Scissor Hands : Real Men Hack Off Their Shirt Sleeves

OK, so the L.A. air feels as sticky and sweaty as someone’s exhaled breath. It’s total Roastville. And the absolute most total worst drag is that the only thing clean is this really rank, plaid long-sleeved shirt.

Well, reach for a sharp pair of scissors--but not for any psycho-metalhead-Satan-in-the-lyrics kind of thing. Put those scissors to work in the service of style by slashing off the sleeves at the shoulder.

If there’s anything even close to a trend in men’s fashion this summer, it’s shirts with their sleeves ripped off.

From East Los Angeles to West Hollywood, guys are turning shirts they would have used to wax the car into a hip statement.

“They look cool,” says Phillip Flores. “Like the old ‘50s look.” The 18-year-old says he made two sleeveless shirts himself, and then bought one. “They became like a style.”

Fabric matters little. Denim is fairly common, but so are lumberjack plaid flannels and the red tartans popular among ex-punkers and fans of the Cure.

Having the sleeves hemmed is not particularly important either. In fact, there is some correlation between the amount of mousse in the guy’s hair and the number of loose threads hanging on his arm.

The look is catching on: rocker and N. R. A. supporter Ted Nugent wore one while reporting from the Republican National Convention for MTV, and two characters in the TV series “Blossom” recently wore the sleeveless look.

The Gap carries a $36 denim version and Miller’s Outpost has a sleeveless flannel shirt with a hood for $42. Purists, however, prefer to cut their own.

Ric Baksh, a 31-year-old Hollywood resident who’s been wearing the look since he spotted it in New York six months ago, says: “It has more class when you make it yourself.”

What’s next? For winter, it looks like layering a long-sleeved shirt under a sleeveless may be popular and cut-off denim jackets are starting to show up.

Get out your scissors.