A Man’s Paradise : More Guys Are Braving the Alien World of Malls and Boutiques to Buy Clothes for Their Women
Michael Lewis likes nothing better than to spend some time buying dresses for the women in his life.
Satiny ball gowns. Little black sheaths. Big skirts with crinolines bouncing underneath. Lewis loves them all, and in a recent confessional for The New Republic, the Washington essayist reports gleefully that he is not the only man who adores shopping for women.
“Some men still grow a little uneasy when you tell them that you like to buy dresses,” says Lewis. “(But) others relax and say, ‘You, too! I thought I was the only one.’ ”
Cross-shopping--men buying clothes for their women, women buying clothes for their men--is probably as old as loincloths and coconuts. But thanks to the sexual revolution, the feminist movement--or, perhaps, just better marketing--men seem to be joining the ranks of cross-shoppers in record numbers.
While research shows that women still do most of the fashion shopping, men are gaining.
“Increasingly, we’re seeing men in the women’s departments at times other than Christmas Eve or the day before Mother’s Day,” says one Los Angeles retailer, echoing the impressions of many in the clothing business.
Lewis, who is divorced, and “definitely heterosexual,” says he leaps at any opportunity to slip into a women’s clothing department. There, “I feel the same sense of wonder as when the dessert tray emerges at a four-star restaurant. The sheer range of human wants!”
Lewis and other men who enjoy buying women’s clothes say the experience evokes a certain illicit thrill in being, as more than one man put it, “behind enemy lines.” Much of the appeal of cross-shopping, says Lewis, is that it “falls somewhere between outright taboo and simple convention . . . “
But according to behavior experts, sometimes there is a more sinister dimension: control.
“There is no question that in the worst possible light, husbands buying for wives, wives buying for husbands, is a way of exerting some power over them, “ says David Stewart, a psychologist and marketing professor at USC. “It is a way of saying we want our spouse to look a certain way and so we buy the clothing that we want to see them in.”
Traditionally, some men have felt comfortable buying lingerie for women. “Women have allowed the guy to say what they found appealing in the boudoir because they wanted to be appealing to him in that setting,” says psychologist Kate Wachs of the Dr. Kate Relationship Center in Chicago.
But when a man selects most of a woman’s clothes for her, without her full cooperation, says Wachs, the issue may be one of power, not fashion.
“When he says, ‘I can sell her better than she can sell herself by presenting and packaging her in a certain way,’ ” says Wachs, “that can force a woman to take on an identity she really isn’t comfortable with.”
This Pygmalion theme is not lost on Joseph Ruggiero of New York and La Jolla. The 45-year-old gallery owner spends hours every week shopping for his 26-year-old girlfriend. “When we began dating, it’s true, I was very put off by the way she dressed. Her heels were too high. Her skirts were too tight. Too many accessories. You get the idea.”
Today, after two years together, she dresses a lot more like her man: preppy but casual, stylish yet restrained. In short, more mature .
On the other hand, Ruggiero is quick to point out, his girlfriend has gotten him to change a few habits as well. “I never dreamed I’d ever feel comfortable in cowboy boots! But she’s convinced me it’s cool. For certain occasions.”
Sometimes, say behavior experts, the power struggle that can accompany wardrobe choices begins at an early age.
On a recent Saturday at a Marshall’s outlet store in Palm Desert, Pam Richardson, 17, was modeling bathing suits for her boyfriend in front of the dressing rooms. “Come on,” she whined, “don’t make me put on another one. I’m freezing!”
“I’ll let you know when you get the right one,” snapped the boyfriend.
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Women have traditionally been the designated family clothiers. Generation after generation of mothers, wives and sisters have kept their boys and men in socks, ties, shirts and underwear. And, judging from a recent survey by Target Stores, that trend has not abated.
Under the heading “Clothes Make the Man; Women Buy the Clothes,” the Discount Store News reported, “In men’s apparel, it’s still a woman’s world.” At stores such as Target, women buy more than 70% of men’s sweaters, men’s active wear and men’s sport shirts, according to industry surveys.
The women out there shopping say it is because of men’s traditional resistance to shopping for clothing for anybody, including themselves. Behavioral studies have found that when men do shop it is for big-ticket items such as cars and stereos. When it comes to clothes, men typically buy the first thing that fits.
Nor are men as likely as women to shop for pleasure, say students of shopping habits. Some men enter shopping malls with a specific goal, and do not linger once that goal is accomplished.
At George Harb and Son stores in Los Angeles, wives are courted at least as diligently as the male customers.
While their husbands model suits and jackets, the women watch from Harb’s well-placed love seats and banquettes, sipping wine or tea, leafing through the latest Esquire magazine. “They’ll have one eye on the magazine and the other eye on their husband. They’re very subtle about it, but you know the ladies are making the choices,” says Harb.
“It may be just a nod, imperceptible to some, but it’s what certain men are waiting for before they, heh, heh, make up their minds. . . . Somehow, the women leave the men feeling like they are making the decision, just like my wife does.”
Nick NunnoNorod, a recording engineer with The Hit Factory, has yet to make an independent fashion decision, according to the two primary women in his life. “His mom and I buy all his clothes. Everything,” says NunnoNorod’s wife of six months, Leesa. “If we didn’t, he’d have nothing but T-shirts.
“When he moved in and I started doing his laundry, I learned his sizes and then I just began shopping for him . . . . Oh, no, he never asks for clothes,” she concedes, “but I know when I buy him something, he’s just going to love it.”
Paternalism (or maternalism) is a recognized risk for cross-shoppers, say those who do it best. But the benefits to the beneficiary, at least economically, can be significant.
Susan Roth, a Los Angeles wardrobe consultant who owns the pricey Trims Unlimited shopping service, has helped a wealthy Midwesterner outfit his grown daughters for years. “He’s very, very wealthy, divorced, and travels in a very fast circle. Today, he’s in Aspen, tomorrow he’s in Europe. He has great taste and he knows just how he wants his daughters to look.
“He’ll call me and say, ‘Did you see that Scassi in Vogue?’ and then he’ll ask me to go out and buy it. . . . He completely arranged one daughter’s wedding. He chose the wedding gown and the all the bridesmaids’ dresses. He knew exactly what he wanted--elegant, understated--and exactly what he didn’t want--nothing at all sexy-looking. “
Paternalistic father? Maybe. But as Roth points out, “He does pay for it all.”
But cross-shopping can also be a two-way street. Ask Matthew Francis, 30, and his wife Renee Edgington, 35. Both hate shopping malls, but they love going to little boutiques and specialty shops to shop for one another.
In the decade the two L.A. artists have been together, each has selected most of what the other wears. “When it comes to the way we shop for each other,” says Edgington, “we truly are living happily every after. . . . “
And they’re lucky, considering the “daring” gift Francis gave Edgington in the early days of their courtship. According to the experts, it is far safer to give candy and flowers in relationships than it is to give something as visible as clothing. But Francis’ first gift was an unqualified success.
“Matthew was on the Olympic bicycle racing team and had been out of town for my birthday. When he returned from his trip, he brought me a red leather jacket and a red rose. He’d gone shopping on his bike and the jacket had some sweat on it. . . . But it remains the most special present of my life,” says Edgington.
Marketing professor Stewart has been married to wife Lenora for 18 years. He rarely returns from a trip without a gift of clothing for her. “We’ve been married long enough that this has become a safe thing for me to give. There have been no big disasters. I no longer worry about being rejected,” says Stewart.
That is not to say Stewart and his wife’s tastes are the same, nor is it to suggest his wife, a public relations officer for a California museum, is not au courant when it comes to fashion.
Nevertheless, says Stewart, “My wife’s co-workers and friends generally recognize (when she’s wearing) something that I’ve bought. It may be more stylish, or more unique. . . . “
But even Stewart, with his psychology degrees and marketing expertise, is still puzzled by what happens when he enters a women’s clothing store alone.
“There are those quizzical looks from the sales personnel, and I note that they almost always take care to tell me--because I’m a man, I assume--what the exchange policy is, but it is getting better.”
