To the Well Dressed Gents of LA: Head to LACMA for Dapper Day

Photo Credit: LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is celebrating the well-dressed dudes of L.A. today by hosting Dapper Day. 

Yep, as the name implies, Dapper Day is a biannual chance for thousands of well-heeled gents to come together in one, big, sophisticated mass to celebrate their own personal style.

Typically, these events occur at Disney Resorts in California, Florida and France, but the opportunity to coincide with LACMA’s current exhibition, Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear was just too great.

The exhibit starts with fashions of the18th century, when the male aristocrat wore a three-piece suit conspicuous, continues on to the 19th-century “dandy” and his Savile Row suits to the mid-twentieth-century “mod” defined by the styles of Carnaby Street through the 21st century man—in an ultra-chic “skinny suit” by day and a flowered tuxedo by night.

Drawing primarily from LACMA’s renowned collection, Reigning Men makes illuminating connections between history and high fashion. The exhibition traces cultural influences over the centuries, examines how elements of the uniform have profoundly shaped fashionable dress, and reveals how cinching and padding the body was, and is, not exclusive to women. The exhibition features 200 looks, and celebrates a rich history of restraint and resplendence in menswear. Highlights include a legit “zoot suit,” a male thong, a Hawaiian shirt, naval uniform, tops, tails, Jeremy Scott for Adidas lightning bolt sneakers and a Helmut Lang biker jacket.

Is there a more perfect place to be dapper (definition: neat and trim in appearance; very spruce and stylish), we ask you?