My week in catwalk clothes

Risking insult and injury, Tim Elliott dives headlong into the world of men's fashion.

If you are like I was two weeks ago, you probably don't know what meggings are. A vole-like creature endemic to sub-Saharan Africa? No, sorry, that is incorrect. A rare but easily treatable venereal disease? Well, no.

Meggings are actually men's leggings. They are fashion. For men. Once you know this, however, you may well ask: but why? Are these meggings part of some government experiment? And what sort of financial incentives and/or counselling is offered to men who participate in such an experiment?

Don't worry: meggings are perfectly safe. According to New York magazine, they can be worn year-round “as a fun way to practise layering, mix up everyday proportions, and stay warm”. Along with other unorthodox items of men's fashion – such as harem pants, fishnet T-shirts and hooded shrouds – meggings are part of what you are likely to see on the catwalk at Australian Fashion Week, which starts on Monday: a bold re-imagining of what men – Australian men, in particular – could look like if only they loosened up a bit. In the words of the New Zealand-born Melbourne designer Brent Zaicek: “Men's fashion has been boring for so long in this country that men themselves are now looking to break out.”

It's hard for me to say whether this is true or not. When it comes to clothes, my chief motivation has been to make it through the day without having anyone point at me and laugh. Choosing what to wear, then, has always been about blending in; a way of saying to other Australian men, “Do not be afraid! I am an ordinary heterosexual male, just like you.”

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it would be better, as Zaicek says, to break out and engage the fashion world, to wear something crazy and endure – nay, welcome – the slings, arrows and whatever other potentially harmful objects might come my way as a result. At the very least, I would discover something I have always wondered as I watched all those famished emos sashaying down the catwalks of Paris and Milan: are they serious? And, more importantly, how would those silly pants work in the real world?

THE first outfit I try is from the Sydney designers Alvin Manalo and Adrian Amores, a young, bleeding-edge duo who go by the name Saint Augustine Academy. Manalo and Amores met while studying economics at Macquarie University and, according to their website, draw their inspiration from Sydney's alternative music scene.

The outfit consists of a form-fitting white shirt (“perfectly acceptable,” according to my wife), black pants and a swanky woollen coat. So far so normal. I put all of this on but then find at the bottom of the bag a Texan-style bolo tie, the application of which instantly transforms me into a wanker.

Not to worry: the tie is all but obscured by the final item, a black, medieval kind of hooded shroud. It's weird: I feel like a cross between Johnny Cash and the Grim Reaper. A really trendy Grim Reaper.

It's the weekend, so I go about my business as usual, which means a trip to Bunnings for some fertiliser. Hopping in my family wagon, I notice immediately that this outfit is not made for driving. The various layers make it hard to move and the shroud obscures my peripheral vision. After an unpleasant and very nearly fatal lane-changing incident, I make it to Bunnings, where I am greeted by incredulous stares.

“What's the problem?” I feel like yelling. “It's called fashion, you bogans!”

I take my fertiliser to the counter, where the cashier asks, “How are you today, sir?” in that determinedly neutral tone that terrified air hostesses use in movies when they believe they are talking to a passenger who could be a carrying a bomb.

I pay and get out. At home, I change into normal clothes, then write in my notebook: “Saint Augustine Academy: not appropriate for cars and/or hardware stores.”

That afternoon, I go to the beach at Maroubra in Sydney. No, not in the Grim Reaper gear, but in my aussieBum shiny silver swimming briefs, which are described as “amazingly sexy and shimmering swimwear that will have all eyes on you”. According to aussieBum, the costumes are “made from the most advanced Italian swimwear fabric”, otherwise known as nylon. It must have been very expensive nylon, too, because aussieBum has used precious little of it. The swimmers are minuscule. They're the sort of thing you find in Christmas bonbons.

Pulling them on, I also discover that they have a weird glow around the crotch, as if my genitals have become radioactive. Walking down the sand, I notice fathers pulling their sons close. Mothers cover their infants' eyes. “It must be a dare,” I hear someone whisper.

In the water, fellow swimmers move away. This must be how the Elephant Man felt, if the Elephant Man ever swam at Maroubra with a mirror ball strapped to his nuts. Every time I go under a wave I'm at risk of losing my swimmers altogether. Perhaps that would be better. Walking back up the beach, I'm torn between making eye contact with people and giving them an ironic “I know what you're thinking” roll of the eyes, or simply staring ahead. I opt for eye contact. Or I try to. But nobody meets my gaze. I'm a fashion refugee. An outcast. A victim of fashism. IN HER 1981 book The Language of Clothes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Professor Alison Lurie talks about how clothes express important information about who we are – our occupation, personality, opinions and tastes. I was also under the impression that clothes expressed important information about a person's desire to get laid by the opposite sex. Now I'm not so sure.

It's Monday morning and I'm walking to the bus. I'm wearing a grey fitted jacket, white scarf and stripped meggings. I've also got on some hipster glasses that I am certain make me look at least 60 per cent more intelligent that I really am. The clothes are from Local Art Base, an independent Australian men's label that describes itself as having “a gentleness to [its] masculinity, [and] a modern approach to romanticism, enough to make your knees weak”.

At the bus stop a couple of skateboarders roll by. “FAGGOT!” they yell.

As unsavoury as this comment is, I dismiss it and board the bus, taking care to sit across the aisle from an attractive young lady in a fashionable black dress. I make eye contact with her – nothing seedy, just a look. But she looks away immediately, as if frightened by my appearance. This happens with every woman I look at on the bus, confirming my long-held suspicion that women are actually less likely to engage with men who wear extremely fashionable clothes, because a) they believe them to be gay; b) they believe them to be pretentious tosspots; or c) they believe them to be gay pretentious tosspots.

In the office, everyone just thinks I'm an idiot. Quite a few guys point at my glasses and do a Thunderbirds impersonation. One woman, meeting me in the lift, says: “Hey, where's the nerd party?”

Things get worse on the way home. People stare at me with open contempt. At one point, an old man stops in front of me, looks me and down and shakes his head, as if to say, “This is not why we fought two world wars.”

When I get home, I open my notebook and write: “Local Art Base: not appropriate for buses/office/talking to women/getting respect from old people.” I think for a moment, then go back to my notebook: “Local Art Base. Not appropriate for life.”

NOW for something completely different: Zaicek. Designer Brent Zaicek's tailored streetwear is big, strong and bold. “I want to change the silhouette of Australian men,” he says. “I am sick of skinny jeans and bow ties. What Australian men need are more options and shapes.”

As an example, he has sent in some cropped pants and an oversized checked top with built-in cowl neck. From the accompanying photos, I gather you are meant to wear army boots with them but my R.M. Williams will have to suffice.

Thus kitted up, I look at myself in the mirror. After I recover, I phone work to say I have cholera and will not be coming in today. Instead, I potter round the house and do a bit of gardening. Then I realise why I feel so silly: I am wearing streetwear: what I should really be doing is skulking around the 'hood, spitting in gutters and saying “f--- dat”. So I do. Just for safety, though, I take my seven-year-old daughter.

On the way, she asks why I am dressed “like that”. I try to explain fashion to her: that there are these people called “designers” who make clothes that they send to people called “fashion editors”, who then tell everyone they had better wear these clothes until, of course, everyone is actually wearing said clothes, at which point the fashion editors change their minds and tell everyone to wear something else. “To be fashionable you must do what the fashion editors say straight away, before everyone else catches on,” I explain.

My daughter nods. She gets it. She's a woman.

MY LAST outfit is from the new Sydney-based label Mawlai (pronounced moh-la-yee): fitted trousers and a fine-gauge V-neck jumper that feels like cashmere but is actually cotton. The entire outfit is in a colour called Neptune (actually blue). Born in Iran, 30-year-old Dana Mawlai has been designing for five years and says she is having quite a bit of success with her men's range. “I focus on making my stuff wearable, especially with the men, because guys are fussy with what they wear – guys don't want to look fashiony but not too boring, either. They want to look like they haven't tried.”

I actually don't mind this gear. Sure, with the Thunderbirds glasses I feel as if I should be working as an indie film critic or talking about my latest script/novel/funky app but apart from that it's wearable and comfortable, the sort of thing you could catch public transport in and not be threatened with assault. I make it through the day with only one guy laughing at me. And you should have seen what he was dressed in! I am considering keeping this stuff and like, you know, wearing it for real. Now all I have to do is start writing that novel.