ZEAL

THE AGE ISSUE

DAVID GREY FOX

THE ENGLISH GENT IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

DAVID GREY FOX

THE ENGLISH GENT IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

WORDS + IMAGES HANNAH BRIGGS

FASHION FADES, STYLE IS ETERNAL BUT HOW DOES THE FASHION INDUSTRY REFLECT THIS?

Arguably the oldest fashion blogger in Britain vs a university student. Both males from opposite sides of the age spectrum, cast some light on why the fashion industry rejects older men.

Media ideals, age discrimination and the fashion industries’ values all connect in one way or another. Young males are advertised in the fashion world as muscular photo-shopped individuals, whose body proportions are either unrealistically con-structed, or excessively enhanced through airbrushing. These clichés are the harsh real-ities that are fabricated against the rejected, older generation. How often do you see a well-known brand promote an older-look-ing model? I’m not talking about the ‘George Clooney’ type either. I’m talking about the ones with the age spots; slightly dishevelled skin and laughter lines. The real ones, the everyday people.

David Evans is the epitome of this; he challenges the general normalities and standard values of society today. At aged 59, named as the infallible ‘Grey Fox’, Evans is a lawyer-turned-fashion blogger. Technology and fashion? Not something that you would normally expect from a middle-aged man. But that’s the pure beauty of it. It shows that an old dog, can indeed, learn new tricks. Mr Evans stated “I feel that older men are largely ignored by the fashion industry. Given the size and relative wealth of this demographic, I felt it was time to try putting this right by showing that the older man can, and should, take an interest in how he looks.”

Dressing ‘age appropriately’ is a widely talked about topic in the fashion world and beyond. David adds, “I dress to reflect who I am, an older man, rather than some memory of who I was twenty years ago. Real style reflects the whole person, age and all, to deny this by dressing inappropriately is a mistake.”

Most stylish people are not following trends – in fact thinking about it I could argue that it’s impossible to dress stylishly if you slavishly follow fashion as, in so doing, you leave out your own tastes and personality, both essential parts of style. The high-street overlooks the possibility of inspiring older men. In doing so it misses out on selling to a large and affluent market.”

“AGE IS JUST A NUMBER.”

“AGE IS JUST A NUMBER.”

ETHAN

I take the case to 20-year-old University student, Ethan Bates from small-town Linton, in Yorkshire. He defies the cultural obsession of attractive young males being falsely advertised within the fashion industry. Ethan believes that we all have a right to dress how we wish, and that the industry should change its degrading system.

“I DRESS HOW I WISH, NO MATTER HOW OLD I GET IN THE FUTURE”

“I think it can make older men feel less valued by society especially if they don’t feel confident about their appearances. We should value the older generation but the fashion industry will never bow to taking less attractive models of either gender, if only because the largest consumers of main clothes lines are the youth.”

40 YEARS APART, SAME MINDSET.....

Interestingly, both men that are at different stages in their life both feel the same way about how the industry purely focuses on the younger generation within their advertisements on multi-media platforms. There needs to be a change; just because a man may have grey flecks of hair and wrinkles starting to form, it does not mean he is past the ‘sell-by-date’. Age is just a number; there is no limit as to what a human being can look like in terms of appearance. It is the 21st century, and it’s about time

we embraced diversity, along with the experience,wisdom and beauty that coincides with age.

40 YEARS APART, SAME MINDSET.....

ZEAL