Women Style

When I read the news that the New York Times would be introducing a “Men’s Style” section, I checked the date (April 1) and wondered if Kristin Tice Studeman’s report might be a parody: 

Inside this month’s debut copy, you’ll find a mix of sartorial musings (like the cover story on spring suiting), as well as travel (hang-over-free bachelor-party ideas), tech (to emoji or not to emoji?), and grooming features (men’s beauty is also fairly uncharted territory for NYT, according to [advertising executive Brendan] Monaghan).

This was no joke. The section has arrived, and it feels a bit like old news. An article about men who embrace uniform-dressing, “The Men Powerful Enough to Wear the Same Thing Every Day,” comes several months late to the conversation about Mark Zuckerberg wearing gray T-shirts. Content runs the gamut, targeting men who may not be at fashion's cutting edge (like a piece on non-iron shirts, a perennial style story) as well as those on the other end of the fashion-victimhood spectrum (why not a nearly $2,000 Lanvin backpack?). There's some Michael Musto nightlife coverage, but otherwise the masculinity theme seems a bit forced (ahem, the emoji article).

It’s easy to look at this section, which the paper itself admits is ad-driven, as a loss for journalism. It’s bad enough that women are shepherded towards articles about strife at upscale health clubs. Must men be dragged down with them? Won’t this just increase the number of “this isn't news” complaints?

What the “Men’s Style” section is, though—however inadvertently and surreptitiously—is a win for women in journalism.