Fads and trends can either cause huge waves or produce temporary ripples out on the vast fashion sea; and here lately a storm has been on the couture horizon: the Male Romper. For those of you who have been become privy to this current fashion trend, it is exactly what you think. The hipster demographic has called for a creative one-piece designed with the male physique in mind. Complete with adjustable waist tabs, pockets, a zipper fly, and a ton of head-turning appeal. The ‘bro romper’ has been all the rage thanks to a Chicago-based clothing company who started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for their male physique inspired romper: the RompHim. The fact that currently, the Kickstarter campaign has raised over $250,000 and we are already seeing fashion conscious males and hipster locales rocking the style.
Before you rush off to the mall, order one offline, or preorder one from the RompHim Kickstart campaign; I would like to talk to you about the price. The price of the bro-romper is high. How high you may ask? The cost of a male romper comes at the cost of your masculinity. I imagine that the romper is comfortable but a romper? Seriously? This article of clothing definitely does fall within the parameters of your typical male clothing and definitely fails to meet the expectation of what men’s clothing should look like. SO why are so many men so excited to wear something that is predominately seen on a woman or a baby?
Some have tried to argue that Cam Newton wore a ‘romper’ style suit to Coachella. Well have you seen what this guy wears normally? I’m not exactly jumping on board with his
fashion disasters. Oh James Bond wore one in Goldfinger? They wore a lot of things in the 60s and 70s that should and have been left there. I’ll be honest with you, my grandpa wore a romper. Except when my grandpa wore his ‘all in one’ suit, they were called coveralls. He wore them in his profession. After he finished his tour of duty in WW2, he worked for the United States government for over 30 years at the Camp Lejuene Marine Corps base as a painter. They wore the coveralls to ‘cover all’ of their clothing. Men and women in the military, painters, those in the mechanical field or countless other professionals utilized these ‘suits’ but this romper is far from the air force jumpsuit and may be closer to our baby’s rubber ducky onesie. The new fashion trend is far from a coverall suit that the men and women in the service industry would wear.
So, will the fashion trend catch on? Sure it will. Will men everywhere will block their self-conscious feelings and shrug off the jokes, stares and snickers as they wear their romper out in public? Of course. The drawback, besides how extremely ugly that it looks, is that it does absolutely nothing for our ever dwindling masculinity. The public outrage for or against these outfits will only fuel the fire. We won’t all agree with the new fashion trends but I do hope that this romper is one of those trends that ends as quickly as it begins.
Featured Image – Baby in Romper image by and attributed to Flickr user, https://archive.org/stream/howikeptmybabywe00noye/howikeptmybabywe00noye#page/n181/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43905986
RompHim image attributed to Kickstarter, fair use.
Cam Newton at Coachella courtesy of Instagram, fair use.
James Bond “Goldfinger” image attributed to Eon Productions and United Artists, fair use.
Boiler Suit 2 image by and attributed to Stuz, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15931191
Woman wearing a Helmut Lang romper suit image by and attributed to Maegan Tintari – CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36894979
Baby’s Romper Suit image by and attributed to Mabalu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44586893
The Pop Culture Kings present The Archives of Wisdom 