Menswear has had to come to grips with sarongs, jeggings ... and now aprons. They have been spotted on the catwalks in Paris and in Seoul, where they are an emerging trend among new Korean designers.
Away from the fashion world, the men’s apron is in the same novelty-item bracket as plastic dog poop and Big Mouth Billy Bass. Featuring slogans such as: “Kiss the cook!”, they are mostly worn by suburban dads nervously placing coal briquettes on to their BBQs in a mathematically correct alignment. Clearly, this was not what Cos had in mind when it launched its grey wool-mix apron this season (it also comes in black).
It’s a look perhaps inspired by Joe Richards, a young British designer who first showed aprons on the catwalk in 2013 and later teamed up with posh cheese shop La Fromagerie (Richards used to work at the high-end deli before moving to Paris to intern with John Galliano at Dior and Céline) to create The La Fromagerie Apron.
Aprons define “utilitarian”, a buzzword used to describe casualwear. The most out-there utilitarian menswear is on the catwalk. It’s stuff that you would be cautious about donning on the high street, in case you ended up looking like a minor character from The Hunger Games. And so it is with Cos’s version of the La Fromagerie apron. It calls to mind Katniss and the gang, but also a prison woodwork class. This is not the kind of cool, carefree apron that, say, Tamal from Bake Off would wear. Unless his post-Bake Off career is as a trance DJ at the Berghain nightclub.
Unsurprisingly, as soon as I put on the Cos apron, I feel strange. The pockets are roomy and the fasteners give it the feel of leisurewear. But the fabric is scratchy and heavy, like stagewear. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m playing Bottom in an am-dram version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I’ve forgotten to put the top bit of my costume on. Wearing the apron on a night out, the reaction varies. At a club in east London, the clientele – who look like extras in a Noah Baumbach film – are nonchalant. Even when I ham it up on the dancefloor, I look like a sad dad wearing a cardigan the wrong way round in a sea of prescription glasses and normcore plaid shirts.
But in a Wetherspoons, I get lightly heckled. Generally, the vibe is: “Why are you still wearing your work clothes, you crazy halal butcher?”
At home, my wife asks me why I’m wearing a dress. I text a photo of myself wearing the apron to a friend in Kent. “Not sure that’ll make it to Dartford,” he replies. There you have it, fashion apron 0, real world 1.
