Behold  the male romper

My brother WhatsApped a picture. On it, a ridiculously good-looking man. Carrying a designer tote bag. Wearing gladiator sandals. With what appeared to be braided locks knotted behind his head. And sparkly bits of jewellery.  Cool sunglasses.

The main attraction, however, was his outfit, an olive green romper aka jumpsuit, worn low, his hirsute torso framed in a triangle, and waist belted, kimono style. I like to think of myself as a liberal liberal.

In fact, I take pride in it being my identity. Other. Eccentric. Contrary. Support the unsupportable. Fight for your right to wear whatever the hell you want. Male or female. But not when I looked at this picture. My gut reaction is unpublishable. A man in a onesie? I love fashion and enjoy my open mind – I know I keep repeating that – but I could not imagine walking down the street holding hands with a man in a onesie.

My feminine hackles rose. I am making that a thing if it isn’t yet. I realised, with very sharp unfettered clarity, that I hold a distinction in my mind separating a trendy man from a (potential) mate. I could not find this onesie-clad man manly. I so wanted to find something clever to quip at my brother. I couldn’t.

Instead I made my life flash before my eyes, and I tried, and failed, and tried, and could not, imagine my dad or my brothers or any of my close male friends or any of the men I have dated and/or loved ever wearing a romper. Bias confronted, my savoir-faire dissolving.

I image Googled this picture. A world unfurled where I realised my brother’s question, “Surely, what is men’s fashion coming to nowadays?” was worth considering. Maybe because we are related I did not immediately pounce, teasing about an absence of adventure and playfulness with fashion. CNN described them “as a mildly obnoxious, devil-may-care garment for young men with an abundance of money and/or self confidence, who never skip leg day and spend the summer weekends at their bro’s house on the Cape.” NPR asked, “Male Rompers: Could This Garment Be The Worst Idea Ever?”

Why is #RompHim even a thing? Because ACED Design Kickstarted it on May 15, asking for $10,000 to make summer-inspired pastel shades of pee-friendly male adult onesies. They raised over quarter million at last check, selling out some romper categories.

They went viral. The public, aghast. Their campaign swore men in rompers will “turn heads and break hearts.” GQ interviewed them and discovered a group of four undergraduate students were doing this as an independent study project. Before you go there, I know. Men wear onesies. James Bond did in Goldfinger. The Avengers favour them. Deadpool wears one. As do male protagonists in manly action movies. Aviators. Hazmat-suit wearers. Formula 1 and Indy 500 race drivers. All the men on Soul Train. Or, well, death row inmates in American TV and movies. And finally, the runway of course, where just about anything happens.

Prior to this excitement a fashion forward NFL player wore a black and floral print onesie to Coachella. Reebok just released ReeRomp, white with reflective zippers. Designers like Gucci, Versace and Jean Paul Gaultier have put male rompers on the runway. This trend has been bubbling, simmering, years in the making. But, not the romper per se, more like the experimental nature of menswear following years of drudgery and sameness.

I would like to attribute this to a purge from lifetimes of meh. While it sounds hilarious to (occasionally) think of men as big babies must they dress like them? What’s next? He sits on your lap and you hand him a pacifier?