NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Men's fashion taking off in New Zealand

By Andreas Mikellis
NZ Herald·
21 Aug, 2012 11:25 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Students left to right: Duncan Brown, Tuhirangi Blair, Sangho Ha, Samuel Thorpe, Rich McEvoy, Jason Lingard, Michael Murray. Photo / Supplied

Students left to right: Duncan Brown, Tuhirangi Blair, Sangho Ha, Samuel Thorpe, Rich McEvoy, Jason Lingard, Michael Murray. Photo / Supplied

Andreas Mikellis celebrates the changing face of menswear in New Zealand.

12.20pm, Thursday, June 28, 2012. 8 Boulevard de Bercy, Paris.

Men gather, smoke cigarettes, discuss, debate and look decidedly comfortable. They are standing outside the Rick Owens spring/summer 2013 menswear runway show. They are international men; Japanese, British, Italian, French, American, Dutch - many are fashion retail buyers, they are wearing a combination of clothes that belong to an alternative order of menswear, one that is not governed by an outdated ruling of what masculinity should look like.

10.20am, Thursday , August 9, 2012. St Pauls St, Auckland.

Another group of men, equally comfortable in their world, gather, discuss, debate; some look remarkably similar to the men observed in Paris. Some wear clothes by designers such as Rick Owens and Damir Doma, others make and wear their own clothes. These are New Zealand men, they are Auckland University of Technology fashion and textile design students.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Anyone with a passing interest in clothes will have noticed fashion is changing. Womenswear may dominate the scene but there are new players in the game now, the men are back.

Over the past 12 years menswear has steadily been gathering momentum. This year the Guardian newspaper reported sales of men's tailored clothing in Britain jumped 26 per cent in 12 months. Apparel trade journal Drapers Magazine Online confirmed that in Britain, menswear was clearly out-performing womenswear at every level and according to analysts at Euromonitor International, in 2011 the United States' womenswear market grew by just 1.4 per cent against a considerably higher 5.3 per cent in menswear. They also point out that although some of this is due to internet-based retailing, the internet "cannot be credited with the wider evolution of the men's apparel market as sales growth has been evident across all retail channels". In further support of this growth, in June 2012, Britain launched a new men's fashion week - London Collections: MEN - with designers showing their spring/summer 2013 collections and slotting into the Paris and Milan international menswear calendar.

In New Zealand we have also witnessed a rise of interest in menswear, this growth coinciding not only with the emergence of new fashion trends but also with major social and political shifts, shifts that have already had an impact on design education. In 2007 at AUT, 1 per cent of fashion students were male. In 2012, 20 per cent are male and the interest in menswear design is also on the rise becoming a significant component within the fashion design degree. Five years ago a menswear elective was introduced and taught by experienced menswear designers. The course was inundated with students and it ran successfully for the next few years. It became so popular that it was decided menswear be permanently included and today there are up to 50 students specialising in menswear across the three-year degree.

So what is behind this renewed interest in men's clothing?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

During a recent design forum made up of a group of final-year fashion students, a number said they had primarily chosen to specialise in menswear as an antidote to the more frivolous (often celebrity-focused) aspects of womenswear. Some of the students felt womenswear had already pushed many creative design boundaries and much had already been achieved, whereas menswear offered a greater challenge, an opportunity to engage with newer, intellectually creative ideas. They identified it as an uncharted place - a place from where they could critically develop their design practice and create work that was not part of industrial mass-consumerist fashion. They spoke of trying to achieve a very new aesthetic but one where technical craftsmanship, traditional tailoring practices and the hand-made were still fundamental to their work.

The strong need to reconnect with tradition is also a factor in the huge growth of sales in men's clothing, men are searching out the authentic as a response to mass-production. This trend can be seen in many areas of contemporary design and is evident in a yearning for a mid-20th century-style utopia (Mad Men, modernism, mid-century design, etc). It has rekindled an interest in traditional tailoring, inspiring men to reconnect with the idea that having an awareness of clothes and design does not have to undermine their masculinity.

This has helped to redefine male identity by disrupting the recent phenomenon where the distinction between the clothing of a toddler, a teenager and a man became very, very blurred.

Together with this longing for tradition, there has also been a major change in the look of international streetwear, initially driven by the premium denim boom and then in the more playful approach of Australasian labels such as Ksubi and Stolen Girlfriends Club.

Discover more

Lifestyle

Fashion: It's a boy thing

22 Aug 02:00 AM
Lifestyle

Male fashion: Ten ways to update your wardrobe

06 Sep 05:30 PM
Lifestyle

What stylish men want

07 Sep 05:30 PM
Lifestyle

Being a boy in the beauty industry

03 Apr 10:00 PM

These brands have, in recent years, helped young New Zealand men feel good about wearing brogues without socks, skinny low-slung, turned-up pants and scooped-necked oversized T-shirts.

This is fantastic news for men, especially for men who have embraced these trends, for they have inadvertently participated in the early days of a much bigger change, one that will offer us an even greater sense of creative freedom, something not simply "on-trend" but relates to a more profound shift of masculine identity, one that is just beginning to unfold.

Fashion is a cyclical process and in the bigger universal picture of clothing, men have certainly had their moments. The last big change that happened was in the early 19th century when as a consequence of the impact of the French and Industrial revolutions, men lost the right to be decorative. Modernity reared its mean little head and declared men's clothing become streamlined, efficient and what we now define as masculine.

We are just at the beginning of the next big change, the beginning of a major journey for menswear and it will undoubtedly take a few more decades to get to a point where it becomes commonplace or conventional.

It is probable that it will form part of a bigger shift and that this realignment will result in far less gender-specific items of clothing, allowing a more non-binary look to how we will all dress.

The new menswear is, in a way, a return to a previous order of thinking, a new understanding of what we wear, one that will integrate a more global view of dress and clothing into a Western tradition, one that will probably have a lot in common with the clothing systems of our medieval ancestors and a certain nod to our Polynesian cultural history, where masculinity will be represented through an alternative understanding of what we look like today.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

* Andreas Mikellis is the head of the fashion and textiles department, at AUT School of Art and Design.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

‘Listening to porn saved our sex life’

Premium
Lifestyle

Society Insider: Peter and Lucinda Burling’s glamorous new life in Italy; Rich list daughters enjoy Euro summer

Premium
Lifestyle

How an innocent search on social media drew me into the disturbing world of extreme dieting


Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Premium
‘Listening to porn saved our sex life’
Lifestyle

‘Listening to porn saved our sex life’

Telegraph: How a couple turned intimacy struggles into an ethical porn business.

16 Jul 07:00 PM
Premium
Premium
Society Insider: Peter and Lucinda Burling’s glamorous new life in Italy; Rich list daughters enjoy Euro summer
Lifestyle

Society Insider: Peter and Lucinda Burling’s glamorous new life in Italy; Rich list daughters enjoy Euro summer

16 Jul 05:00 PM
Premium
Premium
How an innocent search on social media drew me into the disturbing world of extreme dieting
Lifestyle

How an innocent search on social media drew me into the disturbing world of extreme dieting

16 Jul 06:00 AM


Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

01 Jul 04:58 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP