER! NEVER EVER.

That is all. Thank you.

Oh, if you must, an excerpt from the article:

The willingness of men to expand the amount of skin they are inclined to display can be gauged by the short-sleeved shirts Senator Barack Obama has lately favored; the muscle T-shirts Anderson Cooper wears on CNN assignment; and the Armani billboard in which David Beckham, the soccer star, appears nearly nude.

Not a few designers are pushing men to expose more of the bodies that they have spent so much time perfecting at the gym. “We have all these self-imposed restrictions” about our dress, said Ben Clawson, the sales director for the designer Michael Bastian. “As men’s wear continues to evolve and becomes a little more casual without becoming grungy, it’s not impossible anymore to be dressed up in shorts.”

While Mr. Bastian is a designer of what essentially amounts to updates on preppy classics, even he has pushed for greater latitude in exposing men’s bodies to view.

[Photo: Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times]